Being a highly sensitive person

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This is a very personal testimony. I hope it will help you to discover and to understand what it is to be a highly sensitive person.

Please note that every highly sensitive person is a human being. Therefore, each HSP is different. What you are going to read below applies to generally speaking every HSP, but the proportions may vary from person to person. For example, as for me the emotional side has more impact than the physical side, but for someone else it could be the other way round.

BEING A HIGHLY SENSITIVE PERSON

"You whiner", "it's just a song, stop it, you're making fun of yourself", "you know that he's been dead for a century, right?", "come on, dance with us, stop being picky", "you're too sensitive", "you're too fragile", "you're annoying", "pff, nonsense"... These are some words that I'm used to hearing since childhood.

It's just a few years ago that I understood and that I could put a word on a whole part of my personality: I am a highly sensitive person.

The term highly sensitive person (HSP), that has been coined in the 70's speaks very well for itself, actually: being an HSP is being literally a highly sensitive person. It's not a disease nor a mental disorder. It's a personality trait.

To be HSP is to have a hightened sensitivity, be it emotional, physical or mental. This leads to situations, reactions or emotions often judged as extreme, exagerated or ridiculous.

What follows is an explanation with examples which are personal but still valid for most HSPs.

My way of explaining is also personal. I separate manifestations of high sensitivity in four categories: it's emotional, relational, mental and physical.

EMOTIONAL

Emotions always hightened

When I love, I love completely. Be it my partner, my friends, a video game, a fictional character... when I love, I love deeply and I give everything. I am extremely passionate about everything I love, and believe me, I love many things. I attach the utmost importance to my friends (and from an external point of you, you could think I'm in love with them). I can speak hours and days about a topic that passionates me, even when knowing that my conversation partner doesn't really care, because I can't help the need to share the love.

It's also in arts that you can see how much I can be passionate. To be highly sensitive is to be extremely sensitive to art. As far as I'm concerned, it's music. I can't live without music, just like many of us. But for me, it's amplified. I am a music lover to my fingertips, I have an unconditional love for the music of each artist I listen to, and each concert is lived with an incredible intensity.

Also, each song is going to make live different emotions.

And here's the transitions to emotions. I can't help but dancing on a joyful song, just as I can't help but crying on a sad song, without having to be sad or depressed. And often, it's actually the other way around: I often cry of love on non-sad songs, or cry of positive emotions during or after a festive concert. I can cry the death of a fictional character for hours, too. On the contrary, I can get really excited over a video game boss battle or over something that happened to my favourite characters in an, and I am very often moved to tears by a landscape. Also I can't watch scenes of realistic violence, which makes me avoid certains films or video games. If I witness such a scence of violence while it wasn't planned, I can feel traumatised for several days. And when I'm angry, I can really go off the rails.

All of my emotions, no matter which ones, are tenfold.

And I'm easily overwhelmed by these both positive and negative emotions, which leads me to often cry.


Absorbption and empathy

Somwhere between the emotional and the relationships side of being an HSP lies empathy.

I absorb people's feelings, be it loved ones, strangers or fictional characters. If they're happy then so am I, if they're sad then so am I. I can be moved at the mere thought of a happy couple, and difficult testimonies are difficult to watch. I can also very easily see the slightest change in mood of my loved ones.

RELATIONSHIPS

Not being able to pretend

I remember some childhood parties, where people reproached me not to have fun, reproached me that I didn't dance with the others, and that I was nearly sulking in a corner. They told me I was a bad girl. They told me I was savage.

The reason why I wasn't having fun is because I couldn't have fun. I didn't really know the other kids (combo, I'm both HSP and an introvert), I didn't like the music, and to this day, I can't help it: I can't have fun on music I dislike. It's not a whim. It's so mental that it becomes physical. I just cannot help it. We talked about it with a friend no later than a few days ago. She sent me some ridiculous song, and told me that it's the kind of songs she'd dance to at an advanced hour during a party with friends. Well, if I were there, I would just sit there, waiting for the good music to start again.

And here's another huge part of my character: to be highly sensitive is to be highly sincere.

I can't pretend. I can't pretend to have fun while it's not the case. I can't pretend to be interested by knowing which swimsuit did my aunt buy while I clearly don't care about it. I can't fake any of my feelings.


Honesty without filter / full of tact

I can't pretend, which is why lots of people who don't know me, be it strangers in a Facebook comment or my mom's friends, think I'm cold, or even haughty. I always say what I think, without any filter, because I naturally give more importance to truth and honesty rather than to social norms or to be well seen.

But this is not always the case. Because of my empathy, I am often full of tact and amability - and here, I can sugarcoat my true feelings and thoughts. This leads me to put others first, to engage myself in conversations I wish I weren't having.

