You Are What You ...

Eat. Watch. Read. Listen to. 

Everything that you are exposed to has an effect. For example, people who watch, listen to, or read the news regularly tend to have a more negative view of the world and feel that crime has increased over time, because that is what they are exposed to.

I'm a highly sensitive person. Add to that extreme introversion and PTSD and you'll find that my nerves are all right there at the surface. Some of them may even extend past my skin. 

I learned over a decade ago that I have to pay attention to what I let in. Very dark books, tv shows, and movies are hard on me. I take them inside me and the darkness tends to stick. I remember the most horrific things from such stories and they pop up years later. Given my obsessive thinking, it can take days to get the thoughts to go away. 

When it comes to the news, I keep in mind the way it can bend your perceptions, so I mostly scroll over the headlines online.

Although I learned my lesson over a decade ago, I have to keep relearning it and re-remembering it, as I do with everything. I have remembered to not read books about serial killers that won't die, but I keep forgetting about TV shows. I watch CSI and CSI NY (I think CSI NY is less dark than the original). But the worst is that I've been watching Criminal Minds. That's all about mass murderers, serial killers, and bombers! It's one of the worst things I can do to myself. It's like an addiction. When the next season comes around, I'm going to remind myself to Watch Something Else. 

Now, I cannot watch movies about psychopaths, because they are monsters that exist and I'll have nightmares and my anxieties will increase. But I can watch movies about non-human monsters, such as giant sharks and behemoths that come out of mountains. And I can watch natural disaster movies — the worse the disaster the better. Maybe these are cathartic for my anxiety, my PTSD. Certainly they stimulate me and make me breath faster, make my heart race. Perhaps they are helpful in balancing out how withdrawn I can become due to the hypersensitivity and the introversion.

Some of my friends are very thoughtful and mindful of my sensitivities and will caution me about various movies or books, even going so far as to say "don't watch that, ever" or "don't read that, ever." I love that they care and that they know me well enough to be able to tell me this. Their doing so makes me feel loved.

Lately I've been bingeing on monster movies, now that I have Netflix Streaming Video. It coincides with a lightening of my mood. I cannot even apply a correlation because I have nothing to base it on; there are other things that do have some correlation. However, the movies don't seem to have a negative effect on me, so I think I'll continue. Anything to feel better, right now. Anything to feel better.

This time I'll remember what is good for me to watch, read, or listen to. This time I'll remember what is bad. This time I won't listen to the little voice that says "it won't hurt you, you enjoy this." I'm sure many people have heard that voice and knew it meant the exact opposite of what it says. This time I'll remember to sick my big, protective voice on the evilly seductive voice. Who do you think will win?

This time I'll remember to take good care of myself. Forever.

Turtling

Turtling is a term I use for when I close in on myself in a self-protective mode. I guess some people might call it nesting, but I avoid surrounding my areas with lots of clothing and blankets (I've done this in the past). Instead, I feel as if I've pulled into a shell and don't want to come back out.

I think it's different from agoraphobia (my BFF thinks differently, of course). Agoraphobia generally results from having panic attacks at different places until even leaving the house causes them, leaving you stuck. I don't feel as if I'm afraid to leave (although there is anxiety). I just feel safer inside my home.

When I do leave, I enjoy being out. When I've been out for a couple of hours, though, I start feeling like I need to be home. Luckily for me, it isn't the compulsion it was about 15 years ago. It's merely an urge.

The big problem seems to be making myself get out of my little womb.

I think part of it is the problem introverts can have when they've been excessively introverted, away from almost all stimuli. They become more introverted. When I read The Highly Sensitive Person, it changed my outlook and I learned that I'm not "too sensitive." But I do have to watch out for becoming so introverted I have difficulties having any stimuli at all. I don't even listen to music anymore.

Having reasons to go out, having people to see, having things I want or need to do: these would get me out and expand my stimulation threshold once more. Yes, it's been suggested I do some volunteer work that requires my physical presence. I forget to look for it. My current state of mind (or medicine) messes with my short-term memory. A lot. So I forget these ideas I have for helping myself get better. 

I forget to do stuff I really love to do, such as write and other creative things. Here I am, more time than money, and I fritter the time away not creating a thing, not walking in beauty, not going to a museum or the zoo. I waste it huddled in my self-created womb, my shell, my bomb shelter.

