23: The Grief + Hope in Being a Late Bloomer as an HSP
With Melissa Giberson, Author and OT
Have you taken longer in life to meet certain milestones or discover yourself? In this episode, I talk with Melissa Giberson about being a late bloomer and:
• The healing power of language and being able to connect with others around your sensitivity
• How difficult, yet essential it is to have enough solitude and quiet for yourself
• Discovering your sensitivity, sexuality, and other parts of yourself at midlife
• Moving through the grief and finding hope when you need to follow a different path than what you originally set out on
• What’s possible when you listen to your inner voice and move through the mess of making a big life change
Melissa is an author, occupational therapist, and a proud mama bear to two children. Her essays have appeared in multiple online and in-print publications and her first book is Late Bloomer: Finding My Authentic Self At Midlife. A native New Yorker, she, her partner, and their two cats split their time between New Jersey and Provincetown, Massachusetts.
Keep in touch with Melissa:
• Website: https://www.melissagiberson.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/melissagiberson031
Resources Mentioned:
• Late Bloomer: Finding My Authentic Self at Midlife by Melissa Giberson: https://bookshop.org/a/63892/9781647425197
• Kripalu Retreat Center: https://kripalu.org/
Thanks for listening!
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This episode is for educational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for treatment with a mental health or medical professional. Some links are affiliate links. You are under no obligation to purchase any book, product or service. I am not responsible for the quality or satisfaction of any purchase.
Episode Transcript
Melissa Giberson: 0:00
There's a lot of grief. You can't go through such a change without grieving for what you thought you were going to, the life you thought you were gonna have. Grieving how, the obstacles, what comes along, grieving the impact on other people. But then there's also the hope.
April Snow: 0:23
Welcome to Sensitive Stories, the podcast for the people who live with hearts and eyes wide open. I'm your host, psychotherapist and author, april Snow. I invite you to join me as I deep dive into rich conversations with fellow highly sensitive people that will inspire you to live a more fulfilling life as an HSP without all the overwhelm. In this episode I talk with Melissa Giberson about being a late bloomer, the grief, messiness and hope of discovering yourself and your sexuality later in life, and the magical moments that are possible when you take a risk to listen to your inner voice.
April Snow: 1:09
Melissa is an author, occupational therapist and a proud mama bear to two children. Her essays have appeared in multiple online and in print publications and her first book is the Late Bloomer Finding my Authentic Self at Midlife. A native New Yorker, she, her partner and their two cats split their time between New Jersey and Provincetown Massachusetts. For more HSP resources and to see behind-the-scenes video from the podcast, join me on Instagram, tiktok or YouTube at Sensitive Strengths or sign up for my email list. Links are in the show notes and at sensitivestoriescom. And just a reminder that this episode is for educational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for treatment with a mental health or medical professional. Let's dive in. So, melissa, in your book Late Bloomer, you talk about how you accidentally discovered that you're highly sensitive, and I'm curious to hear more about that over that.
Melissa Giberson: 2:25
you're highly sensitive and I'm curious to hear more about that. It actually was very much on accident. My partner and I went to a yoga retreat center where they do educational classes, and she had signed us up for something that was meaningful to her and wanted to be supportive and, you know, went ahead. I had prepared. It wasn't a class I would have selected for myself and so I wanted to kind of go in because I do like to be prepared. You know, typically never really thought about why. It's just something I knew about myself that, oh, I should prepare, you know, and again, so many things I would do, never even thought about it, just did it.
Melissa Giberson: 3:10
And we show up in this beautiful place in Western Massachusetts in what turns out to be a very small classroom, hard chairs and this topic. That's very foreign to me. I don't have a huge investment in it, and one of the first things after the instructor does her initial introduction is break up into small groups and I'm like, oh, how I dread that. I just dread that really. So I kind of, you know, I muddle through a little bit and I get through. The first night is a short one and I get through the next morning my partner and I have a small little not a great exchange, you know, having to do with some family stuff, but it was just enough that I was like, okay, you know so I wasn't embracing this anymore. I was already uncomfortable. We go back to this small little classroom and I'm just not feeling it now. And you know so I'm like it feels like it's closing in on me and just feels like now it was going to be a longer day.
Melissa Giberson: 4:23
And I'm like I don't think I can do this, like I'm listening to my body, my body's just getting really uncomfortable and I'm envisioning myself in this small space with these people and this topic. I'm already upset and I just feel something brewing inside of me that says this is not going to work for me and I decide to leave, which is a little out of character for me, because it's like you know, sweat it out, don't you know? I work really hard not to be embarrassed. I didn't want her to be any more upset, but I knew I just couldn't spend the whole day there.