Being HSP is to very "all or nothing", and so is the case here. And this duality between being honest to the point I can seem cold, and being friendly to the point I sacrifice my time, it's quite random, really.

The need for meaningful relashionships

Highly sensitive people have generally fewer friends. I don't have time to waste in temporary friendships. I don't search for new people, and I abhor small talk. People who message me via my private Facebook account and who expect me to become their friends or to be interested in their lives are rather quickly disappointed. The only friendships that work for me are the ones forged with time, with people met by chance and with whom I have real discussions. Friendship attemps that are shoved down my throat via online messages filled with compliments or via a small talk at uni will never work.


MENTAL

Processing informations

I often need time to assimilate informations. In my everyday life, I'm seen as being "indecisive" (even for simple questions such as "would you prefer pizza or pasta"). And if I did an oral interview, or during oral exams at schools, I always have many "um..." and even silences. Not because I don't have the answer, but because it takes time to assimilate the question, analyse all the possible answers and then organise my answer. That's also why I'm a "discreet" or "observer" type of student: I barely ever raise my hand, because questions or answers never come spontaneously. I guess it won't come as surprise if I told you I'm way more at ease when writing rather than speaking.


The pressure of time

The more I'm timed, the less good will be my result. For example, my words per minute test isn't quite reflective of my actual level, because the fact of having to type under one minute is stressing me out more than anything else, so I'm making more typos than usual. Overall, having to do much in a short time is counterproductive.


Overthinking and perfectionnism

It's very common for HSPs to spend their time overthinking: I still haven't got a reply, have I said something stupid? Oh no, for question 8 I should have formulated my answer in another way... Do you think I'll pass for an annoying fan if tell this to that artist? And so on. It leads to numerous situations of stress or anxiety.

But it's not necessarily negative, as it shows a great capacity to both question yourself and analyse things, see sublte details. HSPs thrive on deep philosphical or ethical questions, and immediately see the subtleties of art.

Unsurprisingly, this increased sense of detail leads to having an endless need of perfectionnism.

PHYSICAL SENSITIVITY

The sensitivy of senses

I always lower the phone brightness that my boyfriend had set up to the max for himself. On my phone or computer, I change the brighteness as often as I need to, depending of the general brightness of my surrounding. My eyes are also very sensitive to the sunlight, even if the sun is hidden behind the clouds. And at uni, I always prefer to spend time on the 5th floor, because its red paint is more gentle to my eyes than the yellow paint of the 4th floor.

Eating noises are annoying me, to hear the sound of a heatbeat is stressing me out, while the metallic sound of a fork stored away without gentleness is literally hurting my ears. I often ask my boyfriend to speak more quietly, and while I can stand it, I don't like being in unnecessarily loud environments (I adore concerts, but here the noise is logical, if you see what I mean?). Also, when turning the volume up or down, I spend time to find the perfect volume.

When it comes to the olfactory field, I cannot stand the odour of cigarettes or cannabis, while on the contrary I am positively sensitive to the perfumes my friends are wearing, to incense or to the smell of rain or of a forest.


In my bubble

When someone enters my room while I don't see them, or when I hear my door being opened, I startle nearly every time. No, I wasn't working on a top secret project: it's just a reflex. It's not fear either. I'm actually still trying to fully understand it, but I think it's because I'm concentrated on what I'm doing that any exterior simulus make me startle, as it pierces the bubble I was in. It's also a sign of emotions: I'm so passionate about what I love or what I do that it has a physical impact.

Also, I need to work in a closed space. My room is always closed, and I prefer to isolate myself in a small classroom instead of working at the huge university library. In the profesionnal field, we would very much prefer to work in closed and personal offices instead of in an open space. For a highly sensitive person, concentrating, being at ease and being productive in a large and/or full of people space isn't easy.


The mind is tiring the body

Any conflict, even small ones and be it in real life or through a screen, will always make my heart race.

I also enjoy and need to be alone. Not because I want to play the d4rk g0th, but because I need it. After a day with people, I have this physical need to mentally rest, to recharge my batteries, alone. 

IN SUMMARY

To sum up, being a highly sensitive person is to have an emotional, psychological and phyiscal sensitivity way higher than the average. HSPs aren't weird, capricious or haughty. They just live their emotions ten times higher than others.

I hope that this testimony brought you clarity about phenomenon. And to spread this understanding is crucial for a better respect and inclusion of concerned people.

To be highly sensitive has its bad sides.

But to be an highly sensitive makes me live in a much more intense way.

Therefore, I would never change this part of me.

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October 2020: I just read The Highly Sensitive Person by Elaine N. Aron, the pioneer of the domain. I don't think this book will be of great use for you if you read this article, nor if you aren't HSP yourself. It's a very great book, but it is only useful to people who don't have any knowledge yet.