Dustee
Posts: 32
Joined: 4/18/2006
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Yes, absolutely, I feel the same way. No amount of positive experiences (and I have also had plenty in my life) ever changed this for me. I don't know why this happens to some of us, but my best guess is that it's partially tempermental (genes) and partially some unusually daunting experiences very early in our lives, things so old and buried we do not remember what they are. Those early basic experiences, I am guessing, set a pattern of expectation that is very hard, perhaps impossible, to break.
The genetic part, I think, might be for emotional hyersensitivity, i.e. some people are affected by their emotional environment the same way other people are affected by pollen in the spring. Most people, obviously, are indifferent to one or both, but unlike pollen allergies, those who are indifferent to emotional hypersensitivity are usually incapable of understanding it and typically think that it's ameable to change via simplistic behavioral or atittude adjustments. They think this because they, themselves, can "toughen up" through simple practice or experience or by changing their expectations.
Ironically, because we're so emotionally hypersensitive, even this ignorance or inability to experience our reality can hurt, because so many people who don't get it seem to think this hardwired emotional state is a relatively simple habit that is easy to change, like quitting smoking. If only it were that easy! (And I know how hard quitting smoking is and still say this in all seriousness.) So if we talk about our hurt feelings, we get in response the standard hackneyed litany from those not affected by emotional pollen such as "just move on" or "get over it" or "it's just the Internet (or fill in the blank)... why get so wrought up by it? Life is too short!" Any of those sound familiar? (rolling eyes) Imagine if you had terrible spring or fall allergies and someone told you in disgust to "just get over it" and saw you as morally inferior for not able to stop your sneezing and coughing!
It also doesn't help that we live in a society where a premium is placed upon physical and emotional independence. (Co-dependence, which is at the heart of every deeply intimate and rewarding relationship I know of, is actually considered by this insane world as a disgusting social disease!!)
The only good part about being hypersensitive to others' emotions (or the "caring too much" allergy) is that, if we turn out kinky, we make excellent submissives and are greatly loved if we wind up with a caring and compassionate partner, as we're always thinking about their well-being, far more so then we think about our own.
If you're overly susectible to others' emotions to begin with due to a toss of the genetic dice, and, say, you have an immature parent who behaves cruelly or unpredictably toward you when you're an infant, you have what I think is a recipie that creates people like us, people who are easily hurt by others and who wear their hearts on their sleeves.
Again this is just a theory, but it's based on nearly five decades of self-observation and experience.
< Message edited by Dustee -- 7/22/2006 7:01:00 AM >
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Hurt Feelings - 
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I am the same way. I get my feelings hurt very easily and was told for many years, "Grow a thicker skin" too. 
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