Category Archives: HSP

Go placidly amid the noise and haste – easy for you to say

Posted in Depression, HSP, Introversion, Journey by

I hate protests. Introvert me hates crowds. HSP me hates the noise and other sensory overload. And angry shouting spikes my trauma survivor anxiety. Intentionally draw attention to myself in the midst of that?! Are you insane??!! Do you not realize there are walls of bodies hundreds deep and traffic jams blocking your escape???!!! (Oh yeah, I definitely realize that).

A sea of tightly packed protestors fills the national mall in front of the U.S. Capitol

Aaakk!!

Last but not least, risk factors require me to avoid contracting COVID at all costs… and my last booster was 6 months ago.

But when in the course of human events any form of government becomes destructive, it’s time to stand up and be counted, even when every cell in my body is screaming “Get me OUT of here, RIGHT NOW!” Trump’s onslaught of chaos hasn’t directly impacted me yet, but it can’t be long before it does. And it’s already hurt so many people, so badly. I can’t stand by and do nothing. I doubt anyone reading a blog called Sensitive Type can.

Vexatious to the Spirit

I’ve been pondering the psychology of Trump and Musk supporters for years. Or rather, psychologies, as there are doubtless different stokes for different folks. In theory, I sort of understand some of them, though in my unboundaried HSP heart, I’m not sure I can ever fully comprehend someone who has repressed awareness of the distress of others. For better or worse, that’s just not a capacity I have.

Trump/Musk devotees, for all their talk of individualism, prefer to travel in herds. Maybe they need the incessant reinforcement and repetition to drown out their inherent perception of reality. So protesters don’t just create crowds for themselves. Those whose lives have already been kicked in the teeth by Trump’s policies need to see they are not forgotten and alone, and those who are beginning to see the light need models for stepping outside of their previous comfort zone.
3 women at a protest viewed from behind, holding hands

Speak Your Truth

This Saturday, April 5th, there will be protests happening all over the U.S., including my small city. I don’t even have to get on a bus, and I have access to a quiet space only a block away if it gets to be too much. Protesting is never easy for me, but I don’t think it can get much less hard than this.

If I can do it, perhaps you can too? Look up your local march location and time, meditate or take kava (or both), scope out a nearby quiet zone in case you need a break, unleash your creative skills on a sign, draft your two friends, put on a privacy-protecting N95 (probably a good idea anyway with all that spittle flying), square your shoulders, gather your resolve, and do what needs to be done.

If you really can’t (I believe you), some locations have scheduled virtual protests for people with disabilities (and thumbs up to whoever finally noticed that protests aren’t for everyone). Just search the Hands Off! site for “virtual.” Since they’re remote, it probably doesn’t matter where you are (but mind the time zones).

Nurture Strength of Spirit

And if you need to vent afterwards, feel free to come back and comment here. I know the private heroism an act like this requires for people like us, even if no one else understands what the big deal is. But unless you’ve been living under a rock or on another planet for the past 2 months, I don’t need to tell you how important it is.

See you there.
Dew hangs from a fragile spider web, against a blurred background

Nothing | Doing

Posted in About Me, ADHD, HSP, Journey by

It’s been awhile since I posted an update, so here one is. After several years of reading, participating in online support groups and re-evaluating my personal history, it seems highly probable that I have ADHD. I have adjusted my expectations and strategies accordingly.

A chalk drawing on a greenboard of a silhouetted head with many curving and looping arrows coming out of it in all directionsThat is, I set procrastination to offset impulsivity, sneak up on tasks without letting myself know so as not to awaken overwhelm, and various other tips and tricks, workarounds and reframes, that are helpful. Somewhat. Not as helpful as family support, well-informed friends and/or expert healthcare would probably be, but one works with what one has.

Between Seasonal Affective Disorder (which is not, despite the name, limited to a specific season) and ADHD, it’s still a daily struggle to get things done. This impacts just about everything in my life – income, relationships, health, home.

Plus, all this new self-conception is taking place against a backdrop of highly unsettled times. Denial, and the deepened retrenchment into dysfunctional behaviors that it brings, are everywhere I look. While I uncover answers to “why am I like this?,” answers to the larger question, “why are humans like that?,” are harder to come by.

With zero safety net, and a high risk of developing a hereditary condition I have thus far avoided should I contract even a “mild” case of COVID, I’m still masking and avoiding shared indoor environments. Happily, I live where this is accepted without comment or harassment. But it further limits my already limited life.

