from the past? And how about this well-meaning warning: “You’re just too sensitive for your own good.”
If you were like me, you heard a lot of that, and it made you feel there must be something very different about you. I was convinced that I had a fatal flaw that I had to hide and that doomed me to a second-rate life. I thought there was something wrong with me.
In fact, there is something very right with you and me. If you answered true to fourteen or more of the questions on the self-test at the beginning of this book, or if the detailed description in chapter 1 seems to fit you (really the best test), then you are a very special type of human being, a highly sensitive person—which hereafter we’ll call an HSP. And this book is just for you.
Having a sensitive nervous system is normal, a basically neutral trait. You probably inherited it. It occurs in about 15–20 percent of the population. It means you are aware of subtleties in your surroundings, a great advantage in many situations. 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. Thus, being sensitive has both advantages and disadvantages.
In our culture, however, possessing this trait is not considered ideal and that fact probably has had a major impact on you. Well-meaning parents and teachers probably tried to help you “overcome” it, as if it were a defect. Other children were not always as nice about it. As an adult, it has probably been harder to find the right career and relationships and generally to feel self-worth and self-confidence.
What This Book Offers You
This book provides basic, detailed information you need about your trait, data that exist nowhere else. It is the product of five years of research, in-depth interviews, clinical experience, courses and individual consultations with hundreds of HSPs, and careful reading between the lines of what psychology has already learned about the trait but does not realize it knows. In the first three chapters you will learn all the basic facts about your trait and how to handle overstimulation and overarousal of your nervous system.
Next, this book considers the impact of your sensitivity on your personal history, career, relationships, and inner life. It focuses on the advantages you may not have thought of, plus it gives advice about typical problems some HSPs face, such as shyness or difficulty finding the right sort of work.
It is quite a journey we’ll take. Most of the HSPs I’ve helped with the information that is in this book have told me that it has dramatically changed their lives—and they’ve told me to tell you that.
A Word to the Sensitive-But-Less-So
First, if you have picked up this book because you’re the parent, spouse, or friend of an HSP, then you’re especially welcome here. Your relationship with your HSP will be greatly improved.
Second, a telephone survey of three hundred randomly selected individuals of all ages found that while 20 percent were extremely or quite sensitive, another 22 percent were moderately sensitive. Those of you who fall into this moderately sensitive category will also benefit from this book.
By the way, 42 percent said they were not sensitive at all—which suggests why the highly sensitive can feel so completely out of step with a large part of the world. And naturally, it’s that segment of the population that’s always turning up the radio or honking their horns.
Further, it is safe to say that everyone can become highly sensitive at times—for example, after a month alone in a mountain cabin. And everyone becomes more sensitive as they age. Indeed, most people, whether they admit it or not, probably have a highly sensitive facet that comes to the fore in certain situations.
And Some Things to Say to Non-HSPs
Sometimes non-HSPs feel excluded and hurt by the idea that we are different from them and maybe sound like we think we are somehow better. They say, “Do you mean I’m not sensitive?” One problem is that “sensitive” also means being understanding and aware. Both HSPs and non-HSPs can have these qualities, which are optimized when we are feeling good and alert to the subtle. When very calm, HSPs may even enjoy the advantage of picking up more delicate nuances. When overaroused, however, a frequent state for HSPs, we are anything but understanding or sensitive. Instead, we are overwhelmed, frazzled, and need to be alone. By contrast, your non-HSP friends are actually more understanding of others in highly chaotic situations.
I thought long and hard about what to call this trait. I knew I didn’t want to repeat the mistake of confusing it with introversion, shyness, inhibitedness, and a host of other misnomers laid on us by other psychologists. None of them captures the neutral, much less the positive, aspects of the trait. “Sensitivity” does express the neutral fact of greater receptivity to stimulation. So it seemed to be time to make up for the bias against HSPs by using a term that might be taken in our favor.
On the other hand, being “highly sensitive” is anything but positive to some. While sitting in my quiet house writing this, at a time when no one is talking about the trait, I’ll go on record: This book will generate more than its share of hurtful jokes and comments about HSPs. There is tremendous collective psychological energy around the idea of being sensitive—almost as much as around gender issues, with which sensitivity is often confused. (There are as many male as female babies born sensitive; but men are not supposed to possess the trait and women are. Both genders pay a high price for that confusion.) So just be prepared for that energy. Protect both your sensitivity and your newly budding understanding of it by not talking about it at all when that seems most prudent.
Mostly, enjoy knowing that there are also many like-minded people out there. We have not been in touch before. But we are now, and both we and our society will be the better for it. In chapters 1, 6, and 10, I will comment at some length on the HSP’s important social function.
What You Need
I have found that HSPs benefit from a fourfold approach, which the chapters in this book will follow.
1. Self-knowledge. You have to understand what it means to be an HSP. Thoroughly. And how it fits with your other traits and how your society’s negative attitude has affected you. Then you need to know your sensitive body very well. No more ignoring your body because it seems too uncooperative or weak.
2. Reframing. You must actively reframe much of your past in the light of knowing you came into the world highly sensitive. So many of your “failures” were inevitable because neither you nor your parents and teachers, friends and colleagues, understood you. Reframing how you experienced your past can lead to solid self-esteem, and self-esteem is especially important for HSPs, for it decreases our overarousal in new (and therefore highly stimulating) situations.
Reframing is not automatic, however. That is why I include “activities” at the end of each chapter that often involve it.
3. Healing. If you have not yet done so, you must begin to heal the deeper wounds. You were very sensitive as a child; family and school problems, childhood illnesses, and the like all affected you more than others. Furthermore, you were different from other kids and almost surely suffered for that.
HSPs especially, sensing the intense feelings that must arise, may hold back from the inner work necessary to heal the wounds from the past. Caution and slowness are justified. But you will cheat yourself if you delay.
4. Help With Feeling Okay When Out in the World and Learning When to Be Less Out. You can be, should be, and need to be involved in the world. It truly needs you. But you have to be skilled at avoiding overdoing or underdoing it. This book, free of the confusing messages from a less sensitive culture, is about discovering that way.
I will also teach you about your trait’s effect on your close relationships. And I’ll discuss psychotherapy and HSPs—which