Melissa Giberson: 4:57
And so I picked up and I was like you know what? It's a beautiful day, I'm going to go outside, I'm going to take care of me. Maybe I'll come back later, Right Cause beautiful campus. So as I'm walking out, I pass what would be a larger room with a little index card with a couple of interesting questions. Like you know, do you have, you know, whatever it was, these crazy dreams? I'm like, oh yeah, Do you know, do you have a wild inner? Like, yeah, what is this? Like everything, except my name was on that index card. Right, you saw yourself.
Melissa Giberson: 5:31
I sneak in. I hide in the corner huge room as opposed to where I had just come from. People everywhere. They're not just sitting in chairs. Some are in chairs, some are on the floor, some are lying down. What is going on? I've never seen anything like this. I've, you know, never are in chairs, some are on the floor, some are lying down. What is going on? I've never seen anything like this. I've never been in a workshop like this. And I'm listening to the person speak, who I didn't know who she was, but everything she says resonates for me and it's almost like a this is your life or a candid camera, and I'm like looking around like you know, was this? A setup Like this is really weird. Like you're talking to me and I'm not even supposed to be here and on the first break I go up to the person who is helping. It turns out to be Dr Elaine Aron.
Melissa Giberson: 6:18
I thought so A guru of highly sensitive people and her partner in instructing was Dr Elaine Friend.
Melissa Giberson: 6:27
Yep, I go up to her and I'm like what is this all about? I just got here and she opens up her computer, she shares the slides with me and all of it. It's like angels singing, all of a sudden, like the light you know, like wizard of Oz, black and white to color. It's like all of a sudden, everything is like falling into place. You didn't even know it was out of place, right, but everything starts tumbling in. And I look at her and I go how could I not have known about this? And she just looked at me and she says you've been too busy surviving and it made so much sense.
Melissa Giberson: 7:04
You know it didn't. It didn't, but it all fell into place and that was it. I was done. I stayed, I soaked it up. I wanted to learn everything. I wanted to know everything. I was so excited. I bounced back into the room later on when my partner was still. You left and I haven't heard from you all day. You left the workshop. I'm like I forgot about that. I was so excited. But she saw how excited I was and I'm like I understand myself. I'm like look, there's a name. It was so validating, it was so validating for me and it was all accidental. I wasn't supposed to be well technically, I wasn't supposed to be well technically, I wasn't supposed to be there, but I was.
April Snow: 7:47
Wow, what a profound discovery story. Game changer, game changer, and you had this visceral reaction and pulling you out of that space and then just serendipitously finding Dr Elaine Aaron's workshop. Were you at Kripalu? Yes, I thought so. Yeah, yeah, I was at Kripalu. Yeah, magical things happen there.
Melissa Giberson: 8:10
Unbelievable, absolutely unbelievable, but definitely a game changer, because all of a sudden I had language Right, right. So you know, I have all these things about me. You know, if I go to a work conference, I know that I'm going to get early and I'm going to set up my seat because I'm going to want to be on the end, I might take up the seat next to me. I mean, if it gets really crowded and nobody can sit, I'll take my stuff off. But you know, if there's available seats, I'm going to want that empty. I'm going to want to be towards the back. So if I have to get up and leave, I know these things about me, they're routine, but I never stopped to think about well, why do I do that? Why do I not want to have lunch with everybody? Why do?
Melissa Giberson: 8:55
I say no, why do I extend my hotel stay? Why do I need that? Why do I feel bad when people say you're extending your hotel stay? Well, don't you miss your family? I'm like, well, yeah, no, I guess I should. But you know, like and I didn't really think about it Suddenly I had language, yes, and now I was able to kind of go back over all these things I knew I did, without ever wondering why or questioning.
April Snow: 9:22
So you were already doing a lot of these things before you had the context, absolutely.
Melissa Giberson: 9:27
But didn't know why. Didn't know why.
April Snow: 9:29
Yeah, what changes now? Or does anything change? Obviously, you're probably still doing those things, but has anything shifted? Having the context, the language, it makes sense to me now.
Melissa Giberson: 9:41
I still do those things, but I don't feel like looking around going. Am I the only one?
April Snow: 9:49
doing it.
Melissa Giberson: 9:50
Oh no, no, they're here early too. Or is this odd, or I don't? I do it because I understand why I do it now and I understand that there are people like me that do it also. And I'm not. Maybe I am the odd duck or I'm not the odd duck, but it doesn't really matter. You know it's okay, it's you know. However, somebody wants to label it. It's okay, cause it's just who I am.
