Lately, I’ve been nose-diving my way into territory that is quite unknown to me.
Not literally, of course.
Social distancing regulations and COVID-19’s knack for infiltrating every square inch of our lives are single handedly disallowing me to go anywhere in a non-metaphorical sense.
But figuratively speaking, I’m currently dipping my toes in waters I’d yet to swim in until now.
And by this, I mean that I’m starting to let emotions see the light of day without trying to push them back into the cognitive cavity they originated from…which is uncomfortable, to say the least.
And not only am I allowing my feelings to introduce themselves and stay awhile, but in addition, I’m pushing through the society-inflicted shame that arises when you’re anything but happy-go-lucky.
My life has been a sequence of interactions in which person after person after person has told me I’m too sensitive.
And it has always perplexed me because…
Well, how in the world would they know?
Did you somehow connect yourself to my inner world?
If so, I digress.
Mad respect, if this is the case.
Sounds like a scientific advancement in the making. Allow me to connect you with the APA. I’m sure they’d be enthralled by your abilities.
See, I’m keen to assume that no one has the hidden talent of tapping into my cranium and feeling my emotions exactly as I feel them.
And yet, up until my twenty-fifth spin around the sun, I accepted the label. I have silenced my emotions and berated them with the mortification bestowed upon me by the people who told me it’s flawed of me to feel anything in the first place…not to mention too much of something.
I reached my threshold for self-inflicted emotional suppression a short while ago, and it’s been a psychological enlightenment of sorts.
It all started when I asked myself…
❝ Wait a minute… Am I really too sensitive? ❞
…followed by…
❝ Hold up… Is anyone really too sensitive? ❞
…which turned into the more generic and overarching inquiry of…
❝ Is it truly possible to be too sensitive? ❞
I’m sure my answer is clear as day, but before I state it outright, allow me to let you in on what dawned on me recently.
Recently, a casual stream of consciousness led me to wonder if sensitivity is something anyone can comment on outside of their personal experience. And it was one of those thought processes that I cannot bounce back from, which is fine, seeing as I’m more enlightened now.
Here’s the thing about emotions and feelings. Not that this is show-stopping or newsworthy in the slightest, but…
Drum roll, please…
They both originate from your brain.
The way you feel is a by-product of neurotransmitters in action. The emotions you experience stem directly from neurons and glial cells.
Take any human anatomy or neuropsychology course and you’ll learn very soon into the program that the brain is our bodies’ most complex organ. As multi-faceted and composite as the brain is, it defies logic in that not one brain is identical to another.
So… If the components of the central nervous system are idiosyncratic, how can someone outside of you speak to your sensitivity levels? In all fairness, they cannot.
I mean, they can speak to your temperament all they want, but there is no basis for doing so, nor does their opinion hold any weight in the reality of how you feel.
Because the reality is…
They don’t know how you feel because they are not you.
And now, for the prime element that would need to be undeniably true in order for the claim that others are too sensitive to hold true…
In order for someone else to comment on your temperament, the way you feel would need to be objective rather than subjective.
But here’s the thing…
Sensitivity is subjective, and yet people address others’ temperaments as though the matter is objective.
That alone is explanatory enough to disprove anyone calling you sensitive, let alone overly so. Emotional expression is not synonymous with sensitivity.
If a scenario elicits despondency in one person and not another, there is no reason to call the former a sensitive soul. Just because their emotional response is different than yours doesn’t make them sensitive.
It’s quite literally normal, in fact, seeing as you’re walking into a situation with unique backstories and distinctly discrete brains.
There is no shame to be had in feeling what needs to be felt…
…and if anyone designates you as someone who’s too sensitive, let me be the one to assure you that you are anything but too much of anything.
It is not possible to be too sensitive.
Please don’t allow others to convince you otherwise. It takes many a moon to undo emotional suppression as the result of others’ shame-induced pestering.
Don’t let them silence you or how you feel.
Keep feeling how you feel and being you ☽