Alanis Morissette finds being an empath 'lonely and painful'

Bang Showbiz on Jun 29, 2026

Published in Women

By clicking submit, I authorize Arcamax and its affiliates to: (1) use, sell, and share my information for marketing purposes, including cross-context behavioral advertising, as described in our Privacy Policy , (2) add to information that I provide with other information like interests inferred from web page views, or data lawfully obtained from data brokers, such as past purchase or location data, or publicly available data, (3) contact me or enable others to contact me by email or other means with offers for different types of goods and services, and (4) retain my information while I am engaging with marketing messages that I receive and for a reasonable amount of time thereafter. I understand I can opt out at any time through an email that I receive, or by clicking here

Alanis Morrissette found life as a highly sensitive person (HSP) "lonely and painful".

The Ironic hitmaker has finally found she makes "more sense to people" after years of struggling to find ways to "regulate" the flood of emotions she feels as an empath.

She told Sunday Times Style magazine: "I tried myriad ways to regulate, whether that was partying or working. I was a huge work addict, still in recovery. A lot of love addiction, which also had some sex addiction. And I see this with empaths.

"We aren't given a handbook about how to be responsible for this temperament. All I know is that I made absolutely no sense to most people for a very long time and it was lonely and painful but I persevered.

"Now I feel myself making more sense to people -- there's a curiosity about what I'm talking about versus an immediate shutdown."

In 2010, Alanis, 52, married Mario 'Souleye' Treadway and she loves the fact he's never tried to change the person she is.

She said: "There are just so many qualities in him that were slam-dunky. If I would talk about something on a date, typically the person would look at me quizzically like I was strange. It was the complete opposite with Souleye. He had zero desire to clip my wings."

The couple have three children, sons Ever, 15, and Winter, six, and daughter Onyx, nine, and though she sometimes worries she is "failing" in the juggles of being a working parent, Alanis ultimately thinks she's managing better than she realises.

She said: "After having children -- and we're an attachment family -- I'll fly out to do a show and instead of staying overnight I'll fly home at 3am just to be with them...

"There's so much expectation for professional, career-orientated women to be everything -- emotional, psychological, logistical, social.

"My personal standard is to want to operate at 110 per cent in each area, so there's this sense of failing, but if I do the math I'm operating at 700 per cent every day. Yeah, I'm looking into that."