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I’ve started writing regularly on Substack. You can read it here for free.

https://debfotheringham.substack.com/

Subscribe and my writings will show up in your inbox with no link-clicking required. You’ll find stuff there like an essay about a harrowing experience I just went through, a mental health diagnosis that changed my life, some thoughts about coming home to Utah, and several poems. I’ll keep posting my thoughts and work there. There’s also a Substack app if you’re an app person and like squinting at tiny screens.

I was describing to my therapist my crippling phobia of driving cars. It had reached a point where I was just one ZZ-top-beard short of being a full-blown hermit and growing less and less likely to leave the house if I had to drive anywhere. It had really become a problem for me, especially as the population of my home state of Utah grew like algal bloom and Lehi—once a sleepy little cow town—became SprawlyTrafficLand

“Is it a fear of accidents or death that causes it, do you think?” she asked.

“No, it’s like I’m trying to juggle so much sensory information coming into my brain all at once that I just get really overwhelmed.”

I saw recognition in her face. She asked me if I’d ever heard of the term: Highly Sensitive Person. This was April 2022.

I had heard the term but just in passing. And (maybe like you) when I heard it for the first time, I imagined a cowering little waif curled into fetal position, sobbing. She holds one trembling hand aloft to block the cruel taunts of the schoolyard bullies. She can’t cope cuz she’s… just soooooooo sensitive. Tiny violins play.

Turns out what it actually means is something much more grounded in the physical body, specifically the sensory organs and brain. According to Dr. Elaine Aron, a clinical research psychologist who pioneered the study of Highly Sensitive People (also called Sensory Processing Sensitivity), it’s an innate trait not a disorder and 20% of humans (and animals!) have it. It’s been around forever.

What is it?

If you have sensory processing sensitivity, studies have shown that your brain is processing more sensory information more deeply than 80% of the rest of your species—sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. A Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) is an individual who “perceives and processes sensory information intensely, exhibits profound emotional responses, demonstrates heightened empathy, requires periods of seclusion for relief, and typically avoids distressing situations.”

The scientific studies of brain activity with this trait are really fascinating. The theory is that we evolved these traits to serve as the look-outs or scouts for the rest of the tribe to keep the group safe from danger. In the context of small hunter-gatherer groups and small communities, it’s a valuable trait to have around. In the context of our modern world with sensory information and chaos piped into our brains at all times, it’s really crippling and can create a type of person who struggles to cope.

People with sensory processing sensitivity tend to have a few common traits.

• Deeper cognitive processing and learning from information gained
• More attention to subtleties
• Greater emotional reactivity
• Greater awareness of environmental and social stimuli, including the moods and emotions of others
• Affected strongly by the environment
• High levels of self awareness, empathy, and self-other processing
• Pausing before acting in new situations
• More reactive to both positive and negative stimuli

You might not be surprised to learn that most HSPs are introverts. However, not all introverts are HSPs. HSPs tend to be deep thinkers with a lot of empathy. We’re good at solving problems and notice the details others miss. But we’re also terrible at taking negative feedback and often take criticism very personally. We tend to freeze under pressure and feel easily overwhelmed when we try to accomplish a lot of things within a short time frame.

A lot of HSP traits are frowned upon in western culture. It makes you seem weak, weird, and anti-social, a fussy person who just needs to get their shit together. And I get it. I loathe some of the traits too.

The Bad

I can’t handle large groups of people or loud concerts for very long without getting overwhelmed. But even small gatherings of strangers are hard. I might slip out the back without saying goodbye because my brain just suddenly needs to GTFO or risk overload.

I struggle to focus while being watched. I manage this in my life as a performing singer-songwriter (and lots of HSPs are performers and artists) by practicing, practicing, practicing, practicing until the act feels like muscle memory and my brain can use the processing power for focusing on other things. But ask me to do something on the spot with others watching, especially something vulnerable. Nope. Brain meltdown.

For example, a while ago The Lower Lights (a band I’m in) went into the studio to record some new songs at June Audio. While most folks were at lunch, myself and a few others stayed behind and started to put together a tune. The performance required some vulnerability from me as a singer. It was slowly taking shape but then everyone returned from lunch, not just the band but a few of the band’s family members as well (people I didn’t know) on a studio tour, all watching from the control room window. Game over. Song aborted. I couldn’t do it anymore. It had nothing to do with these lovely folks. From the outside perspective, it probably looked like I was either a shy li’l daisy or worse, a fussy diva. I worried at the time that the latter was the impression, but the truth is that my brain is unable to ignore all those extra signals it needs to process in order to focus on the performance. Brain overload. It’s annoying as hell.

