Honey No. 13

Feat. the highs and lows of a sensitive body, and a huge playlist por vous

I have a #1 sensitive body. I’m talking 24/27 on the Highly Sensitive Person test (completed just now for comically-affirming research), multiple food sensitivities (bye bye gluten and dairy), and zero tolerance for overhead lights. I feel my feelings- and others’-intensely, need a hearty amount of alone time to decompress and process the world, and genuinely can’t concentrate if the music doesn’t match the mood. I tend to look for a long time before I leap (see learning to ride a bike at 29). Sugar can make me feel like I’m on a mild psychedelic. One time I broke out in hives because my downstairs neighbor lit a strongly-scented candle and both of our windows were open. Sometimes this sensitivity can absolutely be a superpower- I get very clear signals from my body about foods and feelings and people! I’m an artist! I’m in tune!- and sometimes it can be an all-consuming drag. But no matter which way the pendulum is swinging at any given moment, I often feel the need to prove myself; even in this moment, I’m anticipating you telling me that I’m making it all up.

My fear doesn’t come from a vacuum, of course. Sensitivity is often categorized as a state of weakness, a whine of privilege, as something soft aka feminine aka bad. A whisper to be shushed, an impulse to be quelled. There are so many people who, for a variety of reasons, weren’t allowed to feel their feelings, or state their preferences, or find medical validation for their ailments; it makes sense that that denial of self would bleed from one generation to the next. I feel so grateful to have grown up in a family with parents who understood- or matched- my sensitivities. I was never made to feel crazy, or dramatic, or like I was too much for taking the measures I needed to regulate myself. And still, I live in The World. I received messaging from society and partners and friends suggesting that I consider, perhaps, getting over it.

In addition to my various baseline sensitivities, I also have Hashimoto’s- an autoimmune condition that affects the thyroid. I prefer to say condition rather than disease, because my body is listening and I want to be careful with the story I’m telling myself. My mom has Hashimoto’s too, and since it’s highly genetic and disproportionately affects women, my doctors have been keeping a close eye on my thyroid levels for many years now. I was first diagnosed when I was 26, and was told that there was nothing to be done- I shouldn’t experience any symptoms, maybe slight fatigue, and that if someday my immune system attacked my thyroid to the point where it was no longer functioning, I could get on medication. I hated the feeling of getting older and having another truth assigned to my system, a label I would have to confess in every doctor’s office for the rest of my life, but quickly folded it into my new reality. They said I wouldn’t feel anything, and the truth was, I really didn’t.

Then, when I was 30, I moved to LA. I’ll never know if it was a change in environment, the stress of a move, or a natural shifting of hormones, but that first summer I started to feel…off. My belly distended to its full capacity whenever I ate or drank anything, I would crash so hard after exercising that I was unable to continue with my day, and every afternoon from around 3-7 I was so fatigued that I literally needed to get back into bed. In addition to feeling shitty, I also felt insane- traditional avenues offered me no answers, and some level of indigestion and tiredness have been so normalized that it’s hard to convey when you are truly in distress, even to your friends. My physician repeated that my bloodwork still looked ok, including my thyroid, and there was nothing to be done until it was time to go on meds. I was so tired of being told there were no answers, and I was even more tired of talking about how tired I was, how off I felt, how difficult it was to maneuver my body through the world. My sensitivity had taken me under, and the general consensus seemed to be to suck it up and bear it.

But then I started seeing an acupuncturist and a functional medicine doctor, both of whom gave me context for my symptoms and explained why I wasn’t crazy. They offered me tests that weren’t available in other offices, like a GI Map and an adrenals test, and said look at these numbers! No wonder you feel horrible! And got me off certain foods and on certain supplements that started helping right away. Emboldened by this validation, I started researching everywhere I could, finding doctors and practitioners and community online who reflected my experience and shared my story. It turns out that a lot of these conditions are linked to common Hashimoto’s symptoms that were never conveyed to me by my doctor but are overwhelmingly recognized by the afflicted community. For the first time, my diagnosis felt like a relief, as I learned that my seemingly disparate and often painful symptoms- brain swelling, cold extremities, even the gluten and dairy allergies I had known about for years- all fall under the umbrella of Hashimoto’s. I’m not the most sensitive woman who’s ever lived- I’m a sensitive woman who has a condition that comes with certain terms of employment.

As I continue to navigate the particulars of my highly specific system, and non-linear flares of these exciting symptoms, it’s been helpful to remember that my body and I are on the same team. As someone who wants to live a long and comfortable life, it is not in my best interest to ignore the whispers of my body, nor to deny its cries. My body isn’t asking me to pay attention to be difficult, to be extra, because it thinks it is more special or more important or more deserving than other bodies. It’s asking because it needs something, and I’m trying to stay sensitive enough to hear it.

Me and some of my cousins jumping into the lake in Chicago. Looking and leaping.

P.S. I could talk about all of these topics for one hundred million years and never be done. Bodies and integrative medicine and trusting yourself to know when something is not right are some of my favorite and most passionate subjects. If you’re looking for a place to dive in, What’s the Juice is a podcast that has taught me an incredible amount about all of these things and many, many more. Could truly go on about this forever but am cutting myself OFF!

My personal playlist style is plopping everything I’m listening to into one big one, regardless of genre or tempo, so that you can skip around and find tunes to fit the mood you’re in. When something invisible shifts and the chapter is over, a new playlist begins. This playlist was my move from Chicago, my 5 week layover in Portland, and my settling into Los Angeles. I hope you enjoy it, wherever you are.

See you next week my friends! Next Sunday is St. Patricks day AND the Long Beach Flea Market- a lot to celebrate, if you think about it!

xx, Olivia