Super Feelers: What If Some Folks Feel More Than Others?

Is There Such A Thing? And What Should We Do About It?

My favorite class in high school was creative writing. I got an A in that class, which was a big deal because I never got As. I also got a little medal from the teacher. “Best Writer.” It was my first and last literary award, I’m afraid. It meant a lot to me.

That year was a wild one. I’d been thrown out of drug rehab the summer before and was still finding my feet in many respects. My emotions were unstoppable waves that I rode up and down, and everyone nearby got caught in the tide. I wrote about this, and my teacher warned me, and the entire class, “Writers are obsessed with their feelings. But don’t follow your feelings. Don’t let them guide you or you're doomed.”

That shocked me. What else could I follow? I had no intellect at the time that I was aware of. Logic and deduction were abstract concepts. My intuition was obscured. For years, all I had to go on were my feelings, and they burned through me like a brushfire. My feelings carried me to California where I lived with a woman I’d only known for a week. My feelings swept me into Mexico, Syria, and Egypt. They took me into tattoo shops and left me sleeping in graveyards in Ireland and under bridges in Canada.

A dear friend that I’ve had since college discovered that he was a super taster — a member of a small group of people who have more tastebuds than the rest of us. They simply taste more than we do. Eating is different for them. The bitter is more bitter, the sweet is sweeter. Similarly, Tetrachromats are people, mostly women, who — for genetic reasons — see way, way more colors than the rest of us do. They often become visual artists or interior designers because of a genetic mutation that gives them an extra cone in their eyes.

We know about cones and colors, buds and taste. But what about our receptors for emotions? Growing up I was always accused by men, mostly, of being “too sensitive.” They were right. A small slight that most people could shrug off would devastate me. A disagreement between friends left me inconsolable. When I was very young, I sat by the window at night and watched the red sparking lights of ambulances in the distance and wondered how the world could sleep when someone was in crisis. Life was a constant ache.

To this day, I pray whenever an ambulance goes by for whoever is inside. It has taken a lifetime of work to finally follow my teacher’s advice. I do not follow my emotions wherever they lead me. Like a team of horses gone mad, they pull. Now I lean back on the reins and try to steer away from wherever they, with their foaming mouths and rolling eyes, are trying to drag me. They guide me, but at my pace now, not theirs.

I think I’m a super feeler. I feel joy, pain, self-pity, wonder, awe, terror — all in huge amounts throughout the day. It’s as much a blessing as it is a curse. Actually, it’s mostly a curse. But I try to see it as a blessing. It has given me empathy for people who feel overwhelmed by life. But it has also paralyzed me and forced my gaze back onto myself in a narcissistic bent. In fact, this entire essay is a perfect example. Me! My feelings!

So why do I write this? Two reasons: If you, like me, feel this way, I see you. It may be that you are a super feeler. All I can say is learn to feel, but not wallow. Do not mistake your emotions for wisdom, do not stare at them like tea leaves to divine a sign for how to live. Instead, turn your attention to others. The swirling pool has no bottom, and its depths are anoxic.

If you are not a super feeler, but you have a loved one who is a super feeler, do as my wife does. Do not follow them into the endless abyss of their feelings. Simply shrug, say, “Poor darling, I wish I could help you” and then go back to living YOUR life. God bless that woman or man who can love, but from a distance, and not be consumed by the madness that sleeps beside them.

If you’re not a super feeler you still feel, of course, we all have feelings, and they are powerful and overwhelming. They are a gift. And the most important thing I have learned in my life is that running from my emotions is just as bad as letting them drive. The only way around them is through them. Take the third path: Neither follow them or deny them. Let the feelings break over you like waves in a gale and keep on moving. I’ll see you there, wherever you’re headed.

Locking arms with you as we face the impossible,

I am,

Sean Sakamoto