I have learned so much about myself in the past two years since I learned about the highly sensitive person. But I also have to remember that for 19 years of my life, I lived without this information and thus still hold onto negative experiences within my subconscious. I have to admit that living in the culture of the United States left me oft times alone, frustrated, bullied, afraid, and depressed. I have to know what's holding me back if I want to move forward.
To begin, I had a nightmare when I took a nap today. Nightmares are not uncommon for me. I call them nightmares but maybe a better term is just a bad dream. Either I do something in the dream that I immediately regret upon waking or I get stressed over a dream situation, or I get scared.
My family had a lot of Disney Movies that we watch throughout my childhood and plenty of church cartoons. But surprisingly, we also watch a lot of Jurassic Park. This haunted my childhood with constant dreams of dinosaurs hunting me in incredibly vivid dreams, some of which I remember to this day. For most of my life my worst fear was the Utah Velociraptor. Finally, amidst adulthood, I am no longer afraid of Velociraptors and no longer have dreams about them. Now, instead of nightmares about things that give me physical harm, I am left to fight those of emotional/psychological harm.
My nightmare today was my mother was refusing to understand my side of a situation and refused to acknowledge/validate my emotions. I ended up frustrated, deeply hurt, and waking up crying. There is a few things I can learn from this. One is that subconsciously I am still having a hard time forgiving my mother for not understanding my side of situations when i was growing up and maybe I still feel like she doesn't fully accept/understand me. We get along better now that I'm older but that may be because I know how to better communicate my needs. Two is that subconsciously, my new fear is one where I am never able to have others understand me, especially when those people happen to be the ones I love most. How do I move forward?
An animal that feels hurt or threatened will typically respond with either running away or turning to fight. For the social animal that is the human, running away is not always an option. Instead, we have sadness with crying and accomplishing nothing, anger which does something but isn't always positive especially when the one hurt is unable to properly defend themself given the situation, or depression where all hope for defending yourself if gone and you wait for death.
As a kid I was deeply attached to my Nana who was always kind, loving, comforting, and held onto a ready supply of sugary and fatty foods. Nana's husband, my dad's stepdad and my Papa, was sweet and gentle although growing weaker throughout the years. Papa died February 4, 2004, when i was nine. I was deeply affected, being a highly sensitive person and this being my first experience with death. My pain is only recorded in a single picture that is a little washed out. We were told to smile for the photo, and I was left thinking "how could anyone smile right now?" I'm the one in grey. I remember I felt very self-conscious about it because that was the only black I owned. I still own that necklace. My eyes look glazed over. A mixture of mourning and shock I suppose. This would be the end of third grade.
But things got worse before they got better. My Nana so grieved the loss of her husband that she passed away six months later. I cried a little, but not the same way as I did for my papa. When it comes to the four stages of grief, I was in the rationalization saying I didn't cry for this or that reason. But that was only a few weeks before fourth grade started. I became holistic and easily angered, especially by things I deemed unfair. That landed me in anger management class where I honestly believe that Clark County School District has no idea what they are doing when it comes to the social well-being of their students. No one told them that I had just lost the two people who meant the most to me in the world next to my own parents. No one told them I was deeply grieving and merely following the cycle that any adequate psychologist could easily picked up. No one batted an eye when the most well behaved, quiet, smart, religious little girl became a ball of hate and anger who wanted to scream at the world. "Hit a pillow" they said "walk away from the situation". That's all just crap. They never once stopped to listen to the kid's sides of the story. I wonder now how many of those boys in anger management, with rough personalities, and dirty clothes, were acting out because they were coming from unhealthy home lives. Did anyone ask them if they were fed every day? Did anyone ever ask them if they even have access to a shower, let alone a parent dedicated to helping them with their homework every night? This is a major flaw in the system. One that can be fixed if adults would stop putting everyone is presupposed boxes and just LISTEN
I learned to hate that anger management class more than anything else. But again, things got worse. My grandpa, my mom's dad, passed away seven months after my Nana in March of 2005. We found out at my brother's pinewood derby and had just begun feeling happy again. I don't remember too much of fourth grade other than getting an award for reading the most books. Those books were a place of adventure and mystery away from reality. Fifth grade I was bullied or picked on. It was easy for other students to get a reaction out of me. Anger management told me that I was never allowed to be angry under any circumstance. Crying got me picked on. And soon I developed mild depression. I tried to cut off my emotions in order to limit my sensory intake and stop my pain. But in reality all it did was leave me exclusively with my pain, only now I was also accompanied by suicidal thoughts.