Melissa Giberson: 10:17
When there was a time you know like, especially if you're a kid no, nobody wants to be the odd duck, Nobody wants to be that the weird one and you kind of get that sense that you are. I always did, and until I found my HSP people and started hearing other people say things that they had the same experience, they felt odd, they felt almost like an alien. They would do these things Very validating when you think you're the only one.
April Snow: 10:47
It is yeah To have community so important and to have language to put your experiences into a framework, to know oh and this is why I do these things there's a deeper understanding about yourself.
Melissa Giberson: 11:00
Yes, yeah, the language is key. In my opinion, the language is key because we can know we do these things, we think about it, we don't think about it. But when you can language it, when you can, you know, kind of for those people that are interested or want to hear, or if you just have a need to say, you know, even if it's kind of like off the cuff, don't mind me, I'm highly sensitive, I kind of need to be here, make a joke about it, or somebody might be interested, and then you can say hey, by the way, I found this neat thing about myself and it's 100 other species have it and they need people like us. You guys need people like us, depending who you're talking to. Having that language is critical. At least it was for me.
April Snow: 11:46
It is critical to have the context and I appreciate how you're saying you can make it lighthearted. It doesn't have to be a big issue. Oh, I happen to sit on the end. I need to sit in the back. I need some buffer time. I'm going to stay an extra night in the hotel after a conference or a training and to recharge or to have just a transitional period. That can be okay. It's different and some other people might need to run home to their kids. It's not that you don't care and love about your kids, it's more. You know, feeling overwhelmed. I'm putting words into your mouth but I assume just needing that buffer time.
Melissa Giberson: 12:21
Absolutely Right, absolutely. And looking back, I know that now. So my body was intuitively doing and this is what I always found interesting my body was doing things kind of on its own. I was just sort of following along, and while I am a person who thinks about everything, there are clearly some things I didn't think about. I just sort of marched to it and I always, since making this discovery, found it interesting that my body knew what it needed and I followed along. I wasn't kicking and screaming about it. I may not have understood it, but I also wasn't really thinking about it. Now I can put it together and I've now, since making the discovery, keep looking back through a new lens, and it's interesting to revisit your own life and look at things. It's kind of like you know you're standing on a spiral staircase and you can see everything. You can see where you've been, you can kind of see where you're going, and I don't really like spiral staircases, I get dizzy. But this is the great metaphor is that you keep looking back through a different lens.
Melissa Giberson: 13:28
Right Every step, yeah, and you look back and from where you are now, you know those steps are still there, those events are still there, those didn't change. But now I can understand it differently, put new meaning to it, have a different lens through which to look at it, and that's something that I do repeatedly. So it's like reading a good book over and over, or like watching a good movie over and over. I'm going to hit replay on a song. I keep looking back over my life, over those same stories, but now they have a different meaning.
April Snow: 14:02
Yeah, that's the rich part of discovering you're highly sensitive. Everything has new meaning, yeah, and you're right. At every phase it's going to look a little differently. I want to go back to something you said. I just knew what I needed, and not everyone is able to listen to that internal call. So I'm curious what made it possible for you not having the context? What allowed you to listen to your needs before you even knew that you were an HSP, if you have any sense of that?
Melissa Giberson: 14:29
Yeah, that's a great question because I can't say I did it all of the time and I'm still learning. Even though I have the language, it's still new to me. So all of this just happened just before the pandemic.
Melissa Giberson: 14:43
Very recent, then this is the last five years on the newer side for me and I'm still making connections and I'm still looking back and learning about things, especially becoming overwhelmed, what overwhelms me? So I can't tell you that I understand why. I just always wanted to sit by a door or on the edge. It was just a discomfort with. I don't want to get locked in. What if I do?
Melissa Giberson: 15:11
need to leave. I wanted to have that personal space I knew I needed. I was the one that didn't go to the large area where everybody was sitting and having lunch, Like you've just spent hours listening to workshops and people talk, and the last thing I wanted to do with no disrespect to my colleagues was have lunch and talk some more and then do another few hours. So I always I would sneak out early. I'd get my little box lunch, you know. So I didn't have to wait online and have to turn down invitations, sneak to my hotel, my room, which I intentionally asked for a low floor, so I didn't have to take an elevator all the way up. I was conserving time Like I started doing these things. That's very smart, Without actually like thinking about it just seemed to make sense to me you know, get out early, you know, get a lower floor.
Melissa Giberson: 16:07
I mean like things made sense to me, but I didn't stop and turn myself inside out and understand why. It just seemed to make sense.
