Medical care and Medication

Elaine's workbook said that "less than 10 percent of medical doctors are HSP and at least 45 percent of office visits are made by HSP" page, 213. Most of the trips I made has been because of stress related issues but have been called everything from Bipolar to anxiety. At the time I had no idea that my sensitivity was more part to what I was going through and I have been put on different medications I was not sure I really needed even thought I had these labels.

I found myself overwhelmed with these labels and medications and they did not seam to help. Oh the last one did help clear the head a bit, but just about anything would when you were in tears every day because of the events that were happening on a daily bases. I was not depressed, it was not a chemical thing when someone is saying nasty things every day. They were not me thinking of the past of what was said, they were being said daily.

He wanted me to go on medication in hope that it would control my feelings but it only calmed my mind enough to realize that I needed to leave. No one should even be treated the way I was letting myself being treated.

Now I am fighting to get off the medication I have been on for two years. While I was on it I thought it was helping. I was not as emotional as much but I was still having anxiety. As I was reading about being HSP and realized that the medication was not really doing anything. I was not really going through anxiety. I need to learn the differences of being anxious or being overwhelmed. My moods are doing great for I am not in a bad situation and my life is much more relaxed. I have been the one that was doing all the work.

Now it is about getting off the medication and to make sure that people listen to me. I am HSP, not Bipolar or depressed or anxious. No medication that helps with the chemical imbalance is going to help something that I am born with and is the sensitivity of my nervous system.

So I am continue to learn to stay healthier without the medication I am fighting to get out of my body now. I am using gentler treatments that will help me such as doing mediation every morning. This gives me a calmer start in my morning so I am not just jumping up and starting my day on a run. I have never smoked or done street drugs, though what I have gone through getting off the legal drug has not been fun, I hardly drink and love the mock drinks better. I cooking most of my foods from scratch so my body is not leaded down with crap.

Now it is learning how to talk to the doctor about it so that I never have to be put on the medication any more. I need to learn how to explain that I am healthy and the emotions I show are who I am, not some chemical imbalance. I am fine, I am healthy and for the first time in more years then I can think of I am happy.

Chapter 4 Your Childhood

As Lady Gaga said "I was born this way" and this is true about being highly sensitive. It seems to be hard to explain to non-HSP's that this is a trait that we were born with and not something that we 'learned'. Like blue eyes, I think I am the only one who has blue eyes out of my parents and my brother. I am also the only one who has kept a blondish colour hair. You can wear coloured contacts and you can dye your hair, but you are still the colour you are born with.

Being highly sensitive is what I am and I have accepted it. No one knew anything about it when I grew up and all the attention was put on helping me with my learning disability. Having both growing up has made my childhood difficult but not in the family home. I got the best support they could give, not knowing about the HS. They did what they could get get me help with my learning disability, even got into a privet school to help me with it. It is now really looked at as learning differences for I learned differently than others.

Being highly sensitive is also learning differently in that we take in more information and process it differently. I think since sensory processing sensitivity was not even thought of while I was growing up, the 'depressions' and shyness I was going through was a mix of both the learning and sensitivity differences. So when they thought that once I was helped with the learning disability it would help get rid of the depression. That was not the case and I still had ups and downs.

So, assessing my early childhood attachment style. I feel that my mother (the prime caretaker) was loving and was aware of my sensitivity though no one knew it as a trait. She was helpful when I needed it (or asked) and let me learn on my own when I needed. I have good memories of that part of growing up.

School was a whole different problem. I remember the teacher saying I was cheating. I had a habit of starting into space to daydream, or to 'see' answers on blank wall. She keep telling me that I was cheating. I was then made to see in front of the class. This would have been bad enough, but then there was a cardboard divider put around me, a box so that I could not see the class. To me that was the most embarrassing moment in my life. Not only was I pointed out as a 'cheater' I was also pointed out as different from everyone else. I remember that there was a kid in the class that had ADHD and he was able to sit in the back of the class and just roll around on the floor and 'play', ignored for his difference.

This made me feel that I was 'wrong' to be different, because I thought differently I was treated differently. Part of it was my learning disability part of it was because of my HSP. I was very sensitive in how I was treated.

I never wanted to seen as different. Different was looked at as someone to make fun of. Being on the front of the class made me feel like everyone was looking at me, watching me even thought the box was hiding me.

