Intensity

[RemyZee]

Do you ever feel like life is just very, very intense? How do you navigate that and sustain yourselves at the same time? I mean, it's tiring. Everything....intense. Smells. Sounds. Colors. Textures. TASTES! And the social part even more-so: like just being in the vicinity of another human being creates all of this energy. I don't even know whether it's good or bad energy...just that there is this intensity. Here I am 59 years old and I would like to be a hermit because other humans just absorb all of my energy, takes so much out of a person. At the same time there are good things about the intense ways of being around life: art, humanitarianism, music...without intensity those things don't exist. But how do you handle it? Because it never really stops. Even when you get older, you have just as much energy.

 

[Jumpinbare]

I always needed and still do need to retreat often to solitude. Part of why I camp so much. (Camping right now)

 

[WhitewaterWoman]

I was just thinking about that the other day. I had a series of very positive but also very intense days of interacting with a dear family and I needed so much to just rest. But I also wish there were someone who could understand this intensity and listen to it, as a way of dispersing it. But I've never found anyone even close to being able to understand it.

 

[Neonatal RRT]

Agree. I had a 2 week vacation with my wife, a day off to reorganize myself, then worked 4 12-hr shifts at the hospital. Yesterday, my first day off, walked around like a zombie and had to take a nap, got to bed at 8:30pm and I hardly remember my head hitting the pillow. Out like a light.

Today will be better.

I guess I am not really "sensing" that things are intense, per se, but clearly, it wipes me out. I have gotten so used to just ignoring the discomfort and simply doing things because I have to.

 

[Rodafina]

All that is why it makes sense to me that I like quiet, dark places. I feel constantly tired out by the world and frequently seeking refuge.

As I go forward, I am trying to figure out what parts of the world I really want to be part of and trying to live in a way that cuts out much of the noise and chaos.

 

[WhitewaterWoman]

Agree. I had a 2 week vacation with my wife, a day off to reorganize myself, then worked 4 12-hr shifts at the hospital. Yesterday, my first day off, walked around like a zombie and had to take a nap, got to bed at 8:30pm and I hardly remember my head hitting the pillow. Out like a light.

Today will be better.

I guess I am not really "sensing" that things are intense, per se, but clearly, it wipes me out. I have gotten so used to just ignoring the discomfort and simply doing things because I have to.

Sometimes I can sense the intensity when it is happening. It feels like driving blind, exhilarating and terrifying.

Sometimes I don't know until afterwards.

It occurs to me just now that the wanting to talk it over is rather like needing to talk over and over about a narrowly missed potentially fatal accident, or a death. You have to talk about it, sometimes the same words over and over again. But since mere interaction with others is not in general considered life-threatening, there's no one to talk to about it.

 

[NB79]

Yes i can relate is like things others just shrug off like nothing or don't even feel anything about, affects me a lot more, not talking about difficulties much but normal everyday stuff.

 

[RemyZee]

Sometimes I can sense the intensity when it is happening. It feels like driving blind, exhilarating and terrifying.

Sometimes I don't know until afterwards.

It occurs to me just now that the wanting to talk it over is rather like needing to talk over and over about a narrowly missed potentially fatal accident, or a death. You have to talk about it, sometimes the same words over and over again. But since mere interaction with others is not in general considered life-threatening, there's no one to talk to about it.

ie who will understand when I try to explain having a 15 minute conversation with someone I've known for 3 years about chocolate chip cookies feels rather like preparing for jumping out of an airplane.

 

[Jumpinbare]

ie who will understand when I try to explain having a 15 minute conversation with someone I've known for 3 years about chocolate chip cookies feels rather like preparing for jumping out of an airplane.

I always enjoyed jumping out of airplanes (1000+ jumps). Preparing for a mandatory social function on the other hand....