“You’re being too sensitive.”

Oh are those ever familiar words.  All through my childhood they trailed after me like a tin can tied to the end of my shoelaces, with each step in danger of sending it bouncing across the floor.  The sound of those words clanging along behind me made me wince until I could hardly bear to move from my spot any more.  One day, when the strain of being planted in one spot got to be too much for me, I got wise, cut the string and walked away.  For a long time though, the memory of that ugly sound haunted my steps.   But many, many years of freedom from the constant accusation “you’re too sensitive” faded even that away until I was able to move about my world with an ease I had not dreamed was possible back when I was trying to be quiet and still enough not to send that tin can clattering across the floor.

I am sensitive.  I am very sensitive.  As I explained in the section of my book devoted to part of my spiritual memoir:

I was the sort of kid who felt bad for the fake Santa’s at the mall when little kids would cry in their laps.  An old woman struggling to pull change out of her coin purse in front of my at the grocery store made me tear up.  If the other kids were teasing the girl from special ed classes who smelled funny and dressed badly, I felt compelled to step in to help her even though that was a great way to find out that I also smelled funny and dressed badly.  If you were someone I actually cared about, an angry word or harsh action could wound me down to the depths of my being. Continue reading ““You’re so sensitive!””