If the teacher and my parents knew I was HSP maybe I would not have been pointed out as much. Maybe I would have had the strength to say that I was not cheating but 'daydreaming' for the answer. I might not have felt so different and I would not feel that school was a hurtful place to go.

There was nothing wrong with me. There is nothing wrong with me. I am just different, but not alone, there are many just like me. I have wonderful, interesting qualities such as my passion for creativity. I needed to be raised with special care, though they learned about the learning disability, no one new about the HSP trait. Above all, I needed to have more successful experiences and never been shamed for the sensitive reaction. A lot of pain would have been prevented if people knew about the trait but I am a more compassionate person because of it.

Self-Assessment to Discover Your Style of Sensitivity

In Elaine's workbook, on page 54-55 there is a yes and no questionnaire that you can do if you have the book. I had done the questionnaire and I am going to write my conclusion here.
The questions are about your curiosity, being an introvert or extrovert, shyness, and other differences. Together you have a summery of who you are.

My style of sensitivity is that I am comfortable in the middle of being a sensation seeker even though I am an introvert. I am prone to anxiety and depression due to a difficult school environment, but I also have many calmer times to.Though I seem shy, I am actually cautious. I am a morning person, but if it is not calm it could effect me as late and evening. This could also lead to trouble sleeping.

I have learned a lot about myself and with that I can look at my past differently and that helps with looking or living my present life differently, understanding who I am and how I will react or steer that reaction in a different direction.

Reframing Your Past

I will be reframing a small part of my past, a change that had happened. Change is hard on people who are HSP. It does not mean we do not like change or that we think change is a bad thing. We do need more time to get use to the change, to take in all the information and sort out our feelings. We take out time to get use to the idea of what the changes are.

Unfortunately others sees us as resistant to change, afraid, unwilling. But this only add to the overwhelming feelings we have to deal with as and after the change. I was able to adjust quite easily with change for I was raised in the military and had to move about some. I really do not remember moving as being any more stressful as it was part of normal part of life.

The Life Event:
I was working in the back at work, receiving the truck with the other, which means we were unpacking boxes and sorting all the merchandise. I had to make a decisions on what I was going to do. Did I want to stay in the city with this same job, or move back to Cambridge? Did I keep this job or do I look for a full time job? I could move away completely and give up any friends or connections I had in the city, including the employment center that could help me find a better job. I would have to get involved with social assistants and low income living. Chances where that Social assistance would want me to try to get child support. I was loving at a shelter and knew I had to make a decision soon and sort out my life. A very close friend said that I could move in with him to so I had to think about that to.

I was very upset with my ex who had called me that morning. I was upset with the manager who was doing everything she could to get me to leave my job. I was in pain and stressed out so much that I didn't know which way I was going. I was crying and I knew everyone was wondering what was wrong. I went to the office and told them that I was leaving, leaving the job, leaving the city.

The only bad feelings I have about that day was the manager was not helpful in any way. She wanted me gone and she got her way. She was not supportive and wanted me to go beyond what a person can do. I felt forced to keep a job that was not a good fit and added to the stress.

What I know now is that I was overwhelmed with all the changes that was happening all at once. I was doing too much, too fast. Even though I was trying hard to keep the job, the job was not the right fit for me or for who I am. The overwhelming stress and pressure is not good for my health. The push I was getting from the manager and my ex was causing more stress and caused part of the emotional breakdown. I should have taking time away from work to sort things out and should not have talked to my ex at all. But I feel that the decision I made at the end is still the right one.

If I had known more about the HSP before that day, I would have looked for someone I could talk to about what to do about my job. I would have either looked for a better fitting job or found a way to make the manager understand that her pushing was causing a lot of stress.

I am a highly sensitive person and now realized that I need to make people understand that there are some things that I am not comfortable being forced to do. I force myself to work harder and cause stress to myself to. I need to be easier on me and my sensitivity. I am not weak, but am harder on myself than anyone else.

Summary of Reframing from page 29 of workbok..

