Highly Sensitive People
Highly sensitive people (HSPs) really do exist! In fact they make up about 20 per cent of the population. The HSP has a sensitive nervous system, a basically neural trait. It means you are aware of subtleties in your surroundings, and will be on guard for potential “danger”. For example, grey clouds, wet pavements. It also means you are more easily overwhelmed when you have been out in a highly stimulating environment for too long, bombarded by sights and sounds until you are exhausted in a nervous-system sort of way.
It can be an advantage or a disadvantage to be sensitive; in some societies being sensitive is highly respected. In Western culture being sensitive is not considered a positive trait and parents and teachers often spend time trying to help children overcome their sensitivity.
Highly sensitive people, because they are in a minority, often feel out of step with everyone else. They are easily hurt or offended when spoken to by a non-HSP with words or tone that an HSP would not use. HSPs cannot understand how others can be so direct, critical, or abrasive. HSPs typically do not challenge such an interaction but withdraw to dwell on the exchange that took place. They try to rationalize what they did wrong; why was the other person so nasty?
Meanwhile the non-HSP has no awareness that anything is “wrong”. Conflict, confrontation and raised voices do not impact on his nervous system and he has no awareness that the HSP’s nervous system is now aroused and “hurting”. Yet this is the reason why the HSP calls him “insensitive” or mean.
Loud music or crowds can seem ordinary to others yet highly stimulating to the HSP nervous system, resulting in stress. A certain number of these stimuli can feel good to the HSP initially, but when it becomes “too much” or too long the HSP can become overwhelmed. The HSP then needs time to be alone in order to calm down his nervous system because he knows that tomorrow there will be more stimuli to deal with again.
In most instances a person walks into room at a party and notices simply the furniture and the people. That’s about it. HSPs however, are immediately aware, whether they like it or not, of the mood, friendships and hostilities between people, and whether the air is fresh or smoky. Being an HSP means you will notice the small things. For example, threads on the rug, how the curtain is tied back, and whether the picture frame has been dusted.
As an HSP you do not necessarily judge these things but you notice nonetheless. And your nervous system becomes overwhelmed because of all these things the brain has to be aware of . This is the reason the HSP becomes easily overwhelmed in new environments and feels anxiety even though the feeling is actually an overarousal of the nervous system.
It is important not to confuse arousal with fear. We can be overaroused by semiconscious thoughts or low levels of excitement that create no obvious emotion. It is common for the HSP to feel fearful due to the arousing chemicals produced in the body, even when he does not consciously have anything to feel fearful about. This is commonly what HSP’s consider an indication of their “craziness”. They have feelings that are incongruous with their intellectual or cognitive awareness of the situation.