Vampires feel things more intensely. It's a survival mechanism, to be able to turn that off if they're overwhelmed and too weak to deal with them.

[Her family committed those atrocities without really ever turning theirs off, though. She tries not to think about it too much.]

Someone in transition has 24 hours to drink human blood or they just....die. [A beat.] So what happened to him? You said he 'would have' ended up like them.