A weird one, and a common HSP thing it turns out, is that I can feel a loose hair anywhere on my body. Sock. Shirt. Bra. Underwear. If it’s there, I feel it and it’s driving me nuts. I’ve wondered if this touch sensitivity has also informed my hesitancy with offering physical touch.

The Ugly

One thing I hate about it is that it causes me to be too absorbed in the inner workings of my own mind. Self-absorbed, one might say. I tend to observe more than participate as a coping mechanism.

All these traits can make me seem aloof and cold, maybe uncaring. I struggle to make friends (god, I struggle) and I’m highly dissatisfied with anything but deep friendships. I think all the feelings I feel all the time have caused me to put up a lot of emotional armor in order to protect myself. I hate that too. Lots of people do this, not just HSPs, but I sometimes feel like I’ve taken the armor to an extreme, like I’m constantly waddling around in emotional chainmail.

The Good

What I have to constantly—I mean CONSTANTLY—remind myself is that this trait is not all crippling. I’m not a broken person. It can be like a super power too on occasion. When I walk into a room full of people, the first thing I notice is the emotional weather. I’ve left parties without remembering one outfit or even one shirt color but I could have written you a detailed list of everyone’s emotional state.

I form deep attachments to other humans. Once I’ve accepted you into the inner circle of my heart (which is no small feat), I will love and care for you deeply as best I can. I’m very eager to learn everything about you, what makes you tick. I’ll pay attention to you and your life, notice even the small details of your likes and dislikes, behaviors, quirks. You might not know I’m doing this. Sometimes I try to hide it for fear of being seen as weird. Perhaps I shouldn’t hide it. I think careful attention makes people feel seen and we could all use a little more of that. I hope that’s what it feels like and not that Sting song. ♫Every breath you take..♫

I suspect I hear music in a way that might be more detailed than some. I don’t have perfect pitch or anything (obviously, if you’ve ever heard any of my vocal outtakes). HSP is more about the depth and quantity of information your brain is processing once the info enters via your various sensory organs and I think it helps me notice some details others might miss. If we went out to eat together, I could probably make you a list of all the songs that played in the background of the restaurant while we were talking. It might be related that I’ve always played music mostly by ear because it feels more intuitive. And though this has been a constant and deep source of insecurity for me around music-theory-fluent musicians, it has been a gift too.

I have a very acute sense of smell and taste. It made me a picky eater as a child who survived mostly on buttered toast. As an adult I’ve learned to embrace intensity of flavor and I eat adventurously. Being an HSP helps me enjoy the subtleties and complexities of food. It’s become one of my greatest joys.

My sense of smell just recently saved the lives of my little family. A few weekends ago, my husband Nick and I awoke past midnight after falling asleep downstairs on the couch watching a movie. Our kitty Jiminy was asleep on my lap. As we peeled ourselves off the couch and zombie-walked our way up the stairs, I noticed an odd smell. Nick couldn’t smell anything and went to bed. I was half-asleep and really just wanted to swan dive into the sheets but I couldn’t let it go. Maybe in the past I would have, but knowing what I know now about being an HSP, I no longer dismiss my senses. I tried to nestle and relax but just lay there on my back. Sniffing. What was that smell? It was sweet but a little off-putting, almost musty. Familiar. And then the little fact worm wriggled itself out of the depths of my groggy sense memory. Propane. (It’s a slightly more unfamiliar smell compared to the more familiar natural gas stove I grew up with.) The source? At some point in the evening, one of us had accidentally bumped a stove burner knob into the On position without igniting and propane gas was seeping in and had been for hours. We opened all the doors and windows and aired out the house that nearly became our coffin.  So…superpower? Sometimes.

The Source

Since April 2022, I’ve been able to move my whole world just a little bit with a tiny shift in perspective. My driving phobia is getting better. It turns out that coddling the sensory sensitivity just makes it worse so I’m trying not to cocoon so much. It will take time and it will certainly take all the effort I have, but now I have some tools and I can feel the wind changing. If we’re friends, thanks for being patient with my weird quirks through the years.

