Thank you so much all for your kind insights and comments. And thanks for not judging me and also for being nice. I value that and its not something I get often except from my husband and my circle of close friends.

For those of you that can't drink, I say you are SO lucky! And I am so jealous -- if there was a procedure I could do to remove that part of my brain that wants to shut down, I would gladly undergo it. But I really appreciate your input anyway.



NG, I've tried to explain this to my psychiatrist -- I drink when I'm really happy and when I'm really down -- but you put it into words I haven't been able to: high intensity of being.

I'm not manic, but I know I'm really intelligent (in HS I scored a 145 on an IQ test) and highly intuitive, and very talented in art. But, this has weighed heavily on me since childhood where my parents never acknowledged any of my talents and actually never let me have my own voice. So feeling bad is scary but feeling good is especially scary for me.



Grace: I also feel like this. Although I love my parents, I realize they are extremely dysfunctional when it comes to social situations ... especially my mom. Now that I'm an adult I think she has the social skills of a 16 year old with an attention deficit issue. And its all negative, all about negative. Frankly I'm surprised (and grateful) my parents are still together after almost 45 years ... not sure how my Dad does it, but they love each other apparently. But they were very controlling of me and I grew up having no sense of self. No privacy, no sense that my body was my own, no sense that my art was my own, and no recognition that I was always the best artist in my school.

I will write on this more in the next few days, but I especially want to thank Grace, who is new, for sharing so much. That's so brave of you!

cheers!

In a way, I envy people who can drink and go into oblivion. I have no escape: drugs, drink, nothing. I am 'on' all the time: sensible, careful, grown up Katerina. Always there, 'good old Katerina'. How boring. How dull and routine.

Where do I escape to? I suppose into writing stories, when I have time and energy, but that isn't often.

How I'd love to be exciting, fun, careless, not worrying about everything, but I suppose I wouldn't be an HSP then.

I used to binge drink about twice a week on average, and I'm trying to stop completely.

Hi Nucky, good for you on trying to quit. Do you have any thoughts on whether your sensitivity feeds the urge to binge? I'm trying to quit too. Seeing a psychiatrist to understand why I drink and changing my depression/anxiety meds has helped somewhat but it has also dredged up feelings that make me feel worse -- I guess its a no pain no gain situation.

If you want to PM me, please free. This topic may be too personal to share with others.

Cheers.

Paintedbird, I can relate to alcohol helping HSPs to feel "normal". Especially in my younger days, and was a party animal.. lol... I drank with the gang . Also off and on at other times in my life.. I have found the key is to feel really good so that you don't want to drink. In other words, meditation, eating healthy, exercise ... whatever it takes to help you feel GOOD. The older I get (I'm now in my 60's) and the healtier I get the less desire I have to drink.. I now only drink socially.. at family get-togethers, holidays etc. and then not too much. I have lost most of my desire for it. Hope this helps. Feel free to PM me if you like.

Katy

Yeah, the trick for me is learning to feel good without drinking. I just liked the instant good feeling in a can.

Goodness! I'm reading Elaine Aron's book at the moment and just finished the chapter about healing the wounds and now I found this thread. Grace, you just wrote spot on how I feel about my childhood and upbringing! And how interesting to read about all the different ways to handle our sensitivities. I used to drink more when I was younger. I actually think I have developed some kind of allergy to alcohol. I can't drink much at all before my nose gets stuffed up and I start sneazing. Today I drink much more seldom and try to enjoy it wisely avoiding the bingdrinking I used to do when younger. Some friends think I'm weird that don't drink a lot, some don't care. Interesting.

Grace, is it ok if I PM you and ask more?

Have a wonderful day everyone!

Drink..yes it was a great crutch for me, in social settings anyway.

Neither of my parents had drinking problems, though alcohol was always available
once we came of age. Not actively encouraged at home, but out and about, yes.

For me I think the lack of nurture as a child led to my lack of self esteem, and ability to feel OK and normal. Seeking love from outside, rather than dealing with my own lack of self love was the
drive to meet men, and in that experience, drink played a big part.

Unsuprisingly I got into some bad places, and hence the rape. That horrible feelng of "going away" I know only too well, as it is dissociation, caused by the rape experience. Its only raised its head in the last few years, and am learning to deal with it, with the help of my lovely therapist.

Drink? I probably drink about 3 - 4 glasses a week, if that. Sometimes none at all.

Its just how life is.

I'm a super newb who just found out about HSP's (and that I am one), my Undervalued Self, and this site all within the past month. Talk about alignment of the planets of self-discovery!

I saw this thread and HAD to respond. So many of your comments really resonated with me, especially when nittygritty first said - and Paintedbird reiterated the point - that they/we drank to tune down the high-intensity of being.

My preferred “poison” is actually marijuana. I seem to have an extreme sensitivity to alcohol - especially hard alcohol - and get violently sick if I have more than a few drinks. I think that's why I prefer weed. What's interesting, though, is I'm one of the most conscientious pot smokers, you've ever seen.

The main point I’d like to make in all this is I feel like over time and my personal development, I realized I started self-medicating with weed to turn off or escape from my neuroses so I wouldn’t have to deal with myself. But, over time the more that I matured and grew, the less it became about my neuroses and the more it became about – to NG’s point - tuning down my high-intensity of being.

Am I aware of the fact that this isn’t good for me? Absolutely. But, somehow this habit has become sort of a security blanket that I can always count on to turn everything off so I can relax. All I can say, paintedbird, is that I think self-awareness helps. I also think that we should never stop trying to improve on ourselves. Maybe neither one of us is ready to completely stop our habitual behavior b/c it’s still serving a purpose in our lives – for good or ill.

Like others have said in this thread, I suspect our bad habits may decrease when we start enjoying being sober – or I prefer to use the word balanced – more than we enjoy the habitual behavior. The thing to keep in mind is all of this is a process, and we can’t progress toward our best versions of ourselves without learning some things the hard way, and making mistakes. But the point is we keep trying.

Welcome to Tribe, Belluna. Please explore the many threads on these forums that will help expand and enhance your understanding of the HSP trait and what to do with it. Feel free to comment or start new conversations.

Thank you for your candid and spot-on remarks in this discussion.

Drugs of all sorts are actually used by most members of society to quell neuroses, calm down, relax, have recreational fun, et al. For better or worse. Moderate use can be valuable but we know damage from overuse and abuse is legend. Walking that fine line is the trick. I think it is not good to overly rely on a drug, which is the first level of the spiral of addiction and evasion of responsibility for one's own life. It's important to have other options too to deal with one's life difficulties. There are many paths: meditations, physical and breathing exercises, spirituality, positive relationships, etc, that can help greatly with keeping one's balance. You probably know all this already. Yes, keep trying. Once you have the awareness you may stumble but you cannot go back. Many of us take three steps forward but fall back two (or even three temporarily).