A Highly Sensitive Person's Life

This is a hard story for me to tell.

I am embarrassed and ashamed of it. It’s the one time in my life that I’ve had an outburst and lost my cool in public.

I was hanging out with my husband and a group of 6+ friends. We were all sitting around a large outdoor table at a restaurant, just chatting and hanging out on a nice day.

The day before, my husband and I had hung out with friends during the day, then gone out to a bar at night with other friends. So it was basically like we’d had 3 social events in a row over the span of two days. Before we got to the restaurant, I had made a comment to him that it was too much for me, and that maybe he should go alone. But I didn’t push it too much because I didn’t have a REAL reason to not go be with our friends. These were people we do things with all the time; what would be my reason for not wanting to see them? That I had “too much social interaction” over the weekend? Most people would not understand that. Plus, I did not want to hold my husband back from having a good time with our friends just because I wanted alone time.

So. We are sitting at the table with our friends, and I’m not saying much. Then my husband asks me something in front of everyone that triggered me. I don’t remember what it was. I think he asked me a question I had already told him the answer to previously.

Again, this is hard for me to admit.

I completely snapped at him, pushed back my chair angrily, and stormed off. Away from the table with all my friends. Like a fucking crazy person.

Even as I’m walking away, the rational side of my brain is going “What the hell did you just do? You look like a crazy person! Where the hell are you going to go now after storming off?” and the other side of my brain is going, “I don’t give a shit what happens right now.”

I walk out of the restaurant and onto the sidewalk, which just happened to be along the ocean. I walked there for quite a while. I thought to myself, “Is this what it feels like to be crazy? I can’t even trust my own mind. Now I know what people who have mental problems feel like. They can’t trust their own thoughts.” This was a scary feeling. I don’t think I even cried. But I hated myself so much at that moment. It was a dark time.

I knew I had to go back to the restaurant at some point. I didn’t have my phone with me, and I’m sure my husband was wondering what was going on. How the heck was I going to go back after my outburst? Part of me didn’t even care. I decided to walk back and act like nothing happened.

I walked back in and sat down and my husband was gone. He had gone looking for me. My friends said a few words about how they tried to find me, but thankfully, they didn’t say much. They went on to a different topic. I just sat there quietly. My husband came back and we left soon after. I was so embarrassed that I couldn’t even talk about it, other than apologizing to him. He, being the understanding man he is, said, “I should have known it was too much for you. You said you had too much social interaction this weekend. Next time I will pay better attention.” That was the exact, perfect response, for which I was grateful.

I also learned that I need to pay better attention to myself. If I’m feeling like I don’t want any more social contact, I have to listen to my instinct, even if it seems really lame. Who knows why I “lost it” that day. It was irrational, for sure. It was scary to feel so out of control. But if I pay more attention to my feelings, then hopefully it won’t happen again.