The thing is, I don’t necessarily experience these limitations as a restriction. In many ways, I live as most people lived only a century or two ago, rarely leaving a well-known local environment.

Many people still do live that way, and there’s something to be said for it. I haven’t owned a car in decades, as I wait – and wait, and wait – for an EV I can afford. So I was accustomed to a limited range of travel long before getting on a bus became a serious risk to my health. I wish my small range was rural rather than suburban, and there weren’t SO. MANY. NEIGHBORS. SO. CLOSE. But accepting that, as I must, there are still a lot of flowers and beautiful clouds and a surprising amount of wildlife where I live.

When I had a car, it felt like a shell. I passed through environments without touching them, or being touched by them. Some days I miss that of course, when the weather is rude or my heart is bruised. But lacking the shell imposes a sort of involuntary mindfulness. I wish for filters when the yard services descend, with their ear-racking, fumacious motors. But then again, when my neighbors pop out of their morning doors into their morning cars, intent upon not spilling their morning coffee and keeping to their morning schedule, never noticing the wild turkey on the lawn next door or the rare luminescence in the sky above, I’m thankful for my wide open brain.

So, my journey continues, as journeys do, and just when I think I know where I’m going, I find myself somewhere else. But home, age has taught me, is inside of you. So that’s OK.

A large old tree stands next to a dirt road that curves into a fog bank

Why Do You Ask?

Posted in HSP, Introversion by

Do you have a bottled-up (or not) rant about ritual questions asked by people who don’t want to know, and the social tyranny which obliges phony answers even when they are the opposite of the truth? Then here’s a treat for you by the prolific, inimitable, illusionary (about which more later) British poet, Brian Bilston.

Brian Bilston New Year Office Chitchat How was your Christmas? he asks at the water cooler and, as the machine gurgles, she thinks about the bloodstained rug and the silent scraping of the spade in the garden at midnight and the wash wash washing of her hands, and the dreams, those endless dreams which haunt the night-time and smudge their thumbprints on the day to come, and she replies Super, thanks. Yours?

As posted by the author on Facebook, January 2, 2024. All rights his.

Brian Bilston is a rising star on the UK poetry scene, with his self-deprecatory, ironic, infinitely various, and frequently hilarious poems. I suspect Continue reading →

Fear It Self

Posted in HSP, Journey by

In a previous post (Isms), I mentioned in passing that I’ve evolved my own beliefs about the meaning/purpose of life in the meta sense, but did not elaborate upon what they were.

Om I/God

Here’s what I think is going on, to the best of my scrawny human brain’s capacity to understand such things. Continue reading →

The Nature of Words

Posted in HSP by

Since I didn’t discover I was an HSP until I was over 50, I’ve got a lot of personal backstory that I’ve never revisited through the lens of personality type. Sometimes things drop suddenly from the overflowing attic of my past to unveil themselves in a new light.

The Words of Nature

Certain writers evoke transcendent experiences of the natural world. In my 20s, when I was introduced to Mary Oliver’s poetry, I began to think of them as nature ecstatics. Strangely, this is not necessarily what others noticed about their writing, but as for me, I could relate.

Mary Oliver wasn’t my first nature ecstatic – the first was probably Sara Teasdale. An author gave me a book of her poems for children when I was in elementary school. Soon after, I encountered Lucy Maude Montgomery (best known for her prose, but definitely a nature ecstatic). I found Yeats’ Lake Isle of Innisfree when I was in high school. Somehow, I made it all the way to my 30s before I heard of Rumi.

Green barley stalks with uplifting seed pods outlined against the rising sun

Much later, I came to understand I was an HSP. It didn’t take long to notice that all of my favorite, nature ecstatic poets were decidedly HSP-ish too. Or, as L.M. Montgomery would call them, kindred spirits.  Continue reading →

Chatty Isn’t Lonely 

Posted in ADHD, HSP by

I had a light bulb moment recently, when a friend made a passing reference to a mutual acquaintance who “seemed lonely.” I was puzzled for a moment, since I had never thought so. Then I realized she was interpreting the acquaintance’s chattiness as social neediness.

This little pebble of insight dropped into my own history and rippled out into waves of new understanding. People have been making the same assumption about me, for the same reason, all my life.

