Sometimes I feel too much…

It’s good to feel things right?! But what if you feel everything? And with everything I mean the good and the bad and all the things in between and even the things that might not even be there…

I consider myself a Highly Sensitive Person.

There’s a page that explains it quite well and at the end of the page, you also find a link to a test.

https://sporteluxe.com/navigate-life-highly-sensitive-person-hsp-2/

But back to the feelings…

Let me give you some examples. Let’s start with me around other human beings. I am easily influenced by other peoples mood. When someone is stressed or frustrated, I’m frustrated too. Like badly. Not that I just feel sorry for that person for feeling like that. I FEEL it. It’s a terrible pressure on my chest.

Same thing with seeing people sad. Not only people I know or people in real life. When there’s a sad scene in a movie. I cry. I cry my eyes out. Sometimes my boyfriend seems even worried about how sad I am then. I can snap out of it quite fast sometimes. So that’s good. 🙂

Quite extreme is it with animals. Seeing animals being harmed, causes incredible pain inside me. My tummy feels like someone digs in there with a shovel. It goes pretty far actually. Let me give you some examples of that as well…

You know those fly traps that hang from ceilings? Those straps with glue on, where the flys get trapped and then buzz on it in panic, trying to get free again, until they die?! Can’t bare those. I would like to release each one of them if it would be possible without ripping off their wings or legs.

Or when I work in our garden and accidentally cut a worm in half…Feeling so sorry about it. Like physically.

When I’m going somewhere by car and I pass an animal lying on the side of the road after being hit by a car, I can not continue my way without trying to stop and seeing if there’s really nothing I can do to help. If I don’t check, I’m haunted by thoughts like: “What if it’s still alive?” “What if it could survive if only someone would bring it to a vet?” “What if it’s still alive and in terrible pain?” “What if it’s super scared because it’s still alive and all these cars drive by or over it so freaking fast?” “Did it die right away or was it scared and in pain for long?”

Many thoughts for a quite common situation if you’re going to places by car almost every day…

Or another good example that takes place in our summerhouse. It is an almost 200 years old house. Right by the forest. We have a problem with mice. We don’t leave food out, have everything in metal boxes. Shut holes that we know mice use as an entrance. Tried oh so many tricks that the internet was suggesting. And then they started to get cocky in the living room. And made noise at night in the kitchen so it disturbed our sleep. Everything has boundaries, so my boyfriend decided to put up traps. Those that kill…I hate them. From the bottom of my heart. So I told him I don’t want anything to do with it. I don’t want to see it. So he dealt with it this past week. Until yesterday, when I went to the living room and the mouse in the trap was not dead. It was suffering because the damn trap is just simply not as “efficient” and “humane” as it promises on the packaging. When he told me about it, I felt this really deep sadness. Because of the distress and the pain we caused this mouse. I can literally see some of you rolling your eyes right now. “It’s just a mouse” “They don’t think as we do” “If you don’t kill them, they take over your house” “They bring diseases”

Yes, I know…But I can’t help it. So we went and bought Live traps. Good ones. Ones where they have some space once they are trapped and that doesn’t trap them with a super loud noise that scares them to death anyway. Those were my requirements. Believe me, my boyfriend often just stands there, smiling at me because of how quirky I am in so many ways.

But he also knows by now, that it’s me who is lying awake in the middle of the night, haunted by all those feelings and thoughts that are so much worse when it’s dark.

But feeling so much is not only bad and exhausting. I also love deeply. Family, Friends, Pets. with all my heart and it gives me a good feeling.

Being highly sensitive also brings with it that I’m so creative and interested in art. And it gives me a lot of happiness.

For example the happiness I feel when I release the mice that we caught in our nice live traps. Here you can see one of those cute but destructive little creatures disappear in the forest.

If you don’t like mice, skip the video. 🙂

If you also feel overwhelmed sometimes, know that you’re not alone. Let people around you know whats going on inside you. They can’t figure that out, without us explaining it to them.

We are awesome, no matter how quirky we are 🙂