One of the reasons why it has taken me so blooming long to find out that I’m a Highly Sensitive Person is because… I am sensitive to things most people aren’t sensitive to.

For example: most HSPs have food allergies or food sensitivities.

Well… I don’t. I have no food allergies of any kind to my knowledge.

Because my sensitivities are… “unconventional”, they are harder to spot.

So I’m sharing them with you. This post will be part “educational” and part “manifesto”. Because I really want to say “this is what I’m sensitive to and it’s legitimate, damn it!”.

Let’s start.

Sound

A lot of HSP are sensitive to sound. So I know I’m not alone in that, thank Goodness.

I am super sensitive to music. I would go so far as to say it is my go-to way to connect with the “Divine”.

The other day, I was at the shop and I started crying. Granted, I wasn’t feeling all that great, but they started playing this love song, and my thoughts immediately went to The Love of My Life (‘cuz I have no boundaries) and I started crying. I only realised this the next day. I went “Oh, that’s what happened. The music lead me to think that. Got it”.

Ear plugs

This is a recent thing, actually. Yoga has made me more sensitive to sound, so now I have to sleep with ear plugs. In fact, when I’m in town, I am often wearing my noise cancelling head phones, even though no music is playing, just so I can quiet down the world outside.

Then there’s… shops. For some reason shops have decided that they should be playing music… at all times. Driving sensitive people up the fricking walls. Why, why, why?!?!?
Before I know it I am anxious, wondering why Paty Kerry is allowed to exist, and hating the modern world.
Being sensitive and having no boundaries essentially means I internalise whatever the music is doing. It sucks.

Repetitive sounds, loud sounds, I cannot do it. If you put me inside a disco, I will cry. Modern “music” drives me batty. Curmudgeonly batty. It’s not music and it’s violent. Why, why, why!!!

I used to work in a coffee shop. Where music was played, on repeat, all the time.
It drove me insane.

Non HSP people don’t have to struggle with any of this.

I have to be aware of all these things, all the time. It’s blooming exhausting.

Money

I don’t know what to say about this.

I have issues with money. I have *all the issues* with money.

Most people have no trouble making it or spending it. Some have trouble with one.
I struggle with *both*.

I don’t know much about this, to be honest. For all I know I am the first HSP to struggle with this.

I can only deduce that I have sensitivity to money because I have sensitivity with the one other SUPER BIG issue ruled by the Second Chakra…

Sex

I cannot begin to describe the number of issues I have around sex.

The next post will be all about my issues with sex. But it’s password protected.
So, PASSWORD: closeness

Truth

I am going by the Chakras because, come on! Who on Earth would come out with “I have sensitivity around Truth”?

But the truth is that I am like one gigantic hyper-sensitive BS detector.

I can smell BS light years away. Which is why I am always right (except when I’m not).

This is an incredibly annoying super power to have. Because… how many work places do you think would appreciate someone who can detect all their BS?
Exactly.

You have no idea how much BS there is in the world. How many half baked truths going around, how many wrong things, and even Super Wrong things.
And I’m aware of all of them.
It’s overwhelming.
Mostly because it’s unappreciated.

First, nobody believes me or understands me when I point to the BS.

It’s as if I can understand down to further layers of depth, whereas people can only stay on the surface.

It makes it very difficult to interact with people. To find help. To find books or music or general things that don’t suck.

On the plus side, it has allowed me to reach a level of understanding most people would have to spend years upon years to reach.
Also, it means I follow and learn from the best people. Because I have this talent for spotting just how Truth-y people are.
Which is why I learn from Havi Brooks and Charles Eisenstein.

Ane Axford explains HSPs understanding of things like this:

“We are aware of how everything could be better”.

Yes.
If only we were consulted in World Related Matters, the world would be a far better place.

Rant (warning: RANT)

Allow me to rant for ten seconds.

It is quite… frustrating (to put it mildly) to have to explain my sensitivities… And to have to work extra hard at legitimising them.

People with food allergies don’t have to.

OK, yes, occasionally they have to explain that their allergy to gluten is real, and that it’s non-negotiable. It’s not an “option” for them, and it’s a health thing.

But most people “get it”.

Especially in the world I inhabit… the hippie veggie-vegan world, where everyone and their dog is following a “special diet” of some kind, mostly based on personal preference, not so much on “my body cannot tolerate this”.

So you can understand how pissed off I get when my own sensitivities aren’t remotely understood.

I cannot say “actually, I am allergic to sexual content, could you please refrain yourself from posting nude women every-fricking-where?”

Or “I am allergic to sound, would you please stop that beeping-madness?”
Or “I have sound sensitivity, I need your shop to stop playing this Christmas music that’s offensive to the senses”.

The coffee shop I worked at? They catered for the lactose intolerant. Oh yes. They had soya milk, and a special designated cloth to wipe things with, so as to avoid cross contamination.

And yet the same coffee shop had no issues issues around buying the “Sun newspaper”.
(Until I brought it up with the manager, who got pissed off with me)

Can you see the double standard?
If you’re intolerant to some food stuffs, the world will accommodate to your needs, and go so far as to avoid “cross contamination”.

If you have sex-sensitivities… well, tough. The world has essentially gone pr0n mainstream.

One of the reasons why I spent so many years in the “Feminist Microcosm” was because I was trying to find a space where having sex-sensitivities was OK.
It didn’t work, because most feminists do not have any form of sex-sensitivity.

Nobody ever says what I’m about to say, but sod it, I say it’s about high time somebody said it:
Sex needs to be redefined completely.
Sex needs to be healed.

(See my next post for my story on having “sex sensitivity”. PASSWORD: closeness)

Notes on sensitivity and being an HSP

*sigh* It’s not easy.

If you have identified with any of the above, I hope you will now feel a bit less “alone”. And a bit less like “the only weird person out there”.

Acknowledging our sensitivities is hard work. Doubly specially if they are of the “unconventional” kind.

Give yourself tons of legitimacy.
It’s OK to have unconventional needs. It’s OK to have sensitivity to things most people are not sensitive to.

Here’s the only path forward (yes, the *only* path)

Stop judging your needs. Make them legitimate. And then adapt your life so that your needs get met.

I’m not saying this is easy. But the alternative is numbing our senses…
And that’s no alternative at all.

Here’s Ane Axford’s Sensitive Manifesto. It’s far more “manifesto-like” than this post ;)

 

My next post will be on my personal story around sex and having “sex sensitivity”.
But I’m password protecting it due to… reasons. PASSWORD: closeness

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