Today is my 20th birthday. I woke up today feeling different. I feel ecstatic, yet peaceful. I feel sad, yet relieved. I am thrilled to be in my 20s, but shocked that I am no longer a 'teen'.
I'm using the entrance of this new decade as the start of a new life. There are a lot of things I don't like about myself that I'd like to fix this year, and as everyone knows, the first step in fixing a problem is admitting you have one. To prove to you how serious I am about bettering myself this year, I am going to be more honest about myself and the inner workings of my mind than I've ever been before.
I want to start this post by giving you a little background information about me, as a lot of the things I don't like about myself are a result of this very aspect of me.
I am a highly sensitive person, or an HSP. According to Dr. Elaine N. Aron, author of The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You, an HSP has a "sensitive nervous system, is aware of subtleties in his/her surroundings, and is more easily overwhelmed in a highly stimulating environment." Highly sensitive people can be sensitive to any kind of stimulus, mental or physical. HSPs are commonly sensitive to tastes, smells, sounds, temperatures, tactile sensations, verbal information, and so much more. As an HSP, I am sensitive in many of those ways.
Highly sensitive people's senses, emotions, expressions, and impacts are magnified. Things hit us a little harder than they hit the average person. We are far more aware of things like physical sensations, and our mental states are far more affected by things that happen in our lives; we're feelers.
My highly sensitive nature was apparent early on in my life; as soon as I developed a personality, really. As a two-year-old, I had the mood swings of an adolescent. It was a joke in my family that if my brother and his friends were misbehaving, my mom would let me loose on 'em. My mom described my younger self as 'prickly' and told me I was angry before I had words to express what I was angry about. She said she could tell I was experiencing pain and hurt all of my early years, but she didn't know why. I believe this was the beginning of my inability to deal with stress and process the complex emotions I was experiencing, which years later led to the development of my anxiety.
My hypersensitivity also affects me in many physical ways. As a child, I would wear my socks inside-out because I couldn't stand the way the seams felt on my toes. To this day, I cut the scratchy fabric tags off of my shirts. I can't wash my hands without using hand cream afterwards, as I can feel my skin begin to dry out immediately. I wear bras and underwear as little as possible, as they make me feel suffocated. I am also heavily sensitive when it comes to temperature, as everyone else's perfect summer day feels like a day in hell to me. These unpleasant physical sensations cause me great anxiety if I am unable to fix them fast enough.
Although my hypersensitivity has its effects on my physical body, it has the biggest impact on my mental state and the functioning of my mind. As an HSP, my brain is always on. I never stop thinking, which means I am constantly burnt out. Because I am constantly burnt out, I am unable to handle stress very well. Because of my inability to handle stress, I have anxiety. I am also a perfectionist. I have obsessive-compulsive disorder. I never feel satisfied or accomplished.
The mental effects of my hypersensitivity aren't all bad though. I have an insane memory. I switched schools after kindergarten, but every year I would remember the birthdays of my classmates, who I had no contact with until we reunited in middle school.
RELATIONSHIPS
My entire life has revolved around other people, as I run on human interaction. In the Jordan Lampe version of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, the base of my pyramid consists of food, water, and conversation. I am obsessed with creating bonds and learning about others, and spreading love wherever I can. I value others more than I value myself, and my loved ones are as magical to me as a child is to their mother. Because of my love for, and fascination with, other beings, my mood is greatly affected by them. As an HSP, I love quite easily and I feel quite strongly. I am focused more on having meaningful relationships and less on having many relationships, and I find that most people's focuses are the other way around. I am so willing to make time for others and do whatever I can to show them how much I care about them, but people are seldom willing to do the same for me, as I am just a drop in their bucket.
I have a hard time getting over people. I don't like a lot of people, so if I choose to give someone my time and affection, I must be under the impression that they are quite special. Once I build a connection with someone and they wiggle their way into my heart, they never fully leave. After a breakup, for instance, the pain of not having the person in my life tends to linger and prevents me from building connections with other people, as I feel I am never fully over them. Because I have a hard time acknowledging that there is a future, I try to bring the people from my past into my present. I allow them to have control over my emotions, occupy valuable mental real estate, and dictate my future long after they have left my life. I try to make things work, even though I know the feeling's not mutual, because a meaningful connection once existed.
