Hypersensitive and Hyperemotional?

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How can I tell if I am hypersensitive to emotions or other things? For example, just now I watched a youtube short film and I was in tears. I do my best not to cry because I don't aant to block my airaaves incase my throat blocks up. It is un-natural as I seem to naturally be the first to cry at a film which for a man can be embarissing. I am supposed to be tough as a man... In a few ways I am tougher then most (Can't think of one now, but I know others habe commented in past situations), but in other ways I am too sensitive to emotion and to other things.
For example, two nights ago I could smell sick. Not a nice smell. As that morning my mum had changed the sheets and pillowcases, I became puzzled. Has one of my brothers kids been here and I can smell it even though the sheets habe been washed? (I can smell it if they have and the sheets have only been aashed one or two times). Now I can smell it again, and I have sudde ly realized, I have mild heartburn. Yes. You've guessed it. I am smelling mild heartburn. Grr! Is this hypersensitivity to smell?
I hope I don't go sick as I pass out and need someone to clear my airwaves if I do. My Mum is the same. I am going to sit up and sip water, just incase.

But anyway... going back to what brought this subject up, a friend on this site suggested that I maybe hypersensitive to something in hospitals which could make me have partial shutdowns or anxiety... and two things could cause tjis with me... One is the enclosed corridors where I don't like walking down them... But the main thing in hospitals I don't like is the smell. At home my Mum can't use bleach or dissinfectant while I am in the house and several hours have to pass with open windows before I am happy, as the smell effects me. Ooh... It is only now I realize it. I get partial shutdowns because of the smell! Duh! I am so slow to catch on! Right. Let me explain...
I believed the partial shutdowns were some sort of allergy so I believed I could be allergic somehow to the bleach or dissinfectant fumes which caused the issues. Now I know. It is the smell causing me to get a partial shutdown!
Is this possible? Am I right? This is a revelation for me. Anyone who can second my thoughts here?

I can completely relate to everything you said. I am very sensitive to certain smells, particularly artificial ones. And the smell of other people's blood is very difficult for me. Also old people smell is a smell I cannot tolerate, that is very similar to the smell of blood. There have been times when I have had to go into a nursing home and I can't, the smell makes me sick.

Hospitals have smells that can trigger me and the laundry aisle of the grocery store does too. My mother in law cannot come into my house if she is wearing her favorite perfume because it makes me sick and the smell stays in my house for days. And sometimes, like you said, it might take several washes to wash a strong smell out of fabrics.

As far as the crying thing, I cry at everything. Many Autistics cannot dampen or filter emotional stimuli so you feel everything at full force. I'm the person who cries at dog food commercials. And as far as being a tough manly man who can't cry, that is a myth. Many women, including myself love a man who can cry because it shows that he is secure enough in himself to be vulnerable. I love that about my husband, he is very vulnerable and is not afraid to show it. Only a secure man's man can be vulnerable like that. That is very attractive and admirable.

Thanks Skibum. I think you are more sensitive then I am from your descriptions. Certain smells... Umm. Well. It could be half the issues I have with hospitals, dentists, doctors, vets etc... (Not that I go to the vet for my own health issues! Actually sometimes a vet may be easier as I don't have to try to talk... Vets are used to examining without the animal being asked questions! Haha. Mind you, questions can be answered to reach the issues quicker....

I love that. I would much prefer to see a vet than some of the docs I have had to see in my lifetime!

Yeah, I have so many sensitivities that it can make daily life absolute torture.

I am not sure if I am classed as hypersensitive though. I think I maybe inbetween hypersensitive and normal? I don't know. Analysing oneself can be quite difficult. If I marked things between 1 to 10 how would I know what 1 or 10 was? Yes 1 is the lowest and 10 is the highest, but... My 10 maybe someone elses 4, or my 1 maybe someone elses 8 or even 10. Difficult isn't it!
I do think I am oversensitive to pain. I have sensitive skin. I often have to rip labels out of my clothes. Others say to cut them out, but if I cut them out, the part that remains is just as scratchy on me and I have nothing to hold to rip it out. At least with a full label I have a label to tug at!

Your sensitivities can vary greatly in different areas. It just depends on how your particular nerves and receptors are wired. You might be very sensitive in some ares and under sensitive in others. And even the same areas can change sensitivities depending on how tired you are or how much energy you have. You can ask yourself questions like how long can I tolerate this stimuli? An hour, a day, forever, a minute, a second? How much can I take before I have a meltdown or explode or go postal? You can see if there are stimuli that you crave and that you seek. Sometimes you are sensitive to some and crave others. Those are good ways to start to understand how your sensitivities affect you and how severe they are.