On the few rare occasions when I’ve fully accepted who I am with all these quirks and I’ve chosen to love me anyway, there’s a real transformation. In those moments, I carry myself with a palpable magnetism and power that I’ve seen draw others to me. I feel valuable, intelligent, sexy, and purposeful. At those times, I’ve experienced what feels almost like an emotional fusion with the loved ones I’m with, like we’re the notes of a tight bluegrass harmony vibrating together. It’s exhilarating. It’s everything.

Why do we continue to limit ourselves with all our critical self-talk and negative thought patterns when the source of our real power is simply love? To love and accept yourself just as you are with all of your flaws and hangups, not despite them, not someday when you overcome them. Now. Right now. In this present moment as you read this. Love for the whole person as she is. Compassion for her mistakes. That’s the real superpower. Try it. That’s the life source.

***

If any of these traits sound familiar and you wonder if you might be an HSP, you can take a test here and you definitely should read Dr. Aron’s book. It will probably feel like reading an owner’s manual for your brain for the first time.

One of the most startling realizations I had while living in Ireland for nearly a year before COVID hit was that I was really really ready to leave Utah for good. Nick was also ready to try a new location for his own reasons (but that’s his story to tell).

I’d have happily moved to Ireland permanently but it turns out that one of the fundamental agreements that you and your partner need to have is where you’re going to live. One of Nick’s greatest joys in life is going zoom zoom down the snow on little boards strapped to his feet. Ireland isn’t exactly a Pow Mecca. Also, when one has amassed an impressive collection of power tools and skills in the use of said tools, as Nick has, it’s kind of a big deal to move to a place with different power voltage system. So we made a list of places we both wanted to live.

For various reasons including snow, community, nature, attitudes toward the environment, climate future, and property prices, Vermont ended up at the top of our list.

And to put the story of the last six months into a cute little nutshell: we scoped out Vermont in the flesh, we liked it, we bought a motorhome, we sold our house in Utah, we slowly acclimatized our cat to the motorhome, and now everything we own worth taking with us is strapped into a trailer that we’re tugging across the country in our new mobile living situation until we find the perfect resting place in the Green Mountain State.

And so I say, with respect and an abiding but bittersweet love for the place that was my home for 38 years…byyyyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeee.

I’m sitting down to write words that will be read by other humans (well there’s no guarantee but there’s a possibility) and the only thing I can think is, “Try to remember how to have a sense of humor when you write, Deb, so it doesn’t sound like all you do is scream into an existential void.” So I’m making that note here:
don’t forget funny hahas.

Hi! How’s everyone’s pandemic been? Mine’s been one part spiritual transformation and two parts emotional knee-capping.  So, ya know…about like yours.

After I flew home from Ireland the day before they closed the borders, I quarantined for fourteen days and then proceeded to Lysol everything in the house that got near an open window for the next two years. Oh, and then a war started.

Call me crazy but I’ve found it hard to make Art in these Times. But if I’m being honest, the real problem is because I’m what Julia Cameron calls a “blocked artist.” It’s been nice to have other stuff to blame other than myself for a change…is a real thought I had. God, humans are the worst. But never fear! I’m only on Week 10 of the book. The Way is near! The Morning Pages are filling up binders like the wings of doves.

But for real, I hope if any other person is reading this that you’re ok and you have the emotional support you need.

Love to the void from the void
xoxo ( i always forget which is the hug and which is the kiss)

 

 

 

 

 

 

On March 20th of last year, I was in Cork, Ireland in a little one-room flat by the River Lee studying for a master’s degree. On March 21st, I was on a plane back to the U.S. It’s hard to believe that it’s been a year since COVID-19 changed the definition of normal–and yet somehow at the same time–it feels like it’s been much, much longer.  Some days feel interminable–each minute like being dragged behind a horse through a field of gravel. At other times (to steal a phrase I heard recently) it’s like you’re eating breakfast every 15 minutes. Those seven months in Ireland feel like a strange fever dream now.

And the loss, so much loss. Unimaginable loss for all of us. Some have handled it by hiding from truth–convincing themselves that nothing has changed and that this devastating loss is just the price to be paid to maintain normalcy and comfort. Others were convinced by self-serving politicians and then groupthink that what they were doing (social distancing, wearing masks) was living in fear and losing freedom rather than acting with selflessness and sacrificing a small percentage of their lives to save others. And slowly, it got longer and longer with more death and loss. You know the story. Here we are.

