I'm soooo sensetive

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I've never spoke of this before, for fear of ridicule.

I think I am a magnet for negative energy. It hits me like a brick out of the blue and there is nothing I can do about it.

It can actually leave me feeling so depressed and even suicidal. I always kind of know that it is not my actual own emotions when it happens because it does always somehow feel separate to me, but it still does effect me quite badly. That is until I do find the route cause and then it just lifts as if it has never been there.

It is really difficult for me to explain.

I'm wondering if this happens to anyone else and how do you manage it?

Thanks.

Negative energy it's me really hard too. It's hard for me to figure out the root cause, though. And when I do, the pain doesn't lift quickly, it takes awhile to come away and I often have to get away and/or have help understanding.

yes. I am a bit tired this evening, so I'll respond with a more in-depth answer tomorrow. I've learned to manage the incoming stuff, but still have issues with people who have ill-will toward me and those with psychosis. The effect of this is that it makes my body feel distressed and physically sick. So, there are things you can do about it. Tania Marshall (who has done a female spectrum profile) mentions women's ability to be sensitive to the emotional environment. This has been my lifelong experience.

this is me, so much so that more than once while others fight I have had to run from a room.

Unlike what I hear about many other diagnosed AS people I seem to feel more than NT people, my main problem is communication/fitting in with them.

For me, this is a twofold problem. One issue is that I can't stand loud noises such as blaring infants, angry parents, fighting couples, or the agitated and ape-like hollering of teenagers. All this creates a very hostile environment for me, and I somehow experience this entire aggressive background noise as being directed against me. Even laughter makes me feel as if I'm the target of someone's ridicule when I experience this kind of sensory overload. (Probably because I usually were the target when I was still able to spend every day from 8 to 5 in hell. My coworkers were such jokers, with the result that laughter sounds hostile to me now).

The other issue is that I have a very broody, grumpy default expression that makes people think I'm constantly angry or annoyed, and of course they respond in kind. I can understand that on some level. I get that it's disconcerting and doesn't create the most positive vibes when you greet a customer with a friendly smile, and he looks right through or past you with a thousand yard stare and an expression that could make children cry. I've tried smiling at people instead, but it feels all wrong and freaks them even more out. So I simply keep my head down and rarely ever look up whenever I'm forced to venture out into NT territory, and I try not to notice the hostility and negativity.

But of course I do notice it when an initially friendly voice becomes a lot colder all of a sudden. I can't overhear the angrily mumbled remarks and the tutting noises. It's hard to ignore that the cashier throws my change on the belt, even though I'm holding my hand out. And I can't help but notice that s/he wishes every other customer a nice day, whereas I don't even get a simple goodbye. Even when a major holiday is around the corner and I manage to mumble a merry christmas (or whatever else is appropriate) upon leaving. There is no second chance for first impressions.

Needless to say that all of this gives me the strong impression that the world outside my apartment is a terribly rude and hostile place where I'm simply not welcome. I wish I could do my shopping and pick up prescriptions without ever having to interact with my fellow apes. Can somebody please replace all service industry personnel with self-maintaining androids, and then engineer a superflu virus that wipes out everyone except for aspies and other introverts? Thanks in advance.

I am very sensitive too, too much for my own good. I have a wonderful and blessed life, but there are so many people out there suffering miserably. Sometimes I get depressed because of it too, I thought of suicide a few times, never because of a pain that was my own.
One of the reasons that make me doubt I have aspergers... (sometimes I'm sure of it, sometimes I doubt it). Aren't we supposed to have limited empathy? Also most of the users here in WP seem to be of the "cold" type.
I'm sorry to say it but I don't have any tip on how to deal with it...

