HSP - Highly Sensitive Person

I feel sounds.

I assumed it was part of schizophrenia. I do believe that God has been trying to get me to understand this about myself. I guess I assumed that all people with schizophrenia have highly attuned senses. If there's loud music, I feel it inside my bones. If there's a constant drip, I hear it and I have to create a rhythm out of it so it doesn't annoy me. I hear distant cars, dogs barking, even electricity humming. 

I see things that others miss. 

My attention to detail has been the cause of my perfectionism. I notice cracks and crevices. I notice changes. I notice routines. As if operating outside of time, I notice. I'm constantly wishing I hadn't noticed things that I can't unsee. I wish that I didn't notice characteristics and behaviors of others that I find displeasing. I notice things that others don't, even if I'm not looking for it. 

I smell the neighbour's food. 

I've always joked about this. My sense of smell is heightened. 

Something's burning 

Someone's wearing hairspray. 

Someone's making toast.

My nose is highly sensitive, and now I realize why it's been so hard for me to change diapers. I had to develop a method that involved holding my breath, and taking in fresh air regularly. It's as if I could taste what I'm smelling. Others never truly understood it. 

Taste what I smell

Truly, this isn't a joke. My sense of taste is excellent. I can recreate a meal based on how it tastes. I never really grasped this concept until now. Coffee and tea, for me, tastes different in different mugs. I can taste when the milk is almost off. I can taste toilet spray, which is why I hold my breath if I have to use the bathroom after someone else has been. 

Touchy, touchy. 

I'm super sensitive to touch. Scratchy clothes. Uncomfortable materials. Denim. I need fluffy, soft textures, smooth and comfortable clothing. I get cold really easily - I feel chilled to my bones in winter. On hot days I overheat easily, making me uncomfortable and sweaty, which I can then smell, I feel disgusting and need a shower. I used to enjoy swimming, but now I feel too exposed to the coldness of the water, or if I get out of a heated pool I feel chilled to the bone being exposed to the air. Isn't this strange, that as a child I absolutely loved to swim. I'd spend 3 hours inside our swimming pool. I could never be alone, though... I would have to have someone at home while I swam. They wouldn't need to watch me, just to be in my vicinity should I need to call them if there was a shark in the water. My sensitivity to the movies I watched, I never understood until now. Jaws was a reality in my mind, and he often made his way into our pool, causing me real fear and trepidation.

Oh how these things are starting to add up. 

My mind has been overactive, processing everything all at once. Needing to find outlets for my sensitivities which, unfortunately, extended to unhealthy addictions. They were crutches. I needed them. To calm my senses down. I'm prone to worry and anxiety. 

This explains my fear of the dentist where, at every visit I would be so highly attuned to the smells in his office, the feel of his fingers inside my mouth, the coldness of the utensils, I would feel every tap and knock, every grind and pull. If he explained what he was doing, it would intensify the experience - extending touch and feel to imagination. Even the gas they tried to administer to me made me vomit. I wasn't making it all up.

I am a Highly Sensitive Person. I notice EVERYTHING. 

My mind is CONSTANTLY processing. 

I am constantly gaslighting myself. 

I have been gaslit in my past by people who don't understand what I feel. I was taught to "suck it up".

When you're highly sensitive, you tend to have a very good memory. In my case, the schizophrenia has caused occasional amnesia - creating deficits in my memory flow. However, the memories I do have are more like a visceral feeling. Boundary violations as a child, and into adulthood, has added to my development of schizophrenia, and I believe I had a predisposed disposition, I was born HSP. Intense.