I’ve finally realized that comfort and safety are simply an illusion and life is so fragile and precious. I’ve felt the deep loss. Some days I just silently weep. Other days the only way to cope is to numb and medicate, escape into records, books, films, and video games just to get to the next day. (Thank the goddess for space operas and Red Dead Redemption.) And I’m one of the insanely lucky ones–my family is well, Nick (my husband), and I have stayed healthy and have been able to work from home. My little cat is cuddly and loving and completely oblivious to our human problems. But I can’t imagine what it’s been like for the unlucky, the unhealthy, the poor, the lonely, the marginalized.

When the pandemic hit, I was Zooming with friends almost every week and keeping up with people on social media. Somewhere in there I withdrew from almost everyone I love into a little hard shell that felt like emotional safety. I deleted my social media accounts (except Twitter for occasional news and goings on). I’m happy with that decision. It’s been vital for my mental health which is fragile at best. (We’re so much more easily influenced than we realize.) It means that I don’t know what every friend, family member, and passing acquaintance is doing and thinking at every hour of the day. And guess what? It turns out I can live happily without knowing. If I want to stay connected, the onus is on me to connect. It’s much healthier.

But in truth, it hasn’t been all bad and that’s sometimes difficult to talk about amidst the loss. I’ve experienced a fundamental change since March 2020. I’ve found joy and fulfillment in solitude and connected more deeply to nature than ever before. The things that are important to me have completely transformed. I hope I’m wiser, less materialistic, less vain, less ego driven. I know I need to do more, to be braver and to stand up and act. I suspect I’ll see the same change in the eyes and countenances of the people who’ve gone through this in a similar way when we can meet again.

I’m not really sure why I’m writing this other than I need a creative outlet to feel human and I’ve been struggling with other types of writing. I’m not even sure anyone will read it and I’m not sure that it matters but I’m going to try to keep writing as a little act of self-help and therapy.

Hiking in Ireland is a massively different experience to hiking anywhere in the American West. Sometimes it feels like two different planets. The ground here is a sponge, sometimes soft, bouncy, gentle, at other times a snarl of thorn and bramble, and then sometimes a slurping sucking hole that wants to eat your ankles and boots. As an American student studying for a master’s degree at University College Cork in Cork, Ireland, I’ve been taking trips with UCC’s Mountaineering Club when the weather calls for anything other than a deluge of rain. In January the destination was Knockmealdown Mountain on the border of counties Tipperary and Waterford.

I arrived with five minutes to spare before an 8:00 am departure and sat in the last available seat on the bus behind the hiking guides. I had just moved to a new apartment in Cork City and I misjudged how long it would take to walk from my street to the spot where the Mountaineering Club meets for their Sunday hike. Out of breath from speed walking and sweating in the frosty air under four layers of clothing, I hustled onto the bus. I glanced back down the rows to try and spot Jessie, a fellow American friend from my program, but all I could see were the tops of tousled bedhead hair and beanies peeking over the seat backs and I couldn’t see hers among them. We’d arranged to meet for the hike. I texted her, but I knew it was probably fruitless because she doesn’t have a data plan for her cell phone yet. I’m not the type to call out. Nothing is more repulsive to me than drawing attention to myself, so I just sat. She was there or she wasn’t. Either way I was going on the hike. I’d find out when we got to the trailhead.

In Ireland, it doesn’t take long to leave the city. Rub the sleep out of your eyes and you’ll miss it. One minute you’re barreling down the carriageway and yawing through roundabouts, and the next, rolling emerald hills and little pockets of wood are swishing past your window. We began to ascend. The bus maneuvered its way around hairpin switchbacks and before long we were in a car park between barren heathered hills rising on either side. As I was sitting in the front, I was one of the first off the bus. I pulled my pack from the belly of the bus. It’s strange to feel affection for an inanimate object but my backpack has been my piggyback companion through many a hiking trip including 160 miles of the Camino de Santiago in Spain. I always get a little thrill when I sling it on. It’s practically a Pavlovian response at this point.

I could see the trail we’d be taking. It was straight up. The line of hikers looked like little diecast toys at the top.

“Hey!”

It was Jessie, looking like she’d enjoyed a good nap at the back of the bus, thick curly hair barely contained in a beanie

“You are here!” I said, surprised.

I was happy to see her. I’m perfectly content to hike alone but it’s always more fun to have someone to talk to that you actually enjoy talking to. The weather was brisk, a biting wind. We paced, shifting from foot to foot, pretending to listen to the hike leader’s instructions but the words were carried off in the wind, something about leaving no trace. The hike began.