I'm also a very sensitive soul. I've been like this since I was very little. Having a thick skinned mum didn't help either. It was a real pain in high school when I had to bring up things with my learning center teacher about things and I couldn't talk about my feelings and emotions without crying. The same goes for conversations that I had with my parents around that time. Conversations with my mum would turn into arguments that would lead to meltdowns. She had id in her head that she should yell at me whenever I was upset. That only made things worse. There were things that I kept to myself for as long as I could. I've eventually stopped telling my parents about my problems in order to protect my sensitive feelings.

There are some sections of WP that I just don't go to because of my sensitivity. I also take it personally when I feel that I've been personally attacked. I've got to work on not going back to threads on hot topics that I've posted in. That way, I'll never know if I've been attacked or not. I also don't start anymore threads asking what people think of my special interests anymore. Not anymore since that Good Friday/Bad Friday in the April of 2012 - that was a big mistake.

I must be pretty sensitive for my have mum to have compared me to Mick Avory in a callous way, when I first fell off my rocker in 1998.

Sometimes when I'm in work I just feel like crying, it's like a feeling in my stomach like you get when you've done something wrong.

I don't even know where this feeling comes from. It's not me. I can only think I'm picking it up from the environment. It is really horrible. I do usually just keep going until it goes but it really hard.

I'm like this as well. I can't be around people who are arguing or stressed out. I can use this ability to avoid perverted guys which is nice.

Okay, so what is being experienced is a form of empathy. What is happening is that you’re absorbing other people’s negativity as your own. You take ownership of it. You’re a sponge. Individuals on the spectrum are over-sensitive and usually have issues with boundaries and with assertive No. They tend to be non-judgmental towards others and have a better ability to tune in to these subtler experiences. NTs can also have this ability - it is why there are so many books on ‘psychic protection’ and other such stuff.

I guess you could look at taking on others stuff from the quantum physics perspective of ‘unity consciousness’ – everything is part of the whole (are there boundaries when you're part of a whole? or do boundaries come in when you separate yourself from that whole?). I am reminded by the saying ‘a burden shared is a burden halved’. So, in a sense you’re helping yourself when you absorb other peoples stuff and you’re helping that person too (by helping them lift some of their burden). It is important to note, you wouldn’t be impacted by others stuff if there wasn’t already something in you that was discorded. It would just flow through you unencumbered.

I have read an anthropology article which looked into indigenous communities. It spoke of their empathic abilities and it touched on this idea of ‘a burden shared is a burden halved’. It did not name it as such. However, in those communities everyone had this ability, so the burden was shared amongst many and not just one as it is in our case. It is a bit overwhelming to take it all as your own on your own. I am sure you can imagine what happens.

I know that I personally have a hard time hurting people, but I seem to unconsciously allow others to hurt me. This is rooted not in guilt, but shame. I can trace this shame back to childhood (I am presently working through these issues). My shame is tied back to my self-esteem issues (very critical mother). I know that when I am assertive with very negative people they start using me as a dumping ground for their pain. They offload it onto me and then I get stuck with their baggage. It sits in my gut. It gets stuck in my gut if it is something I am unfamiliar with because it is easier to shift things you can name. These individuals might not be consciously choosing to do this, but it happens nevertheless. You also might not be consciously choosing to take this stuff on, however, on some level there is an exchange (hand-shake) and you do take it on. It is also important to remember that energy follows attention. I remember a time, in my late teens, when I was really bogged down with 'stuff' that I lost my empathy for others and instead had apathy. I think that when you hit a point that causes you too much overwhelm (trauma) you begin to switch off certain things as an act of self-preservation. Survival instincts. If you look at people who are stuck in survival mode they are very self-focused people (and disregard others). When your stress-response is over-aroused your capacity for cognitive, affective and other forms of empathy shut off. It is too painful to feel, so you don't. People on the spectrum are innately over-sensitive and the stress response is easily aroused (due to many things - sensory overload/social overload/stress overload).

