Follow-up

I feel the need to follow-up, to clarify, about yesterday’s post. After the post published on Facebook, I got a bunch of texts and messages asking if I was okay. And at first, I didn’t totally understand that. Why would people think I’m not okay? I thought. But then I re-read the post and tried to see it from someone else’s perspective. Someone who doesn’t live a hyper-sensitive life, who doesn’t feel with every molecule of their being.

I can understand how, if something isn’t a part of you, or you don’t know that it exists, you don’t know what it’s like. In a simple example: I don’t live with hearing loss. So I might know people with hearing loss, hear stories about it, imagine what it’s like, but I can’t KNOW what it’s like. I don’t live it. And maybe the same thing is with this sensitive soul that I have. The interesting thing is that a few texts and messages that I got were from people who are wired in a similar fashion, who do live a hyper-sensitive life. And their comments were less panicky (Are you okay?!) and more empathetic (Ohhh, I so get that.) Which again, makes sense. If you live it, you get it. If you don’t, it’s foreign, and it’s confusing. 

A few clarifications for those who don’t live it: a raw, porous day is not the same as depression. I do not have depression. I have days where I feel every molecule of the universe inside of me and that fills me up a lot and makes me heavy. But that’s not the same as clinical depression. A raw, porous day Now is not a return to Then. A day like that doesn’t destroy or ruin me. Because it’s a part of me, because sometimes I feel it all, I DO ride it out, even when it feels consuming. I write and I talk and I might cry and I might go out to get some dairy-free, coconut-based ice cream and then it lifts and I get my outer coverings of skin back and I breathe a little easier. So – despite how it might seem, or how I might convey it, it truly isn’t permanently all-consuming. Again, it’s like the weather. The tides. The season. Coming and going. Stronger and weaker. Colder and warmer. Windier and calmer. And it doesn’t really bother me, though in the moment it may be unpleasant. Because again, I live it, so it’s familiar, and not scary. Does that make sense at all???

Also. Sometimes a day like that has nothing to do with feelings at all. Sometimes when the colors are crisp and the temperature is just right and the birds are chirping and the grass is so green and the air is so intense, it’s the visual and auditory sensations that fill me up. Which, again, is why this is not a mental health, depression thing. And sometimes I get filled up from happy things. Because any feeling, no matter what it is, can overtake if it’s felt So Much. A cup is going to run over no matter if it’s filled with water or soda or chocolate milk. The content doesn’t matter, it’s the capacity that does.

I think that’s all the rambles I have for 6:00 in the morning. But I would love to hear thoughts. 

Do you get this? Do you Live It, or do you not understand because it’s not innately a part of you? What do you think?