I've been struggling a bit lately. Well, if I am to be honest about it, I have been struggling for about 52 years, give or take a year or so. There was that year when I was born, in 1963, that I think I did ok and had very little self-doubt. Other than that, well, I have had a hard time.
Up until recently I thought, because of those hard times, that I was inferior, somehow way less than a normal person because, well, I wasn't a normal person. I have always known I was an introvert and have always known I was very sensitive (some have defined me as "hypersensitive," which causes the hair on my neck to stand up much like the fur on my cat's back stands on end when he sees a rival male cat in our backyard).
And now that we are on the topic of labels -- who in the hell gets to label me or you or anyone else? No one except God has that right and He loves us all, relentlessly, stubbornly, willfully. I cringe each and every time that I go back in my mind and hear those words. You are hypersensitive. Like it was some sort of curse or something.
Some sort of curse. In retrospect, that is what it felt like. Feeling different, insignificant, weird, an outcast. Perhaps some of you can relate to that; maybe for the same reasons or you have your own laundry list. The bottom line is, we all what to be loved and to simply fit in. But I never did. I never really have.
I have come to realize that a very small percentage of the population bears the title of introvert AND highly-sensitive (the new improved term which I like a heck of a lot more than hyper-sensitive) at the same time. There is even a website about us folks as well as countless books written about us. There are even personality tests that tell us exactly who we are and that we are ok. WOW. All of this has helped me a lot. But it has not erased 52 years of feeling like an outsider looking in.
For as long as I can remember I have been a serious person. I liked to be alone. I would hold up in my room, even as early as the age of 7, with pen and paper and I would write. I wrote down my feelings, I wrote poetry, I listened to music, I journaled. By the time I was 12 I had written a 200 page novel (a crappy one at best, but who else do you know that even attempted such a thing at the age of 12)? My room was my escape and it was a perfect place.
Not only did I enjoy being by myself, but I FELT things on a different level than others. I cried easily; I observed things that other people had no idea about. I have thought, a million different times, that I really don't belong here, that I am simply too weak to be on this Earth. And I never, ever stopped to think that maybe, just maybe, I wasn't alone in all of this. Maybe there were others out there JUST like me. I just knew I was the defective one, broken beyond repair, destined to live all my days out at home in my pajamas, pen and paper in one hand and a gallon of ice cream in the other.
But that was not to be my destiny.
A few months ago a friend posted something on Facebook about a website that caters to Introverts. Through that website I realized that I am a highly-sensitive person and not some freak of nature. I realized that I am not alone in this world...nor am I some sort of crazy weirdo from another planet. I am ME and there are not too many others out there that have the same temperament. No wonder I have felt so alone so many times...and felt like I was the only one at the Christmas dinner table feeling this way. Because I WAS the only one at the Christmas dinner table feeling this way.
And I came to the realization that that's ok. It's ok for me, but it's also ok for the countless people who have come into my life and not been able to understand me or meet me where I am. I have to remember that, while I am unique, so is everyone else. I must never, ever use my unique temperament to lord it over others or to think I am superior in any way. I am simply different, as we all are. And just like you, I should never, ever be labeled.
I wish I could say that my journey is finished now that I have come to grips with who I am. Nothing could be more untrue. My journey will continue until my final breath. And then the real journey will begin. But at least I know that I am on the path to greater understanding and acceptance of myself and, hopefully, of others.
Isn't that what this thing called life is really all about?
Hitting the Wall
