I read this article a few days ago about how HSPs sometimes feel like weeds HSP Health: A Plant In The Right Place.
It's true. I've spent most of my life feeling like a weed, a bother, a weirdo, an inconvenience for everyone else.
As I read this article, I began thinking about how sad it is that I've lived the majority of my life feeling like this. For what? For only being the best I can be, being myself. As I've been discovering about my highly sensitive traits and what that means for my life and how it makes me different than others, I've realized that I feel like a weed because in general, that is how most of the world has treated me for most of my life.
I see this happening with my children too. For example, in their karate class (this is the last time I'll bring this up, I promise), their instructor seems okay at first. He's friendly, makes some good points about parenting and child growth and development. But somewhere along the way I see through his facade. I see that my awareness exceeds his teaching abilities.
It's the way that he told not only me and my children what he thinks of us and my parenting, but the whole entire class of both students and parents; how he never fails to mention and publicly praise what I call the "easy" children. The ones who are in his eyes, perfect. The ones who he claims "work hard" and are "respectful". Maybe to him. But that's not what I see.
I see these"easy" children as the kids that make the karate instructor's life and work easier. They make him look good because they conform to him without any questions asked. I don't know about you, but that's not the way that I want to raise my children. Questions should be asked until I feel like I'm going to pull my hair out and then some.
But in all honesty, how many of us have or have had "relationships" like that? Where the people around you aren't really the people you truly like, they just make you look good. My kids aren't bad kids but I have trouble not resenting the karate instructor (my issue, I know) for dismissing people only because they are different. Only because for whatever reason they don't do things the way that others do them.
The amount of times this has happened to me and now my children are too great to count. That's what most people do in this world and I'm not a fan of it. But it is the reason why that some people grow up through life thinking that they are weeds. When your teachers, parents, and any adult who you are supposed to look up to for guidance on life treat you like you're "wrong" or "bad", that is the message that you deeply ingrain into your core being. That you are "wrong" or you are "bad".
But what if people who were different from us weren't actually the problem? What if the problem was that we grew up thinking life was to be lived only one way?
The next time someone scares you, offends you, upsets you, does something you simply do not understand, take a moment and really think about your next move. Are you going to start hating simply because you don't understand and are afraid? Or are you going to explore your strong emotions and have some consideration for someone living his or her life the best that he or she can?
