If you watch a lot of the Highly Sensitive Person videos online, you may have heard about how HSP's maybe genetically more likely to develop depression by having the short/short allele for the serotonin transporter gene. Elaine Aron has also spoken a little on her website about HSPs and suicide. Still, I wanted to share my perspective.
Yesterday was Halloween which is normally a happy time, but yesterday was also the day I had a depressive episode. This is particularly surprising because I haven't had an episode that bad since the first time I had depression around a decade ago. When I was nine, my grandpa passed away and that was my first experience with death. It was February. By August my grandma had joined him, dying from what the doctors said was kidney failure and a blood clot but from what I knew was mostly in part of a broken heart from missing my grandpa. After that, I went numb.
Who can blame the fourth grader who just lost her two closest grandparents, one of them only a week or so before school started? There was no counselling other than throwing me into the hands of anger management who probably weren't qualified. I mean my home of Las Vegas is ranked number 1 as the worst school district area in America but what do I know. In the meantime, I was right at the age when young girls are likely to have some of the lowest self-esteem. My trait of high sensitivity left me without any friends. It left me alone.
I was left to ruminate which may or may not have made things worse. I felt pain but could barely identify it. I felt a lack of emotion. Perhaps sometimes I would smile or laugh but soon after I would slip back into a feeling of emptiness. I wanted to cease to exist. I believe in God and Heaven so I knew that dying would not be the end. And I wanted an end so as much as I wanted to commit suicide, even with that I was left to apathetically ask "what's the point?"
Over time, I healed. I was lucky. Very lucky. It was seasonal depression, not chronic. I was blessed.
Then there was yesterday. My parents had made comments about how they were "worried" about how I wasn't flirting with the boys I saw at church while in their presence and my brain translated their body language and words into "you are a freak who will never get married! You are a menace to society who blames her woes on everything except herself. You need to blame yourself. You need to marry the first guy you meet even if you have nothing in common, he doesn't know how to carry a conversation and he already has a girlfriend. Our antisocial child is diseased!"
And if Mom and Dad are reading this...yes..that is actually how I heard you. And I felt, completely attacked and completely hopeless. That wasn't a motivational speech. It tore me down in an instant. Is it any wonder that I quickly excused myself to go cry in the bathroom? And so the next day, Halloween morning, I had another depressive episode after 12 years since the last. That episode included hateful thoughts that even at the time I didn't think I should have been having as well as thoughts of suicide. Nothing elaborate but very sad. Depression is painful. It's like having your hands tied behind your back and getting an itch on your face. You don't really feel like you can do anything about your predicament. You tell yourself the itch is all in your head. And still, all you can do is think about that itch. And the more you think about it, the more itchy it gets. I imagine chronic depression must be like having your hands completely cut off and the itch turns into a full on rash.
Depression is like a fog. You see no hope, no future, no point. You don't have to feel sad because you also don't feel anything else. No happiness, no anger, no fear. But what you don't realize is that you're still in pain. Depression occurs when the brain is not getting enough or responding completely to the neurotransmitter serotonin. Serotonin "helps regulate sleep, appetite, and mood and inhibits pain". So when you don't get enough serotonin, you may eat more or less than you should, you may have swings in your mood that then drop and stay low, you may have trouble sleeping, and you will have much more mental pain.
Now for an HSP who repeatedly and deeply thinks over everything, especially one who feels alone, misunderstood, ashamed of their trait that they may not yet understand and/or has undergone a particularly stressful event, all while genetically predisposed for a greater likely-hood for developing depression, it's no wonder that we do. In fact, rumination typically makes a person's depression worse. And HSP's are definitely more likely to ruminate.
I'm feeling better. I've tried to do homework, think about other things, laugh, cry, eat some good food, and get the endorphins going during work by picking up the pace wherever I walk. By the end of Halloween I felt more alive. But going through a period where I couldn't feel happy even when my problems had all been sorted through was still really jarring. It's like coming home to find your house strip of all it's furnishings. You then find them all in the backyard and put everything back in place. Yes, everything is fixed per say. But, their is still a sense of unease from the initial fear that you might have been robbed.
That's the thing about sensory processing sensitivity. The experience is over but I can't stop thinking about it. So, I've written this post.
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So, I'm not the most active writer and most of my writing is really downing. Sorry about that. I'll try to do better. In truth, I live for the days when I am the most happy. I can recall moments of pure ecstasy that were caused by the simplest of life's pleasures. I like feeling safe. I personally enjoy jump scares for the thrill they give while momentary enough that I don't feel traumatized afterwards. I like good food and power walking. I like getting good grades even if I don't get things perfectly every time (or hardly ever).
Most of all, I love God and the atonement. I admit I have a really hard time connecting with people who think they are sensitive when they really aren't. There's a difference between not knowing and knowing that you don't know. I think this is what actually brought me closer to God. I know that I don't know everything. But God is omnipotent. He felt the pains we're going through, even high sensitivity. He walked where we are now walking and has come to help us carry our burdens if we just reach out to him.
The war in Heaven continues on the Earth today and I think depression is just one of Satan's tactics to tear us down. But God will win. Even in the midst of Depression's gloomy fog, I choose to fight for the cause of universal good that comes from our Heavenly Father.
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