“By
noticing and processing so many details around them — not to mention their own
internal thoughts — highly sensitive people are doing far more cognitive work
than most others. Being overstimulated and frazzled is something anyone
can identify with, but for HSPs, it happens much more easily.”
— Andre Sólo
Overly-sensitivity,
at its height, is hypersensitivity. It
is a type of emotional sensitivity where there is miscommunication because one
hears one thing and communication was meant to be another. In some way, it seems to be connected to ADHD
where stimuli from outside oneself trigger something on the inside. Stimuli can be selective to sounds, to
language, to movements, to smells, to flashing lights of some kind, etc., as I
recall. I tend to feel the need to sit just in front of a wall, in restaurants
so my back in not to others. As well, in
my house or where I am staying, I need to make sure where the exit is. I know 'weird but so'. I know that I am sensitive to other people's
moods, and I have always sorted through what I think someone else might be
thinking. I have over-analyzed
everything since I was small. IE: What a pretty dress" might be
interpreted, by me, as "Why are you saying that? Are you being facetious? Are you saying my dress is pretty and I am
not?" Seriously, since I was very little, I was aware of inferences and I
analyzed and set the comments to what I thought others were thinking. I have pretty much outgrown that, thank God,
but I am very aware that it did something to my psyche. I have found some
emotional resilience and emotional volition through life and have learned many
coping skills I was not even aware of until recently and my digging in to find
my self-tenderness.
I still
struggle with criticism and that is strange because, I worked in a highly
emotionally draining career and never had a problem with criticism there. I took in what I needed to change and changed
what was needed or I simply did not take the criticism to heart. Throughout my childhood, I knew I could not
live up to the angel baby my parent's lost.
As long as I remember, I knew I was a replacement baby. I was aware I could not be the perfect angel
baby, child, girl, woman and it did something to me that I had to go back and
heal. It is not all healed yet. I am sensitive to judgments, to slights, take
teasing personally, betimes, and realize that I always felt 'not enough'. At no time did my parents make me feel 'not
enough', it was something, perhaps the primal wound of being given away,
rejected, abandoned. Yes, it can go back
that far.
Since my
earliest memories were of not being 'enough', I accepted it at some conscious
and unconscious point. I have had need
of tolerance, betimes, as I struggle, and acceptance that there is a reason for
my sensitivity. My earliest memories are
of being unacceptable in some way.
Although some may not recognize it, I am a very anxious person. I have learned to cover it well. I set out to make the world a better place
because I was in it and failed and failed and failed. I did not believe in a kind and just God, but
I wanted others not to feel like that so I loved and loved and loved. I lost my boundaries and allowed many to
overwhelm my barriers. I surrounded
myself with needy people and partners.
I grew up
criticizing myself and only felt safe on the back of my horse, by myself, out
in the hills or alone on my horse out on the prairies. Apparently, although I had forgotten, I even
had an invisible friend/sister, named Janine that I thought I never let anyone
know about, but my brother did and remembered.
He helped me remember her. I was
merciless with myself and still there is that Evil Inner Witch that tries to
interrupt and intercede in my healing and growth and peace. That is the worst criticism of all and I
think I am full of self-criticism so that any other criticizing me tops off my
tolerance. I work hard at being patient
with myself, these days, to be compassionate for myself, as I work through yet another
failure to cope.
This is
the WHY of a Tenderness art journal this month.
I am really digging deep and trying to understand, to name, to know, so
that I can express my self-learning. I
am not 'less than'. I am enough. We are all enough. God is not finished with us yet.
Challenge: Can you express, in some way, that
Self-critical Self?
©Carol
Desjarlais 11.6.19
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