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The Tale Of The Princess And The Pea
It was heartbreaking to watch. A relative's mental health and overall wellbeing began to deteriorate rapidly following her husband's death from cancer. It was hard enough to see her struggle during her spouse's prolonged illness. But losing him, as well as dealing with other physical ailments of her own, was enough to catapult her into a severe depression. Despite repeated attempts to alleviate her symptoms (including several antidepressants, ECT treatments, and hospitalizations), she continued to wrestle with depression for years on end. I visited her on different occasions. Each time after my visit, when the heaviness in my chest became tolerable, my mind kicked into high gear. What else would help? What other options were there? Was there something the doctors had missed? Was there some answer located outside of the box that we hadn't yet discovered?
Imagine the following scenario. A petite woman with dark hair and a wounded expression in her eyes suddenly buries her face in her hands and starts to cry. "What's wrong?" her friend asks. "Eric cheated on me. I found him in bed with my friend's younger sister. He told me two days ago that he loved me and would never do anything to hurt me. He went on and on about how beautiful I was. He stayed up all night writing me poems about his undying love for me. Wrote me 12 sonnets. Told me how he worshipped the ground I stood on." "He's crazy that boyfriend of yours. Isn't he the one with bipolar?"
I have an unforgettable memory. I was at my best friend's house with my sister for a slumber party (the most audacious, wild discussions always happen at slumber parties for some reason). We were 11 years old, the three of us, just before puberty hit. But for some inexplicable reason, we were all a bit precocious, at least as far as our bodies were concerned. In our awkward naive way, all three of us had experienced the awakening of our sexuality. We hardly had the words for it. “I touch myself.” “I touch myself all the time when I wash my face in the shower when I pull out an eyelash...”