The World May Shame Your Superpowers

That's why you have a shield

Still the Race of Hero Spirits Pass the Torch from Hand to Hand, Walter Crane, 1909

“You’re too sensitive,” I was often told as a kid. “You need a thicker skin.” The incidents that led to those observations were usually unkind, often mean, but I believed the adults in my life. Being sensitive felt like a burden.

At some point in middle school, I tried ou…