When things get tough, do you decide it’s time to run or hide?
Spinach Pie
My friend calls and asks me if I’m free for dinner. “Sure” I say without thinking. Now I have to ask all the things I haven’t asked before committing myself to something that I might not want to do, but will have to do in order not to hurt my friend’s feelings.
“Um…who’s gonna be there?”
“Well, probably just the neighbors from across the street.”
Okay. Not too bad. “What’re we having?”
I’m sure I hear a small sigh on the other end of my phone, but my friend says buoyantly, “Spinach pie! I made it myself—except for the filo dough, of course, I got that at Trader Joe’s—but I know how much you love spinach, right? And there’s no meat or chicken…or anything. Totally vegetarian.”
I pray that the sigh now emanating from my body cannot be heard across the miles. “Um….”
“Oh, no,” she says. “Is something wrong? What are you allergic to? I mean, I didn’t think that anything in it would…I mean, don’t you love spinach and cheese?”
Where do I start?
Please, Not a Crowd!
As I pull up my friend’s driveway, park, and pick up the big salad bowl on the seat beside me to take inside, I see the neighbors strolling across the street. Only there aren’t just two of them. The couple that was coming has morphed into a small crowd. Well, crowd may be an exaggeration, but that what anything over 2 or 3 people feels like to me. There are 2 small children and 2 other adults, all carrying parcels of one sort or another.
The problem is that I can’t turn around now. They’ve seen me. They know who I am (presumably). I offer a weak wave, pretend to take longer to gather up my things so I don’t have to walk to the door with them, and then walk slowly up the stairs where the noise is making my bones vibrate. I plaster a smile on my face. “Hi, everyone,” I say.
Immediately, I am deluged with hellos! and hi, theres! and I don’t think we’ve met yets. I do my due diligence until I can sneak away to the kitchen where I hope I’ll find refuge from the hordes. My friend follows me in.
“Hi, she says brightly to offset the discomfort she knows I’m feeling.”
“I thought you said it was only—” I begin.
“It was…unexpected. They had company.”
I sigh again. “Well, here’s the salad,” I say, and think about to pace myself so I can remain intact emotionally and physically (my heart is still pounding from my trip through the obstacle course of humans in the other room) until it’s time to go home.
Indicators, Allergies, or . . . ?
Using the term allergy loosely, HSPs tend to be “allergic” to all sorts of things. Spinach pie (for the gluten or the feta or the butter), crowds (if you can call crowd aversion an allergy), and uncomfortable situations (ditto).
The key to unraveling high sensitivity so you no longer view it as painfully as being forever trapped inside a house of horrors, is to begin to question your assumption that things are what they seem. The truth, as I have learned through experience, is that everything is an indicator. Everything.
When you’re curious enough to explore what your particular indicators might mean, you’ve taken one step farther on the path to perspective, freedom, and empowerment.
