too much of an empath

Why would you want to stop? I am an empath, and I won't stop being one either, just learn the art of telling someone to go "Fuck" themselves when it is needed. This is our balance.

See it as a gift. I am an empath too. Learning boundaries is the key. Making sure others know these boundaries..

Don't stop being one but be selective since some may not deserve it. Being the opposite of an empath would turn you into a Nazi.

It can be maddening, exhausting and crazy feeling,
because no one that I know IRL is one. NO ONE. ........

Also there are so many kinds of emapths, and I am many of them.
So, I understand your desire to NOT FEEL to just not be inundated with sensations of all sorts, to not even know if you are feeling YOUR stuff or someone else's, ETC. IT IS A LOT TO DEAL WITH.

Before Emapth , is H.S.P. Highly Sensitive Person: we share many things with them, some may say they are interchangeable, I am not one of those who say that. HSP's have been 'scientifically proven' not only amongst the Sapien population but also our sisters and brothers in the Animal world, at an appraisal of roughly 20%. It's really something.

Oh and in answer to your Q. You can't as far as I know, it is part of your DNA, so to speak, you are created this way.

You need to learn how to set boundaries and not lose sight of your own needs.

enough exposure to cruelty may desensitize you to others' distress. you can try to associate others with things deserving less empathy in your eyes, for example; stardust, globs of cells, brains in a glass jar, unsentient beings, programmed entities, illusions, etc.

paranoia is a good cure for too much empathy. you crank up the paranoia just a bit and then it causes the effect of distancing yourself from the world just a bit and focus on self-preservation. there is a healthy balance of paranoia and empathy.

You can't but you can choose how to.use it

I would never want that to stop. It’s a survival mechanism among other things.

Meth usually does that

You just stop