It became quite apparent after my first hike in Ireland why the Mountaineering Club is militantly insistent that you have proper footwear. It would be so easy to break an ankle even with good boots. And most of the time, there’s no trail. You’re just tripping and slipping your way over heather, rock, and hidden sinkholes. I’m making it sound like it’s something I don’t enjoy but it’s wildly entertaining, challenging, thrilling. This particular route was straight up, clambering over slimy rocks. Before long, the forty of us were all huffing and puffing our way up.

I didn’t enjoy hiking and mountain climbing until I learned to forget about the destination. That old clichéd phrase, “It’s the journey not the destination,” rolls easily off the tongue but it’s much trickier to swallow it, digest it, embody it, learn to savor the experience just for the pure pleasure of feeling the burn in the lungs, the pull and fire in the thigh muscles, sweat dripping down the back. Then it never matters when you crest the top of one ridge just to see another. On the mountain, all my senses are heightened. I’m alone with my heart and head in the hush and murmur of wind and birdsong, forced to look at the frightening stuff inside, mull it over, work it out, face it.

The views were spectacular at the top of the hill. In every direction, a patchwork of quilt squares in shades of sage, olive, seaweed, ribboned with dark lines, visible between drifting mist. But it was soon on to another ridge, everyone beginning to dream of their little bundles of peanut butter and jelly or chicken sandwiches, containers of curry and rice, the fruit in their packs. But it couldn’t be that easy, first we were hit by a random flurry of snowflakes. The party halted while people tore into their packs for rain shells, waterproof pants, beanies, gloves. But the snow drifted away as quickly as it had come.

At the next ridge, the word we’d all been waiting for was announced: lunch. I jumped to secure a seat on one of the few bare limestone rocks. Jessie joined me. We ate mostly in silence, fatigued and buffeted by cold wind, munching our bread, fruit, corn chips, hunkered and hunched down to shield ourselves from the icy air.

And then it was onward, this time downhill. We abandoned the marked track and began our descent down the steep hillside, walking sideways to keep ourselves from slipping in the wet and wooly foliage, fighting for footing, the hamstrings and quads burning. Every step was a potential slip and slide down the mountain or at least onto your ass. But after at least an hour, we made it to the bottom. Mountain conquered, I guess. It was almost anticlimactic when my boots hit level ground again.

It was an easy flat walk back to the bus along a trail at the bottom of the hill. By this time, the clouds had drifted away and we were treated to golden late afternoon sun. Sometimes I forget how lucky I am to be living in Ireland. On some days, it’s just another place to exist. But on that Sunday, as I walked with a friend, stamped pleasurably through little puddles, felt the warm sunlight on my windblown cheek, listened to the birdsong, the huffing and shuffling of feet and tired but happy voices, I really felt the luck, really felt the pure pleasure of being present in that moment, in this place.

In August of 2019, I moved to Ireland. My life begins and ends with that sentence. My old life ended,  my new life began. Anyone who has followed my music for any length of time knows that I grew up Mormon. I don’t think that anyone who still follows my music will be surprised to learn that I left the Mormon church about five years ago. To put five years of grief and trauma into a ridiculously succinct nutshell: I stopped believing in it. In fact, I started actively disbelieving. And in order to be true to myself, I had to leave. I moved on. I don’t really intend to go into all that here. I put a lot of that pain into my record, The Darkness and the Sun. Other writers more gifted than I have documented the unspeakable pain and loss of reeling from that rift, crossing that chasm, and I don’t intend to go into it here right now. Maybe at some other time.

What matters is that my life changed. I changed. And I found that I needed to pick up the little sloughs of leftover skin and try to build some kind of new human with the remnants. It became increasingly clear to me that in Utah, all I could build was a kind of Dr. Frankenstein imitation. I needed a defibrillator. I needed to throw myself out of an airplane at 4,000 meters. I need to jump from a speed boat and feel the shock of the icy ocean. I needed to blast myself into a new existence. So I moved to Ireland, ostensibly to get a master’s degree in creative writing at University College Cork. But perhaps the degree was just a means to an end.

I meant to start this journal the minute I arrived. But as it does, life got away from me. But I intend to begin now. If anyone happens to be surfing along the binary highway and takes a little detour to my site and actually reads this, stay tuned for more. I hope to write every day, or at least once a week.