Danish delight

I'm reading this book given to me as a gift, and I'm appreciating it much more than I thought I would.  I came across this and just loved it:

There's a saying in [Denmark], "If a man comes at you carrying a knife, you can be pretty sure he has a fork in the other hand."--D.B.

Not only did I love this because of the connection to the simple pleasure of enjoying a nice meal, but because it challenged my typical preconceived thought that the man was a threat since he was coming at "me" carrying a knife.  Of course he is trying to wound me or kill me.  Right?  Oh, wrong!  In this case, he's just prepared to eat.  And as that was revealed, the scene transformed to someone with a cheerful face and the mood was friendly.

Today, I took a bike ride around the neighborhood.  The idea popped in my head from a couple of suspicion-tainted glances directed at me that I may be a danger to them.  Perhaps I was scoping out the place to see if there were any potential targets for my intended robbery? What else could I be doing roaming the roads on a bike?  Perhaps if I were dressed in bike-racing spandex, the impression would have been different, but since I was casually dressed, I looked unusual to them.  Of course, I didn't worry that I would rob them, but I'm disappointed that I even considered that my presence could have seemed threatening.  I just wanted to feel the wind in my hair, the sun on my face, and the burn in my quads!

The HSP Mirror

[The big spiritual, philosophical, and moral questions] are always being answered, implicitly, by a society's values and behaviors--whom it respects, whom it loves, whom it fears, whom it leaves to languish unhoused and unfed.  When these questions are addressed explicitly, it is usually by HSPs. --E.A.

Reading this excerpt really felt like another a-ha moment for me.  Since my time as a kid constantly asking about why things were the way they were, until today, I've always reflected upon the condition of the world, internally and externally.  Most people just can't handle all that reflection, just as I am amazed at how some people can put their bodies through all kinds of "torture" (whether it be the day-to-day lifestyle of being planted in front of an office computer or training for and then running a marathon).

Being born an HSP made me vulnerable to the suffering around me.  With the communications advances of the last century, world news is as easy to be exposed to as local news. It means the world is experienced as a local space.  Because HSPs have no choice but to feel these internal and external events, deeply, it is natural that these disturbances would then be expressed outwards, into society's space.

Just the other day, there was a shooting in Arizona of a politician and "others."  The others got a bit of attention, but not much.  They all had lives; they were all people.  These kinds of subtle disparities are more obvious to an HSP, and they point to some of the reasons that this kind of violence and targeting occur.  As the ensuing discussions unfold, the reflections of some HSPs will be given some attention.  Society will be forced to reflect, even if just for a bit, to have a better understanding of why these dramatic and traumatic events take place.  These violent manifestations are not surprising to HSPs because we feel their sources long before they erupt, which is why we are always asking pesky questions that demand reflection and self-awareness, either on a personal level or on a social level.

Usually, though, interest in this kind of awareness is short-lived and people get back to their routines of living and thinking, which then leads us back to the problems that create these eruptions.  I think many HSPs wonder if this cycle will ever be broken.  Will people experience enough reflection that they are changed by it?  If not in big leaps, then by small steps in which, collectively, that awareness reduces the number of problems being created so the eruptions are less frequent, less violent, or of a different nature?

I don't know.

Cure for HSPs Found! --How does that headline feel?

The signs of prejudice against sensitivity are easy enough to spot once you learn to read between the lines, to catch those descriptions of sensitivity as a "syndrome" or that such people are "out of balance" or "frequently lose control" or are "over-reacting" or "unable to perceive accurately" due to bodies with "excessive" this or "abnormal" that.
I stopped [counting the references in which] Kramer expressed his concern about a society in which Prozac was used too freely, making people more bland, self-centered, and insensitive.
Will everyone have to take Prozac, and then Super Prozac, just to have that competitive edge of high stress tolerance?
[Make two columns and divide the list into disadvantages on the left and benefits on the right of your HSP trait.] A much higher total on the left suggests that you might want to keep looking for a helpful medication (or that it is still difficult for you to accept who you are). --E.A. discussing medication and the book, Listening to Prozac


I found this chapter very provocative in terms of the personal and philosophical challenges it reflects on.  An HSP, being negatively labeled and disvalued by society, will surely notice this and will likely feel compelled to correct their abnormality.  Correcting the abnormality, though, will reduce his or her sensitivity that led to the recognition of this problem of being "over-sensitive."  Ironic.  And how does someone judge appropriately whether their trait is "excessive" or "abnormal?"  A renowned composer obsessed with her latest opus will be granted the freedom to pursue this obsession.  A 60-hour-a-week working businessman will be praised for his hard-work and perseverance.  A Highly Sensitive Person will be put on medication to correct their "over" sensitivity.

When I was a teenager, I had appointments with both a psychotherapist and a psychiatrist.  My diagnosis was "borderline" OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder), for which I was prescribed Anafranil.  I immediately read the book, The Boy Who Couldn't Stop Washing, to find out who I was. (In retrospect, I think there was a certain satisfaction I got from learning that I had a recognized condition that explained my weirdness.) The problem was that I did not identify with those behaviors, nor those thoughts.  That was right around the time that Elaine's research was being published about the Highly Sensitive Person trait.  I didn't learn about this HSP trait until late last year, which was 17 years after that diagnosis.

I am thankful that I had the intuition and courage to refuse medication therapy way back when I was 16. I didn't even have many therapy sessions because my insurance only covered a few.  For most of my lifetime, I felt out-of-sync with society at large, whether I was living in the US, France, or Thailand.  I liked bits and pieces of each culture, but never felt "at home" in any of them.  Coming upon Elaine's book was a huge revelation to me in that it explained so many of my experiences and physical reactivities, from childhood on through to the present day.  I wasn't an alien after all, I was just an HSP!

There is something beautiful and "right" about allowing that which is integral to you to just be.  It's really hard to know what behaviors and thoughts are just part of a person, and which are imposed or manifested because of wounds and trauma.  It is the work of each person, and especially HSPs, to be willing to get messy in the internal world of exploding stars and shark-infested waters.  It's hard work.  And it's......never, ever, ending.

Elaine is very calm and reasoned about advising HSPs to consider their choices and choose medication if they think it's worth the risk.  I am much less impartial and would advise HSPs to choose medication only as a last resort.  I know the world is a tough place to survive and thrive in, but perhaps it's our job to make it less so.