Here’s How I Tripped and Fell into a Little Bit of Self Discovery

I feel like I’ve turned over a new leaf in the realm of self-discovery. I love learning new things, but when I concur that I’ve reached “achievement unlocked” about myself, I need time to process. Here I am weeks away from my next birthday and I am still finding clues and putting together the pieces of the puzzle about me.

I discovered that I am a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) and I can already hear a lot of you laughing right now as you read this and thinking, “Are you seriously just now figuring this out?” Yes, I am, and it is both quite wonderful and strange at the same time.

The past few months at my job have been a little challenging, to say the least. I have a much younger coworker who nit picks everything that I do when I hand off a shared resource. “This numbering isn’t correct. You didn’t add this text in here. You can’t go back and change this”, are all examples of the relentless whining that has been hurled my way and now it has spread to other coworkers, my manager and my manager’s manager. It’s exhausting.

Today, I’d had enough and sat at my desk while they opted to have a meeting about me with me about how I am still not doing this his way. I’ve tried to offer solutions, to no avail. They’re opting to simply complain about how I’m doing things the wrong way, but no one has captured all these verbal constant changes into a procedure of the right way. I’m literally flying by the seat of my pants all the time.

I sat at my desk, no camera, on mute and cried. I was beyond frustrated in that moment because I wasn’t able to actually get any work done, I spent almost 8 hours in back-to-back meetings all damn day, there are constant changes and pivots to make because I am one person doing the job of 4.

Aint no rest for the wicked, I suppose?

I stumbled upon this great book about HSP’s all thanks to my lovely friend, Cat, who is letting me borrow her Kindle – shoutout to my kindred soul. Reading about people really piques my interest, and I’ve heard of this HSP thing, but didn’t know much about it.

After reading about HSPs, it is obvious to me (and has been to some of you reading this) that I am almost certainly one of the 20%. I’ve never felt like I fit in anywhere, I’m quite empathetic, I adore animals and want to pet everything I probably shouldn’t, get easily drained with too much peopling and can easily feel tension in a room between people where the thought never even crossed another’s mind in the same room.

I don’t expect my coworkers to even begin to understand, nor do I anticipate they could even comprehend where I’m coming from nor how they’ve made me feel. They are the 80% and I am not like them nor they like me.

I learned that the song, “That I Would Be Good” was Alanis thoughts about being an HSP and now I understand why this song always hit a nerve in my heart that I just couldn't explain to anyone, but it makes perfect sense to me (and likely any other HSP) out in the world. This song literally leaves me in tears every time I listen to it, which I am doing as we speak.

Life is complicated sometimes and when we take a minute to try to make sense out of a part of ourselves that feels like it just doesn’t make sense at all sometimes, it is beautiful. This helps me understand why I do a lot of the things that I do and some of the things that I don’t. Thank you for being on this journey with me.

“That I would be loved, even when I’m not myself.”

“That I would be good, even when I’m overwhelmed.” 

“That I Would Be Good” -–Alanis Morrisette