Sensitive

Whew.

Throughout my life as a young adult, I've heard multiple times of a phenomenon whereby you magically close a door on sensitivity when you turn 30 and older, and with each passing year, you develop a thicker and more resilient skin. This is a really nice story to hear, especially for extremely sensitive people like me. I'm getting so much closer to not being so sensitive, I told myself ten years ago, and then last year, and then this morning.

Actually, I have been collecting evidence that the opposite is true for me, that my sensitivity continues to blossom as I get older, and often in unexpected ways. Things that I used to be able to handle without a second thought are now things I can't tolerate.


Evidence

Here are some unfortunate physical sensitivities that have emerged recently:

My eyes are more sensitive. I need to wear sunglasses all the time. When threatened with mild sunlight, this happens: 

If I put on a modest stroke of mascara, I instantly burst into tears, form cataracts, and go blind.

I'm absurdly sensitive to my environment. Car alarms make me weep. Processing my daily surroundings in China is like one long, suppressed panic attack.

 (Below is a visual reminder of what China looks and feels like on a normal day)

 And, there are foxes with purple tails inside of shopping malls. There's just so much to process.

I can no longer drink coffee. Really, I can't. I have the same argument with myself daily. I can handle about 2 mugs of  tea or a small latte before I become either clairvoyant or catatonic.

I can't really handle drinking alcohol. It feels, oh so good, but without fail, I end up emotionally feeling roughly the equivalent of an anthropomorphized Russian novel who was just dumped by another Russian novel on a cold, rainy evening. And, that isn't to mention the physical effects that I experience, which are uniquely abysmal. This generally happens the next day regardless of amount consumed. This is a hard one but I've been taking notes on this sensitivity for years and it is quite simply an A=B equation, without much room left over for compromise. And, I've been a master compromiser at it for more than a decade now and the kickback it simply isn't worth it in the end.


So, those are just a few interesting developments in terms of my physical body. On the emotional and spiritual side of things, my experience of life, and all its attendant joys and sadnesses, is forever poised to tumble into intense kaleidoscopes of feeling. I brace myself for getting or giving feedback like it's end-times. We in the US place uphold 'feedback' as a sacrosanct act, so much so that you start to feel like you are Voldemort if you don't relish delivering a moralistic round of constructive criticism to your friends, family, or coworkers. Then, there's a bunch of other sensitivity indicators that are steadily increasing: crying over bizarre things, an inability to communicate with people who have more aggressive communication styles, dreamy reveries of imagining and wondering, and a constant influx of others' emotions and needs that leads to an insatiable need to be alone so that I can hear myself.  Oh, and I'm more sensitive about explaining what I'm sensitive to, especially to people who might be sensitive to other peoples' sensitivities.

Here's the thing: It IS intense to experience life in the way that I do, both physically and emotionally, but I'd so much rather have access to my sensitivity than shut myself off from it. Every year, I seem to gain more access to my sensitivity, to gain a deeper understanding of what it is. I also am nurturing a really rad superpower for intuiting what humans around me are sensitive, which seems to be a common skill among the sensy. At the moment, I'm reading Anaïs Nin, who is a writer and champion of artistic expression, gentleness, and human intimacy. She writes,"Please do not mistake sensitivity for weakness," and I ask this same request of myself, daily.


Here I am being sensitive AF: