Fighting and Me - Where I am Currently At

Where to start...?

Well, l'm a girl of slight build weighing no more than 125 lbs.

I've been a physically weak person most of my life, and a large part of the reason why boils down to two parts:

1) I'm sensitive.

2) My family taught me not to fight back.

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I have not, as yet, been diagnosed with any personality disorders, but from doing my own research and taking the “Are You a Highly Sensitive Person?” test by Dr. Elaine Aron, it is possible that I am a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP).

In the test provided by Dr. Elaine Aron (found at https://hsperson.com/are-you-highly-sensitive/), it is generally agreed that if you answer the yes or no questions as specified, and have a total score above 14, you are regarded as a HSP . There is a caveat, that even if you score under 14, you can still be defined as a HSP, according to how intense your experiences are in the questions you responded to. After taking this test, I discovered how sensitive I was: My score was 23.

The definition of a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) is more general than concrete, however, it essentially boils down to this: an HSP is generally sensitive to stimuli and emotions on a deeper level than the average human being, and possesses a higher perception skill when compared to others. They tend to get overwhelmed by loud noises, several tasks that need to be completed within a short amount of time, and violent movies or tumultuous life situations. HSPs are also deeply moved by artistic expressions - All of these definitions might not apply to all HSPs, but they all apply to me.

I didn’t know what a Highly Sensitive Person was growing up - in fact, emotional health was not a term I knew growing up. The first time I heard anything related to emotional health was in the mid 2010s, and the first time I heard about HSPs was during the COVID-19 Pandemic - way after I could have benefited from any books or news articles as a child.

I also haven't done any medical testing, but I SWEAR that I have more nerves per inch of skin than the average person.

I have had a low pain tolerance ever since I could remember: Any medical procedure felt like open surgery. Even small things like ear cleanings, using a tongue depressor to check my throat - vaccines were terrible. I once dislocated my left pointer finger when I was handling my horse in high school, and I was so shocked I touched it - it snapped right back, and for over two weeks, I felt the pain from that.

Perhaps some of this sensitivity is mentally based - I have overcome a LOT of mental hang-ups in the last 5-6 years of my life, as I was able to register that getting stung by a wasp now, is VERY different than getting stung when I was child. When I was a child, the pain was very sharp, and lingered for several days. As an adult, the initial pain was there, but I managed to continue the work I was doing when it happened, and even forgot the pain a couple days later. I suppose some of the pain I experience in life is enhanced by the memory of past bad experiences.

Past experiences include remembering that I was sore and could barely walk for 2 weeks the first time I did long-distance track in High School. No matter how easy and fulfilling it became after those two weeks, I still believe that the literal tearing of your muscles to make them stronger is a special kind of torture. It’s no wonder that I didn’t break any bones, or seriously injure myself in any way - I wasn’t willing to risk prolonged pain.

And this leads to the second issue: My Family.

I know not every family is perfect - I know NOW that my family was not out to punish me at every chance they could find.

But as a child who was sensitive to many kinds of stimuli, it often FELT like they were.

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I am the youngest of three girls.

You would think that being in this position, I would have been brought up as the prized, babied, pampered, youngest child. But I was not.

My mother suffered under a broken family - she has held onto that trauma like a “Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free” card, embracing that she is a victim of poor treatment, and demanded for a long time that others respect her needs. My Father was a man who thought my mother could be “calmed down enough” so that they would have the wonderful marriage he always wanted.

Funnily enough, he was wrong - and she didn’t take birth control. He stayed in that marriage for just over 20 years so that he could be there for his children. But in reality, my mother was often not in a frame of mind to parent or be a supportive spouse - There is some understanding, because she was raising three hyperactive girls who were all within 4 years of age of each other - I am sure she was at her wits’ end, trying to wrangle all three of us day in and out.

But we were children, who needed guidance and love - and we girls rarely got either of those things.

You see, my parents often removed themselves from us girls to “figure things out” - most of time, it resulted in my mother shouting at my dad for hours, just to get some comfort, or apologies for our bad behavior, or - SOMETHING.

I can feel a quiet rage dancing in my heart writing this out. I was a child, who made a lot of mistakes growing up, and when it upset my mother, I wasn’t allowed to explain myself. I wasn’t allowed to ask for mercy. If I talked back, my mother would yell at me - something truly very frightening for a Highly Sensitive Person.

And you would think that somehow abuse would bring the victims together - that my sisters and I would give love and support to each other in the absence of supportive parents.

But if you’ve never been shown what love is, especially as a child, you can’t really give it to someone.

I feel like my childhood often seemed like the wild west - you were grateful when you weren’t the one in trouble. And you would do everything in your power to stay invisible from that scorn.  So it literally was every person for themself in that house.

And occasionally, us girls would fight - not my oldest sister, she’s not physically gifted in any regard. But my middle sister and I fought about things - and a couple times, when we were preteens, we actually physically fought each other.

My middle sister is the most physically gifted of all three of us - not only would she beat me up, but for some reason, it felt personal. I now have an idea of why (not my story, so I won’t go into that) - but as a child, who again, is Highly Sensitive, she would not only end fights, but physically demonstrate that she could be the only winner of a physical fight.

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To this day, I am afraid of this person.
For a long time, I was shown time and again that I should not, and cannot, fight back.
That fighting back only brought severe punishment and pain.
That fighting back didn’t solve problems - it only made them worse.

And as a result of that, I didn’t play physically demanding contact sports - I played basketball occasionally, and soccer, and softball. But no sports which required full body contact.
I even went so far as to label these types of contact sports as “consensual assault”.

And the only way I am going to overcome these issues so I can recreationally fight, is through changing my mindset - which I will talk about in my next post.

XOXOX