April Snow: 16:15
Right. I mean, I've heard a lot of people on the podcast tell me they just knew something was different about them. They knew they were more of this or that and they just went along with taking care of that, even before they had the language. Sounds like you did that too. You just know I need to maximize my time. I want to be prepared. I know what I need. Did you get a lot of support in your life from family or friends to honor your needs Well before.
Melissa Giberson: 16:45
Before. Yeah, you know. So at the time that I was doing those things did I get support, I guess? I guess it was support in the way that nobody argued with me, nobody questioned, well why, except? I do remember that one neighbor that said she did actually she did question, don't you miss your family? And I said, of course, but I'm just taking the night to kind of process. You know it's a big conference, there's a lot of information. I just want to take, you know, a little extra time to process it all. It's not about not missing or not wanting to be with someone and but otherwise nobody questioned, except for that one person actually.
April Snow: 17:27
Yeah, and it's true, it's a both end. I want to be with my family and I also need time to integrate this material before I jump off into the next thing.
Melissa Giberson: 17:37
Right, and but I think I was using that. You know, not that I. There was just something about being alone in a hotel room and that was just very comforting and quiet and I hadn't thought about it then. How much I have always sought time alone. Yeah, so I knew I did, I could tell you that, but I never really made the connection until I started thinking about it afterwards all of the times, going back to when I was a kid, that I would seek out time alone, time in small spaces, and didn't understand it. But that's been a theme throughout my life and still. But now I can language it. Now you know you have to balance, you know asking and you know solitude is not always the easiest thing.
April Snow: 18:32
Yeah, it's not always easy, and folks that don't need it don't understand it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
April Snow: 18:39
That's a bit challenging that don't need it, don't understand it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's challenging. It is challenging to, because when you don't have that lived experience, that need for small, solitary spaces, it's hard to really let someone in. I always think like if I wish I could take what I'm feeling and put it in someone else so they could really understand it. It's hard to put it into words. I'm curious, as you're discovering they are helisensitive, what? And you discover that later in life. You talk about that in your book Late Bloomer. What else did you discover later in life?
Melissa Giberson: 19:09
Well, the biggest thing I discovered I will I put them they're both about the same discovering I'm HSP, which came afterwards, it was just as big for me in my life as discovering that I have a same-sex attraction.
Melissa Giberson: 19:25
That came later in life as well, and that's the premise of the book that I wrote of these reactions and things that were out of character which all lead up to my discovering that I'm highly sensitive. So all of that then makes sense to me, because at the time, you know people would be like didn't you see this coming? Or how could you not have known? Or and my reactions to some people seemed bigger than you know. I mean, you know people want to either judge, criticize or qualify what things should be as opposed to. You know, it is what it is for everybody and everybody's experience, whatever you bring to that table, that experience is it. And, and then again, it made sense later. So I found out when I was 44, I made this discovery that and I was married to a man- you know, we had the whole house in the suburbs, the two kids.
Melissa Giberson: 20:30
You know, this is the life that I was preparing for my whole life and when I was 44, I asked myself the question for the first time ever and people find that hard to believe. I had never asked a question before and I asked if I was gay, asked myself.
Melissa Giberson: 20:49
And then I go through this whole journey of trying to answer the question and then come to terms with the answer because the impact, the impact on the people that I love, that my life was now changing if I go with this, if I go in this direction. But what would it look like if I didn't Right? That's a good question too.
April Snow: 21:13
So as a highly sensitive person.
Melissa Giberson: 21:16
I look at everything. I use the Rubik's cube. I'm constantly turning and twisting and looking at everything and I had to weigh that. You know, go this direction. What does that look like? Don't do anything. What does that look like?
April Snow: 21:32
There's some big questions to ask yourself, especially when the people that you love the most your kids, your husband at the time and this is what stops a lot of HSPs from listening to that inner calling, that intuition, that dream, that yearning, however you want to call it because they're worried about the impact on others. So how did you get through that to listen to yourself?
Melissa Giberson: 22:00
Yeah, you know the hard part is, at the same time this is happening, you're having this existential crisis, which is never a good time for that. But you know, at the time when you've got a husband, a job, a career, kids and important milestones coming up in their lives, you can't hit pause. So you're doing talk about overwhelm. You're doing everything. You're doing a deep dive inside of yourself and you still need to show up somehow, be present for your patients, for your family, for life. Bills still have to get paid, everything has to get done.
