Can I overcome sensitivity?

[Ruby]

I feel that I am unusually sensitive and sometimes unusually insensitive. I think the things that really do matter to me which I am sensitive to substitute the things that don't matter to me. It's weird but I guess for something to matter so much, something else has to not matter at all for me. For instance, I am sensitive to my own pain and I can't stand seeing others in pain (it can make me sad, scared or squeemish depending on what's involved) but I don't feel anything if someone dies.

Dying isn't such a problem or issue to me since the person or animal no longer has to go through anything. I don't think I've had such an emotional connection with people who did die (even family and pets) for it to be such a big deal. If my favourite person (my crush) passed away, it would matter because she means everything to me and I think she's special, so I would therefore feel really empty and sad if I knew she didn't have a life and she would never see, think or talk to me again.

I like to do what I can not to hurt people and it's probably to do with the fact that people are offending me and hurting my feelings heaps during a week. People are very emotionally hurtful even if they don't mean to be. If I get called selfish or I am yelled at or even if I'm nicely told that it's wrong to do something I did, it can leave me in tears and hurt me for years and I don't mean any harm. My autism or sensitivity doesn't seem to be completely understood by people as much as I understand that I could risk hurting other people's feelings. I probably find about anything hurtful that you think may be slightly hurtful. I think people also don't think before they speak which could cause emotional problems for the listener. People must adapt to sensitive people so that there feelings don't get hurt although even if I explain what hurts my feelings to my mum, she continues to say or do it. I feel that my family have little respect for my feelings. I think the best thing to do about this would probably be to find some friends who are nice, caring, understanding, accepting, bright and happy (these are my favourite qualities of a friend) and spend lots of time with them when I'm old enough to drive and afford my own home.

This is probably something I would need help with since I'm unusually sensitive to what others say to me. Other people don't care if a teacher tells them to stop talking. I wish that was me. I wish I didn't take things so offensively. I would be so upset, I might cry. I wish I didn't care what others say to me and in what tone they say things to me or I wish I could limit my time with hurtful people but I can't escape my family yet. I'd rather have the not so hurtful friends in life.

 

[Aspieistj]

My autism or sensitivity doesn't seem to be completely understood by people as much as I understand that I could risk hurting other people's feelings.

This is so true! I am constantly upset when someone thinks that I should learn and immediately change so that I don't upset them. I have never been corrected by anyone who expressed any care that I was being "scolded." As for "getting over" being sensitive to Aspie issues, I guess conditioning does occur to some extent but I can't think of any change I have made to accommodate the "normal" world that still doesn't bother me--I have just learned to try not to show it. I don't believe I will ever move through the "normal" world with any degree of comfort. I am old and live alone and have made a real choice to avoid people so I can't possible annoy anyone. My 2 cats and dog don't seem to care that I have AS.

 

[2205]

I agree that being so sensitive to anything people say is really hard. When I was little, I used to cry about every small thing and so I used to think that it's because I'm spoiled or just a crybaby or something. But I'm in mid-twenties now and things haven't basically changed at all. Maybe just that I can hold back tears in public but if I'd let myself, I would still cry if someone said something even slightly negative to me. I have tried to think that I shouldn't take things so personally. At work for example, people never actually say something about my persona, but about the role I'm in at work. I can understand that, but it's only the brain, I can't control the feelings.

I often feel like saying to myself: "really? you're fckng grownup and you cry for this sht? really??" I mean, it's not even my business sometimes. For example if a client isn't happy about my work (the kind of work I do just for the money, it doesn't mean much to me), I still get that feeling. I don't know if it's perfectionism or being so egoistic that I care just so much about myself that every little thing hurts.

I actually tried once to overcome it when I was a teenager. I repeated to myself every day that I don't care. About anything. All my classmates then used to describe me as very chill, calm, never upset, never angry, etc. It worked, it really didn't bother me anymore what people said. But all the positive things also didn't bother me anymore. And eventually, that led to depression because there just wasn't nothing to be happy about. I blocked all my feelings. So I realized that I just didn't allow myself to feel happy feelings because I had trained myself not to feel anything. My point is that you can't block just some things to be sensitive over. I'm no psychologist or anything but maybe you should just feel it through when it hits. Maybe you (and I) should allow yourself to be angry or sad or whatever the feeling that comes when someone says bad things.

Long story, but at least you know you're not alone.