The Tyrannical Touchstone of Normalness

Posted in HSP, Introversion, Journey by sensitivetype

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 →

12Nov2018

Mindfull

Posted in Journey, Resources by sensitivetype

Line drawing of brain splashed with brilliant colors It’s been an intense week. First, the election, loaded not only nationally but locally, due to a corruption scandal. Then, ANOTHER mass shooting, also close to home given my history with country western dance bars and mental disorders. And to top it all off, the weather, after being mild and steady for months, suddenly went kerflui in a very extreme way. For days. Still is, in fact.

My motivation level is barely registering on the meter. OTOH, confusion is high, as I ponder for the umptee-millionth time where the line is between necessary downtime, and a slide into depression to which I should be responding in some remedial way. I was thinking my depression management plan isn’t effective enough, and researching things I could add. Then I was thinking I already had good tools, but wasn’t using them, so maybe adding more tools wasn’t the solution. I was thinking how I have longed to be living in the country for the past 30 years, and yet, I’m not.

In the midst of all of this, I found myself conducting “where are they now” web searches about people I used to know, which is something I do from time to time. This morning, they led me to the years-old blog of someone I had never met, who was the partner of someone with whom I was once (or rather, twice) close friends. She was having a transformational year, and as she blogged, it was transformational to me, too. Transformation isn’t something you can convey descriptively. It wasn’t what she said, it was the way she said it. Continue reading →

10Jun2015

Better Judgment

Posted in HSP by sensitivetype

Ever since a youthful epiphany, during which it occurred to me that someone else’s internal experience might be notably different from my own, I have believed I had an above-average consciousness of that insight.

Lately, I’m not so sure. As I explore the 42 personality traits of the Clifton Strengths system, I become increasingly aware of just how broad and deep the variation in personal perception and reaction is. And the more aware of it I become, the more I realize just how judgmental I am. Too often, I assume everyone thinks and feels as I do, and if their behavior is not what I think should be consistent with that, I disapprove.

Why do I do this, I asked myself? After pondering, I came to see that judgment is a form of whistling in the dark. There’s probably a better way to make peace with the perpetual unknowability of everybody else’s private landscape, but I haven’t found it yet.

HSPs are often credited with a gift for perceptiveness. Well, maybe. There have been many occasions throughout my life when feelings and motivations that were glaringly obvious to me were completely invisible to others (sometimes even to the people who were having them).

But there have also been times when I was wildly, completely wrong about what was going on (like thinking I was an extrovert for the first 53 years of my life). Deep engagement may show us more, but it also means stronger reactions, and strong reactions are not necessarily a friend to accurate perception.

Maybe the intermittent nature of this gift is part of the problem. Because some people are transparent to me some of the time, it’s more threatening when someone isn’t.

But maybe it’s just my particular history that makes me nervous around people who are opaque. I saw what my family didn’t want to admit, so I was told I was crazy at regular intervals throughout my childhood. As a result, I’m never quite sure how much to trust my own perceptions.

That’s damned uncomfortable for me, but since I am, in fact, NOT 100% accurate in my perceptions (or even close) it keeps me humble (relatively), which probably makes me a more pleasant person to be around!

There’s another factor, which I’m becoming more conscious of lately. My preference to hang out with myself alone most of the time inevitably restricts the amount of feedback that is available to me about other people’s thoughts and feelings. Now that I have a better understanding of who I am most compatible with and why, maybe that will evolve over time.

I’ve had occasions lately to discover who my friends are (and aren’t), details of which I’ll save for another post. Maybe having more interactions with people who are demonstrably in my corner will one day make me braver in the face of those whose intentions are unknown.