It's common to have a routine for the highly sensitive child because it proves to be very beneficial (which is one thing my mom got right pretty quickly), but the routine completely collapsed in fifth grade. I ended up with three different teachers throughout the year that at least in my area of the country is deemed the worst year in school. The first teacher we had was decent besides not dealing with the bullying, but she stopped teaching us and even pretending to address the bullying when she found out she was going to be a vice-principle at another school. She wanted out and fast. The second teacher was a male long-term sub. For once we started learning, and the bullying calmed down because the boys were more well behaved with a man in the classroom. But good things don't always last. The real new teacher, the third one, showed up a few months later than the school had originally decided. The school had just pulled her from first grade. She had no clue how to handle and teach fifth graders. And she was ridiculous. In order to "discourage" students from using the bathroom, she put a full sized toilet seat on a string and called in the bathroom pass. I decided then and there I would rather wet myself than use it, and immediately almost every boy in the class wanted to use the bathroom, coming back with claims of how they actually used that toilet seat. My emotions were all messed up going into middle school but the change was a blessed relief, with rotating classes and my beginning of learning the flute in band which provided intellectual and creative simulation. Middle school still had it's ups and downs, but I was finally able to gain a better control over my emotions in a healthy way. I began to flourish again. With steady progress and using my pain to guide me, I became more aware of the world and what I wanted from it.
I mentioned in my last post that my mom once said that I lack motivation. But that's not completely true. It's just that I am motivated to do other things than the average person. I've watched Ted-talks that clearly explain how to become a self-made millionaire within a few short years. And I believe I could do it. But I don't want to. Money can't buy happiness and I know that because I know what happiness it. I know what true happiness is because I know what true sorrow is. In the meantime, I am working toward a career as an actuarial scientist. I'm good at math but not overly invested in it and actuarial work doesn't seem too stressed so it feels like the perfect career for gradual growth. Then, with my free time, I will be able to express my creative side at a leisurely pace. I don't want to be a millionaire because then I wouldn't have anymore motivation to work and get up in the morning. I need a schedule.
Now, I can honestly say that while I have low days, I am not depressed. I am trying to heal myself by actually acknowledging my past and it's affect on me. My dark days gave me a perspective on life that maybe not everyone see and that perhaps most don't appreciate. My pain gave me a level of grounding that allows me to climb to greater heights with fewer fears. I've written a lot. But I would like to say that sometimes the greatest beauty comes from the harshest of trials. Working with others is essential to society, but that doesn't mean that I can't sometimes break free and be creative, using my own unique gifts to help society move forward rather than just remaining stationary. As a highly sensitive person, I experience pain a lot deeper than the average person, but likewise I also experience the most exquisite joy. It is my choice to appreciate this experience, even if at times I have felt others think I should not. Which is understandable to a certain degree. If you don't feel as much joy, you won't feel as much sadness, or pain. They may ask isn't it better to feel numb than to feel pain? After my experience with depression I can give a wholehearted NO. It is better to feel pain than to feel numb. Because following the pain is catharsis, and following catharsis is the opportunity to feel joy that broadens the imagination and develops your creativity toward making you into a unique individual who can, at the end of the day exclaim, "I exist! I am alive! And I am living my life with hope for a better tomorrow which starts today!"
I am currently 21, and will graduate from Brigham Young University sometime in the next year or so. And I can see just how far I've come. I'm no longer so self-conscious, I'm no longer depressed, and I'm no longer adrift wondering if there was something wrong with me for feeling the way I do. I am a highly sensitive person. I have had a hard life and expect that life will continue to give me grief along the way. But for now, I can smile.
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