Highly Sensitive AND Sensation Seeking: Finally an Explanation

After decades of watching others find a semblance of balance in their lives and wondering why I couldn't, there is an answer. My life has always felt like I cling desperately to the bottom of a clock's pendulum arm, endlessly swinging past the equilibrium. I thought I was alone down here, imagining the rest of the world close to the clock's face… experiencing a much less turbulent ride.

I finished reading The Highly Sensitive Person and had many great realizations. Even reading it, there was still a feeling that I was an outsider within that group. It explained my sensitivity, but not my roller-coaster ride. If I'm all the way on the far end of the sensitive spectrum (meaning my nervous system picks up more than most people), why wasn't I very cautious?

In her second book, The Highly Sensitive Person In Love, I found an answer. She introduces another important inherited trait, High Sensation Seeking. These folks need more stimulation to reach the optimal amount of arousal. The two traits seem like opposites on first glance, but she makes it quite clear that one can be both an HSP and an HSS, which explains my lifelong tightrope walk to maintain balance. I answered true to all but one of the questions on both tests. This means my range of comfortable arousal (not in a sexual sense) is extremely small. As one HSP/HSS person put it, we feel like we have one foot on the break and one foot on the gas… all the time. We have a built-in, hard-wired internal struggle!

HSPs make up 15-20% of the population and within them 30% are extroverts, so about 6% of the human population. Within that group, an even smaller proportion is also HSS. No wonder I felt like an alien most of my life! Having both traits means I get overwhelmed and bored very easily. Since I developed the HSS aspect more, the HSP part of me got massive adrenal exhaustion, depression, anxiety, digestive issues and chronic fatigue from all my frenetic activity. I have to balance it with time for reflection, meditation, yoga, etc.

The HSS part of me manifests like this:

• Desiring to experience new things
• Wanting to travel to exotic places
• Never wanting to backtrack if possible, so I see something new always
• Being an adrenaline junkie from birth
• Experimenting with drugs
• Becoming easily bored
• Thoroughly enjoying extreme sports
• Being so restless that I move and change jobs frequently
• Wanting to meet new people often
• Have difficulty being in long term relationships
• Being unpredictable or flaky
• Avoid routines of any sort

My first memory is of launching myself off our garage roof towards a branch that was parallel to the ground, like a flying trapeze artist. I missed many, many times before finally sticking this bold move. One of those times I was in my pink bikini, pre-kindergarden, and grazed a pile of concrete blocks, ripping the ass cheek off my suit. But I knew it was possible, and I finally prevailed.

Looking back, I remember being in first grade and noticing that the men had the power. Since I had both the high sensitivity (seen as more feminine) and sensation seeking (seen as more masculine), I developed the latter and tried to hide the former. My entire life has been about trying to develop the daring, masculine side of myself. Luckily, my parents supported me and never pigeonholed me because of my gender.

In my house, there was a wonderful amount of equality (coming from a long line of feisty German feminist bitches), and I never heard the words "you can't do that because you're a girl"….until I was 9. I was playing with my cousins, who were all boys, and it was 100 degrees and 100% humidity on our farm in Indiana. Naturally we all had our shirts off. My parents pulled me aside and informed me that I needed to wear a shirt because I was a girl. I was outraged! I had already hit puberty, so it was probably a good idea, but I was pissed nonetheless.

It wasn't until my brother died 5 years ago that I saw the value and power of the feminine. I could no longer pretend to be a man with breasts that happened to be attracted to other men. Somehow, losing Luke cracked me wide open. I felt my suppressed emotions of 27 years breaking through the dam, like Lake Powell tumbling through the Grand Canyon. I gradually softened, embracing my true nature. I even made girlfriends! Lo and behold, there were other women similar to me… strong AND sensitive, bold AND feminine. Why didn't I see this before?

It's not surprising that I've been drawn to Chinese medicine, which has it's foundation in the Yin-Yang theory. Everything material has an opposite.  There is Yin within Yang, and Yang within Yin (shown as the dots, or fish eyes in the symbol). It's about finding that balance where the two are in harmony and one isn't dominating the other. They are both changing constantly, like everything in life, so it becomes a dance.

