What It's Like Being Highly Sensitive
Note: This post includes affiliate links, and I will earn a commission if you purchase through the link. Please read my full disclosure statement here.
I wondered why.
Why did I feel things so deeply? Why did I need so much rest? Why was I so cautious? Why was I so quiet?
This was my temperament from early on.
In preschool, I talked only to my extroverted best friend. The thought of speaking to a teacher left me hiding in corners. I was safe, harbored up to my elbows in Lincoln Logs and wooden puzzle pieces.
At mid-year, my teacher ran an inquiry with my mother to suss out why I rarely spoke. My very extroverted mother snorted and guffawed at the notion that I was Silent Marya at school. I talked up a storm at home. I was just timid with strangers.
This was the ‘80s, before anyone knew to wonder about sensory sensitivities or ADD or anything of the like.
It wasn’t until the late ‘90s when Dr. Elaine Aron’s research on highly sensitive people (HSPs) came out. Her book, The Highly Sensitive Person: How To Thrive When The World Overwhelms You, answered all my ‘whys’.
It helped HSPs everywhere feel appreciated in a world that values a ‘Work Hard, Play Hard’ lifestyle more than anything else.
Who are highly sensitive people?
Aron’s research shows that highly sensitive people are 15 to 20% of the population. Even if you’re not highly sensitive yourself, since 1 out of 5 people are HSPs, you have a 36% chance of dating or falling in love with an HSP.
HSPs inherit a more sensitive nervous system. This nervous system is a normal difference showing up in 1.4 billion men and women across the globe. And in at least 100 species of animals. Surprisingly, 30% of HSPs are actually extroverts, as well.
It’s thought that highly sensitive nervous systems are an evolutionary advantage. HSPs are more aware of subtleties in their environment because of deeper thinking and mental processing. This leads to overstimulation in new, intense or chaotic spaces. But also to greater empathy and emotional reactivity.
What’s it really like to be highly sensitive? I’ll tell you.
Sensitive and shy
In preschool, my mother knew my default was to hang on the sidelines and watch. She also saw I had a big heart. I was unusually tuned into the people around me. When mom had a headache, I would wring my hands and pace by her bedside offering to run and get something to help her feel better. And nothing gave me greater joy than to please my dad by running to the basement fridge to grab a cold Heineken.
I was tuned in and careful with other people’s feelings. I instinctively sugar-coated bad news. When mom asked how I liked a new recipe, I said, diplomatically, “I like it, but please don’t make it again”.
What’s more than that, if I ever needed to confront anyone on anything, I carefully analyzed the situation for hours. I prepared like I was planning to negotiate a hostage release. Working to muster the courage and trying to convince myself that I had the right to take a stand. Then I’d undoubtedly chicken out, or end up slinking out of the room in tears after only a few broken mumbled words of my planned speech.
My eagerness to please also meant I fell in line with just a look. When my dad used a stern voice at the dinner table to get me to finish my cold, dry hamburger, my lower lip quivered. And the tears welled up.
Tears were a frequent occurrence. And I always tried to hide them. Like the time my mom jokingly said my birthmark was leprosy. I thought she was serious and I ran to the encyclopedia to look it up. I ended up in tears, certain my body parts would soon fall off.
My mom was playful and liked to tease, but her core instinct was to shelter my sisters and me. Which, she said, allowed us to be kids. Frequently, I hated her caution, but in hindsight, it turned out to be a good thing.
Violent movies, T.V. and books
In 1982, we went to see E.T. in the theater. He wasn’t looking so good and was near death. Out of nowhere, mom’s hand swooped in to cover my eyes. We always joked about it later, but I’m a sponge that soaks up emotion and I needed it. Upsetting T.V. and movies stuck with me for days.
Every year at Easter, I watched the made for T.V. movie, Jesus of Nazareth. The crucifixion was so upsetting that I cried ugly snotty full-on sobs in the bathroom.
Then there was the time when I checked out a book from the library about a little girl going to the hospital to get her tonsils removed. I poured over every photo of her in her hospital gown, eating ice cream, and spending the night in the big bad hospital. My heart flooded with compassion for her as I imagined how scary that was. For me, a hospital stay would’ve jarred me to the core. How did she do it, I wondered?