Melissa Giberson: 22:35
And so I kept it to myself for as long as I could, while I went and got help to help me figure it out and while I got to those answers. And what pushed me over at the end was it was both my kids and also when I realized I wasn't able to show up for my husband in the way that he deserved. So I could keep all this under wraps, but it's going to ooze out. There's still going to be something there, and that wasn't fair to anybody, and I knew that. I wanted to be authentic, not just for myself, but I wanted to model that for my kids, and I always said if my kids either of them came to me and said hey, mom, you know, can we talk? I've got this big thing. What would I say to them? And I knew, without hesitation, I would tell them you have to be true to yourself, because it's going to come back to you later. And you have to be true. And I didn't want to be a hypocrite, I didn't want to not model that.
Melissa Giberson: 23:43
And I just hoped that things would fall into place later. I knew there would be some fallout, but I just, you know, hoped that things would fall into place as things went along.
April Snow: 23:54
Yeah, it makes sense to be that model for them. This is how we live and the importance of authenticity and not denying yourself, because you're right, I think a lot of times we assume that, whether it's setting a boundary or a bigger choice around uprooting your life, that it's better to just stick with the status quo. But really you're right, that lack of authenticity it hurts the other people. Yeah, right, and by you honoring yourself, you actually are treating them with kindness.
Melissa Giberson: 24:28
Right, Because otherwise everything is for show. But you can't unknow what you know. And so you can't put it back in the box. You can't.
Melissa Giberson: 24:37
You write the toothpaste once it's out of the tube, that's it, that's right and not put that back in and it gets messy and it is messy and my story is messy and I left a lot of the mess in intentionally. I didn't want to sugarcoat it, because I've read other stories, I've heard other stories and this is a messy journey, but journeys can be messy and this is a messy journey, but journeys can be messy and life is unpredictable. It's, you know, it's meant to be, it's supposed to be and we're supposed to adjust as we go along, and so I left the mess in for that reason because I didn't want to sugarcoat and I didn't want to give anybody that was going through this journey or a similar journey of re-evaluating themselves or their lives.
Melissa Giberson: 25:19
I didn't want them to be misled or think that it was so easy for her. Why am I struggling? So I wanted them to see that there was struggle and there were obstacles, because that's reality, that's life.
April Snow: 25:34
Exactly, that's the truth, and the mess doesn't have to be a negative, like you're saying. It's just part of the process, right?
Melissa Giberson: 25:53
Don't let it deter you. I say you know it's hard when you know what you know and you make a decision, maybe for somebody else, and it's hard making a change that's going to impact. Choose your heart. You know neither one is going to be easy. You get to choose your heart, though, and hopefully, at the end of whatever it is that you choose, things will smooth over and you'll land somewhere. That's the hope, and so I infuse a lot of that in the book that there's a lot of grief.
Melissa Giberson: 26:27
You can't go through change without grieving. Grieving for what you thought you were going to, the life you thought you were going to have, grieving how, the obstacles, what comes along, grieving the impact on other people. But then there's also the hope, and so I think the two of them, you know they travel together a lot and at least for me it did. For as much grief as I had, I also held on to hope. I had to.
April Snow: 26:54
How did you work with the grief? If you could give us a little snapshot.
Melissa Giberson: 27:06
You know, it's funny because it took a while before I realized that that's what I was carrying, that that's what I was feeling. And the other thing I had put in the book was when I had said life is still going on around you. So things happen. I lost my job. My now ex-husband shifted where we started out very amicable, you know. He took a different direction and people get sick and people died, and that's an understandable grief. So it wasn't until I knew when some of these things happened, when somebody that I cared for died, for example, and I'm like, okay, well, that's a socially condoned grief.
Melissa Giberson: 27:47
You're going to feel sad. You're expected to and I went in to take care of myself that I realized there was a lot more grief. I was grieving for a lot, not just this one person, and it took a while, because some of these things are invisible yeah, they really are and we do.
April Snow: 28:05
We put grief in a box where we think we can only grieve if we've lost a particular person. But you're right, grief shows up in a lot of different ways losing part of self, losing the life you thought you were going to have. I've seen a lot of my sensitive clients go through this grief. And also when you're coming out, you know, when you realize your sexuality is different than you thought it was, especially after 44 years, that's pretty profound grief that comes in and lots of change which, hsps, we can struggle with. Right, and you went through some pretty catastrophic changes Right.
Melissa Giberson: 28:41
So nobody really likes or embraces change, but it is part of life. And you know we tend to we as in HSPs, but you know for sure myself transition slowly, but life is moving at this pace and when there's other people involved you know there's you can't stop it, you can't hit pause, and so you're going with it and just you know things are accumulating. So one of the things that I did was I sought that time alone, just to try to let things land a little bit. I reached out for help, I started writing.
Melissa Giberson: 29:19
I started trying to literally get it out of my body and putting it on a paper something, because that also helped me process and help me make sense of things. So it was just a way of kind of extracting it, even if it was, you know, just to look at it visually. So that helped.
