It’s Time to RESET: How Therapy Helps Over-Sensitivity
Welcome to the it’s time to RESET blog series, where I unpack the RESET acronym and talk about when it’s time for you or someone you love to see a therapist.
For this blog, I will dive into what it feels like to be over sensitive and show how therapy can help. If you missed the opening blog and you’re interested in what RESET means, check out my previous blogs, (It’s time to RESET: Answering, “How do I know I need therapy?”) and (It’s time to RESET: How therapy helps restlessness).
What does it feel like to be Sensitive?
Have you ever filled a glass of water to the very top and noticed that little bubble of water tension? It’s a pretty neat phenomenon. Somehow, the glass is on the brink of overflowing, yet it keeps all of the water inside. As long as the glass isn’t touched and you don’t add any more to it, the glass will contain everything just fine.
But then life happens, and a single drop gets added to the glass, causing it to overflow. This is what feeling over-sensitive can be like. With a full emotional glass because of work, school, relationships, or life in general, any little thing that gets added to the mix can become overwhelming. An overflowing glass can cause us to feel more sensitive and have what are called “Trigger Reactions”. These are things we do or feel as an immediate response to something that happens to us.
When your glass is on the brink of overflowing at all times, it makes sense that you might become angry, fearful, or tearful unexpectedly. Maybe we snap at a family member or friend who did something to annoy us. Perhaps some inconvenience unexpectedly brought us to tears or a small change in our lives caused us to be fearful of what comes next.
Why would someone who feels sensitive not be in therapy yet?
When your glass is full, the last thing you want to do is add another drop to the mix, and therapy can feel like another drop. Already feeling too much, the last thing you want to do is go to therapy where you feel MORE. I often find that clients are worried about being so emotional after a session that they won’t be able to keep adulting afterward. While this concern is understandable, that doesn’t mean it will be that way every time.
How can therapy help?
The truth is, the glass is going to have to overflow a little in therapy, but that is going to happen regardless. Whether it’s an inconvenience or a lousy day at work or school, the glass will overflow and fill up again. But at therapy, you and your therapist pour a little of the water out of the glass with every session, giving you more space to add drops of water throughout the week. That way, when life happens, it won’t overflow. Consistent therapy helps keep your glass from getting full. When your frequency of trigger reactions goes down and your tolerance for life happening; goes up, you can relax knowing it won’t be too much to handle.
In the next blog of this series, I will unpack the E in RESET to talk about what it’s like to feel empty and how therapy can help. If you want to pursue therapy or ask any questions, please reach out using the button below, I’d be happy to help you.
