How do I control empathy?

Good morning, my fallen angels!  All my life, I felt different from everyone else. I thought maybe it was because I was gay. So I joined True Colors. But that didn’t help at all. I still felt like the black sheep. As a child, I was hypersensitive to all the evil and wrongdoing I sensed all around me. I would cry for hours when I watched the news. Then as I got older,  I began to sense if people in my life had good or evil intentions.  To this day I still become overwhelmingly paranoid. It breaks my heart to see someone upset and I can’t help them. Even complete strangers. I want to hug them or something but that’s not socially acceptable. I have had depression and suicidal ideation since I was 14. Now that I’m grown,  I was able to eventually get off my antidepressants and I haven’t been admitted to the psych ward in two years now. I was so young when this all began. I realize that there was no reason for me to feel so miserable at such a young age. That maybe it was because of my mom. She was morbidly depressed and overweight. She had no way of dealing with stress in a positive way.  My mother would gossip about my dad in front of me as a kid as well as put me down. She used to call me fat-ass, stupid, dumb “just like my father” (I hated when she said that), and my sister’s were in on it too. They called me the sick boy because I was in and out of in-patient care and had therapy and prescription medications starting from freshman year of high school.  I think I sensed their evil ways since I was born. And I had acquired their hopeless and malicious thought patterns. I believe in my heart that I am an empath but I need a spiritual leader or guide to help me to control my abilities. I am spiritually lost. I know I have a lot of potential in many aspects of my life. However as long as this world’s negativity envelops me in darkness, that potential i possess will be rendered forever. If anyone  can sincerely and genuinely show me the way to understanding, then please do so. There’s so much more to empathy than I know about. I hear that I must practice cleansing, grounding, and protection. But where do I begin? Thank you for always reading my posts and have a wonderful day, my brilliant fallen angels!  Over and out.