Welcome to Back from the Abyss. I'm Dr. Craig Hecock.

I've often wished that each of us came with a personalized operating manual.

So we wouldn't have to spend so much of our lives trying to figure out our specific needs and

idiosyncratic issues. Sure, there would be some commonalities in everyone's manual, like

get enough sleep, eat to maintain your energy, don't abuse substances, find people

you can trust and be vulnerable with them. But then so many other things would diverge

in our individual operating manuals, largely depending on our inherited temperament, especially

on the resilience versus neuroticism axis.

Each of us falls somewhere on this continuum, which might also be thought of as the dandelion

orchid axis. Some of us come into the world fairly bomb-proof, insensitive, in both the positive

and negative aspects of this word,

and mostly able to handle the various challenges of life.

Others, well, they're born as orchids,

with a great sensitivity to everything around them.

These people feel everything deeply.

They're like porous membranes who can't keep the toxins from

seeping in. And these folks can grow and bloom beautifully if, if they are recognized early

as being highly sensitive and their various needs can be carefully addressed.

Emily was born, alas, without an operating manual, into a family of dandelions.

Yet she was an orchid. She was a very sensitive soul, one who felt the world's pain acutely and

involuntarily. Her story highlights how grueling it can be to go through life without a clear

understanding of what one truly needs. All Emily knew was that the world was too much, and she

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