I was so Yang for most of my life, being active, aggressive, masculine, talkative, etc. But Yang cannot exist without the support of Yin, the dark, introspective, feminine, and calm. That's why my Yang collapsed and for 6 months my whole life has been Yin. My pendulum is swinging back towards the center, the equilibrium, because we cannot stop time. The clock will continue ticking away. I just need to climb higher instead of trying to hold the swing on one end. There is always an equal and opposite reaction. It is ridiculous to pretend to be something I'm not. The universe didn't make an infinite number of unique manifestations so we could try to all be the same.

Rebirth: Peeking Out of My Cocoon

I had a realization this morning… How can I expect anyone to love me unconditionally and accept me for who I am if I can't even do that for myself? How could I truly love and accept anyone else either? I'm ready to look at all my "shadow" parts that I've spent decades trying to hide and welcome them into my heart. I must reunite with myself before I can realize my oneness with the rest of the universe.

2011 has been very interesting so far. I discovered that I feel energy from rocks, gems, people and food. At first this seemed strange, like I was morphing into a super hero. But, the more I learn about quantum physics, the more I believe that everything in the universe has a certain frequency that attracts or repels us. If something feels strongly, I interpret that as my body's desire to incorporate it's vibrational frequency into my system. Somehow science has gone so deep into the understanding of existence that it's bumped into spirituality. What was once a line is now a circle, like the world going from flat to round.

I've been honing my muscle testing skills, first using my arm and mother's help, then with my own hand, then just feeling whether the energy rose and got warm or dropped and got cold in my chest. A couple days ago, I learned the body leaning method, which is amazing. If my body has a strong reaction to anything, positive or negative, I lean forward or backward with strength. I've almost fallen over a couple times, which is entertaining. As I have been rebuilding the trust I once had with my body I now ask permission before putting anything in or on me. It's like trying to communicate with a disgruntled infant. I found when I was "calibrating" my system with a truth, my body became confused. I was stating "my name is KiraZoe Deupree". Since I was Kira Marie Robinson-Long for 21 years, using either name to calibrate was confusing for my cells.

I also discovered that I'm a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP), which means that my nervous system picks up on subtleties in my environment. Apparently this hereditary trait affects 15-20% of humans and another 20% have medium sensitivity. Some close friends, my dad and I are at the far end of the spectrum. As a child I didn't get close to people easily because I didn't want to get hurt or feel too much. I had built a massive shield around me after Luke died, which made it impossible to feel anything at all, even when I wanted to.

Historically, HSPs were royal advisors, healers, philosophers, monks, and artists. Now we fit into all sorts of interesting careers, and many are self-employed. I'm half way through Elaine Aron's book "The Highly Sensitive Person" and it's totally changing my life. Everything makes so much sense now. Here are a few ways this trait manifests in my life:

• Light sensitive eyes (I get headaches from florescent lights or too much sun)
• My night vision is amazing (I've often hiked in complete darkness)
• Acute hearing (loud noises, car alarms, sirens, screaming babies, etc are disturbing)
• Other people's energy and moods affect me (often I know what they are feeling)
• If I'm close to someone, I can feel their mood/ emotions when they are far away
• I have a meticulous attention to detail and catch small mistakes
• Movies and music can make me very emotional
• I've always had difficulty falling and staying asleep
• I have a wild imagination and my mind works in pictures and poems
• Decision making is often extremely challenging
• Since I want to do everything, I end up with many unfinished projects
• I feel energy in everything and can feel Qi moving through my body
• I have ridiculous perfectionist and competitive tendencies
• Interior decorating is joyful and comes with ease
• Clutter makes me uncomfortable or very irritated
• I have a difficult time concentrating unless I'm calm and it's quiet
• Seams, tags and rough materials bother me
• I get very nervous talking in front of large groups or performing on stage
• I can't sleep with clothes on and fidget for a long time before falling asleep
• Jobs where I have to sit from 8-5 don't work for me"
• I've battled depression and addictions most of my life
• With all the overstimulation, I fried my adrenals, creating fear and anxiety from being in fight or flight mode constantly
• My body is extremely sensitive to what I put in it: alcohol, drugs, sugar, caffeine, etc
• I often get too nervous to go out or to parties, especially if I haven't been in awhile
• Nature makes me feel peaceful and I love being away from society for long periods
• If I allow myself to fall in love, I tend to fall hard
• I enjoy spending time alone reading books or being creative

