Research shows that people who are on the sensory processing sensitivity scale are prone to scanning the situation they move into… adding the layer of marginalization that you’re talking about here adds a whole Nother layer. I don’t think I’ll ever stop scanning. And I’m OK with that.
That makes a lot of sense, Leo. For some of us, the work may be less about stopping the scan entirely. For me, it’s more about knowing when it’s useful, when it’s costly, and when it’s quietly running the room.
So, I've been with my husband for 37 years. I was especially hyper vigilant in our early days together but I'd say the monitoring stopped somewhere between years 15 and 20. By then I'd had enough therapy to accept where we were both at and feeling like we both got (mostly) what we needed from each other. There's a comfort that settles in that we don't want to lose.
That kind of long-haul safety matters. It’s reassuring to hear that the monitoring can soften over time, especially when both people keep showing up enough for comfort to become believable.
When I was 19, I had multiple friend groups—one from high school, two to three from college.
In one of the college groups, I was one of 10 people. Those guys were thick and came through for each other for almost anything.
During my 2nd year of college, I started questioning everything my friendship in the group. Nothing was wrong with them. But my twisted brain was thinking something was, so I was fishing for reasons to get them out of my life. I remember just...icing them out.
I was also questioning, during the same period, the whole point of my degree and my alignment toward it. In hindsight, it's possible that I may have taken out my rage from lack of control in my life on them.
I wish someone pulled me aside, slapped me on the face, and made me see that I was fighting straw men, before I went too far and hurt them. I treated them so bad and I'll probably continue to regret it for the rest of my life.
It's one of the reasons why I promised myself recently that I will only respond to what's here than what I think to be here.
That level of regret usually means there was real care there, even if it came out sideways at the time. Responding to what’s actually here is such a hard and honest discipline, especially when your mind is used to building a whole courtroom around one uneasy feeling.
This landed. Especially the part about how the scan doesn’t rest when the external threat is gone, it just redirects inward.
What stood out to me from my own lens is how often this gets mislabeled as overthinking, when it’s really a nervous system that still doesn’t know how to metabolize safety. So even something good, stable, or loving can still get processed as a charged signal.
You're naming it as a nervous system that can’t metabolize safety, yet it is exactly that. Overthinking makes it sound optional or excessive, when it’s actually something running much deeper.
That’s what the writing is trying to do, give people language for what their body is already doing without asking permission.
I've sometimes jokingly referred to myself as a projection artist. This all landed squarely, Gino. It's been a very long process of trying to disarm the surveillance mechanisms without an off-switch.
I reckon learning to “lower the volume” without treating every flicker as evidence is already serious work. “Projection artist” is waiting for a new article ☺️
I hope it's OK I'm commenting. It seems so human, almost natural, for a safety mechanism within us to create a situation which would ensure we preemtively save ourselves from another instance of pain. I could relate to it, since I have experienced something of a similar nature. It saddens me that it's part of the human experience, but perhaps our subconscious is unable, at least for some of us, to skip over that stage. and perhaps awareness and reflection do help. I do hope so.
Of course it’s OK, Tali. Awareness and reflection do help, even when they don’t fix it quickly, because they give you a little more space between the alarm and the action.
And once we begin getting the space between the alarm and the action, it becomes less reflexive, and there is more potential for change... Or am I too much of an optimist?
Research shows that people who are on the sensory processing sensitivity scale are prone to scanning the situation they move into… adding the layer of marginalization that you’re talking about here adds a whole Nother layer. I don’t think I’ll ever stop scanning. And I’m OK with that.
That makes a lot of sense, Leo. For some of us, the work may be less about stopping the scan entirely. For me, it’s more about knowing when it’s useful, when it’s costly, and when it’s quietly running the room.
So, I've been with my husband for 37 years. I was especially hyper vigilant in our early days together but I'd say the monitoring stopped somewhere between years 15 and 20. By then I'd had enough therapy to accept where we were both at and feeling like we both got (mostly) what we needed from each other. There's a comfort that settles in that we don't want to lose.
That kind of long-haul safety matters. It’s reassuring to hear that the monitoring can soften over time, especially when both people keep showing up enough for comfort to become believable.
When I was 19, I had multiple friend groups—one from high school, two to three from college.
In one of the college groups, I was one of 10 people. Those guys were thick and came through for each other for almost anything.
During my 2nd year of college, I started questioning everything my friendship in the group. Nothing was wrong with them. But my twisted brain was thinking something was, so I was fishing for reasons to get them out of my life. I remember just...icing them out.
I was also questioning, during the same period, the whole point of my degree and my alignment toward it. In hindsight, it's possible that I may have taken out my rage from lack of control in my life on them.
I wish someone pulled me aside, slapped me on the face, and made me see that I was fighting straw men, before I went too far and hurt them. I treated them so bad and I'll probably continue to regret it for the rest of my life.
It's one of the reasons why I promised myself recently that I will only respond to what's here than what I think to be here.
Thanks Gino.
That level of regret usually means there was real care there, even if it came out sideways at the time. Responding to what’s actually here is such a hard and honest discipline, especially when your mind is used to building a whole courtroom around one uneasy feeling.
This landed. Especially the part about how the scan doesn’t rest when the external threat is gone, it just redirects inward.
What stood out to me from my own lens is how often this gets mislabeled as overthinking, when it’s really a nervous system that still doesn’t know how to metabolize safety. So even something good, stable, or loving can still get processed as a charged signal.
Thanks, that really means a lot.
You're naming it as a nervous system that can’t metabolize safety, yet it is exactly that. Overthinking makes it sound optional or excessive, when it’s actually something running much deeper.
That’s what the writing is trying to do, give people language for what their body is already doing without asking permission.
Exactly. That’s such a good way to put it, giving people language for what their body is already doing.
I've sometimes jokingly referred to myself as a projection artist. This all landed squarely, Gino. It's been a very long process of trying to disarm the surveillance mechanisms without an off-switch.
I reckon learning to “lower the volume” without treating every flicker as evidence is already serious work. “Projection artist” is waiting for a new article ☺️
Gino, After 60 years of coming out, I still not only scan the room but find myself scanning LIFE! Fondly, Michael
That makes complete sense, Michael. After years of needing to read the room, the room can start to feel like everything.
I hope it's OK I'm commenting. It seems so human, almost natural, for a safety mechanism within us to create a situation which would ensure we preemtively save ourselves from another instance of pain. I could relate to it, since I have experienced something of a similar nature. It saddens me that it's part of the human experience, but perhaps our subconscious is unable, at least for some of us, to skip over that stage. and perhaps awareness and reflection do help. I do hope so.
Of course it’s OK, Tali. Awareness and reflection do help, even when they don’t fix it quickly, because they give you a little more space between the alarm and the action.
And once we begin getting the space between the alarm and the action, it becomes less reflexive, and there is more potential for change... Or am I too much of an optimist?
Not too much of an optimist at all. ☺️