Sensitive

(You can listen to the story by clicking on the player below the written text).

I have really struggled with being super sensitive. 

Lights, sounds, texture, pressure, colours, smells, the feeling of my own skin - all the details, the way things move, the way things all seem to layer on top of one another. 

I notice (and am often irritated by) things other people don’t seem to. Patterns. Facial expressions. Micromovements. Energy.  I hear the light bulbs buzzing.  I once searched my Nanna’s house because I couldn’t sleep because of the infernal ticking.  I found the smallest wrist watch that no one else could even hear ticking.

It’s like my brain is taking in MOUNTAINS of raw data, constantly, and it doesn’t have the ability to filter it in real time. Sometimes this can be helpful. I’ve saved lives I’m sure - I smelt that the gas was still on from the end of a rather large house before anyone else even noticed it. Others in the house were awake, and I was asleep when I did that. Just woke up because my senses screamed “GAS!”

Another time, we were driving home from a gig, and I was asleep in the passenger seat. My body knew we were slowing down for a roundabout. Like, I was asleep, but my body still knew. My eyes were closed, but the way the lights were moving, I knew that we were going too fast to be actually stopping at the roundabout, and there were lights coming toward us on the right. I woke up and slammed my hands on the dash and screamed, “Stop!” and my partner slammed the brakes on.

I said, “I’m so sorry, I thought you weren’t going to stop, and something told me there was a truck coming.”

He said, “No need for sorry, I wasn’t going to stop, and that truck would have driven straight through us.”

It's hard to believe I did that while being almost solidly asleep. My body is still sensitive to motion and light (and apparently interpreting it) even when I'm not consciously awake.

My senses are strong. The downside of that is that sometimes I feel like I'm being assaulted by my own senses, especially when I'm in large supermarkets. The bright lights, noise coming from every single direction, people moving around me (which makes me feel almost dizzy, like a pinball in a pinball machine), colours everywhere, smells... it's like everything is happening all at once, and I can't stop the influx of way too much information.

My brain can't seem to differentiate between what is and isn't important. It doesn't prioritise information, so everything is coming at me and pushing into me as urgent. Sometimes even my clothes feel like they're strangling me.

Heaven forbid I should run into someone I know and they want to talk. It's not that I don't like people - I love people - but at that very moment in time, I cannot take one more source of input, let alone one that requires my full attention to construct valid sentences.

Communication runs a lot of tabs in my brain at once. I’m reading body language, facial expression, tone, pitch, filtering the actual words, deciphering all of that, trying desperately to focus on that above all those other inputs that are assaulting my senses, then trying to make sure my own body language, facial expressions, tone, pitch and words are all functioning in a way that looks engaged and matches the actual conversation or how I feel.

Which, if I am in a supermarket, I’m actually trying to hide, so it’s a double layer: hide what I’m actually feeling, show them what I want them to see so that they feel like I don’t hate them because my body language is shutting down along with my face.

It’s entirely overwhelming. Plus, if I am overwhelmed, the language centre in the brain goes offline. It’s harder to even speak.

At times I struggle to even retrieve words.

So mostly if I’m in a supermarket I am NOT keen to talk to people because it’s just too much.

Mostly I avoid supermarkets entirely. I will go to my local small one, where the staff know I don’t hate them (that’s just my face), and I can get what I want and run away, or I shop online.

Interestingly enough, however, if I have a full tank of energy, all my systems are online and functional, I might even enjoy shopping at a mall. But that's rare, and it runs the batteries down fast.

I also love live music and hate concerts simultaneously. Being in a crowd is like my worst nightmare. People bustling up against one another. Perfumes. Shampoo. Fabric softener.

My brain even attaches memories to the smells. “Oh, that’s Flex Shampoo. I remember that from the Reject Shop on sale when I was about 14. I loved that stuff.”

It’s all vying for my attention. Pushing. Bumping. People breathing. The smell of someone's breath. Their moisturiser. The layers of smell. Colours all moving around me in a sea of too much.

I almost feel sick just thinking about it.

That’s why I love the stage. I get the whole experience without being too close to people.

It’s also why I do not want to be in a choir.

The upside to being so sensitive is that I notice things that are so subtle sometimes people don’t even notice them, or have a name for them. Even the physical details fuel my songwriting.

But the subtle feelings we get as humans make such good songwriting fodder. It might be a vague feeling that comes and goes for most people without too much awareness, but for me it's intense - because nearly everything is intense.

I’m not sad, I’m devastated. I’m not happy, I’m jumping out of my skin.

Well, either that or I’m the opposite and I’m just flat and I have what feels like zero feelings. I’m not happy or sad, or anything that I can tell you. I just feel like I’ve been body snatched. I’ve been told I can seemingly disappear for days. Then all of a sudden I’m just back online, like my brain has arrived back into my body.

One of the ways my brain works is that even while everything is so intense, I can’t tell you exactly how I feel. I struggle with interoception.

My brain is so busy processing information that I can’t feel - I just collect information or focus on the thing in front of me. It’s a paradox. I don’t feel anything at all until it’s so intense I can’t ignore it. Even then, I can’t shake it or understand it. I can’t express it.

So I write songs about it.

