This article is to offer those of you who are highly sensitive more understanding of the gifts and challenges this trait gives you. For those of you who are not highly sensitive, this paper will help you to understand the sensitives you live with, work with, parent or have as friends.

You may have heard comments growing up such as, “you’re too sensitive”, “grow a thicker skin,” “don’t take yourself so seriously,” “why do you take things so hard?” I could list quite a few more such comments because as a sensitive myself I heard most of them. What these comments did was have you feeling like you were somehow “different” and perhaps not in a good way. What you need to know is your nervous system has been genetically designed to be more sensitive to subtleties, more prone to deep reflection on inner experience, and therefore inevitably more easily affected by or overwhelmed by outer events.

We highly sensitive people make up only 15-20% of the human population, which may have you feeling at a disadvantage seeing we make up such a small portion of humanity. What is important to remember is that this is a major, normal, inherited difference in how the entire nervous system functions, affecting every aspect of life. It is interesting to note that researchers have found that this sensitivity trait is found in many species other than human and at about the same rate. Researchers suggest it plays a very important survival role. A species needs a group who will guide it, give it warnings when danger is imminent, and push the species to shift to survive external events. Humans need this as well. Someone needs to play the role of advisor/guide. If we were all outgoing, striving, fighting for survival, there would be no one stopping and looking at the implications of what we are doing. This is where we sensitives come in. We keep the species safe by thinking about and considering – “what happens if?”

As sensitives we belong to a group of the population who has demonstrated great creativity, insight, passion and caring. We also make up the group that is more cautious, inward, and needing more time alone.

There are some gifts that come with this trait, as well as some challenges. It’s a package deal. Sensitives notice things unobserved by others. We can process more information and reflect on it. We can pick up subtleties and our intuitive skills are often highly tuned. Highly sensitive people are often visionaries, highly intuitive artists or inventors, as well as conscientious, cautious and wise people.

Intense levels of stimulation are a challenge for sensitives. Overcrowded and noisy shopping malls send shivers down our spines. What most people can tolerate or even not notice can be troublesome for a sensitive. What would be highly arousing for a non-sensitive would send sensitives into “shutdown” or “overload”.

Sensitives can respond to false alarms but the one time it is not false can save lives which is where there is a genetic payoff. Overarousal can be a nuisance, such as allergies (which sensitives are prone to). A substance may not be dangerous but our body “alarms” us just in case. Fluorescent lights, tags on clothing, rough fabrics, strong perfumes and odours – all are challenges for sensitives. Our highly charged nervous systems notice these things.

I sleep with earplugs. Any unusual noises either prevent me from going to sleep or wake me up. Recently my fireplace started producing a very high-pitched squealing noise. I can’t tell you how many people came into my house and didn’t notice the noise. When I mentioned it they would look at me dumbfounded as if I could be making it up. I wouldn’t have been surprised if someone had implied it was “all in my head”. (Sensitives often hear such comments.) Meanwhile, I was slowly going crazy and was ready to take a flame thrower to the fireplace when the technician arrived. I pointed out the noise and again, I got the blank stare. I ended up having to say to him, “trust me, it’s there.” He fixed the problem and now I’m back to having a good relationship with my fireplace. I have learned over the years that as a sensitive I have to honour myself and my experience. It is easy for the rest of the world to say, “just ignore it,” “we can’t hear it so let it go,” “why do you have to make such a fuss over something so small?” To me, it is not small. And what if that noise had indicated a gas leak (which luckily it didn’t)? I could have saved a possible explosion.

We sensitives are good at spotting differences, can concentrate deeply, think about our own thinking and can learn things without consciously knowing it. Other people’s moods and emotions affect us. Some sensitives are exceptional at picking up foreign languages. I am one of those sensitives. I find it fascinating that I can almost pick up a language by what feels like osmosis. Non-sensitives often see us sensitives as “moody”, “complicated”, or “high maintenance”, because we spend so much time thinking about things like the meaning of life and death and how complicated things are. Nothing is ever really black or white to us.

The ideal in our culture is not sensivitity. We sensitives fit cultural stereotypes less and often suffer because of that. Men are not supposed to be sensitive in our culture, so sensitive boys/men feel and are often reminded, how different they are from the cultural ideal. Sensitive women are not supposed to need down time – women in our culture are supposed to be outgoing and focused on others. To need your own time is considered by many “selfish”. We sensitives need to understand ourselves, honour who we are and accept that we have a genetic difference. We need to take our down time without apology. We need to ask for what we want and need without worrying about other people’s judgments. We need to realize how much we offer to society. Aggressive cultures need their priestly advisors (just like Captain Picard in Star Trek needs his empath on board his starship). Sensitives are the highly intuitive counsellors, historians, teachers, scholars, and upholders of justice. We are the writers, philosophers, artists, researchers, theologians, and plain conscientious citizens and parents. We often stop the majority from rushing headlong into disaster. For me, I honour the gifts my trait gives me and am starting to accept and in fact, laugh about, the challenges it gives me. I wouldn’t want it any other way. Written by Deborah White, M.A. and HSP(Highly Sensitive Person)