10.22.2008

She's So Sensitive!

I have many memories of hearing (through my tears) the accusation that I was "too sensitive".  In adulthood, I grew to accept this as one of my weaknesses.  I worked on overcoming it.  

Until I spent the night on a friend's couch and picked up her copy of Raising Your Spirited Child and read the chapter on sensitivity.  I was looking for insights regarding my son, but found that I was recognizing myself in what I read.  And what I read was empowering.  Being sensitive, it turns out, is not a bad or wimpy thing or the result of some inability to develop a better characteristic.  It is an innate heightened perception of, and usually reaction to, sensory information.  You can't help it and it isn't bad, it's just the way you are.  

That means for me that the downside is the time I was unable to fight back tears of frustration in an important professional meeting.  But the upside is that my ability to perceive others' emotions and intentions from subtle cues in their voices, facial expressions, and body language enables me to connect easily with and work really well with others.  Which translates to the time I was able to successfully mediate a huge conflict between colleagues.  
For other sensitive people I know*, the downside may be an inability to let go of slight imperfections and inconsistencies and just efficiently finish that household project.  But the upside is excelling in perceiving, diagnosing, and fixing imperfections and inconsistencies in any type of mechanical system. Which translates to being a damned fine engineer who catches little things that no one else does and saves the day.  

And for my son, the downside is being overwhelmed by loud noises, such as the Sesame Street Live performance we tried unsuccessfully to go to.  But the upside is being the only kid in class who hears everything going on in the room and notices where everyone and everything is. Which translates to being the only one that notices the child that didn't receive her milk at snack time or remembers that so-and-so's shoes are under the slide outside.  

So, as it turns out, we are a sensitive family.  No doubt genetics played a large part here! And that means that we are more likely to get on each other's nerves and to need strategies for protecting ourselves from the onslaught of sensory information that we have a hard time not noticing.  

And we are fortunate that our sensitivities are not too broad and too intense. But what would it be like if they were?  I read an amazing article in the October 19th New York Times Magazine about an experimental school that is making gains with autistic teens.  The passage that struck me was this:

A child born at risk of an (Autism Spectrum Disorder) has cognitive and sensitivity issues that inhibit engagement. Pleasures enjoyed by a typical baby can upset him: a mother’s face seems too close, so the infant cranes away; the father’s tickles may produce fear reflexes rather than laughter. Meanwhile the sunlight is burning his eyes, the diaper scrapes his skin and the baby begins avoiding interaction with people at the cost of normal brain development.

It is incredibly sad and fascinating to think about this scenario.  Extreme sensitivity would lead a child to withdraw in an effort to protect itself, which would lead to a lack of reward for parents who tried to interact with the child in the normal way, which sets up a downward spiral of increasing detachment between them.  The child would lack the normal physical and emotional stimuli that lead to intellectual stimulation and proper development because of the lack of interaction.  And there is no way for anyone to recognize that this is what is going on at first.  By the time the adults become sure that something is truly amiss, critical periods of development have already passed by.  And, as the author states:

I begin to picture the brain metaphorically as a tangled ball of Christmas lights. When you plug it in, there are strands that light up perfectly and there are dark zones where a single burned-out bulb has caused a line to go out. If the bulb for Exchanging-Smiles-With-Mother doesn’t light up, then Empathy won’t be kindled farther along the strand, or Playfulness, or Theory of Mind (the insight that other people have different thoughts from yours). The electrical current won’t reach the social-skill set, the communication skills, creativity, humor or abstract thinking.

The exciting news is that even later in life, this school has helped autistic teens become more socially and emotionally connected to others, primarily through emphasizing intense interaction with the adults around them.  If only we could understand the cause of extreme sensitivity in the first place and lower it somehow.  Or at least recognize it and intervene as early as possible.  

And, if only we were more understanding of the normal human spectrum of sensitivity and could appreciate it's upsides more than we admonish people for its downsides.  

The next time I am accused of oversensitivity, I think I will (tearfully) reply, "Yes, I'm thankful for the gift".  

*am married to 

10.21.2008

So Much Time, So Little To Do...

How is it possible that it is only 5:24 pm and I am able to sit and relax and blog while the sun still shines dappled light between autumn leaves in my front yard and I still feel mentally alert? How is it possible that I was able to leave work the minute it is supposed to end, drive to a salon and sit in a massage chair catching up on reading, happily waiting 30 minutes until they could squeeze me in for a pedicure?  How is it possible that after that I still had time to buy a few groceries I needed and check out a bakery I've been wanting to check out and buy some treats for myself? And that I know that after blogging, I will still be able to check my email, do some laundry, pay the bill, read some more, and finish a rental movie I started last night before I hit the sack?  

Yes, you guessed it.  They are out of town.  

I have the house and my brain to myself for the next 8 days.  It's amazing to me how just knowing that fact alters my psyche, and outlook, so much.  

Driving away from work, I remember thinking "I've got 7 or 8 hours until I need to go to bed. Wow.  What all can I do?" Usually, I'm thinking "Ugh, I've got to rush around to do errands, pick him up, get home, deal with snack/mood, make dinner for everyone, eat, do the bed/bath routine thing, and maybe I'll get 30-60 minutes to myself after that before bed, but that might get sucked up by domestic business or I'll be too tired to enjoy it or make productive use of it. Let me just survive tonight and every other night and make it to the weekend".  

Now I've gotta figure out how to more often find a happy medium between these two extremes when they get back.  How do you do it?  

10.10.2008

Using Up Sick Time

After confirming what I already knew was true, that I have a virus kicking my ass that I can't do anything about, my doctor asked me what my job was and was anyone sick in my house? He laughed in pity when I answered that I'm a teacher and I have a 2 year old who goes to daycare and gave me that look that said this will continue to be my reality for a while.

On the bright side, being home sick has allowed me to catch up on politics and culture by reading Time and Newsweek and watching video snippets on my laptop. We don't have TV hooked up, so what to veg out to when you're sick? I've been watching a bunch of Daily Show, Colbert Report, and Oprah clips.

The fact that I haven't blogged in a while is a good indicator of my life right now. It means I haven't had much time for myself, or that which I have had has been when I'm too tired and fuzzy to be creative or bother to want to express myself. I think up posts all the time, but they don't get executed.

Had a long talk with my sister today. She recently embarked on SAHM-hood with 2 kids (maternity leave turned into resigning). I recently resumed being a WM (after summer break). We analyzed it from every angle. They both suck. We're both exhausted all the time. We both get nothing done. We both are barely trying to get by most days. 

We're going to track it over the next few months, but so far it's a tie.