Food Sensitivities: The Gluten-Free Girl

Although being highly sensitive is a gift, it is also a challenge, and one negative aspect of being an HSP is food sensitivities. Even after reading articles explaining HSPs can not tolerate certain food groups, such as gluten and dairy, I never thought I was sensitive to food, because I'd never experienced any catastrophic physical symptoms like nausea, diarrhea, or stomach cramps.

Since high school, though, I'd been tired and bloated and suffering from anxiety and depression, which worsened after moving away to college. Soon, I started counseling, trying to figure out what was bothering me, and started taking antidepressants, trying three different kinds for over a year before giving up. Nothing seemed to work, and I began thinking I just wasn't meant to be normal, I was highly sensitive, and depression and anxiety came along with the territory, so I should just accept them. Then, a month before starting my junior year of college, I decided not to go back, I just didn't have the strength or the energy to leave home and struggle through classes, pretending I was fine.

It was devastating, I wanted to go back, I felt like a failure and a quitter. Desperately, I spent my free time searching for an answer to why my body seemed to be attacking me, and had almost given up hope of ever feeling normal when I heard Ane Axford, of www.sensitiveandthriving.com, talk about HSPs and food sensitivities via a web video chat. One main topic she discussed was Celiac's Disease, being intolerant to gluten. I'd heard of Celiac's before, but never paid much attention to what it was since I'd never been diagnosed with it. She addressed her own battle with Celiac's, and said even if one doesn't have the disease, she can still be sensitive to gluten, that it can even make her anxious or depressed.

Hallelujah! I thought, finally something that makes sense, something I can easily try. So, the next day, I didn't eat any bread, pasta, or packaged junk from the cupboard, instead, I filled up on fruit, vegetables, rice and potatoes, and felt like a brand new person. Finally, I had energy, and was more relaxed and happy, I imagined it was the way the non-sensitives of the world got to feel every day, while getting to eat whatever they wanted. But I wasn't bitter, and I'm still not, I'm just grateful to finally be healthy and feel the way I should've felt all along.

I discovered a whole new layer to my sensitivity I hadn't thought existed, and now, I understand how very careful I must be with my delicate, sensitive self.