A few years ago, I had a mentor, who came by to help me with practical things in my life.
I had recently been diagnosed with a few personality disorders, one of them was borderline, but according to my psychiatrist I only had partial borderline.
My mentor came to visit one day and asked me to sit down, he then said “Fay, I don’t think you have borderline, I think you are a highly sensitive”
Highly sensitive?
I had just tried to understand what borderline meant for me, and what it was about and now I was told I might have something else entirely.
When he went home, I started googling highly sensitive personality and took the test on Elaine Aron’s page and scored a top score.
What I read suddenly made sense.
It was like suddenly my world made sense, I made sense.
I had always felt misunderstood, and frustrated that everyone around me had told me” fay you are just too sensitive, you are too nice, you are too caring, you are too emotional” I never understood why that was a bad thing, why everyone made it sound like it was a bad thing.
The more I read the more relief I felt that I wasn’t alone in this, and that I was finally understood.
Was is highly sensitive personality?
Elaine Aron’s describes it with the words D.O.E.S
D: Depth of Processing
The HSP Brain has a more active Insula, which basically means HSP takes in a lot more information around them and thinks more deeply about things. This may result in slower decision making and more transition time between tasks.
O: Over stimulation
Since HSP’s notice more subtleties in their environment and are more impacted by social stimulation, they get more overstimulated and feel more exhausted by a high level of input.
E: Emotional Responsiveness/Empathy
Brain scans have shown that HSP’s have more active mirror neurons which are responsible for feelings of empathy for others and more activity in areas that are involved with emotional responses. HSP’s feel both positive and negative emotions more intensely than non-HSP’s.
S: Sensitive to Subtleties/Sensory Stimuli
HSP’s notice subtle details that others miss such as non-verbal cues and small changes in their environment. They are also more impacted by strong sensory input such as bright lights, loud noises, strong smells or rough textures.
How does these things affect me?
I think a lot, about anything and everything, the smallest things follows me for days. If I walk into a bus and notices the bus driver looks sad, I go home thinking about the bus driver and why he was sad that day, and then that thought turns into a million other thoughts.
I dream every night, and some nights I remember having had up to 3 different dreams. Its rarer for me not dreaming.
I try to avoid the news because I’ve had times when I was watching the news and it affected me for days, I would be spending days worrying about a nuclear plant leak in china, or other things, that caused people to die, or other horrible events. I remember bursting out into tears just by the thought of those events. I couldn’t help it I just feel deeply about big events like that.
When it comes to going out to shop in big Supermarkets, I always feel super exhausted when I get back home, like I’ve been running a marathon.
I notice everything when I’m out, people’s facial expression, how they walk, the tone of their voice, the lights, the smell, the noises.
It’s just too much.
Don’t take me wrong, I love going out, meeting new people, and seeing new things, but its always really draining, and I feel the need to take mini breaks where I find a quiet space or listen to music.
I feel my body tensing, and I feel stressed.
My emotions feel’s too much.
I’ve had times when I feel in love and it’s just feel’s too much, the affects it has on my body, not being able to sleep or eat, and the constant butterflies in my stomach. It’s a nice feeling, but its also overwhelming, being sad feels too much, and at times I’m not sure how to handle the emotion. Being angry is the worst, because at the same time of being angry I’m aware of the people around me, how they react to me being angry and I notice their voices change, how they act differently, and it makes me feel guilty for feeling the emotion.
But controlling my emotions or hiding them feels almost impossible.
The last few years I tend to withdraw when I feel an emotion that feels hard to control. I don’t like how people around me gets affected by it, so I deal with it in private and come back when I’ve dealt with it.
When I have acted my emotions out in public, I’ve always been told “God fay you are just too sensitive. Just shake it off, let it go”. Thing is I have no idea how anyone can shake their emotions off. It’s an impossible thought to me, I’ve tried to hide my feelings, but failed every time.
It’s like when I see a movie that’s sad, and suddenly I just burst into tears, at the same time I’m laughing because its silly I’m crying over a movie, but also feel embarrassed that people see me like this, but I’m also surprised why no one else is crying.
I’ve always felt amazed why people around me don’t react or act on the same things that affects me, that I see or feel, and in that, that’s how I always felt different.
More sensitive then others I guess, or just different.
Growing up, I was always daydreaming and noticing everything around me. I was super curious and always wanted to figure out how people worked.
To this day I’m still curious to how people think and act in certain situations.
One of my big hobbies is psychology, trying to understand how emotions, and the human mind works.
How we are all different in ways I have yet to understand.
The more I read about being highly sensitive the more I understand, and I learn more about how to deal with situations that feel overwhelming. I’ve learned to embrace my sensitivity, and accept it for what it is, not something that’s grey and white, but colors.
Its not a bad thing being sensitive as I always thought it was.
It has its strengths. Being able to empathize with people around me, makes me feel more connected to them.
Seeing the world as I do, it’s a lot more beautiful. The color of the night sky, the feel of the wind on my skin, the beauty of music, or a painting in a waiting room.
I see the world in colors. People are colors to me.
And yes, being sensitive, can be overwhelming at times, but once I learned to take my mini breaks and withdraw to a quiet space its something I can deal with now, learning to take deep breaths when I feel stressed has helped. People around me now understands if I’m emotionally, that’s just fay as they say, they have accepted that’s just how I react to things.
I still withdraw if I feel anger or I’m sad, because I still don’t like upsetting people by me being upset, but I always end up coming back to chat when I’ve dealt with the worst storm of the emotions.
Music helps with that and singing along to songs when I’m angry works magically.
are you highly sensitive as well or do you know anyone who is ? S
Share your comments down below 🙂
Missfaylyn 