Why am I so hyper-sensitive?
I’ve had an obscenely aggressive, blistering, intermittent rash on the backs of my hands and extremities lately. It was an exhausting medical mystery case, like an episode of House playing on a loop.
I was being tested for out-there shit like Porphyria (a vampirical blood disease that equates to evading sunshine at all costs). After a tactless pathology nurse said you’re a conundrum! with a weird disgust-delight one day, I began to laugh-cry about how poetically this all tied in with my signature thin-skinned emotional tendencies.
Luckily, those farfetched and blood tests all came back negative. The condish I’m working with now is a form of lupus, aka, a cutaneous (read: skin-related) mode of autoimmunity. My hands are confused and think the sunshine is something to throw a kicking, screaming, blistering tantrum to ultraviolet rays.
Many biopsies and misdiagnoses later and I'm happy to be on easy, effective treatment. The irony is that it’s 2020 and I’m taking the Trump-sanctioned Corona cure that is Plaquenil. I now fondly refer to it as my Trump Tablet for some comic relief. The shit works! Not for Rona, but its mystical anti-inflammatory properties have impressively calmed my volatile skin.
The rash is triggered by UV rays, so I slather SPF 50+ (Ultra Violette religiously) on my hands, face and ears religiously every AM, with rigorous re-application throughout the day. The meds I'm taking ironically make my whole body’s surface area more sensitive to UV rays, but also reduce inflammation and have totally calmed the whole sitch. This sounds really bloody dramatic but I'm actually ab-fab on the health front now. We’re in the clear. It’s all gravy.
The saga did, however, get me thinking about how hypersensitive I am to all facets of life as a 20-something singleton, spendthrift, self-sabotaging, deep-feeling female.
When I say hypersensitive, I mean physically and mentally fragile in the face of literally everything these days: the sun, shitty bedfellows, exy but sexy skincare that should work but doesn’t, penises in general (ahem, UTIs > antibiotics > antibiotics-induced thrush, all on repeat). It’s all felt quite grizzly, and I’ve tried to relinquish the down ‘n dirty dialogue in myriad personal essays or unpublished Google Docs pages.
When I was waiting for the verdict of those copious blood/urine/faecal (ha) tests, I was also waiting on an ultimatum result from the could’ve-been-lover I’d been seeing for the last six months. Safe to say, this was not my finest hour.
The rash coincided with the anti-climax of this almost relationship with a boy I prematurely muttered I love you to in a drunken haze at 2am in the bed at his beach house. To I love you, he said I am not sure. For a while, I was convinced it was a bodily rejection or physical manifestation to make up for my emotional inaction. Was it a warning sign? A primal SOS signal of the epidermal kind? Coincidences drive life, it seems.
I got (and still get) hyper-worked-up about comments my favourite humans made about the boy (and boys past) in question. I find it difficult to see a message embedded with fair assessment or well-meaning constructive criticism, because I read it as a direct attack on my hyper-romanticising, hyper-forgiveness and hyper-hope.
I fight the heartfelt feedback from friends and family like the antibodies inside of me fighting the good cells in this skin lupus. I do this with everything from dating, to work, to poor decisions on nights out. I do it to myself when I refuse to write an article as I have pre-convinced myself it will be shockingly terrible. Then, I’m told I write with authority and conviction, and I think I should really start taking my own advice.
I’m hypersensitive and hyper-destructive. Sometimes, when things are really good, I’ll conspire against myself or something I’m slightly unhinged about. If I cancel dinner on a friend and they’re a bit miffed, I’ll send a barrage of pathetic messages to confirm/deny their sudden hatred for me. I love feeling sorry for myself. I get inconsolable, transfixed and irrationally obsessed with ideas of people hating me, judging me or rejecting me.
I think sometimes I’m so scared of betrayal. Our bodies, lovers and hopes can be the most brilliant and vital forces in our world, and yet with that comes the power to cause the most unravelling.
I’ve tried to ignore my neurotic mind and allergy-prone body, but it’s left me feeling feeble and unbalanced. I want to feel sure of myself and strong in this very able body and mind I’ve been given. I want to rehearse gratitude and those idyllic morning manifestation-in-front-of-the-mirror moments flogged on TikTok and self-care Instagram pages. I want to have a chat to my immune system over a wine and just talk things out or call a truce.
I peed in a cup today for what feels like the zillionth time this year. Helloooo Gen. Sorry to be the bearer of shitty news… was how a text message started from a new but now cancelled dating interest. The gorgeous man informed me he was informed that someone he used to see was informed she had indeed tested posi to chlamydia.
No fucking way. Can I come off the battlefield for just one red hot sec to catch my breath, guzzle some Gatorade down and pep myself up again before the next brush with tumult? Why does my body go on strike when I’ve only just managed to talk my head down and give something new a go? (Future, mid-edit version of me jumping back in here to declare these tests came back negative. Huge win).
I catastrophise, dramatise and blow things way out of proportion. I’m often the most pissed off at myself, even when the ones I love are disappointed in me. I am my own biggest critic, my own worst enemy, my own barrier to success, health, love and happiness. In calm waters, I’ll clamber off the boat and rock it myself, just for something to do. It’s better than sitting still and staying on the one, monotonous, constant, boring trajectory.
Sometimes, I think I’d get away with my sensitivities if I was more reticent. If I could only just keep my feelings to myself and sift them and distinguish between overreactions and switch my social media off before digging myself deeper in a drama hole.
When these feelings acquire minds of their own and grow legs and run away from me, I’m always left feeling anxious, out of control and physically sick. But then, I remember It’s also good to have feelings. All my hyper-awareness, observations and overreactions are who I am. They’re a heart-on-my-sleeve type of tragedy and trademark. They even dictate how I write and they’ve granted me some of the most wildest-of-dreams opportunities.
Yesterday involved a 10am call with VOGUE and a 2pm chlamydia test. If that’s not an accurate reflection of my high-low tendencies, I don’t know what is. When VOGUE reached out to gauge my interest/avail in some potential writing last week, I was in an Uber home from a date night that left me feeling incredibly low, uncertain of myself and anxious.
It was because of a prior personal essay that they got in touch, and for a tight juncture I felt my eyes swell in the sheer elation, disbelief and awe at the way our perceived flaws can be our most precious, defining traits. The universe works in wild and fucked-up ways, and while everything doesn’t happen for a reason, I think it always happens for a lesson.
For all the downsides to being this porous, I’m growing to accept it, listen to it, lean into it and even celebrate it. For all the times I’ve wished there was a nightly tablet for neurotic overthinking, I’m beginning to question if I’d swallow it down or slip it under my sleeve like a stubborn and senile aged-care resident.
Maybe with enough refinement and some practice of perspective, sensitivity can be sexy, too.
Words — Genevieve Phelan