The way I’ve described it before is that it’s like my brain is constantly gathering data like pieces of coloured thread. My brain is so busy gathering this thread that it nearly can’t do its other jobs, like process how I feel, or notice that I need to go to the toilet until I’m busting, or that it’s time to eat until I’m starving.

Or that I’ve been sitting on my leg weird for hours until I get up to walk and can’t move it. That one’s fun.

What happens is that if I don’t have enough downtime - aka completely alone time - my brain is never out of that mode. If someone else is in the house with me, I’m in data-collecting mode. I can’t shut it off. People walking around? Data. Opening and closing doors? Data. Taps on, taps off? Data.

Little bits of coloured string my brain collects like a bower bird.

When no one else is around and I’m just by myself, I can get past the hum of the fridge and the birds outside by going into the studio with the doors shut. The quiet helps. Then it's like my brain can switch modes. It starts sorting that data. Swimming can do it too. Walking in nature. As long as there’s no people or intrusive sounds like doors slamming, dogs barking, garbage trucks or lawns being mowed (at which point I generally go into the studio and put on noise-cancelling headphones, and the double attack seems to be just enough to drown them out). If someone is home though, that tab is still open in my brain, and I’m still aware of them in my space. It hinders my ability to process.

If I am actually alone for enough time, my brain will start to gather the threads and sort them out. Put them away where they belong. It’s like the threads are loaded onto the loom.

Then, when I pick up an instrument, I’ll start by playing some chords. Those chords will illustrate how I feel. I will play around until I find the exact chords and motion for my feeling. Fingerpicking, strumming, maybe move to the piano. I go with what seems to fit. Like turning the knob on a safe, I’m listening for the click.

Then, like magic, when the right combination is found, those threads that I’ve collected will come out and start weaving themselves into a tapestry. At the end, I’ll have a song, and it will generally teach me something about myself. Show me what I’ve been processing, tell me how I’ve been feeling and what I’ve been holding on to, while simultaneously getting it out of my head and my heart and my body.

Music is so good for that.

If I can’t write for some reason, sometimes I can just find a song that feels like I feel and sing it all out. The words don’t have to match the story, just the vibe.

Belting out a ballad can move all the emotions out of my body so I’m not storing them. Playing the piano by just playing and moving my hands around, letting the notes express my feelings. It sweeps out the ruins.

Even if I haven’t been actively ruminating on something, engaging in music can help me wash it all clean so I can start fresh.

The real risk for me is not getting enough downtime. I need so much more downtime than most people I know. Some people I know live with other people and are never truly alone, and when I think about that, I think I’d go absolutely crazy.

Even when I was married and had three children at home, there were times when all the kids would be at school and my partner was away. If someone had to work from home or the kids were home for school holidays, it would start wearing me down rapidly.

Even joyful things that I would normally enjoy start to become really difficult. Strands of data start to become difficult to wade through. Regular functioning starts to become harder because I’m fighting all that unfiled information to see clearly.

So when I say downtime, I really mean completely alone time to defrag my brain. If I don’t get it, it’s like those same strands just compile and get all tangled and surround me, twisting and tangling until I feel like Frodo in The Lord of the Rings when he’s caught in the giant spider web and can’t get out.

That’s me.

Figuratively speaking, if I’m with people too long, I’m being strangled to death by my own thoughts because I can’t file them away.

It’s interesting that it took 43 years to be diagnosed with autism. I wrote ‘Sensitive’ well before I was diagnosed, and my threads and loom theory has been around forever. If I go back through my songwriting material, it’s evident.

But medical professionals only noticed the anxiety.

Of course I had anxiety. I was living with undiagnosed, unsupported autism and had no coping skills or accommodations to help me manage the associated struggles.

Now I have things like noise-cancelling headphones and a soundproof room - a room that is separate to my bedroom and isn’t shared with anyone else - and I know that downtime is non-negotiable for my survival. Knowing and implementing things like that (which I was also doing before the actual diagnosis) makes life a little easier. But understanding myself and my needs has been so important to being able to meet them.

I think a lot of suffering comes from unmet needs. Trying to force ourselves into boxes we don’t fit into. Not getting the downtime we need in a way that’s truly restorative. Trying to force ourselves to do things that our nervous system is screaming at us not to. And why? Because we’re told we need to be a certain way and we need to do life a certain way.

I believe we are a certain way, and we need to build our lives around that, not the other way around. Not so we never leave our comfort zone - growth lies at the edge of our comfort zone, but really knowing the difference between what is good for us and what is digging a fat hole and destroying our nervous system is a huge learning curve. That discovery process is a journey well worth taking.   We may not all be on the spectrum, but we all have unique needs. It’s important to learn what they are and honour them. Self-discovery is a big part of learning how to look after ourselves well. We can’t meet ourselves where we’re at if we don’t know where that is, and we can’t meet our needs if we don’t truly know what they are.

I’ve learnt that when I do meet my needs, when I give myself the downtime I need, and when I meet all the other needs I have as well (and like I mentioned, I don’t let myself get too hungry, angry, lonely or tired), I function a lot better.

I am able to find rhythm and peace. At the very least, I’m not being suffocated by invisible coloured threads and fighting my way through that web every day until I burn out. Life becomes more sustainable. Even if I am a little sensitive.