April Snow: 29:40
It does. I think HSPs don't realize the benefit, the value of processing and that for a lot of us that is writing. It could also be, you know, talking things through, creating other things with your hands. But writing for me too is so profound, so much gets moved through in that At the time were you writing just for yourself, or were you thinking I'm going to write a book?
Melissa Giberson: 30:01
we would share our stories. You know people would say, oh, you should write a book. You know you should write a book, and I think it's just a common thing, but I never actually gave serious thought to it. And but what happened in the during the pandemic, when I had time, I uncovered some of those writings and I'm like, oh well, you know, I remember what that felt like. I'm glad.
Melissa Giberson: 30:36
I wrote this down or things like that, and I decided to continue to write and to organize my thoughts and to process it now that things had slowed down a little bit in my world and it became a book.
Melissa Giberson: 30:53
I was working with an editor who said this is shaping up into a book. I said, oh, now what? And one of my motivations was because it's a very personal story. But one of my motivations was when I was confused, when I had first asked the question of myself, I went looking for help whether it was from a person, a therapist, online books and it was challenging to find that information. So I wanted to offer something to somebody else that might be going through it. If they were doing a random search, if they needed to hear my story, if my story resonates in some way, I wanted to be able to put something out there in the hands of somebody who was like me at some point and just needed something, some validation, some resource, whether it's in my story or people have reached out to me, which I welcome to ask me them to ask me it's whether or not it?
April Snow: 32:01
I mean it's beautiful to have that story representative coming out later in life making the brave choice to change your life in such a profound way, but then I think it's for me it's relatable on other levels to whether you're highly sensitive or whether there's something big that you shifted, because, a sense of it, we're often late bloomers in lots of different ways, whether that's finding a career, a relationship, yourself, spirituality. There's so many layers there that we often come to later in life and just being able to say that's okay, right, it's okay to ask yourself the question and then listen to the answer and go through the mess. I'm curious what brought you a little bit of hope during those times of grief and discovery and messiness?
Melissa Giberson: 32:46
So my hope was just you know, some people would say I was stubborn. I'd say I was hopeful. I had a dream for a certain kind of life for my kids, and that's what I wanted and that's what I had hoped for, and that's what I was working on. And discovering that you're gay when you're 40, you know, 44 years old doesn't work with that dream. So you have to adjust a little bit. So I said, okay, so this isn't going to be what I thought it was going to be. What more? What can I do?
Melissa Giberson: 33:19
Well, I can have a great relationship with my ex and we can model something for my kids, for our kids. You know we can be respectful, we can communicate, we can show them, in, you know, 3d, full color, that this can be okay. And you know things didn't work that way at that time. So you shift again and you model something else. But so I was, I holding on to what I really wanted and making subtle adjustments along the way. And in the holding on, that's where the hope was was hoping that we can land somewhere. And at the end of the day, it was always about the kids and I had to hold on to hope because it was them that I was holding on to it, for it was all about them. So I couldn't just give up, because it felt like I'd be giving up on them.
April Snow: 34:14
Yeah, you can still get to the same destination being good role model, support rock for your kids. It's just going to look differently along the way. But yeah, that permission, it's okay to readjust to make a change.
Melissa Giberson: 34:29
Right and it's again. It was messy. If I can go back and do it differently with what I know now people ask me that of course you know, of course but, all you can do is what you can do with the time. That's right, and then make sense of it later and continue to own it, model it and continue to hope. Hope that things still circle. It may not have been how you wanted it or when you wanted it, but things do land. Things have a tendency to land.
Melissa Giberson: 34:59
This I've learned along the way that they do land.
April Snow: 35:02
I love that. So what does life look like now after the mess?
Melissa Giberson: 35:09
Life looks interesting. It really does. My kids are older than they are. They have landed in good places and I'm so grateful for that. I'm grateful for their love and their support and how they show up in the world for others, for each, each other. For me, that sends a message to me, and so that's really good. And I'm in a relationship with a woman who is committed to continuing to grow. She has long since forgiven me for walking out of that classroom at Kripalu, fortunately, and we've learned an awful lot about you know being highly sensitive and what that means.
Melissa Giberson: 36:04
And I appreciate that it's now a learning curve for her. You know so a new language. You know that she also. You know it's invisible, so it's not always easy and but I appreciate, and I'm grateful for her partnership and her support, that she wants to show up and she wants to understand and so we have the kids.
