hypersensitivity, will it be the death of me?

My very first mini essay, it's a personal one.

Ever since i can remember, my life has been surrounded by sadness, and sometimes it was sprinkled with moments of happiness. So taking that into consideration i was a very sad child, then i was a very sad teen and now i’m afraid i’m becoming a very sad adult.

The cause of my sadness may come with the fact that i feel absolutely EVERYTHING, from a bad comment from a bully, to economic problems that didn’t have anything to do with me, but my mother insisted (insists) on telling me like i could fix it. Well, i started going to therapy on the pandemic when everything i was carrying from all those years of extensive bullying, and exclusion and a gravely ill dad, finally exploded in confinement, turning into anxiety, so i begged my mom for therapy, which turned out into going to a psychiatrist, which also turned out with a terrifying diagnosis.

I was so scared when the doctor told me i had Generalized Anxiety Disorder, severe Depression, and mild OCD, it may seem like something not scary because a lot of people have it, but for a young girl, sure was; i felt like i would never be normal again, if i ever was.

High School was very hard for me because i was a afraid of going to school and be judged, i almost didn’t finish, i got dizzy everyday and was absent most of the time, that the few people that i was “friends” with got away from me, never asked how i was; so that got me even more anxious. But even before that i always struggled to find long-lasting friends that had empathy for others enough to have a stong connection.

When i noticed the way i experience life is not the same as the majority of people, my perspective changed; since one of the things i have is that i am someone who needs time alone because my nervous system feels to the point of collapsing and when i go to a party (it doesn’t happen very often) or reunion I get overstimulated, as well as someone with so much empathy for the emotions or situations of the other people to the point where i don’t know how to not make them MY PROBLEM, when i asked the doctor why was i like this, she told me i am a Highly Sensitive Person, which i was scared of, because she put it like it was a problem, like i have to change and of course she said the phrase i hear almost every day “JUST DON’T TAKE THINGS PERSONALLY”.

I got so upset about it i almost told her, yes is very annoying to be walking around in the city and feel every single person around me and getting bothered by the sounds and people talking and family trying to hug me when i physically CAN’T then judging me for it, it is SO EXHAUSTING; don’t blame me for it, i can’t control it.

But God was i wrong; now after almost a year working on it i slowly have realised i CAN work my oversensitivity to something positive, like soon i’ll be entering college as a speech therapist for children with autism and different diagnoses, i feel this will be a good career for me since i understand in some level the hardships of having to feel everything around you and feeling trapped in your own body, having no one to understand you but a lot of people to judge you, so now i’m very happy i get to be able to help kids to get a better life quality. I just hope i can be a good therpist.

I am by no means feeling perfect or without anxiety, i am aware that i will carry it with me for a long time, if not my whole life; but i am learning every day to not let it be a burden, i am learning to let myself go with the flow, and know that feeling everything around me doesn’t mean it’s something bad, it means i can feel the music i listen to more profoundly, it means my imagination while reading a book is more vast and magical, it means i pay attention to things other people don’t, and that’s BEAUTIFUL.

It means hypersensitivity won’t be the death of me, but maybe the thing that will extract me from the bleakness i was living in.