Antenna

My body is an antenna, a receiver of emotions transmitted, broadcast, and directed. Unavoidably, I become an outward reflection of these internal feelings. The expression commonly tossed around is that folks like me wear their heart on their sleeve. Strangely, though, my response seems only sensitive to negativity waves. I am affected so deeply. I have trouble eating, sleeping, concentrating, ..., being. There are folks I know who seem immune to any salvos of this sort directed their way. They have the uncanny ability to successfully ward off any such attacks. Their inner peace, emotional state, and self worth, remain completely unaffected. Ahh, the unaffected. How I can, at times, envy them.

Hard, hateful, thoughtless, accusatory, or maligning words, attitudes, or thoughts directed my way seem impossible for me to skirt or avoid or redirect. My body picks them up and I quickly become affected, or I think more accurately, infected. I have never learned the ability to remain strong under attacks of any sort. I can carry the effects of such encounters with me for hours and days, and sadly too, weeks and years. The crazy thing is that this happens to me regardless of whether I am in the "right" or I am in the "wrong" in the conflict. I guess part of the issue is that I despise personal conflicts at any level. I despise them so much that I have become hyper-sensitive.

Several years ago I was wading through an especially troublesome season in my life, and my doctor recommended medication to help even out my emotions. I remember that it worked quite well, ..., too well. One of the side effects of the medication is that it took away something from me that, at times, can be such an emotional and healing release. The ability to cry. It was an especially odd situation where you wanted to cry, but were completely unable. Ahh, the unaffected.