Tense situation- cry
Unexpected tense situation- the whole week is ruined
Boyfriend makes a mean joke- how do I tell him that I want to be alone for the next 48 hours now
Person percieved as authority is being direct- cry
A man is giving constructive critisism- cry because men are a little scary
Mean customer service worker- why does this person hate me specifically, I feel hurt (I know they’re probably tired)

EXHAUSTING. It has been like this since preschool.

School has always been a nightmare for me. Being around people for so long and always expected to be doing something was too much and I hated it. I cried multiple times a day from the first day to the last. I'm in university now and although it's not stress free, it's great that I can do everything alone in my room and my nervous system can get a bit of a break.

I'm graduating in 2 years and I know I should be getting my first job soon, but I keep putting it off because I'm afraid it'll be a nightmare. It's going to be the same thing as school. Constant interactions and expectations with no time to breathe or recover. I'm afraid that no matter what kind of job I'll get it will eventually overwhelm me to the point where I will kill myself.

I know this isn't just an HSP thing, I also have anxiety and depression (formally diagnosed), but I think being HSP is the root of all my mental health issues and I hope someone here can give me some advice. I'm starting therapy in a month or so but I'm not sure if that's enough. I don't know what to do, how do I protect myself from the outside world without isolating myself completely?

Hey y’all! As a newly identified HSP, I wanted to see if anyone else had this type of experience before. I’ve always been very sensitive to textures, scents, and noises; recently, I had a huge panic attack and couldn’t think straight after getting nail glue on my fingers because the feeling just freaked me out so much. I know that physical sensitivity is a part of HSP, but I wasn’t sure if this was something normal ish given that it seems like a lot of what people talk about is more sensory overload in loud/chaotic environments (which to be fair, I also understand lol). Lmk what y’all think!

I run my hands through the sand. This soft, gentle, fine sand that feels warm to the touch. This sand that came from hard, unyielding, firm rocks and slowly grinded over months, years. This same sand that we then heat up and turn into glass. That we blow into, shape, cut, rub into windows, lenses, glasses, into tinted pieces that we then turn into art. Our world makes no sense without it, a window into the beautiful, a gazing into the real using the rocks that inhabit our world. We live inside of it and it lives inside of us.

I lean back on my chair on the sweet delicious night and my arm outstretches across the sky attempting to grasp the beautiful little white dots that spread out across it. Giant balls of fire, gods we called them, we gave them human faces, we gave animal faces, we described their rotation as it caressed our surface with its gentle rays as a fight, an endless struggle between good and evil, as a stance between the death of night and the birth of life. It is so massive, our blue marble fights with all its strength to survive one more day, one more moment in its presence, in its warmth, in its light. If not, only darkness and silence remains. As it holds and caress with one hand, it also aims to destroy, to purge, to exterminate relentlessly, involuntarily, anything that stands in its way and isnt ready for it. It blasts eruptions into space scorching surfaces, blasting planets without their consent, vaporizing oceans, eating atmospheres, blasting radiation without warning poisoning everything in sight. And we fight back, as the blasts echoes across our surface we watch the resulting green strips of light across the sky and gaze at the beauty.

I look into my telescope, I stare into the emptiness, cold of space. This is where we originate... perhaps an icy rock from the kuiper belt, perhaps a piece of mars that collided with us. It matters not. Every single one of us. Every microbe, every insect, every jellyfish, every human originated from... out there... out from the cruel void of space. And we found home perhaps by chance, perhaps by circumstances, we evolved... slowly... survived the world catastrophes, to be here today. What a beautiful thought to be here, now, every one of us a testament to our resilience, to our refusal to let it end.

I lay my body across the grass and I feel her... i feel her heart beating beneath my feet, in the warmth of the soil, the gentle grazing of the grass she allowed to grow, to thrive for us, for all of us. As i walk bare foot in the soil, in the roots of the tr⁰ees, i feel her voice reach into my heart and guide me step by step, piece by piece. She is our mother and we are her children. We ve hurt her, cut her, made holes in her, took her for granted, and she continues shielding us, keeping us safe where everything wants us dead.

I want to say thank you mother for giving us such a chance to be alive now... maybe not forever, maybe just for a little while. For us to see, feel, taste, smell this beautiful little alcove that we needed. A beautiful world... just for me, just for you, just for all of us.

A Lighter Way

I cannot carry
every heart.

The weight
would stop us both.

But perhaps
I can leave
a small lantern

beside the road.

A thought.

A poem.

A gentler way
to see.

Then each traveler

may set down
one unnecessary stone,

and continue

a little lighter

than before.

I’m 18F ever since I could remember my RBF has always made people misunderstand me at first it started when I was like 11 years old and people would give me weird looks or act weird towards me I thought maybe I was too ugly but prior to that that kind of thing never happened.

Until people started asking me why I look angry all the time and it made me sad cause i genuinely wasn’t even when I tried to smile or soften my expression it barely made any difference and I’ve recently adopted a mindset that most people are too shallow to see beyond the surface but I can’t stop thinking about all the opportunities or experiences I could have had if I didn’t come off as stuck up or angry all the time.

I would like to hear anybody else’s experience with this if you can relate