Sensitivity Among the Insensitive

Being highly sensitive is an invaluable trait that comes with many advantages. HSPs are known to be highly observant, intuitive, thoughtful, compassionate, empathetic, conscientious, loyal, and creative.

One of my greatest personal life challenges has been to accept and celebrate that I am a highly sensitive person. It has not always been easy for me. I have too many examples to count. As a child, for example, I cried A LOT. As a teen, I was easily overstimulated by situations and often felt misunderstood. As a young adult, I was wholly unprepared for a culture defined by high levels of internal competition coupled with insensitive and frequently callous behavior. At this point in my life, I protect myself by staying vigilant and avoiding them. I am instantly repelled by evidence of any mindset that either dismisses or stigmatizes people who can’t accept elements of toxic environments as being ‘too sensitive.’

For the record, Highly Sensitive People are not ‘too sensitive.’ If you’re unfamiliar with this concept, it’s worth reading about. HSPs simply have a wider, deeper range of emotion and perception such that when it’s nurtured, HSPs can posses a superior facility for responding to the challenges presented by the world around us (when given the opportunity to do so). It is most evident in the work of great artists and notable creatives throughout the centuries, where it was allowed to flourish among them. It is a gift that is not only misunderstood, it is frequently trampled by people who lack sensitivity. For people who are highly sensitive, operating in a toxic environment can only result in misery. In that situation, the only reasonable choices for an authentic and highly sensitive person (two traits that are basically inseparable) are to remain small and unnoticed while deeply unfulfilled, or try to speak up to try to change the culture and then open yourself up to be the object of hostility.

In hindsight, I now realize that both of my parents were also highly sensitive people, who shared many of the same challenges but did not happen to grow up with highly sensitive parents. While their sensitivity contributed heavily to the fact that my parents were honest, decent and loving people, they spent much of their life trying to combat the effects of being misunderstood as highly sensitive people. Because they lacked any support for being highly sensitive from a young age, my parents perceived sensitivity as something to be overcome throughout their own lifetime. It was a source of both attraction and conflict in their relationship. They demonstrated all of the wonderful qualities of highly sensitive people, but remained largely stifled as their gifts often went intentionally unnoticed and therefore undervalued in this world. Of course, becoming less sensitive was not a successful endeavor as their sensitivity was a product of their own biology. The resulting negative self-judgment affected their self-esteem, their ability to nurture the self-esteem and confidence of one another and their children as highly sensitive people, and ultimately their own happiness and satisfaction. My father died of lung cancer as a result of smoking, a habit fueled by a lifetime of mild depression. My mother shared with me, as she was preparing to die, the lingering pain inflicted by childhood memories of being belittled and mocked for (what I now understand to be) her sensitivity.

For obvious reasons, the life experiences of my highly sensitive parents presented a blessing and a challenge for me growing up. My parents were highly perceptive and quick to observe my difficulties growing up, likely because they related to them. We shared similar ways of seeing and responding to the world around us. I was free to be expressive and creative as a child and over the years I built an authentic friendship with my parents; something I cherish now more than ever. As their friend, I always wished more for them than they seemed to get from life. Until I learned about Highly Sensitive People, I manifested many of the same internal struggles that plagued my parents. I both loved my parents for who they were and blamed my parents for these struggles. Once I better understood what it meant to be highly sensitive, I could find a deeper appreciation for them, and myself, without the blame.

And now these days, with clarity from my own experience, I find common ground with so many people during this ‘great resignation.’ Perhaps the hallmarks of today’s capitalism–brutal competition and what seems like an utter lack of humanity–just don’t ‘trickle down’ well into workplaces, especially when people learn they can leave those workplaces. Perhaps people were more accepting of toxic workplaces before the pandemic than they are today because life has become that much more precious to them. Or perhaps they spent enough time outside of the suffocating confines of many workplaces that they simply can’t go back. As an HSP I can say “I see you, and I feel your pain.” Will this be a tipping point toward a better future? Will HSPs finally see our gifts put to use in these spaces? You’ll probably have to outsource to find us though. My gosh, would we be happy to help if you’re serious about making things better for people – it’s our most enduring affliction!