1. Recall how you responded to  the event.
2. Recall how you have tended to feel about that response.
3. Consider your response in the light of what you know about your trait.
4. Think about whether the negative parts of the event might have been avoiding or would have gone differently if you or others had known you were HSP and had made adjustment for that.
5. If this knowledge would have prevented your suffering or wasting a portion of your life, taking time to feel whatever you feel about that.
6. Write down your new understanding of the event and read it over often until you have absorbed the full meaning of it.

Your Sensing Self

I think this was and is the hardest part for me. I have ignored listening to what my body has been yelling at me for as long as I can remember. As a high sensitive person, I have always been sensitive to pain, but I was also quiet about it. Even to this day my mother has no idea about some of the pain I was in. Many people might have seen the tears but that only covered some of the pain I was in.

Then a few years ago, I was so stressed that I was in serous danger but even I didn't know how bad. I thought I had a reasons for the signs my body was screaming at me. Chest pain, gas, headaches, cramps and more. I thought I was lactose intolerance, mother nature, and other things that people go through. 

When I walked away form that life, it all went away. It was all stress, fear, trauma and anger that even the tears I cried could not relieve. I tried so hard to do what I thought those around me wanted. I turned off listening to my body to make others happy. This left me in a lot of pain.

For a year, I have been trying to let go of all the pain and stress and try to listen to what my body is trying to tell me. I no longer have the screams, but I need to learn to listen to the whispers my body is doing. Even now, I am still learning to listen. 

In Elaine's workbook she has listed some points that we can do that will help us listen to what our bodies and minds are trying to say to us. I feel it is much like meditation where you listen within and not cutting everything off. I have been doing this and will continue.

From her workbook p. 22, 23:

1. Be in a place where you won't be disturbed.

2. Give your attention to the sensations.

3. Let your attention shift to whatever sensation is strongest in the moment.

4. Let whatever you are attending to change if it wants to.

5. Spend as much time as you want at this.

6. When you are done, acknowledge the self-healing power you have.

7. Make notes below of anything you especially noticed.

This is a big step to healing. 

Why Do I Feel So Different?

Here are some points that Elaine Aron would like us to remember:

1. Overstimulation means Overarousal. We all get overwhelmed whether we are HSP or not.

2. It's important to maintain an optimal level of arousal. We all need to find the center, not being underwhelmed or overwhelmed.

3. HPSs are more easily overaroused. Those of us who are HSPs are more aware of subtleties around us and therefor become overwhelmed more quickly.

4. Sensitivity is not our culture's ideal. The world is a high competitive and consumer-driven place to live. This is too high level of stimulation for HSPs.

5. HSPs are more affected than others by being raised in bad home environment. Depression or anxiety is not the basic trait of an HSP. We can be healed.

We have to speak up in defense of being Highly Sensitive, therefor we need to have answers when we have both inner and outer critics pointing out that we are not what the world thinks we should be. We are told that we are 'too sensitive', you are too shy, that we are always sad or not happy enough. There are many mislabeling we hear from others or even in our heads. So I am writing responses to some of  the mislabels.

Mislabel: "You are Not Happy enough!"

I can understand that you misunderstand my feelings because I do not have a smile on my face all the time, but this does not mean I am not happy. I am just in deep thought. I tend to process the information around me deeply and may have a serious look on my face.

Mislabel: "You are too emotional and should see someone about depression and go on meds."

 Depression and Anxiety are both chemical imbalance in the brain where being highly sensitive or sensory processing sensitivity is when the central nervous system processes extra information and is overwhelmed. This can be fixed by removing myself from the situation and will be better in a few hours where as depression last for days, weeks and longer. 

I hope this was helpful and maybe you to can write down some mislabels and answer them with words that are kind and explain who we really are.

Sensitivity?

"What exactly do I mean by sensitivity? HSPs are born with a trait that makes them aware of all kinds of subtle messages from outside and inside... It's that we process more deeply the information we receive.We like to reflect." page 2 of The Highly Sensitive Person's Workbook, by Elaine N. Aron, Ph.D.

As I work through this workbook I will be sharing it here. This will be my journal and there will be some sensitive things being said, thought and felt. I want to share this with other HSP's and the book says that HSP's need to get to know each other and I thought this would be the best way to do this. I want to be open and not keep anything back.

The first thing that needs to be done is the self test that is on Elaine site. http://www.hsperson.com/pages/test.htm

By doing the test you will know if you to are HSP and if not, you have an idea what HSP is all about.