So, now onto the types of people who still can affect me. When I was at work (October last year) there was a youth who developed a crush on me. Apparently people seem to think I am in my very early 20s. He asked me if I was free on the weekend, what my interests were and other such stuff. I was assertive (boundaries) and told him that wasn’t possible and that I choose not to divulge such information. A few days later he popped in and handed me something and I took it without thinking. I thought nothing of it because it was not uncommon for youth to hand things over the counter for us to hold. I then realised it was a gift and to cut a long story short, I rejected him. Over the next week or so I felt this horrible feeling in my gut and quite a lot of fear. I presume this individual had been thinking of me and was sending across his pain. He did appear quite hurt and sulky whenever I saw him.

There were a number of individuals in this organisation who had this dense heavy energy surrounding them. A dark miasma. The individual above was one of them. Whenever I went near them or they were in the building I felt sick. On one day five of them came in at different times and I ended up physically sick (vomiting) by end of day, the next day and the day after that. My system was in distress. I searched for a commonality and it was brought to my attention that all of these individuals had psychosis. It then made sense to me and explained why I felt similarly around those that are very depressed and some other individuals that I’ve encountered.

The most recent experience I had was with a neighbour. They were making quite a lot of noise after 12am, so I brought up this issue with them the next time I saw them. Sometime afterward, I started experiencing this horrible feeling in my gut and it persisted for some time. I put my attention on that spot and received a visual image of that individual. I couldn’t shift the ‘yucky-feeling’ because it was something I could not name. It was a very unpleasant experience.

I want to add that you can sometimes feel this yuckiness in certain places or environments. Also, the more stressed/fearful you are the more stuff you take on board, so it is important to return to presence (be grounded in the moment). I guess you could use sensory toys to help with this process, exercise, or do a meditation/visualisation when feeling overwhelmed.

I have been searching for a solution to this issue for some time. I was given one quite recently. There are two typical responses that you can go into that causes the energy to get stuck because it creates resistance. And what you resist persists. So, you can either blame yourself (consciously or unconsciously) for this happening or blame the other person (consciously or unconsciously). You can’t always send back the energy that filters into you from another person (in some instances you can return it to sender). This is particularly true when the person has relinquished their responsibility over their baggage (because you accepted it) or if they have pretty thick defences. If you send it back they’ll perceive it as an attack and retaliate. And that isn’t pleasant for you. So, the thing to do is to take out you and the other person out of the equation, and instead shift the blame to something that is ‘bigger’ than both. If that makes sense. Give it to something (not someone) that wouldn’t even blink in response to crap being thrown its way. You can view this ‘thing’ as god/goddess/source/creation/all-that-is/universe/infinite/whatever. Blame this thing for all the sensitivity to you experience, the sensations, the baggage and everything else that gets ‘stuck’ in your system. I have been doing this a lot recently when I start to feel that weight in my gut and the energy does dissipate, and I feel at ease again. I know that this stuff doesn't have power over me, but some part of me is giving it power over me - that is why I am exploring the underlying reasons for these repeated experiences.

I was just reminded of something. I have found it much easier to hold peoples eye contact for extended period of time these days (I may over-stare at times), but there are a few people who make me feel very uneasy when I look into their eyes. In fact, I have encountered a couple of people who I have felt intense vibrations or electricity (not the attraction kind) with. The air surrounding the space between us literally ripples, shakes and cracks. They seem to trigger the stress response or a feeling of uneasiness when I maintain eye contact. It puzzles me. These people are usually the hard/tough personalities. I am not entirely sure what is going on when this happens. Is it a power-battle? power-games? Is it their pain? I don't know, but I will continue to try and work it out. I do know that it destabilises me for a moment and that's not good when I am trying to hold a conversation. It's distracting. I have noticed a few things have been posted on facebook recently on autism pages about eye-contact, and how some experience it as physically painful or that they see a lot of images from the other person when looking into their eyes.

I could go on about my experiences and observations, but I'll leave it at that.

Overcoming self-esteem issues: http://www.cci.health.wa.gov.au/resourc ... Info_ID=47