This Is What Happens When You Believe You’re Broken
I finally understood my addictions when I acknowledged my sensitivity
One day, when I was in high school, my mother and I were arguing in the car when she said something I struggled to let go of for years: “You’re so sensitive.”
Her words set me off because she had a point.
Why did I get angry so much? Why was I so hurt by even mild jokes made at my expense at school? Why did it seem like I was the only one who felt this way, whose emotions would rise and fall? I cried a lot, and beat myself up in private, literally ranted out loud to myself, got into yelling matches with my parents, didn’t seem to fit in when we visited extended family, and didn’t fit in anywhere.
My mom’s comment had burrowed its way into my consciousness, and would reemerge like the gopher in Caddyshack, refusing to die no matter how much I tried to bash it or blow it up.
It was clear: whatever was going on, whatever word I used, I was definitely tuned differently than other people. It was as if I were a television that had been tuned wrong and the colors were more intense to look at—it was hard for others to be around me, and it was even harder for me to be around me.
