[JanusunaJ]

I've been watching HBO's In Treatment. This is my second time watching the series this year. There are a couple of characters that I can identify with; it's uncanny.

One is April from the second season. She makes all the comments that are surprisingly, almost eerily, similar to my own sentiments.

At one point Dr. Weston says to her: "But some people naturally have more heightened emotional responses than others. I think that you're one of those people. So, you've been working hard to change your nature. Just it's probably a futile enterprise. But the continual effort to do that could make you very angry or insecure."

His comment really kind of hit home for me. It made me think examine a lot of my experiences since childhood. I later looked up and found an article about heightened emotions, The Wound of Being Too Much - Emotional Intensity, which was very enlightening. I found myself saying, "that's me" as I read through it.

The article opens with a quote from Pearl Buck:

"A human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive. To him a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death."

I'm reminded of the times of being ridiculed, laughed at, not understood, punished, "labelled as weird, sensitive, or shy" because of behaviors varying "from being ‘difficult’, active, emotionally intense, demanding, and persistent, to being calm, inward, and almost too easy to raise."

What do you do when you "have a remarkable capacity for deep relationships; [forming] strong emotional attachments to people, places, pets and even objects. [When you have a] capacity for deep compassion, empathy, and sensitivity in relationships, though also troubled by relentless inner dialogues, perfectionism and self-criticism."?

What do you do are labeled as too sensitive or dramatic? When that labeling and its consequences happen to such an extent that you internalize shame and a pervasive sense of being too much?

The character, April, seemed to have "amputated" that part of herself, walled it off, buried it deep within herself; as Weston stated, "...change your nature...a futile enterprise...the continual effort to do that could make you very angry or insecure." It really seemed like it was me sitting there with the character, Dr. Weston, and he was speaking to me. And I understand that those who have misunderstood me, including myself, precipitated loneliness, "being plagued with self-doubts, and living with a lingering sense of existential loneliness."

Earlier this week I sent the message to one of my friends: "I have to get out of here. I think I'm slipping away, becoming something I may never recover from." By the slipping away, I clarify that statement with a comment from April: "...it's just gotten darker inside my head. I don't believe in anything anymore. I don't believe in love...nor my body or you...I don't even believe in myself anymore. I literally have no idea why I should get out of bed in the morning."

I feel so incredibly alone. And I can't talk to my friends about it because, as a comment April makes, asking for help is like repeatedly drawing from a bank account...eventually it's going to be empty. I feel like my bank account is empty. I know it's empty. I can usually talk with my friends, but the only times I get responses are when things are going well or looking up for me; however, in those moments of desperation, if I even hint at it the conversation ends and they disappear. So, I try to never talk about anything going on with me; I try to keep the conversation all about them.

Like Marya Hornbacher states in her memoir, Madness: "I put my head down on the table and cry. Because it's happened again. I'm found out. I'm damaged. F----d up. Broken. A fraud. I knew [they] would figure out sooner or later that I was impossible to love. And now [they have], and I love [them], and I'm certain [they] have tried, really tried, to love me back. But trying to love me is too much for any sane person to bear. I watch their backs, one by one, as they walk away."

[tecomsin]

Thanks for sharing. That was beautiful.