Easily overstimulated
In grade school, I couldn’t stand scratchy clothing. I lived in a pair of dirt-stained, elastic-waisted pink polyester pants, and a cotton shirt with a bouquet of balloons stamped on the front. It was my most comfortable outfit. I wore it so much that one of my pals asked my mom if I had any other clothes during field day. That was her cue I needed a second outfit. She fired up the Singer sewing machine and traced out the Butterick patterns. Then she spent hours fashioning a replica outfit of purple pants and a shirt with grapes stamped on it.
After all her effort, I rejected the clothing immediately. The scratchy seams made it inevitable they would stay parked in the back corner of my dresser forever.
We’ve established I was quirky and that my classmates were commenting. But somehow, I had friends and never got picked on. Unless you count being terrorized by the fire drill. I was afraid of getting caught in the bathroom when the fire alarm let out its deafening loud buzz. I even pooped my pants on one occasion rather than get stuck alone in the bathroom with the overwhelming noise.
Alarms were my nemesis. Our home burglar alarm made me feel scared rather than safe. There were pressure mats under the carpet in two key spots of the house. What if they were on and I ran across them? It was enough to make me hesitate even more before entering our dark basement, which I was sure was home to the boogeyman.
Hanging back in fear was my default, even on vacation. Every year on our summer beach trip, I planted myself on my blanket, out of the reach of crabs and waves. These were hidden dangers of the ocean that I’d encountered on prior trips and wanted nothing to do with.
I was the kid who was relieved when I stepped up to the little measuring stick outside of a ride and was too short. If a ride had a height requirement, I did not want to be on it. Roller coasters pushed me to the brink of tears. I had enough feelings swirling through my body. I didn’t need to hurl my body through the air at top speed.
Rich and complex inner life
I was the queen of overanalysis growing up. In high school, my friend Megan called me deep. My heart swelled with pride. It was a nice positive reframe for my habit of overthinking things. My ability to listen attentively and give wise advice gave me the reputation as an old soul.
I was drawn to books and classes on the meaning of life.
For pleasure, I’m sure I was the only high schooler reading Love Is Letting Go Of Fear by Gerald Jampolsky based on A Course in Miracles, and Marianne Williamson’s, A Return To Love.
I enrolled in all the electives that promised to break down life’s big questions. Psychology gave me the basics for grasping why people behave as they do.
My Social Justice class taught me that humans could do horrible things to one another. I was appalled to learn about the forced relocation of the Native Americans in the early 1800s. And the imprisonment of Japanese Americans in internment camps during World War II. Visiting homeless shelters outside of D.C. to serve meals convinced me that helping others had a big place in my future.
And then I had the mother load of electives, Death and Dying. Imagine the intrigue of a class that packed 18-year-olds into a yellow school bus and carted them off to tour the local morgue and funeral home. I was enthralled and unsettled viewing the metal table they used to conduct autopsies and the chamber used for cremation. I did every reading assignment about the secrets of the funeral industry, and grief and loss written by Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. I loved every second.
These were the courses that mattered to my journey as a human, I thought. This was where I needed to be. The seeds were planted for me to follow my big heart and become a social worker.
A turning point — finding my ‘big why’
Late in high school, my dad gave me 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey.
His motto, “start with the end in mind”, became my motto. He says, see where you want to end up so you can build a life that gets you there. And have no regrets down the road when you look in the rearview mirror.
The desire to fulfill my life purpose became the motivating force for taking action in my life. You could call it my ‘big why’.
I ask myself, ‘is this something I must do before the end of my days’? The answer comes from listening to my gut. How do I feel about it? Do I expand or contract?
When I hear an expansive ‘yes’, I’m naturally motivated to take action.
It’s why I doggedly pursued a happy marriage. Going on blind date after blind date. Marrying the wrong person and ending it. And then opening my heart up again to finally meet the right person.
It’s why I blog and write. It’s like I have no free will in the matter. I must do it.
It’s why, in my mid-forties, I’m thoughtfully asking, ‘am I meant to be a mother in this lifetime’? And exploring ways to do it.
From ‘why me’ to your ‘big why’
If you’re sensitive like me, I know you want to protect your big heart. You want to fashion yourself into someone made of steel. To shed everything that makes you ask, ‘why me’.
If you crawl into your shell, you will only rust up like the tin man. And the world will be worse off.
You are everything that’s right and good about this world. You’re conscientious, perceptive, insightful and caring.
Your task in this life is to pursue your own definition of success. Find your ‘big why’ and then spend every day pursuing it, your way.