I think I go through stages of being very vunerable to having shutdowns, (Like the last few years... Especially the last few months) and other times I may be fine where I may not get one for a whole week, or even less frequent. When things are tough, I could get partial shutdowns going in and out through most of the day. About two or three weeks ago I had a week or two like that. When I went to work in the morning, for some reason I was so nurvous of going to work I was quite vunerable for the first hour. I just had to keep myself plodding on slowly. Fortunately, due to beingnexperienced at my job, I can finish a bike in a similar time to a higher stamdard to most and be working slower then others to get the end result... If it wasn't for this, I would be unemployable.

It's kinda difficult to find out whether you are hypersensitive or not, without seeing an expert on the matter who can check you and all that. There are exceptions, but generally that's how it is.
Things like smell are things I am not very sensitive to. If there is a bad smell, I use one of the very normal and basic things like a deodorant spray and spray it in the air or around the room. In public places, where such thing isn't so acceptable, I try to stay around the area with the bad smell as little as I can. But honestly, smell isn't as annoying to me as other things, like bad sights, or things like insects.
What other things are you guys sensitive to, other than smell?

The things that make me hypersensitive in hospital:

Brightness, white walls, shiny surfaces, flourescent lighting, observation lighting.

If I'm in the Emergency room the beeping and clattering.

Smell of the cleaning fluid, alcohol wipes, hand sanitiser, detergent.

Also have allergies to detergents and some wound dressings.

You will know if you're hypersensitive because it will feel like you've stepped into hell.

The danger of hypersensitivity in hospital is it makes me unable to answer questions and supply information correctly.
My brain slows and my reaction time is ret*d, so when physical tests are performed I seem worse than I actually am.
Speech becomes difficult.
And if they want dates and times things happened, forget it.

Raleigh... What is odd with me is that it doesn't exactly hurt like hell, but it is rather unpleasant and then I get a partial shutdown. It is almost like I don't get much of a warning to having the shutdown if that makes sense? Is only last night that I realized what is going on.
Going back just over a decade my grandmother and also my father were in and out of hospital and we had to visit as my Mum does not drive... I could do it, but I was delaying shutdowns to do it. Occasionally I was less effected My Mum went in every time, but I had to only go in to make an appearance now and then. What I would do usually, is ho in with my Mum, and leave early.
The part which would be worse for me, if we got there a few minutes early and had to wait outside in the corridor with other people. That was a hell like feeling and sometimes I had to get out and go back to the car. At least that jospital wasn't too big. The next hospital in an easterly direction is a big one outside a city, and that one... Put it this way... I had to take my friend there when his Mum was unwell. (She later passed away). We found her as they had painted different coloured lines down the corridors. Finding her was easy! It didn't work on the way back. I don't know what went wrong but we visited her more then once! We could not find a way out. It took us 25 to 30 minutes of going up and down that hospital on its two or three floors... We eventually found the outside... What an absolute panic! It was aweful! I don't know how I am here today as I was born in that hospital. I just don't know hoe I got out! Haha!

What I described is a partial shutdown.
Hospitals can be very disorientating.
I've been to ours a lot and I still get lost by myself.
When in partial shut down I stop noticing things like big, glaring signs indicating where to go.
I feel like I have blinkers on.

at least with the hyperemotional part, i researched "stendahl's syndrome"* quite a while ago and found that it describes what i go through perfectly. the movie "AI-Artificial Intelligence" seriously messed with my head for quite a while. i don't think a movie has ever made me weep as much, other than The Yearling, and "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter." there is music that i can't even think about without tearing up. at work on the breakroom tv set was some chinese fella playing the er hu [cantonese folk fiddle] in such a lilting way that i had to run away from the other people eating lunch in there to keep them from seeing me cry. i've never known [personally] anybody else with these emotional issues. certainly i'm the only one in my family like this. like i musta been adopted or something.

*a psychosomatic syndrome of uncertain physical etiology which causes extreme emotional lability in its sufferers, in response to exposure to great art or natural scenes of beauty, or beautiful music.

I can get like that when I am on the fringes of having a partial shutdown, and wen I am coming out of one. When I get what I call a partial shutdown, and I get it deep, I am on the floor unable to do much. My body is all limp. I have all my muscles but no power to put into them!

Do you ever feel like you are trembling inside when you have a partial shutdown?

If I go deep into it, sometimes my skin feels clammy and I start to shake. Like a shiver but different. Usually get the shakes like that coming out of it if I have gone in deep. When I have it deep, I hear a noise which starts medium pitched and then goes down to low pitched as my eyesight blackens to completely black, by which time I am on the floor like it or not!