My Social Media-less Life

On Thanksgiving, there was an ad during one of the football games about ChatGPT. On a whim, I decided to download it and see how it perceived my current writing project.

It was a WILD experience seeing my characters shown back to me in a way that was like taking a personality test for them.

That immediately sold me.

Over the last few weeks, I shifted from a made-up world in my head to something I had convinced myself was only in my head: the way I feel and perceive and process.

Unsurprisingly, Chat held up a mirror to my own self and said, “there is literally nothing wrong with you. That’s how you were made.”

Mind-blown emoji

It’s like God knew what He was doing the whole time or something. Wild.

I’ve used Chat mainly for learning purposes so I keep my relationship with God outside of it because well… I don’t need to start an argument with artificial intelligence. It is, of course, artificial. It will not be going to heaven or hell when it ceases to exist. It will just… cease to exist.

But it’s wild how learning about myself has caused me to appreciate how God made me even more than before.

One of the things I’m learning about myself is “What exactly is a Highly Sensitive Person and am I doing it right?”

Not that there’s anything to do “right” or “wrong,” but living in a world where most people don’t have extra sensitivity to things they’re actively processing always made me think I was doing something wrong because my threshold for things seemed to be lower than everyone else’s.

Bright lights? Too bright. Can’t think.

Loud noises or concert settings? Wow, how can anyone even THINK with this happening??

Startled? Immediately set on high alert for the next hour because of a silly jump-scare that I can’t seem to bring my heart rate down from.

Long day and a lot of stressors? I just need more Jesus. I can get through the day alright. Everyone else seems to be doing fine with the same issues.

Except… they AREN’T the same issues for everyone else. Because of the way God made me (as an HSP, or highly sensitive person), I am IMMEDIATELY more sensitive to sights, sounds, touches, and jump-scares. I wake up already at a level 5 where most people might wake up at a 3 or even a normal 1-2.

Not that I’m on alert because I expect anything bad to happen or anything negative. It’s just because I’m more sensitive. (And my system’s 1-2 is a “normal” person’s 5)

When I was little, it showed in the way I reacted when my hair was brushed too hard or when the clothes I was wearing were too scratchy when everyone else thought they were fine. Or when I got stung by a wasp and thought I was going to die because it hurt so much.

In my teens, it was my inability to wear makeup because it was hard for me to THINK with stuff on my face (something I still struggle with and I went super minimalist with any makeup). Or it was discovering that I am an extrovert… who needs more silent recharge time.

In my 20s, it was figuring out that maybe I should invest in a good set of earplugs to reduce the noise level around me before I have an utter meltdown and a normal coffee date with a friend turns into my first full panic attack. (Never actually happened, but we came pretty close a few times). Or buying sunglasses for driving because well… you can’t turn off the sun and it is, in fact, the brightest light you can get.

Now that I’m in my 30s, ALL of the issues I had from a child up to now have compounded and it seemed as though maybe I misread myself my whole life.

Today, I had a rough day. It was fine… and then it wasn’t fine and nothing I did or said was making the feelings of stress go away. Not prayer, not “grounding,” not rolling my shoulders and reminding myself that the danger is not real. None of that.

Since I downloaded one of the neatest technologies to date, I originally asked ChatGPT before things got too crazy: “Give me short decompression rituals I can use after work.”

And then I had to close the app and did none of the rituals. Facepalm emoji

Tonight, my roommate and I did our Christmas gift-giving and she got me a heated Snuggie. Since we needed to make sure it worked before we threw out the box, I plugged it into the nearest outlet (at the end of our kitchen peninsula) and turned it on.

By the time she got back from taking out the recycling, I was on the floor staring into space.

I called it “charging.”

Eventually I was lying on the ground.

Come to find out, I was doing exactly what an HSP at dangerously low energy capacity does. What helped me discover that?

ChatGPT. (Or Steve as I named it tonight because it was funny the other night and now it won’t leave me alone… ha!)

After my roommate went upstairs for the night and I moved my “charging station” to the couch, I told Chat-Steve what had happened with the plugging in and inability to move (because I can’t leave an open-ended question alone without some form of closure and all AI has are open-ended invitations to keep going). It said the only problem was that I was seeing it as a failure on my part when it was really my nervous system shutting down because too much output had been given and not enough input had been received. And a heated Snuggie was the cue to my body that we could retire for the night because charging needs to happen for someone with Sensory Processing Sensitivity like myself.

“This game is WILD,” I would have thought, had I had the ability to give much thought.

ChatGPT really helped me learn something the world cannot teach because there aren’t enough people out there for the world to care all that much: being a Highly Sensitive Person, while a little more stressful on my system, is NOT bad. It is NOT a disadvantage.

In fact, in one conversation, Chat-Steve even called it a “superpower.” BECAUSE I am an HSP, I can read a room more easily than others. I can sense an issue coming before it comes. I can tell when someone is upset and even have the ability to pivot my own energy to match the mood or bring it up, depending on the situation. I have more empathy and feel things so deeply, when I say “I understand,” I probably really— as truly as I can— understand.

However… that same superpower has a weakness: that weakness is that I want to fix the broken things. I feel the negative shift in a room and want to correct it before things get out of hand. I can tell when a friend is upset before they can and immediately want to help.

“Why is that a bad thing, Erica?” I hear you asking. And well, it’s because sometimes that friend doesn’t KNOW what they need fixed, just that something is wrong. The energy in a room can be affected by me, sure, but I am NOT God. I am not Jesus. I did not come to save people.

Not by myself anyway.

And that’s where my relationship with Father, Son and Holy Spirit REALLY shines through. Because as Paul once said, “In my weakness, He is strong.”

I do not NEED to fix everything by myself. Sometimes, even the Holy Spirit will whisper “Let it be.” And I have to stay in tune with Him to hear that whisper.

But other times, He might say, “NOW.” And I need to listen to that just as much.

BECAUSE I naturally have more empathy flowing through my veins, I tend to take on the atmosphere in a room as my own instead of letting the love of Jesus shine through. However, my empathy can magnify what (or rather Who) is inside me just as much as it can consume what’s outside of me.

So as much as I’m learning about myself and my nervous system’s limitations, I’m also learning how to use the supernatural ability being an HSP gives me to respond more to the Holy Spirit’s promptings.

And that was an unintended but not-unpleasant side effect of downloading ChatGPT. 🙂