To the “snowflakes”, like me…

Helloo to the curious and curiouser,

I am so sorry I have not been writing as much lately I have been rather busy with work as well as with some of my extracurriculars. I read something the other day on the book of face (Facebook for the literally inclined) and I decided today I would try to write to my own experience with it. It was a post about sensitivity and how it can be a “blessing and a curse” I personally now think it to be less a weakness but more of a strength.

So sometimes people who are deeply sensitive or outwardly passionate about other’s rights are called “snowflakes”, I suspect this is not something new to many of you, or perhaps all two of you who read my blog, but I would like to state I pretty much fall into what people generally would consider to be a participant of this group of individuals. I am sure that many of you have heard or read this before but I wanted to write to my own experience of what this means, for me; I have been told I was “too sensitive” for a large portion of my life and had honed the skill of hardening myself for what I learned to be “real life”. I recently had a deeply visceral response to this seemingly insignificant post and I thought I would try to articulate my own experience and I hope that perhaps it may help someone else to understand the ferocity, complexity and need to hone and honour the oft misunderstood  necessity for sensitivity, especially in our current times.

Growing up I was regularly told I was too sensitive, I cried over just about everything. I had deep difficulty regulating my emotions: when I was sad I cried, when I was frustrated I cried, when I was happy I cried… you get the picture… my family should have invested in Kleenex when I was young. I felt things very deeply and wholly with every fiber of my being. To be completely honest I still tend to feel things at a very visceral level, I have for the most part learned to regulate my emotions and feelings. I took the actions of others to heart and more often than not it made me quite upset.

I eventually got to a point in my life where I was so sensitive and empathetic it became detrimental for me. People in my family would no longer invite me to funerals or would shy away from telling me “sensitive” information for fear of my reaction.  I tend to always be an optimist and generally believe that people are inherently good and kind. I know there are exceptions to this rule but I do also believe that all behaviours have meaning and it is not always up to me to fully understand them. I believe my family did this as they were trying to protect me, and for that intention I am appreciative. The one thing I will say is us “snowflakes” don’t really need to be protected in such a manner. Just because I may cry, does not mean that I am incapable of understanding complex and challenging subjects nor does it mean that we should not know.

The one thing that I did not learn until much, much later in my life is that tears are and can be healing. I’m going to say it again for those in the back… TEARS ARE HEALING. When we cannot cure, we can continue to care; sometimes so deeply that the emotions we feel spill out of us without warning. Tears sometimes come in fits and spurts and more often than not, they can come in unexpected tsunamis, waves that help us to make sense of the chaos of living and dying. Sometimes we need to let the tears fall uninterrupted and wash over us like being caught in a thunderstorm. Crying is not a sign of weakness. It is often a sign that we have been spending so much of our time and energy trying to remain “strong”. I now cry when I feel I need to. I have begun to trust my body and self and learn to decipher what I am crying for. I do sometime hamper my tears until more appropriate times to let them fall. Sometimes this is in my car on the way home from work, or in the med room, or when I watch tv.

My husband often asks me why I watch shows that make me cry, “how can watching something that makes you cry every episode be enjoyable?” Well, thanks to shows like Grey’s Anatomy and This is Us, I cry harder than one may expect at home in a safe environment because maybe today I walked a family through what their loved one may be experiencing as they die. Crying when telling them this process and feeling their palpable grief is not really most appropriate time to let ’em fly. Maybe today I just I just remembered one of my patient’s voices echoing off of the walls of the hospice filling it with love and joy for one of the last times. Maybe I am thinking of the patient in the bed that is asking to die because they are hurting from something that no medication I can advocate for will touch; but, when I sat with them and they talked about how they met their husband they glowed and forgot about their hurt for just a moment. I watch shows that remind me to find the beauty in the chaos and the pain. I find a sacredness in the suffering and sorrow and I find joy and happiness in sweet release for many of the people who I have had the honour of caring for.

I cry often. I am deeply, unapologetically and fiercely sensitive and I am choosing to wear this like my heart on my sleeve. I will no longer listen to people say sensitivity is a weakness or a lack of anything, it is a profound human quality that we need to learn to revere and trust. We need more “snowflakes”, because the world can be hard, cruel and unfair and the “snowflakes” help us to remember the beauty of our humanity. We need to speak up and fight for those who cannot fight for themselves and when they can, we need to step to the side, support and let them speak with their no longer hushed voices.

So stay sensitive, be in tune with who you are and what you feel you need. Please also stay strong in your convictions and fight for the things you know are right and just, even if others cannot see help lead them to the truths. Be flexible enough to continue to always learn, when you know better, do better.

As ALWAYS thank you so much for taking the time to read my blog and hopefully I will be having some more time to get updating it more frequently. Please comment if there is anything specifically you would like for me to write about…

Until next time…xo.