Melissa Giberson: 36:29
we have a little place in Provincetown which for me, as a highly sensitive introvert, is my soul place and I've learned so much about myself in this small little town, village, if you will that's surrounded by nature, surrounded by history, surrounded by art that you know. It's like where have you been all my life? So it's just been an amazing journey, because each piece of it, I uncover a little bit more about myself.
April Snow: 37:06
Yeah yeah, you seem really settled into who you are.
Melissa Giberson: 37:10
Well, it's still. You know, it ebbs and flows. It ebbs and flows, yeah. Because you know you keep looking back at that spiral staircase and things continue to make sense. And or you try to have it make sense and those things that you know about yourself. Now you know when I'm in a writing class and you know a writing group and they go okay, let's break off into groups. I'm still like, yeah, you know, but I understand it now you know, I understand more than I did then.
Melissa Giberson: 37:41
So that's the good thing is, things are still happening, but I can language it, I can understand it and I think the key is I give myself grace. Yeah. I think that's important.
April Snow: 37:55
Yeah, I can tell there's a lot of acceptance of what your needs are and honoring your sensitivity. That makes a big difference.
Melissa Giberson: 38:03
Yes, and I've become an advocate, you know, for those people. You know, I think we get a really bad rap. Well, introverts get a bad rap, a lot of people who don't know about highly sensitive but the word sensitivity, you know now that I could pay attention. I'm tuned in In Western society. Oh my, do we get a bad rap. And I want to represent.
Melissa Giberson: 38:26
And so it's a coming out of you know, in a way, and so I will come out and people have reached back to me. People have reached out to me because I write about it in essays or in the book and they say me too. That's me too. People want to connect and I appreciate that you have to know where your people are.
April Snow: 38:48
It's true, you really do, and I've talked about this with a few other HSQs Brian Torres used this term HSQ highly sensitive queers which I love that there is some parallels between coming out as LGBTQ plus or coming out as a highly sensitive person, because it's not obvious to people or it's not something that you're always putting out right into the forefront because of those stigmas, that discrimination. But yeah, you are definitely modeling it, which I appreciate so much.
Melissa Giberson: 39:20
But they all. You know it's true that you say that you know for somebody like me, both of these things can be invisible. Yeah, you're constantly making that choice to come out when somebody, you know, somebody, says, if I say I'm going away somewhere and someone says, oh well, you know, will your husband pack his own bag, and I have to make that choice right then. And there to come. And I don't really know this person well or what their reaction is in another. You know it might be coming out as an introvert, it might be coming out as highly sensitive, but it's always. You know, you're always coming out and you're always having to make that choice, do I, don't I? How much what's at stake is it worth it.
Melissa Giberson: 40:06
So it doesn't stop. It's an ongoing process.
April Snow: 40:10
Yeah, it really is Every day, every interaction, like, well, how much do I disclose, how much of the energy disclose and how safe is it? Right, yeah, constant choice.
Melissa Giberson: 40:22
Yes, and are you going to expend that energy? Are they going to understand? Are they going to care? Are you Because we do have to be protective and this I've learned protective of our energy, and I recognize that now more. And if you're going to invest, you know, and let somebody in, do they really want to be let in? You know? So, yeah, that's true too. Yeah, so you have to weigh the pros and cons. Sometimes it's just practice, sometimes you've educated someone and they've appreciated it, and sometimes people go yeah, me too and that's when it really feels good.
April Snow: 40:57
Yes, that's the best outcome when you get to connect with another person who's also sensitive or is also queer, it's like, oh yes, I'm not alone, right, yeah, right. It's like, oh yes, I'm not alone, right, yeah, right. Is there a message you could leave folks with listeners who are highly sensitive, who are having this urge to make a change later in life. Maybe there's an internal calling or an intuition of some sort. What message could you leave them with?
Melissa Giberson: 41:26
Do it, but do it with grace and patience and forgiveness of yourself. It's not about being perfect. It is a process, but if your body is talking to you, it's talking to you for a reason, and so tune in, listen. It's not going to be a drive-through, it's going to be a slow cooker. So you have to be patient and you have to give yourself grace and remember that there are people around you that are impacted by the choices you make, and we spend a lot of time thinking so. When we get to that point of sharing someone's hearing something for the first time and that's true with anything, it's true with sexuality Nobody wakes up in the morning and goes hey, I'm going to announce, you know, to the world.
Melissa Giberson: 42:16
It usually takes time and we have to be patient with people they need to process. It's the same thing if you're telling somebody listen, I'm a highly sensitive person. This is what it means. It means, you know being on time is important to me or having time alone is important to me Transitions you know I'm going to need a little buffer of time. You know I usually use those bowling bumpers. You know like I need a little bumper, I need a little bumper time here and and thank them. You know I appreciate your patience, I appreciate your understanding, but have that with yourself too. You know I appreciate your patience, I appreciate your understanding, but have that with yourself too yeah.
