A field guide for the deeply feeling. Unpacking the emotional architecture of highly sensitive minds.
"Some people shut down to survive—not to push others away."
A Field Guide for the Deeply Feeling
Cody "Q"
Rice-Velasquez
A Field Guide for the Deeply Feeling
(Hybrid voice: "I" for story, "Deep Feeler" for framework)
There are mornings when everything happens at once.
The phone won't stop buzzing.
The dog needs to go out.
A client report is due.
Clothes are everywhere.
Time is dissolving faster than I can catch it.
Nothing dramatic is happening — just life.
But inside, something starts slipping.
My thoughts accelerate.
My breath shortens.
My awareness scatters.
I reach for something directly in front of me…
and my brain deletes it.
Vanished — not physically, but perceptually.
Every missing item adds pressure.
Every unanswered message tightens the chest.
Every small decision becomes impossible.
Then someone asks a simple question:
"Are you hungry?"
My brain doesn't hear hunger.
It hears logistics. Timing. Expectations.
A single question opens ten mental tabs —
and then everything freezes.
My body stops.
My mind stalls.
My capacity collapses.
And the day ends there —
not because I don't care,
not because I don't want to go,
but because my system has blown a fuse.
Tears come — frustrated, ashamed, exhausted tears.
Not because I'm weak,
but because I'm overloaded.
Then the self-blame spirals:
"Why am I like this?"
"Why can't I get it together?"
"Everyone else does life just fine."
"Maybe I should just remove myself so I stop disappointing people."
This is not withdrawal by choice.
This is survival.
This is what happens when the world outruns my mind —
when my system collapses under weight no one else can see.
Even in silence, the Deep Feeler's mind is busy — layered, active, relentless.
Thoughts braid together:
Multiple timelines run simultaneously —
past, present, imagined futures —
all playing in parallel.
From the outside, nothing is wrong.
Calm face.
Quiet voice.
Still body.
Inside, the system is flooded.
Most people run one mental tab at a time.
Deep Feelers run twenty — all auto-refreshing.
They register:
The mind doesn't ask permission.
It processes everything.
At any moment, a Deep Feeler is:
All while the internal system checks:
Is it safe? Is it safe? Is it safe?
And for a Deep Feeler, safety doesn't mean
"no one is yelling."
It means:
"No one needs anything from me that I don't have the capacity to give."
Overload begins here —
not with a crisis, but with cumulative input a sensitive system refuses to ignore.
The Overloaded Mind is not evidence of failure.
It is evidence of capacity.
Bandwidth is emotional + cognitive fuel.
Deep Feelers burn fuel faster because they process deeply and broadly.
Where others shrug off a tense comment, a Deep Feeler runs diagnostics:
Each question consumes bandwidth.
Each attempt to maintain harmony drains capacity.
People call this "too sensitive" or "dramatic."
But it is not drama —
it is hyper-responsibility conditioned by trauma, instability, or early emotional labor.
The Overloaded Mind tries to protect everyone.
It just doesn't know how to stop.
Deep Feelers often interpret overload as personal failure:
But this is not brokenness.
It is exhaustion.
Capacity limits.
Years of emotional labor with no rest.
Naming overload is the first act of healing.
Noticing the weight allows us to ask:
"What am I carrying — and what would it take for this system to breathe again?"
An overloaded mind isn't malfunctioning — it's protecting you.
What looks like distance is a system trying to survive the weight of everything it has carried alone.
Cody is a systems thinker, intuitive analyst, and narrative architect whose life work bridges emotional depth, psychology, and high-level strategy. Known for their ability to translate complex inner experiences into clear, compassionate frameworks, Cody helps Deep Feelers understand themselves—and gives the world a language for what sensitivity really is.
Drawing from trauma-informed research, Jungian depth psychology, neuroscience, attachment theory, and lived experience, Cody writes at the intersection of personal truth and analytical clarity. Their approach blends the precision of a clinician with the soul of a storyteller.
This book answers the questions Deep Feelers have been asking themselves their entire lives.
"Why do I get overstimulated so easily?"
"Why do I retreat even when I care?"
"Why do I carry everyone else’s emotions?"
"How do I stop burning out?"
A multi-volume exploration of identity, trauma, healing, and becoming. Building tools, books, systems, and spaces for people who feel deeply and think intensely.
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Systems thinker Cody “Q” Rice-Velasquez challenges misconceptions about silence and apathy in their upcoming book.
Part of the ambitious 713 Series, this book bridges the gap between trauma-informed neuroscience and the lived experience of "Deep Feelers." Rice-Velasquez argues that for highly sensitive individuals, silence is rarely an act of rejection—it is often a necessary biological preservation strategy.
“We have an entire population of people who are shutting down to survive, and they are being told they don’t care enough. I wrote this book to give them the data to understand their own biology.”
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"Why You're Not Broken", "The Deep Feeler Architecture", and more.
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This book will finally make it make sense.