I'm hypersensitive physically & energetically: takes work & time for me to enjoy touch / shielding
icon: "distance (two hands (from a brown person and a white person) just barely apart, facing each other palm to palm)"
I noticed a weird reaction in me the last two times I spent one-on-one time with Evelyn. I wondered why I hadn't done more sexy things because I had been looking forward to that aspect and in thinking back, realized that I was feeling some internal resistance in the moment while I was with them. I knew it wasn't lack of desire, so I found that feeling confusing the first time it happened and figured I was just in a weird mood or something. Then it happened again, so I took it as meaningful and examined it until I figured it out.
I realized that this was coming up for the first time because last time we were dating, it was summer and we could only have short dates, so I could flow in and out of being sexual with them without a lot of effort. That's only possible when 1) I am not hypersensitive and 2) it's a short burst of time. (and of course I have to have a strong connection with the person, but that alone doesn't do it)
Often -- I'd say most of the time -- my body and my energy system are both hypersensitive. This is especially true in winter because cold really affects me, both by bringing my emotional energy down and by making my whole body tense and uncomfortable the majority of my waking life. I also tend to get hypersensitive when I'm highly stressed, when I haven't had enough platonic touch lately, or whenever it has been more than two weeks since I had an energy reset (which is easiest to get from sex but I can also get it from energy work, sensation play, concerts of artists I love, ritual, or getting drunk). Unfortunately masturbation doesn't really help with regards to this because it's more about my energy system being shocked by contact with another energy system.*
When I am hypersensitive, touch feels about 10 times as strong as it should. If I am super hyped up, this can be fun, but most of the time it feels like everything is too rough and too cloying at the same time. When people touch me I want them to press harder AND I want it to be barely there AND I want them to just move ten feet away immediately; it creates really intense ambivalence. It's not too hard to make the hypersensitivity stop, but most of the time I expect that people don't want to help, so I usually either avoid touch or steel myself against it like when you jump into a cold pool.
I can manage my hypersensitivity by artificially raising my inner energy levels, but I can't do this for very long and it is exhausting and stressful. So usually what happens is that I feel the need to block sexual energy unless I am actively interacting with it. When I have to block, that makes it harder to get into it in the first place because I have to take the block down and it takes energy so I don't want to do it unless it's gonna be down for long enough to make it worth it. And part of me feels guilty at putting up a block at all, which makes me feel internally pressured to take it down immediately when I perceive a request, which makes my desire deflate -- a weird, frustrating little cycle.
This is true with nonsexual touch too, and is part of the reason that quick hugs or pecky kisses are often draining for me. I have to do this inner work to prepare my body so that it doesn't feel like the tactile version of a train brake screech, and if the person stops giving touch before I even finish the work, then I never get the nourishment and it was a huge amount of wasted effort. I've figured out that it takes at least four full seconds for me to even relax into a hug, and it takes at least two seconds for me to get into a kiss, and if it doesn't last at least as long as it took me to get there, then it is overall draining. I'm still willing to do it sometimes but I can't do it a lot. I'd far rather have a high-five or a nod than a short hug. I need to remember this and offer people a high five or 8-second hug rather than letting them grab me for one or maybe two seconds.
Anyway, it was interesting to realize that I was having this reaction, and that trying to deal with it alone was so not the way to go. When I mentioned this to Evelyn I said I'd probably need some help with bringing my sensitivity down at the beginning so that I didn't have to block and/or I would need to have sexual time separate from the rest of our time, and they responded supportively and casually mentioned that we could be more intentionally structured about our time together (which I find very exciting & hopeful), so I look forward to experimenting with that!
*This used to happen to me every time I left the house, because I had no shield against other people's energy and it would all just cling to me. I'd merely walk past someone and feel like bursting into tears because I felt their pain, and I didn't know how to get rid of it either so I would just feel terrible for days until it wore off. Now it only happens when I let my shields down, but I prefer to drop my shields with people I love even if it means I pick up some of their stuff. I prefer to cleanse it out later if need be and be able to connect fully in the meantime.