Why the last post?

That's what Terry asked me after he read it.  I wanted to remember it.  Last night I couldn't sleep.  After 4 hours of laying in the dark room with no sleep I felt like writing.  Somethings upset me last night that initiated the sleeplessness.  And my mind being as rampant as it is went from one thought to another for the remainder of the night and into the morning.  Eventually I was led to this memory.  And there are more memories.  Hundreds more, where sound has been painful. 

It isn't sound that is loud. I can handle loud sounds that are constant.  It's quick sharp blows like gun fire, balloons popping, even the beginning of a fire works show that severely bother me.  The best way I can describe it is like being boxed in the ears.  So that firing range was like being hit in the ears over and over and over.

It's embarrassing to have moments like those.  They span beyond sound.  Reading the news, that's what got me last night, keeps me awake into the night.  Just knowing that what I read actually happened is horrid.  I can do nothing about it, nothing to help, I can only think about it.  I try to dissect what may have led to such events that have shaken my core.  If I can justify a moral beginning to the horrid ending, I'm not bothered.  It's when my mind, easily bendable and willing to mold around reasoning way outside of my own is unable to find an answer.  I'll stay awake until I can find it.  If no answer is found I hold on to the pain of the situation.  It slowly dwindles away as other times fill my mind and blot it out... but it never goes away entirely.  It will come back again, like an unresolved case. 

I have a ridiculous amount of empathy for things I can't explain why I have empathy for it.  I have a vast amount of disgust for people I've come to know whom appear to be normal to their onlookers, but do and say subtlety's keeping their agenda front and center. 

Last night, a common statement was thrown my way in response to my reaction towards the news, what someone said, and what someone did.  All three completely unrelated events but never the less, the same statement applied to my reactions I responded with to their existence:  "you're overly sensitive".  This comment is interchangeable with "you're too emotional", "it's not the end of the world",  "let it go"... any way you slice it, what is apparent is that my response is an overreaction or wrong or unwarranted.  I'm used to this reply to my reactions to stimuli.   

Being sensitive is part of who I am.  It's always been there.  I've tried to put a cap on the amount of feeling I put towards and get out of life everyday, but I simply cannot.  It's like trying to sandbag a flash flood.  Like putting a band aid on a war wound.  A pathetic attempt to put a patch on the unstoppable.

I learned last night that there is a hypervigilance trait that isn't learned. 

"highly sensitive people, who comprise about a fifth of the population, may process sensory data much more deeply and thoroughly due to a biological difference in their nervous systems." 

"regular sensory information is processed and analyzed to a greater extent, which contributes to creativity, intuition, sensing implications and attention to detail"