Emotional Oversensitivity is not a weakness

My whole life I've been the touchy and 'dramatic' one, always storming up to my room in a strop and crying my eyes out. Most of the time, I've never thought there was anything unusual about, I mean all kids are an emotional mess, right?! Except it didn't go away once my childhood days were over, it got worse and continued doing so until I got the right help for. 
​

Emotional oversensitivity and irritional fear of criticism. I laughed, what type of diagnosis was that. It wasn't an official illness but instead I presented with many traits of borderline personality disorder. Sometimes it's easier to understand something in it's entire form rather than the individual pieces that make it up. I couldn't put my head around what I was being told. I almost felt like I'd failed some test, that my pain wasn't enough for a proper diagnosis of something. Not that I ever wished to have something else to battle with but I struggled with the broken pieces of the illness rather than the whole picture.
​

The rage and emotion that had always been inside me felt like a fire that was constantly burning and I had no way of knowing how to distinguish it. I loved fiercely or not at all. I tried my best or not at all. My friends were the best or the worst, depending what mood I was in. Everything was going wrong or going right, not some place in between. My life wasn't in black and white, it was in bursting bright colours or the darkest black there ever was. My therapist would laugh when I told her that I couldn't understand why I was so exhausted and said "well I would be too if everything was either good or bad all the time".
​

It has taken me months to accept that this is a part of who I am and I shall not use it as a fault against myself. Although I had always had a feeling something was wrong, I never wanted to be right. I didn't want to admit my weakness, the tainted part of me that the world couldn't see. Because who really shuts down, tears up and refuses to talk to their teacher after they made a criticism to their work. Because who really ignores their friends over a silly comment. Because who locks themselves in their room, questioning their life and if they're loved after a simple disagreement with their mum. I do. I do all these things plus more and I know it's dramatic but my brain doesn't haven't a slow down button, it reacts to things with a mentality that the world is ending. And to me, in those moments, it does quite literally feel like it's all collapsing around me.  
​

In a world that is fast moving and everchanging, I'm giving my mind the time it needs to process things. I stop and breathe for 10 seconds then give my reaction. Does it always work? No, because I can't change overnight nor can I rewire my brain to react differently all the time. 20 years of a specific behaviour doesn't just go away without hard work. All I can ever do is try. To try and understand my reasoning for reacting a certain way. To try to understand that a criticism doesn't make me a failure or stupid. To try to understand that an argument with someone doesn't mean they don't love me. 

I'm learning to live somewhere in the middle. And more importantly to be okay with it, to be okay not having to fulfil my brains desire for extremes. Life isn't so bad in the middle, it's much less soul destroying and tiresome. Working at controlling my emotions has made me appreciate the oversensitive side to me. I love more fiercely than most people and that is something I wouldn't want to change. Yes sometimes it's too much but I'm learning to balance it all. That's all one can do in life is balance. Balance the good and the bad. Balance the happy and the sad. Balance the truth and the lies. Balance the painful moments and the joyful moments. It's all a balancing act, that we're bound to get wrong. And sometimes the scale tips more to one side than the other and that's okay. I just hope you know that it won't stay imbalanced forever.