I need to remember to look outside and see that there is no bomb, the sky isn't falling, and the sun is shining invitingly. I need to reclaim my authentic self and surrender my turtle self, because I can protect myself in other ways and do not need a hard shell to hide inside. I must remind myself that I gave up barriers when the walls of my keep broke into ruins inside my mind and my heart a few years ago when I felt great pain.

Vulnerability is the new strength. Try it on, self. I think it looks very good on you.

More

Writing a post every day is about as difficult as I expected it to be. But the posts were coming from me so quickly, I grew cocky. I found that sometimes the words aren't flowing. Sometimes I'm far too tired to want to put in the effort or the time. Sometimes I just don't feel like it. And in the past, if I didn't feel like doing something, I'd cancel it, call in sick, blow it off.

I've realized that I wasn't giving myself much credit for writing this blog daily. And not only this blog, but the occasional post on my other blog, and now I'm starting a third, for professional conversation.

Even though I have been so anxious and depressed and purely, miserably in pain during the past month and 2 days, I've written for this blog every evening. And I've turned out another couple of posts for the other blogs.

I don't give myself enough credit.

Today, I dressed in nice clothes and went to a meeting, which was energetic and loud. The sun shone. The weather was hot and not too humid. There was traffic. I didn't have enough water to drink and was parched all the way home. I'm tired because I'm so introverted and I've spent entirely too much time alone inside my home, because I'm out of driving "shape," and because I became mildly dehydrated.

Yet, here I am, writing a post for tonight, even though I am tired and my knee hurts and my ears are still ringing from the talking (we are a loud group). I'm writing even though I have clothing spread all over my bed that I need to put away before I can go to sleep. I'm writing even though all I planned to do was write "Sorry, no post. I'm tired."

Writing a post every day is more difficult than I thought. And much easier. I need to give myself more credit.

Another over-stimulated day

Exhausted again, which also means an early(er) bedtime, which I hope will lead to an earlier wake-up time.

Lots of sunshine, and my car's sun visor is missing a screw, so I cannot effectively use it on the side. That doesn't matter so much because the sun was hitting my arm more than my face.

Then there was the large amount of people contact. Loud people contact. In breaks during that, I received two phone calls that I really wanted to take, including an invitation to lunch by a good friend, to go to our favorite restaurant. ::Sniff::

In addition, I'm experiencing some body sensory overload. Pain, tiredness from being on my feet for a large part of the day. Even my skin feels overstimulated, possibly in part due to the sun, sunscreen be damned.

I want to be quiet, but my home needs cleaning. And I'm hoping the not-lunch friend wants to go out adventuring one day this weekend. The clutter and dirt makes me tired, going out in the sun and who knows what will also tire me. I hope it will be a good tired. Besides, this friend is one who gives me energy when we are together.

No major insights or progress tonight. Just a body that is ringing like a bell.

Talking to Strangers

When I was a child, I was amazingly outgoing and would talk to anyone who stood still long enough. I once introduced myself to a new mailman with my name, followed by "and I'm cute!" I knew it was true because everyone told me so.

But my dad was a cop, so he worked hard at teaching us, me especially, not to talk to strangers. Between that, puberty-onset shyness, and my inherent introversion, I became quite good at not talking to strangers. (I could still talk to friends who stood still long enough.)

But now I must talk to strangers if I am to find work and/or develop my own business. I must talk to strangers if I am to make new friends. And while some of my abilities and issues have changed, and my meds have had an effect, it's not always enough to make talking to strangers anything close to easy. And now that the meds aren't doing their job, such speech is very, very far from easy.

Tonight, my mind and body are buzzing as if filled with a hive of mad bees. I attended a professional meeting and spoke not only to individual strangers but to an entire group of them when I announced needing volunteers for a project I'm working on. I had met a few of these people before, but could only count two as people who knew my name. The food was well-balanced (and tasty!), so I cannot blame blood sugar. And the buzzy, vibrating feeling began before I entered my car for the long drive home. (And I don't have a sex toy in my pocket, although that might be a useful idea to help me come down from this feeling!)

I think it's nerves, both the anxiety kind and, probably in reaction, the neurological kind, given that I do have some neurological issues, too.

I can't go to sleep while I feel like this. Caffeine is useful and easy for perking up. What drink is useful and easy for perking down?

What would work, and has worked in the past, would be slow, comfortable conversation with a loved one. (Well, slow comfortable something else with a special loved one would work, too.) However, that is not an option at this moment, so instead I must contemplate warm milk.

If only there weren't so damned many strangers that I have to talk to!