An old photograph shows actress Sarah Bernhardt, in the role of Hamlet, speaking to a skull that she holds in her hand

My soliloquies aren’t usually as dire as this one.

BUT IT ISN’T TRUE. Continue reading →

Frames

Posted in ADHD, HSP, Journey by

As previously discussed in several posts, I’ve been trying to understand – and resolve – my constant struggle to get stuff done. I’m happy to report that I think I’ve figured out what’s going on.

Spring, 2021

Black lightbulb with a white geometric pattern inside. Two small sections of the pattern are yellow. After I adjusted the nutraceuticals I use to manage my depression without success (see Isms), I decided to try a more direct approach, and researched non-prescription options for “low motivation.” I didn’t find anything that sounded promising, but I couldn’t help noticing that many of the results that came up were in articles about managing ADHD.

Hmm.

Summer, 2021

Black lightbulb with white geometric pattern inside. About half of the lines in the pattern are yellow. I’ve thought I might have some degree of ADHD for many years, but never really followed up on that thought. It didn’t seem to be affecting me much. But I decided to read a book about it. Many quotes from adults with ADHD resonated unexpectedly.

Hmm.

Fall, 2021

Yellow lightbulb with black geometric pattern inside. I found some podcasts by people living with ADHD. Issues with energy and initiative cycles, motivation, and timeliness are everywhere. Methinks I have found the answer to the mystery of my procrastination – not a lingering depression symptom at all.

The discovery is liberally sprinkled with karma, as I’ve told more than one lover/colleague/friend with ADHD that it appeared to be affecting them a lot more than they believed (but nobody ever said the same to me, I swear).

This new insight hasn’t resulted in overnight solutions, but it explains a LOT, including why I keep overlooking things in plain sight. It’s shown me a community grappling with similar issues. And I’m reassessing my capacities, my expectations, and my notion of what is “normal for me.”

That’s Odd

The more I read/heard about ADHD, the more some very familiar terms cropped up. “Highly sensitive,” for example. Also “overwhelm.” This from people who never mentioned Sensory Processing Sensitivity, and as far as I could tell, had never even heard of it. Continue reading →

The Tedium is the Passage

Posted in About Me, HSP, Journey by

Browsing through old drafts, I came across this unfinished post from 2016. I present it here as a prequel to my May post, Isms. More at the end…

Cover of the book "Work as a Spiritual Practice," by Lewis Richmond

I found this book in my neighbor’s little lawn library, but did not notice the subtitle until I got it home. Buddhists again. What is up with that? Everywhere I look there seem to be Buddhists, or Buddhist practices. Am I resisting some inner calling or something?

I ponder that question. I am not a huge fan of organized (or even disorganized) religions. With the best of intentions, religions try to institutionalize direct experience, at which point it is no longer direct. Thus, self-contradiction is built into their foundations from day one.

I see spirituality as primarily a private, internal experience. Certainly spiritual inspiration can come from many sources, but overall, looking outside to better know yourself seems to me like a step in the opposite direction from where you are trying to get. (Of course, that perspective may be colored by the fact that I’m an introvert).

I think it’s just that Buddhists and I are often interested in the same things. Continue reading →

The Tyrannical Touchstone of Normalness

Posted in HSP, Introversion, Journey by

As I mentioned in my last post, I have been endeavoring “to learn to accept humans as we are.” After a brush with Buddhism reassured me that I am not the first person to grapple with pain, I turned to psychology, which has been more specifically helpful.

First, I discovered the overwhelming prevalence of “optimism bias” – predicting positive outcomes to an unrealistic degree. This helped me comprehend the unfathomable insistence by a large percentage of Americans that an epidemic which has killed more than 600,000 people was either fictional or insignificant.

To Err is Human

Since my last post, I have learned about a few other common psychological phenomena Continue reading →

HappyStance

Posted in Depression, HSP, Journey by

As I promised I would in my previous post, after I published it, I went and read what Elaine Aron had to say about the distinction between anxiety disorders and HSP overwhelm. The subject is actually an FAQ item on her website.

Fear Itself

The article is quite long, and its messages are rather mixed. I was appalled to find that Aron comes right out and says at one point that anxiety is “normal” for HSPs, therefore it is not a mental disorder in us. This seems like an extraordinarily bizarre and irresponsible statement for a mental health expert to make about 15-20% of the population. However, when you read the whole article, her message is more nuanced Continue reading →