CREATIVITY
Along with being a highly sensitive person, I am also a highly creative person. I see the world in vibrant color and I am bubbling over with ideas. I am constantly writing, cooking, painting, and designing, and I am always looking for ways to bring more color into the world. If I could paint every wall, door, tabletop, and lampshade in my house, I would.
Artists tend to find their crafts soothing and cathartic, which is why they do it. Artists are notorious for being uninhibited and welcoming of the mess that comes their creative expressions, as art is messy. For me, however, the expression of my creativity is often accompanied by copious amounts of stress. Because of my obsessive-compulsive disorder and my perfectionism, bringing my ideas to life causes me great stress because I can never execute my projects how I wanted to. I have so many visions that don't completely translate once brought to life. I have so many ideas racing through my mind that refuse to be put into words. Whether I am writing or painting, I never know where to start. With writing, my brain hops from one idea to the next before I can finish expressing the first one. With art, I am afraid of the frustration of messing up.
As I said earlier, being an HSP isn't all bad. I don't just make art; it lives within me. I have a condition called grapheme-color synesthesia, in which letters and numbers have colors and personalities. In my mind, paragraphs in a book are colorful murals. My synesthesia makes my world so fun and vibrant.
I've been told my whole life that being sensitive is a negative thing, and in some cases it is. When it comes to something going wrong, what would be a crack in someone else's bowl could be the shattering of mine. However, I believe my hypersensitivity has given me an upper hand in many other aspects of life.
NEW LIFE'S RESOLUTIONS
Be accepting and inviting of mess.
Improve my posture.
Brush my teeth twice a day and floss at least once a week.
Sing and dance in public.
To feel comfortable with my body.
I'm using the entrance of this new decade as the start of a new life. There are a lot of things I don't like about myself that I'd like to fix this year, and as everyone knows, the first step in fixing a problem is admitting you have one. To prove to you how serious I am about bettering myself this year, I am going to be more honest about myself and the inner workings of my mind than I've ever been before.
I want to start this post by giving you a little background information about me, as a lot of the things I don't like about myself are a result of this very aspect of me.
I am a highly sensitive person, or an HSP. According to Dr. Elaine N. Aron, author of The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You, an HSP has a "sensitive nervous system, is aware of subtleties in his/her surroundings, and is more easily overwhelmed in a highly stimulating environment." Highly sensitive people can be sensitive to any kind of stimulus, mental or physical. HSPs are commonly sensitive to tastes, smells, sounds, temperatures, tactile sensations, verbal information, and so much more. As an HSP, I am sensitive in many of those ways.
Highly sensitive people's senses, emotions, expressions, and impacts are magnified. Things hit us a little harder than they hit the average person. We are far more aware of things like physical sensations, and our mental states are far more affected by things that happen in our lives; we're feelers.
My highly sensitive nature was apparent early on in my life; as soon as I developed a personality, really. As a two-year-old, I had the mood swings of an adolescent. It was a joke in my family that if my brother and his friends were misbehaving, my mom would let me loose on 'em. My mom described my younger self as 'prickly' and told me I was angry before I had words to express what I was angry about. She said she could tell I was experiencing pain and hurt all of my early years, but she didn't know why. I believe this was the beginning of my inability to deal with stress and process the complex emotions I was experiencing, which years later led to the development of my anxiety.
My hypersensitivity also affects me in many physical ways. As a child, I would wear my socks inside-out because I couldn't stand the way the seams felt on my toes. To this day, I cut the scratchy fabric tags off of my shirts. I can't wash my hands without using hand cream afterwards, as I can feel my skin begin to dry out immediately. I wear bras and underwear as little as possible, as they make me feel suffocated. I am also heavily sensitive when it comes to temperature, as everyone else's perfect summer day feels like a day in hell to me. These unpleasant physical sensations cause me great anxiety if I am unable to fix them fast enough.
