I'm an intuitive person, and I'm one of those highly sensitive people. I always have been. I get vibes and feelings from people. I walk into a funeral home, and it feels like I've slammed into a brick wall of grief even if I don't know the person being laid to rest. I can walk into a room full of people, and I immediately feel it if something isn't quite right. I've even sometimes known something about someone without knowing how I know that something, like they're an open book I can read. I thought these things happened to everyone, but according to my therapist things like this only happen to certain people. According to research, my Myers-Briggs personality type is to blame. (I'm an INFJ.)
While I was growing up, and even until the past year or so, I never questioned my intuition or the fact that I sometimes felt other people's feelings like they were my own feelings. I trusted my intuition above logic most of the time. If something didn't feel right about a person, situation, or anything, I didn't hang out with that person or I exited the situation as quickly as possible. I didn't even second guess myself about it later.
Then I started having trouble with anxiety, and I was diagnosed with Pure O. I know some types of OCD involve not feeling right about something, like moving something a certain number of times until it feels right. I also know that anxiety can make the anxiety sufferer avoidant. I'd made most of my life decisions based on what felt right instead of logically figuring out which was the best decision. Had I been swayed by my anxiety or OCD in any of them?
As a result, I started to second guess myself when it came to feeling "off" about certain people or situations. I could be so uncomfortable around them or in whatever situation I found myself that it would actually cause me more anxiety, and I would be ready to climb out a window to escape them or the situation. I would ask myself, "Is this an actual weird vibe? Or is this my anxiety just making me think I feel "off"?" I would obsess about it, even, for hours or days. I was terrified that it was the latter and that I had been letting my anxiety and OCD dictate my friends and social life.
I could no longer tell the difference between my anxiety and my intuition, or at least I thought I couldn't. So, what did I do? I stayed in situations that made me feel "off", and I continued to be around people that also made me feel "off". I basically subjected myself to more anxiety because I was afraid my anxiety would make me screw up and make a wrong decision.
I started to notice some things while I was doing that, though. I started to notice slowly that my intuitive alarm bell and my anxiety alarm bell are slightly different from each other. One goes away (the anxiety alarm bell) after I adjust to something or someone new while the other (the intuitive alarm bell) tends to hang around, which adds to my anxiety if I overthink it or if I stay wherever I might be that caused the alarm bell in the first place. My anxiety and my intuitive nature can mix together sometimes, and the lines can blur, but I usually get it sorted out later, when I have time to take a few deep breaths and just sit with myself.
Distinguishing between my intuition and my anxiety these days still isn't always easy. That definitely doesn't mean that I don't trust my gut. My mom's advice was to always trust my gut, and I still try to live by that. It's just a bit of a slower process than it used to be because I have to always double check my anxiety (which may or may not be a bad thing).
I'll end with this: Trust your gut. Don't doubt yourself because you think your inner alarm bells are faulty just because you now live with some mental health condition. You're still the same person you were before, just like I'm still the same intuitive person I was before OCD reared its ugly head. The processing of the vibes and feelings may just take longer to separate from the anxiety, but maybe that's not a bad thing.
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