61st post

highly sensitive

Apparently this Highly Sensitive Person thing is something of a movement. I spotted the book on a bookshelf at Times Bookstore a little while ago and had one of those amazing moments of self-revelation, you know, when suddenly you realize that you're not completely odd, you're actually really O.K. It must be something like when a Trekkie first sets foot inside a WorldCon, and they realize there are lots of people out there just like them.

The book itself is stocked with a fair proportion of dreck, but there's enough bullseyes in it that it goes a long way in explaining a lot of things about me, my husband, and about Milo, my little 'odd, shy, boy'. If the HSP thing has any validity in it, Milo and Daniel are both lodged firmly in that 20% of people with low stimulation thresholds (I'm slightly less sensitized!).

I've just started the Highly Sensitive Child book, where the proportion of dreck to substance is somewhat more bearable. One thing it points out is that HSC's end up having a much better time of it when their parents let them just be the way they are, rather than trying to get them to fit into some of the preconcieved standards that parents do carry around with them. But it's such a relief, so many of the things we've seen him do over the last two and a half years actually make sense now. It's such a relief to be able to stop thinking of him as flawed; he just has a different set of reactions to things is all.

So this morning I spoke to Milo's carer at nursery and she mentioned how Milo, at break time, just sat by himself and ate his snack, while all the other kids went running around. As a parent, you'd like your kid to have friends, to be popular, to get some exercise at least. But I have embraced some of the book's viewpoints, that that's the way he is, the way he needs to be, it's what makes him happy, and he's actually taking care of his needs. Wanting to eat lunch alone isn't a fatal flaw, it's not something that needs to be fixed, it's just part of what makes him him.

Then I hung up the phone so I could go to lunch myself. Alone, like I've done nine days out of ten for the past 20 years. I got out of my office full of people and out into the streets where I could carve some quiet space within the street noise and let myself breathe a little. I've always thought I should really eat lunch with my co-workers more, for years I've felt odd that I'm not going to lunch with somebody every single day, organizing these large, cumbersome fleets of people to go to some spot to eat together, or even staying in--they're all hobnobbing in the common pantry over their nasi bungkus while I'm Audi 5000!

And then it hit me, with the subtlety of a piano dropping onto my head. There I was, doing exactly the same thing Milo was, thirty-three years apart but on the same day. And you know what? I realized that if it was OK for Milo (or Daniel for that matter) to want to eat his lunch alone, it was probably OK for me to do it too.

It's nice not to be flawed. It really is. It's also nice to know that somebody close to you is not-flawed in almost exactly the same way you are.