I'm sure this list will continue to grow the more research I do on this trait, but so far, I'm amazed at how reframing my life through the HSP lens ties everything together. So many of my personality traits that I thought were unrelated have this thread running through them: my acutely sensitive nervous system. I've realized most of my close friends in life share this trait, because we're resonating on the same frequency and drawn together. She has a quick self-test on www.hsperson.com that will clue you in. 

While I was on my speedy frenetic train last week, I had crazy energetic exchanges as well. It started with the rocks / gems, then with food, then with people. A friend and I could feel each others' energy over great distances with such intensity it was almost as if we were one system. We were able to do some energetic healing for each other related to headaches, energy crashes, etc. One night I even did some Qigong energy healing on myself, gathering energy with my hands then holding them on my headache. The pain dissipated, being replaced by a clear, cool sensation. This just reminded me that everything in the universe is made of the same energetic fabric, all manifestations of Spirit.

I also had a visit with a bioenergetic, system-balancing fellow who incorporated homeopathic remedies and flower essences. I went in feeling depressed and having massive PMS. When I left, I felt energized and hopeful. His machine makes a closed loop with my system and measures the frequency emitting from different acupuncture points on my fingers. It was a fascinating combination of Chinese medicine, western medicine and technology. 

Since I was so bummed when I went in, the prescription my body wanted not only brought me back to life, it made me feel like I was on speed. For almost a week I was sleeping 2-5 hours a night and had the quadruple espresso jitters. Once my muscle testing became more accurate, they all failed the test. It seems there was too much overlap with my Chinese medicine formula and the homeopathic remedies. 

What was most interesting about this experiment was the feeling that my body has a switchboard hidden somewhere with a switch for each meridian system. I got to watch which switches were being fired up first and knew exactly which organ meridians were still weak. For the last 5 months, all my channels were so deficient, it was challenging to know what to work on first. It became VERY apparent last week that my Kidney channel was the weakest link, then Intestines (small & large), Lungs, Liver and Spleen. I could also read about and identify which meridians were now operating in excess. Although not advisable, this is the best way to learn Chinese medicine. I've now experienced a Yang collapse and know what it feels like to have every meridian in excess and deficiency. How helpful for my future as a health practitioner!!

Another very cool thing that happened is that I've started having intuitions about my herbal formula and Andrew is letting me run with them. This is both exciting and empowering. Twice in the last month I had a feeling that my body didn't want one ingredient in my 8-10 ingredient formula. The first time I had a hunch which one it was and when I separated everything out and tested, I was right! Fu Zi was not working anymore. This time it was the newly added Hou Po, which was for distension. We added it because when I was trying to start my cycle this month, much of my Spleen Qi was being used there and couldn't digest efficiently without some assistance. 

Last week I wanted to increase the Wu Wei Zi (Lung and Kidney tonic) and add something for depression, which was creeping back in. Last time I was in, I asked if we could add more help for my Kidneys and we tested a couple herbs. I settled on Du Zhong, which is by far the coolest herb yet. It looks like strips of bark held together with dense spider webs! The next day I managed to avoid my energy crash from 5-7 pm (when Qi is in the Kidney channel), which was amazing. If you can't hear the enthusiasm in my words, you should picture my smiling face as I pull glass jars filled with twigs, bark, roots and berries from his pharmacy and mix them together. I told him the other day that I just wanted to taste and smell everything and he replied "you're perfect for this job"…. to which I must agree.