I’ll admit that what I am about to tell you in a little controversial. But it’s my story, a story I just began sharing with you when I discussed My Love Affair With Food.

Perhaps my highly tuned metabolism was related to my highly tuned perception – or perhaps you would say I was highly intuitive. You see, I was also born with what people call  a very highly tuned sixth-sense.  It is also commonly known as  ESP. I could so easily sense peoples feelings and I regularly knew things before they happened.

When walking through a mall I could tell who was angry, who was sad, and who was discouraged.  These intuitions were not based on how these people looked, but rather because I literally “felt” what it was they were feeling and I felt it with great intensity.

I remember walking past a man and feeling pure evil as he watched the little children walking by. He was prowling for a victim and I knew it. His negative energy felt as if it was absorbed into my soul.  Everyone’s energy was felt and it was exhausting.  As a young child I sensed that much of the world was an evil place.

I often knew other things as well…

I often knew the phone was going to ring before it rang. I even knew who it was for. I would walk over to the telephone, put my hand on the receiver, and it would ring a few moments later.

For example, I would tell my brother, “The phone’s for you.”  He said,  “The phone hasn’t wrung.”  “It hasn’t wrung yet, but it will, ” I assured him.   And sure enough it would ring just moments later. And yes it was for him.

Driving down the road the word “cop” would often pop into my head. We’d turn the corner and there would be a police officer in his car. This happened regularly. I had my own internal radar detector.  Admit it.  You are probably a little jealous over that one.

It wasn’t until collage that I learned that things like this were unusual…

One day, I was sitting in a collage psychology class.  We were discussing ESP. The instructor asked if anyone in the class had experienced anything like it. I raised my hands and turned around to see that I was the only one in class with my hand up.  Shocked I was!  Up to that point I thought that many, many people could do the things I did. My father had the same gift. From what I understand my grandmother often knew things as well .

In my thirties I was undergoing some neurological testing after a series of automobile accidents. One of the tests was designed to measure the effect the car accident had on short-term memory. I was verbally told a grocery list of ten different items several times and then asked to repeat them back. I could remember about 4 to 5 from each list. Sadly, even when the list was told to me several times it was still just the same four or five items I could recite back. (Hint – if you want me to remember something write it down for me, send me a text, Skype Me, or send me an email.)

After going through several rounds of testing the psychologist muttered something and shock her head. We completed another series of test. The shocked look on her face again showed that something unusual was happening.   “What?” I inquired.   She said, “Nothing really.”

But then it happened again!

“Let me guess,” I finally said. “I am giving you answers from the current list and from the next list. Right?”

“Yes!” she said.  “You are consistently giving me answers from the next list. You know much of what will be on the list before I give it to you. You are giving me 4 to 5 answers from the current list and 4 to 5 answers from the next list.”

“I thought so,” I said.  “I have ESP.”

She was absolutely fascinated. She said in her many years of testing she had never seen anything like it. She had read of similar things happening but had never tested anyone herself that could do this but had always wanted to study it.

While I do consider my extrasensory perception a gift, there was many times I felt it was a curse!

I hated feeling everyone’s feelings.

It was draining.

It was exhausting.

And it never seemed to end.

If I heard a new story I could instantly feel what the victim felt, and I could sense what happened.

I remember sitting in a high-school health class when the teacher described the symptoms of shock and thinking “that’s how I feel all the time.” I remember sitting in elementary school contemplating why everything in the world seemed gray and distant. Even the sounds seemed very, very muffled.  That’s how it was when I was in the city and around other people.  In the mountains it was so different.  Vibrant colors. Crisp sounds!  No wonder I loved it there.

But most of the time I felt disconnected from the world.  Perhaps it was my attempt to disconnect and protect myself from the feelings and thoughts of others.

When Elizabeth Smart was kidnapped I remember seeing (as if with my own eyes) the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, but not recognizing any identifiable land marks. Later we learned that she was held in a camp that was described by the news media to be like what I saw.

In 1991 I was driving through an intersection to a doctors appointment when I heard (as if with my own ears), “a kid is going to get hit by a car.”  I turned around and drove up and down the street looking for a kid.  Perhaps I could do something to prevent an accident. I couldn’t see anyone so I went to my appointment.

