perhaps a sensitive nervous system is not dysfunctional, removed from urban context?
dysautonomia is a common way that sensitive human beings are dismissed and labelled as defective. neurodivergence is another.
mast cell activation, histamine sensitivity, POTS. they’re all ways to label, and pathologise, a sensitive body system – that’s responding to chronic sympathetic activation.
trauma, CPTSD, repeated microtrauma (of growing up in a culture that denies the somatic and spiritual reality of being alive)…
they’re all ways to say, and pathologise, “you’re showing signs of not doing well in this social, cultural, physical environment”.
via https://www.ehlers-danlos.com/dysautonomia/#1695744176069-960d85d3-e327
i’m not dismissing the impact of these conditions, but postulating that maybe this hypersensitivity isn’t debilitating in environments that aren’t abrasive.
colloquially we agree that modern/urban/technological life is not ideal for human health. but hypersensitive individuals don’t have the luxury of ignoring that.
so what do we do about it?
keep your cardiovascular system healthy. build skeletal muscle. manage stress and inflammatory response. monitor the effects of stimulants and diuretics, titrate your intake. be observant to the environments which require you to take stimulants to attend; how can you spend less time here?
but really, underneath it all. what if being sensitive is not a pathology. what is it, actually, that you are sensing?
dysautonomia means an autonomic nervous system which is not functioning well. the autonomic takes care of eating, sleeping, breathing, circulating, reproducing. the very stuff that allows you to continue to live. the sympathetic takes care of not dying right now.
so maybe the way to help our autonomic nervous system is to put it in an environment where it is ok to just be alive, and attend to the matters of living.
now i accept that that is a very big thing, as well as many small things. it is personal and political, psychological, emotional, physical and spiritual. it requires internal comittment and a community of support.
we are, as a culture, definitely not there yet. but maybe we start by honouring the bodies that indicate a pathological way of living, rather than labelling the bodies pathological.
https://www.ehlers-danlos.com/dysautonomia/#1695881290624-3627f11f-535c
https://www.ehlers-danlos.com/dysautonomia/#1695819493453-a693d2ce-b153
