I am overly sensitive and have been this way since I was a child. It has made my life harder. I have trouble letting things go. I still remember our little neighbor boy who was that same age as my son. The little boy drowned in his backyard pool at age 3. I remember this every time I look at their house and every time my son has a birthday.
I can't look at my dad's house next door without feeling sad about what happened to my mother. Her simple hernia surgery turned into a nightmare. She needed 24 hour care for the next 8 1/2 years until she died. My dad took care of her by himself instead of putting her in a nursing home. He didn't tell us that he needed surgery and that lifting her and taking care of her most basic needs was making some his health issues worse. He recently had surgery and I have a very hard time seeing him in so much pain every day.
But I am most sensitive to my son's pain. How can I be happy when my son is in pain? It makes me so sad that he wakes up every morning with pain and then has to put on a brace that keeps him from being able to do anything fun with other kids. He can't even sit for more than an hour without needing to lie down because of the pain. Knowing that kids at our local school who are different in any way are bullied makes me angry. I don't know how my son would tolerate being in pain in addition to being bullied if he went to that school. It makes me angry that most of the adults I talked to in our community either don't care or they say nothing can be done about it and it happens everywhere. We even have a few bully teachers. The superintendent does nothing when people complain. We homeschool, but knowing that public school is not an option makes me a little nervous sometimes especially when our internet service is not dependable. He would be going into 9th grade in the fall if he were in public school.
I am sensitive to feeling like I can't say what I really think because I will be shunned. I am sensitive to being around people I know to be judgmental because I heard them gossiping about other people and judging them. I am sensitive to people asking me what we are doing for homeschooling as if they think I couldn't possibly be capable of homeschooling my son and then I start wondering this myself.
I am still trying to figure out how to let things go. My son is trying to help me with this. He doesn't like seeing me sad. He told me that reading things on the internet helped desensitize him and it was like "shock therapy without the electricity." He would read about horrible things that happened to other people and in comparison his life and his pain wasn't so bad. He also says he can usually find something humorous in bad things that have happened to him and he is trying to get me to look for the humor or irony in situations. He also looks for the unexpected good that sometimes goes along with the bad. He thinks I can learn to turn off my emotions just like he did and I wonder if that is really possible.