My doctors office overlooked the intersection. I was in the waiting room when everyone gathered by the window to watch a medical helicopter land.   “A little boy just got hit by a car,” someone said. “It’s really bad. I really don’t think he’ll make it.”

I cried and cried for three days. I felt as if I was responsible. After all I knew about it and I didn’t stop it.

My husband kept trying to make me feel better.  “You can’t  sit at that intersection for hours.”  “True, but still I should have persevered a little longer,” I thought.

I usually know the sex of unborn children or the best route to travel to our destination. I remember passing a restaurant on a regular basis and wishing we would stop to eat there because the owners were feeling a great amount of financial stress. It closed a few months later.

While it often felt like a curse if often came in handy. Like I said, I had my own built in radar protector and it has helped me win a couple of prizes.

My husband and I were at a fund-raising dinner for wildlife habitat. To raise funds the organization was selling a single card from a deck of cards for $5.00 each. They would give you one half and the other half would go into a drawing. I asked, “Do I get to pick my own card?” “Sure if you want to, ” was the reply.   “Can I look at the cards?” I asked. “Sure.”  So we paid, I picked the card that I felt was likely the winner.  We won.

When my husband and I were dating we were playing cards with a friend. He held up a card and said, “I have $100 for anyone who can tell me what this card is.” I instantly said, “It’s a spade.” I could tell by the look on his face I was right. He started to show it to me, but I quickly said, “Wait, don’t you want to know more? It’s a Jack.” He couldn’t believe it. (By the way, if you are reading this, Where’s my $100.00?)

I don’t gamble, I’ve done it just a few times in my life. The first time was when a date took me to Wendover, Nevada for dinner and gave me $20.00 to spend. Not knowing how to play anything at all in the casino I decided to try my hand at roulette.

I placed one chip at a time on the first number that came to mind. Within a short time I had a group of people around the table watching me win time after time with my single chip — I was to chicken to bet more.  (After all, I wasn’t right 100% of the time by the way.  But I did win enough, in our short time there, that I was able to pay for the three couples dinner, the gas to Wendover and back, and I still came back with a little cash. I’ve played just twice since then and haven’t duplicated those results by the way.

My sense of perception has diminished due to a variety of reasons (more about that later) and it never was 100% accurate.  That is why there has always some controversy around it.  I’ve heard things such as “If it were truly a sixth sense, then it would work all the time like taste does, or smell does.”  But we’ve all experienced days when our sense of smell doesn’t work (perhaps a cold), or things just don’t “taste the same.”   People need glasses because their eye sight doesn’t work so well, and people regularly experience blurred vision when they are fatigued.

I often wondered how I would do on the show Deal or No Deal. I love the episode of Medium where Allison is a contestant on Deal or No Deal and is accused of cheating because she chose the cases with the lowest amounts in perfect order. (Here is a video clip if you haven’t seen it.) If only my perception were as good as Allison’s.

Even though there are some positives to having heightened perception, the draw-backs were just often too painful. I remember praying for God to take it away. It so often felt like a curse, not a gift. And is often exhausting and literally hard on the body as well as the soul.

But now I have come to accept it as a gift that God has given me.  A gift I can share with others. My ability to sense what people are feeling often gives me the unique ability to help them in ways that others can’t.

My life’s experiences have given me the unique ability to know something of what it is like to have been raped and sexual assaulted, to be stalked, to experience the loss of a fetus, to recover from the pain of trauma, to experience ill health, and depression.

Those experiences have made me who I am today, and hopefully those experiences, combined with my sense of perception can be of benefit to others. That is the goal of this blog.

P.S. I DON’T know what you are thinking. And chances are I don’t know what you are feeling, but then again I may. I can’t do anything with 100% accuracy and it depends a great deal on other factors. So please don’t ask me to prove it. There was an entire discussion on Blog Catalog as a result of a post on a blog I have since removed. On that discussion someone had asked me to prove it. I can’t find that discussion now but here is a link to one where someone shared their feelings about the subject with their middle finger.You now can

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