Although my hypersensitivity has its effects on my physical body, it has the biggest impact on my mental state and the functioning of my mind. As an HSP, my brain is always on. I never stop thinking, which means I am constantly burnt out. Because I am constantly burnt out, I am unable to handle stress very well. Because of my inability to handle stress, I have anxiety. I am also a perfectionist. I have obsessive-compulsive disorder. I never feel satisfied or accomplished.
The mental effects of my hypersensitivity aren't all bad though. I have an insane memory. I switched schools after kindergarten, but every year I would remember the birthdays of my classmates, who I had no contact with until we reunited in middle school.
RELATIONSHIPS
My entire life has revolved around other people, as I run on human interaction. In the Jordan Lampe version of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, the base of my pyramid consists of food, water, and conversation. I am obsessed with creating bonds and learning about others, and spreading love wherever I can. I value others more than I value myself, and my loved ones are as magical to me as a child is to their mother. Because of my love for, and fascination with, other beings, my mood is greatly affected by them. As an HSP, I love quite easily and I feel quite strongly. I am focused more on having meaningful relationships and less on having many relationships, and I find that most people's focuses are the other way around. I am so willing to make time for others and do whatever I can to show them how much I care about them, but people are seldom willing to do the same for me, as I am just a drop in their bucket.
I have a hard time getting over people. I don't like a lot of people, so if I choose to give someone my time and affection, I must be under the impression that they are quite special. Once I build a connection with someone and they wiggle their way into my heart, they never fully leave. After a breakup, for instance, the pain of not having the person in my life tends to linger and prevents me from building connections with other people, as I feel I am never fully over them. Because I have a hard time acknowledging that there is a future, I try to bring the people from my past into my present. I allow them to have control over my emotions, occupy valuable mental real estate, and dictate my future long after they have left my life. I try to make things work, even though I know the feeling's not mutual, because a meaningful connection once existed.
CREATIVITY
Along with being a highly sensitive person, I am also a highly creative person. I see the world in vibrant color and I am bubbling over with ideas. I am constantly writing, cooking, painting, and designing, and I am always looking for ways to bring more color into the world. If I could paint every wall, door, tabletop, and lampshade in my house, I would.
Artists tend to find their crafts soothing and cathartic, which is why they do it. Artists are notorious for being uninhibited and welcoming of the mess that comes their creative expressions, as art is messy. For me, however, the expression of my creativity is often accompanied by copious amounts of stress. Because of my obsessive-compulsive disorder and my perfectionism, bringing my ideas to life causes me great stress because I can never execute my projects how I wanted to. I have so many visions that don't completely translate once brought to life. I have so many ideas racing through my mind that refuse to be put into words. Whether I am writing or painting, I never know where to start. With writing, my brain hops from one idea to the next before I can finish expressing the first one. With art, I am afraid of the frustration of messing up.
As I said earlier, being an HSP isn't all bad. I don't just make art; it lives within me. I have a condition called grapheme-color synesthesia, in which letters and numbers have colors and personalities. In my mind, paragraphs in a book are colorful murals. My synesthesia makes my world so fun and vibrant.
I've been told my whole life that being sensitive is a negative thing, and in some cases it is. When it comes to something going wrong, what would be a crack in someone else's bowl could be the shattering of mine. However, I believe my hypersensitivity has given me an upper hand in many other aspects of life.
NEW LIFE'S RESOLUTIONS
Be accepting and inviting of mess.
Improve my posture.
Brush my teeth twice a day and floss at least once a week.
Sing and dance in public.
To feel comfortable with my body.
To get better at recognizing and terminating one-sided relationships, and give my love solely to those who give love back.
That's it for today's post! I hope you enjoyed getting a little more insight into my life. Writing this blog post has liberated me. I feel as though I have cleared my mind of all the hatred I felt towards myself and made room for self love. Thank you all for reading this post, and I hope you will stick around to celebrate many more birthdays with me!
Until then,
Jordan x