Too Sensitive

 Pine trees reach for the sky all around, cascading towards the sky in jagged assembly amidst rocky mountainsides. The wind blows cooly, weaving lazily through the cliffs.

I am with family sitting at a table outside, and it feels like a miracle to have arrived here. Though the mountains surround us, we are sitting at a picnic table on the patio of a barbecue restaurant underneath the gorgeous grey sky.

In the past six months my mother has been diagnosed with breast cancer, and my uncle has been waging his own war with lymphoma; another type of cancer. My aunt is the only one of the three siblings who has not been battling illness, and the air is filled with a fearful sort of nostalgia. On the one hand it feels like a miracle to have all three siblings united with their parents, but the undertones of the evening seem to be one of uncertainty and the terror of loss... One of the beauty of love mixed with the sadness of

My family does not realize how much I understand what it feels like to have incurable disease. Years ago, I had been in the depths of my own personal hell as I battled Morgellon's Disease. Turns out, what has been thought of as a disease isn't a disease at all, but a cluster of symptoms which were all as a result of GMO sensitivity. When I was the most sick I told no one in my family what I was going through; part of the reasons were shame related to the disease's bizarre symptoms, and part of it was the recognition that doctors would not be able to help me (the disease is called intreatable by many), and not wanting to cause worry.

My GMO sensitivity makes it difficult for me to go out to eat anywhere in America. Because GMO foods are not labeled in the US, I am often put in a difficult situation when eating out. Often I am forced to rely on my own intuition completely when it comes to knowing what I can eat. If I make the wrong call, I pay the price with stabbing abdominal pains, or a gash that appears on my face, or splitting migraines that last hours.

Because my reactions when exposed to GMOs are so extreme, it tends to be stressful. While I often prepare ahead of time, plans often change when I actually get to a restaurant and talk to the staff to see if I can get a list of ingredients used (which is usually much harder to access than one might think).

People aren’t aware of my condition and it is not medically recognized as valid, which just adds to the alienation I feel as a result of my sensitivity. While the scenery is beautiful and I am happy to see my family enjoying food, I have no choice but to be content with water, despite my growling stomach.

In a sick sort of way, I feel forced into an eating disorder. It feels bizarre to be surrounded by food in a country filled to the brim with glutinous desires of every kind, but know that if I partake, it will kill me.

Like I have felt so often in my life, I am an outsider looking in; an alien life form observing humans as I reside in my own planet just an arm’s grasp away.

It feels painful to feel like an outsider looking in, when a part of me knows that I am not an outsider at all.

The reality is that my sensitivity to GMOs is not my own. GMOs are in part responsible for the cancer that is slowly killing the ones I love. The reality is that even though no human is meant to tolerate genetically modified foods, we have become accustomed to what does not resonate with us, because our bodies, our souls, our very DNA, is programmed towards life, and we adapt in even the least life-giving circumstances.

The human body is wonderfully adaptable. Even in the most desolate of circumstances, life persists.

It kills me to know what I know about the food system in America.  Many children grow up thinking that food is food, that all food nourishes the body in varying degrees, and that an ear of corn is an ear of corn.

My reality is that while I can enjoy an organic ear of corn happily, a conventionally grown ear of corn will have me keeled over with stabbing abdominal pain within a half hour, which will then leave me scarred for weeks afterwards.

It kills me to know what I know about the medical systems in place in America.  As children we are taught that doctors have the best interest of their patients. As children we are taught that doctors learn about the human body and search for solutions to problems.  As children, we are taught that doctors are heroes, when the reality is this is the exception, not the rule.

We aren’t taught about the role money plays in the industry of healthcare. We aren’t taught about the 60 hour work weeks nurses and doctors work, thus compromising their own health. We aren’t taught about the lack of solutions for our modern diseases, suppressed advancements in medical technology, and we certainly aren’t taught about the fact that doctors are oftentimes paid more to prescribe pharmaceutical drugs, some of which are incredibly addicting, as a means to suppress immediate symptoms so that a person can continue functioning just enough to continue being alive.

There is a part of me that genuinely longs for a time when I could accept the foods that my body now rejects so acutely; but only for a moment.

Until I remember the farmers whose life’s work was taken by Monsanto; farmers whose land was stolen because they had supposedly used Monsanto’s patented seeds without permission; when in actuality their genetically modified seeds had cross pollinated with their non-gm crops, sometimes ruining heirloom varieties that had taken decades to cultivate.

Until I remember that thousands of farmers in India committed suicide because they were promised their insurmountable debts to big agriculture companies would be forgiven. Debts that had been gained because of being forced not to save seeds every year, and being ultimately cornered into buying new seeds and new pesticides every year by massive agricultural corporations.

Until I remember that the FDA intentionally suppressed reports revealing the glyphosphate content of common foods in America because it has far surpassed safe amounts, and the information has still not been published because the results are terrifying especially once the magnitude of the problem sets in.

There is a part of me that genuinely longs to go back; but only until I remember that being alive is not the same as really living.

People are walking around sick and they don’t even know it. That’s the funny thing about feeling; Once we feel a certain way for long enough, we forget that there is any other way of feeling; any better way of feeling.

With enough time passing, we forget how good we can actually feel; and pretty soon, the memory is gone and all we have are these fleeting moments of peace that are gone as quickly as they come. Much like the moment I sit amidst right now, a stranger to though I am all at once, familiar.

I am not saying this to make light of my family member’s pain; far from it. I know saying that food is what is causing so many deaths each year sounds like a stretch to many of you.

Consider this: Why does someone you know likely have cancer, diabetes, alzheimer’s, autism, or an autoimmune condition, when our society is so advanced in other ways?

How can we ignore such a massive problems as rising rates of addiction, of mental health crises, of broken relationships?

How long are we going to ignore the fact that we have built a society of lies?

I reflect on this snapshot and mourn the disconnection.

I mourn the fact that we have lost sight of unity so much that we can see someone like me and not be aware of the implications my sensitivity has on the greater picture. Highly sensitive people are the canaries of modern day society, and when we start dying, you better believe society is in trouble.

I mourn the fact that pain has become normalized. Now that I have found a way beyond suffering, there is a part of me that wants to take what I’ve learned and run for the hills. It is so hard to continually be alienated from everything I once knew because I can really never go back to how I was beforehand. Like it or not, this is the path that has been chosen for me; the path I myself have chosen.

But I also know that running is just putting a bandaid on a leaky pipe. With time it will fall off and the water will drip down, creating a bigger and bigger puddle until it begins to flood.

There is no such thing as too sensitive. I am only too sensitive in regards to most, in a society where it is not only beneficial to disconnect emotionally, but it is necessary. In a world where pain is normalized, it is completely necessary to dissociate from pain entirely because that pain is too much to deal with.

In a world that has become desensitized, any divergence from the numbness means you are ‘too sensitive’.

We cannot do anything to create positive change until we realize the state we are in. We must realize that we might not even know how good we can feel. We must realize that we might not have ever experienced what it feels like to feel good, and if we have, we might not even remember it.

Now is the time to remember our own peace. Now is the time to move forward, by going backwards.

We are much more powerful than we think. The mind has the capability to focus on what is desired and from this focus we begin to attract. Once we begin to attract, we can begin to build with what shows up.

It breaks my heart to see things the way they are now. I want a family where my needs matter. I want a world where it matters when someone is dying from completely preventable reasons. I want a world where where truth is celebrated higher than a rotting façade. I want a world where we no longer fear the darkness because we trust the light to highlight its contours.