Melissa Giberson: 42:52
You know. So there is an ebb and flow and it's not always smooth, but you get there, yeah, you do Give yourself grace, but do it.
April Snow: 43:02
And I appreciate that reminder that we spent a lot of time processing and by the time we say something out loud, we could have spent months, even years, integrating something, but it would be a new piece of information for the person on the other end and that's important to remember. Give them time also. Yeah, I love that Right, right.
Melissa Giberson: 43:22
A lot of times when we get there, though, it's like, okay, I'm ready, let's go, let's go, let's go. That's not fair to somebody else. And then we're kind of taken back by, maybe, their reaction. They may need time to process. It is information for them and we, you know we have to build that in as well. We do.
Melissa Giberson: 43:43
It's good for us to do that, because otherwise we can get overwhelmed with their response or their reaction if we're not expecting it. That's true, it's a little self-serving, but the more we can be prepared it's good for everybody involved.
April Snow: 43:56
It is. I appreciate that reminder. Yeah, I just want to thank you so much for this conversation. Hearing your coming out story as a sensitive person has been my favorite story I've ever heard. It's just so magical, beautiful. You listen to that that calling, and it happened at Kripalu, which is literally my favorite place on earth oh, fantastic so it feels extra special and just how it happened.
April Snow: 44:20
And then you and your partner were able to work through that moment together and she was able to meet you. There is really beautiful, so I'll make sure I share your book so folks can pick that up.
Melissa Giberson: 44:30
Thank you. Yeah, of course, it was just released on audio. So it's now available as an audio book and I was able to go in and do some editing, which made me really happy, because, as someone that thinks a lot, you know you go back and it's like, oh, I wouldn't do that. Now, you know opportunity to go back. So the audio book is out, which I'm very happy about.
April Snow: 44:56
Because it's exciting, slightly edited. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, having that chance to go back and kind of put some final touches on something, especially your own story, is so important.
Melissa Giberson: 45:01
Well, that's that's the you know the magic of it, like in life, like I said, if I can go back, we don't get to go back. Right, I want opportunity to go back, Exactly, and, you know, fool around with it just a little bit, you know, just take a light scalpel to it, not a hatchet.
April Snow: 45:20
Yeah, right Now that you're a little further up that spiral staircase.
Melissa Giberson: 45:23
Exactly how nice if we can go back in our life and take scalpels to other things. That's right. For but, we can't.
April Snow: 45:31
For folks that are not familiar with the book, could you share a little bit more about? I know we talked about it a bit, but tell folks a little bit more about it.
Melissa Giberson: 45:42
So it opens up with my asking that question about am I gay, having never asked the question before, and it's really an interesting look into what seems very obvious. You know, call it whatever you want disassociation. Just you know the person in that situation doesn't know that, but it's an interesting look at how powerful the mind is and how protective the body is, that some things, looking back, can be so obvious except to you. Your body is working really hard to keep you in a place that you've worked really hard to get to, to be in, and you know there's other people. So it's this challenge, it's, you know what are you willing to me? That it resonated with them having nothing to do with sexuality, but because everyone's on some kind of journey, everybody has been in a place where they have to look at themselves and go who am I? What am I going to do with this? What's my life going to look like?
Melissa Giberson: 47:08
So, people that have had addiction issues, or just people that have had one string of bad things happening to them. Career they seem to have. The book seems to speak to them. There's something about being resilient and surviving and plowing through even though you keep getting knocked down or you're questioning, or the messiness of it. So, yeah, I like when the story resonates with different people for different reasons.
April Snow: 47:38
It's such a universal, relatable human story. Yeah, I think so, yeah. I agree.
April Snow: 47:45
Yes, thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thanks so much for joining me and Melissa for today's conversation. What I hope you'll take away is that it's never too late to find yourself and that being a late bloomer which many HSPs are could actually be a blessing in disguise. Don't forget to check out Melissa's memoir, late Bloomer, for an inspiring story about coming out and finding yourself later in life in more ways than one. If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to the Sensitive Stories podcast so you don't miss our upcoming conversations. Reviews and ratings are also helpful and appreciated For behind-the-scenes content and more HSP resources. You can sign up for my email. Reviews and ratings are also helpful and appreciated for behind the scenes content and more hsp resources. You can sign up for my email list or follow sensitive strengths on instagram, tiktok and youtube. Check out the show notes or sensitivestoriescom for all the resources from today's episode. Thanks for listening.
