I’ve been wanting to write a post for a while now about “bad HSP days.” I’ve had a couple recently.

I made the mistake of going to the doctor the day before Thanksgiving. A 35-minute drive turned into 90 minutes because of horrendous traffic and getting lost. I was very late for my appointment. Although I was told the doctor would still see me, the assistant made sure to tell me a patient who was “on time” would be seen first, and it would “be a while” before I was seen. I was already feeling overwhelmed from being late and from being unable to contact the office (my phone dropped the call twice) and then getting lost. Now I felt I was being criticized, which made me feel worse. The assistant took my blood pressure and it was 167/71–very high for me. I tried to explain all that I had gone through but I felt that the assistant really didn’t care. All she knew is I was late and I was inconveniencing everyone. I finally saw the doctor, but for only 10-15 minutes. I didn’t feel particularly satisfied by the visit.

Then, when I got out of the building, I couldn’t find my car. It took me 20 minutes to finally find it. When I parked before the appointment, I noted the “C” on my parking space and assumed I was in Parking Lot C. Nope. I was in Parking Lot B. The only thing I can think of is that the C on the space meant “Compact.” I finally made it to the freeway to go home, but once again, I hit a solid block of traffic. I barely made it home before dark and I’d left at 1:00! Four hours for a 15-minute appointment! The whole experience was entirely too overstimulating and it took me quite a while to calm down.

I had a second “bad HSP day” yesterday. Our next-door neighbor had a tree trimmed in her backyard. The noise was incredibly loud. Even when I moved to a different room and put in earplugs, I could hear it. It went on for hours. I began to feel physically ill, and I eventually had to leave the house. Fortunately, when I came back, it was over, but the damage had been done. I was severely overstimulated.

I’m sure other HSPs have had similar days but I’m afraid I don’t have any words of wisdom here. Some days are, unfortunately, going to be like this. Some of what happened was under my control (I should have foreseen the traffic and should have had better directions when I went to the doctor) but much was not. All we can do is try to calm our sensitive nervous systems when it’s all over. For me, that meant alone time and a long bath. I lived to fight another day!