The good, the bad, and the just plain ugly of being an emotional sponge.

Here's the Story of the Day: Ghosts of the Past I'd probably have more trouble with the ghosts of the past, she said, if my memory wasn't shot to hell.

One of my hubby's Alabama cousins introduced me to StoryPeople. Whimsical, odd little things like the above arrive in my email daily. I love them.

If I were writing for them, I'd write one about myself that went something like this:

Being far too emotionally driven to be of

use in the real world, she has decided to

reside in a fantasy world where she wears

flowing skirts and is thin.

For this to make sense to anyone but me, I should tell you what I mean by being an emotional sponge, which is how I see myself. I seem to absorb the emotion of those around me, soaking up their anxiety, anger, depression, whatever. I then seem to internalize it, feel it, take it in personally, which then causes stress which makes my body hurt.

The "just plain ugly" of the above:

    *Pain, the fibromyalgia pain that reigns supreme in my body when I get too stressed. Let's face it, pain of any kind is just plain ugly!

The "bad":

     *I can't really watch the news or those Cops type shows. Sad humanity burns to my soul. As does sad-animal-kingdom. (Weirdly though, I'm so fascinated by Hoarder shows that I can watch that particular sad-humanity-sad-animal stuff. And the animals always get taken care of.)

    *I'm very susceptible to having my emotions put through the wringer. I give you as examples, the AT&T phone company commercials on the "Reach out and touch" theme that ran during my pregnancy with my daughter (seriously, so touching, people reuniting...grandchildren calling.... *SOB*) and movies/books/tv shows can cause me serious emotional trauma. For instance, Grey's Anatomy. I was done with the show after sobbing my way through the last part of the first season. And don't even get me started on that French novel, "The Elegance of the Hedgehog" we read for bookclub.

The "good":

    *I can be pretty caring and compassionate.

    It makes me a good nurturer, and being a foster mom to drug-affected babies suited me well those ten years, and I love being a mom!

    *I like most people and enjoy talking to strangers in stores, and love knowing people's stories.

    *If I ask you how you're doing, I actually want to know.

So I guess like most of life, it has its good points and bad points. I'm glad it occurred to me to write this post since all I was seeing was the negative side, but now I've reminded myself of the good. So I guess I just need to be willing to wade through the bad and the ugly to get to the lovely land of the good. 

Skimmer's Recap: Note to self: buy yourself some rubber boots and just keep moving.