For as long as I can remember, I felt different than those around me. It was hard to pinpoint why as a child, but it had something to do with how I experienced the world. I did not have language for it at the time, so we called it anxiety. My earliest memory of this otherness was being at Friendly’s and seeing an older man sitting alone. To my 10-year-old heart, he looked sad – the alone that was also lonely. The thought of his sadness, the possibility that he was without community, was too much for me. I thought about it for days.
This feeling of being different also manifested in sensory experiences and overstimulation – a lower threshold to light and sound, such as the offending fluorescent lights in office buildings or music blaring at exercise classes. Prescription drugs affect me at a quarter of the usual adult dose, and I’m allergic to most antibiotics. If I come in contact with perfume or cologne, I need Benadryl to calm the histamine my body produces in response. I despise the feel of structured clothing pressed up against me; I would have fit in well with the bra-burning generation. I can’t read WWII novels or watch violent movies or television shows. I faint at the sight of blood. I crave familiar environments (i.e., home) and have difficulty in many casual contexts where deep conversation is lacking. I can no longer pretend to fit in, as I crave the authenticity of my experiences.
My favorite poet, Josie Balka, has a tagline on her Instagram account: the happiest sad girl you will ever meet. I feel every word of that description.
The language I was missing as a child was “highly sensitive person,” a now well-established trait that is even being studied as a form of neurodivergence. Highly Sensitive Person, or HSP, is a term coined by psychologist Elaine Aron. According to Psychology Today, “HSPs are a subset of the population who are high in a personality trait known as sensory-processing sensitivity. Those with high levels of SPS display increased emotional sensitivity, stronger reactivity to both external and internal stimuli—pain, hunger, light, and noise—and a complex inner life.”
HSPs pay close attention to what is happening around us, which is a tough gig these days. The pain is too big now; we cannot keep up with the bombardment of the world’s suffering. There are so many people scared, marginalized, and scapegoated. HSPs are the first to pick up on propaganda. We have an internal lie detector, so do not try to bullshit us about what we see, hear, and observe. We detect it instinctively. We see injustice, and we feel called to change the broken systems. It tears us apart to let hatred prevail.
My emotions often feel too big for my small body, as if they need to relocate to a place with more room. As though I am going through life without the emotional protective layer issued to the other 85% of humanity. (According to recent research, HSPs make up approximately 15-20% of the population.) That exposure made me feel even more vulnerable in the corporate world, where big feelings are often judged as weak or inappropriate.
All this to say, sensitivity has its share of challenges. My perspective shift was slow. It took me more than four decades to appreciate that what was sensitive about me was also strong as fuck. It takes a tremendous amount of strength to meet with your own discomfort. Certain experiences in particular highlighted that for me:
- Leaving behind my 25-year HR career and stepping away from the stability and identity of my executive job.
- Navigating several health scares, including a period of extreme and debilitating anxiety triggered by a physical injury.
- Losing a dear friend and close colleague who passed away from pancreatic cancer.
- Understanding how to simply “be” with those in trauma and crisis – without trying to solve or fix, but to be present with the pain.
- Most importantly, staying still with my own pain of losing my greatest champion and hero – my dad.
In the middle of major life events and transitions, I knew how to grieve in fully expressed ways. I immersed myself in the rawness of my loss…body, mind, and soul. I healed well because I felt it all.
There are other gifts, too. My sensitivity is my X-factor in creative expression. The feeling of the scene shows up in my photographs. I notice the smallest details in a flower and wonder at nature’s immaculate design. I feel music course through me. I am embodied by dance and lose myself in the physicality of it. I can write persuasively about how life events affect me. I am part of the tortured poet’s department (thanks, Taylor, for unofficially inducting me). I pick up on the unspoken words and feelings of others. I have had clients who tell me that they cannot cry…and then they do…because I can hold the emotion with them.
Sensitivity has made me a better friend, parent, partner, and coach.
Last weekend, my husband Scott and I saw the Unbreakable Boy. We did not cry. The proper verb was sob, the hiccupy kind that makes breathing difficult. As the credits rolled and the theatre emptied, Scott and I just sat there trying to catch our breath, wondering how everyone had just resumed their lives after being immersed in so much heartbreak and joy. Don’t you guys need a minute?
As we sat across from the dinner table that evening, our eyes red with tears and our voices still shaky, I felt profoundly grateful to be understood by Scott. I have never heard the words, “Don’t be so sensitive,” in my marriage. I am very proudly a highly sensitive person and equally proud to have married one. If you share these traits, I am sure you have felt conflicted about your sensitivity many times in your life. I am here to tell you that it makes you YOU. Celebrate your sensitive self. I love you for it.
Do you wonder if you are an HSP? You can take the assessment by Elaine Aron here: https://hsperson.com/test/