November/December 2006

journey in health

The Low Down on Highly Sensitive People

BY WENDY UNDERHILL

If someone came up to you and said, “I want to tell you about myself. I’m a highly sensitive person,” what would you think? Perhaps that he thinks he’s superior? That she must be a wimp, unable to cope with life’s little irritations? Or that inherent in such a statement there must be some claim for special treatment? All these are negative responses to an idea that is darned useful—the designation of “highly sensitive people,” or HSPs.

These people are not necessarily contemplative, compassionate or introverted, although there does tend to be a correlation with these traits. And their status isn’t a disability. It’s simply an inborn heightened sensitivity to stimulation–sensory, social, or informational.

Take Debbie Matlock, of Louisville, for instance. A marked turning point came in her life when a friend in graduate school who had heard about HSPs said to her, “You should look into this.”

Before she became aware that she was an HSP, Matlock says “I was constantly stressed out and fatigued, thinking, ‘Why am I in my 20s and all the time so exhausted? Good grief, is there some weird undiagnosed medical condition?’” Indeed, she went through a variety of medical doctors and counselors seeking help.

As a child, Matlock had to leave the room with dry heaves when the “Where The Red Fern Grows.” As a young adult, she’d wake up crying about “The state of animal abuse in the world, or starving children, or things I couldn’t do anything about.” And as an adult, she found it hard to work in places where she had no control over fluorescent lights, noise in the hallway or when to take a short walk to clear her mind. In a word, life was overwhelming, if not disabling.

Now? She’s still the same person. She still has a lower threshold for stimulation than most people; she still needs time to process life events; she still has strong intuitive powers. But instead of wondering what’s wrong, she now accepts herself and manages her life to reduce dissonance and live joyously. “This is how I’m hardwired,” she says. “Just acknowledging it helps.” What’s more, she’s finding the gifts that come with the “highly sensitive” personality.

Matlock is a textbook case of a Highly Sensitive Person–smart, self-aware, gifted. Overall, an estimated 10 to 20 percent of the population could be classified as HSPs: the child who cries at movies that others thrill to; the person who chooses to leave the family reunion for a break; the teen who thinks about, and then speaks about, deeply personal insights; the mother who constantly adjusts the lighting and heat in the car or home. All these people are experiencing their environments more vividly than the other 80 percent of the population.

The phrase, “Highly Sensitive Person,” was coined in the mid 1990s by Elaine Aron, Ph.D., based on her own life experiences and those of her clients. She saw that labels such as “shyness” and “introversion” were inadequate, and sometimes just plain wrong when describing a person whose brain “processes information and reflects on it more deeply” than others, according to her website, www.hsperson.com (You’ll also find a useful self-test at this site to help you determine if you are an HSP).
With her research, she’s seen that many times HSPs are misdiagnosed as depressed, anxious or experiencing sensory integration disorder–though depression is an obvious outcome of living a life at odds with one’s surroundings.

Aron posits that HSPs are born with their active nervous systems; this is not something people can opt in or out of. And she sees no problem with being an HSP in and of itself; difficulties arise when HSPs experience dissonance with our cultural bias toward outgoing, tough personalities. And this culture rewards extroverts, fast talkers and people who can tolerate or even seek lots of stimulation. Let’s just say HSPs don’t tend to be multitaskers, and rarely find themselves on the Sunday morning talk shows, where quick quips are valued.

Since Aron’s first work on HSPs, the community of acknowledged HSPs has been quietly growing. Jacquelyn Strickland, a licensed professional counselor in Fort Collins, came upon the label serendipitously, as most people do. She was waiting for a bus in California in 1996, when a flyer caught her attention; it asked questions such as: Do you need more sleep than most people? Do you have a unique spiritual life? Do you need more down time than others? Strickland immediately recognized herself and got in touch with Aron.

Strickland says that since her bus stop “ah-hah” moment, “I’ve gone from being in benign denial of my sensitivity to actually promoting highly sensitive people as a culture that has much to offer our rushed, and sometimes beleaguered society.” Not surprisingly, then, her practice now includes many HSPs.

What issues bring HSP clients to her? They may need help processing this new way of understanding themselves; how to determine what their optimum level of arousal and sensation is; when and how to “come out” as an HSP; healing from a lifetime of being an unknowing HSP; and finally experiencing the joys of being an HSP.

According to Aron and Strickland, ancient Indo-European societies had “warrior” and “priestly/advisor” classes. HSPs would have fallen in that second–and equally valuable–group. HSPs can find themselves in such roles again, once they’ve jettisoned the negative baggage that comes from a lifetime of hearing, “Jeez, you’re so sensitive!” Indeed, they can capitalize on their sensitivity. Says one Colorado HSP who asked not to be named, “The sensitivity can be a fragility, but when it’s supported, it quite literally can be a strength.”

HSPs can’t tap their strengths, however, without a certain level of “self care.” This may mean:
• Building in breaks between activities;
• Arranging for more sleep (or at least more time to relax in bed);
• Spending more time outdoors;
• Choosing a job that supports their personality;
• Eating right;
• Establishing daily rituals;
• Exploring the spiritual side of life, if so inclined;
• Expressing themselves truthfully to loved ones, who often feel freed to be equally truthful in turn.

Self care may be as simple as using iPods to buffer chaotic, noisy environments, or learning simple techniques for tough situations, such as concentrating on just one person at a time at large gatherings, rather than experiencing the crowd. (All these things sound like good “self care” for any sensible person, not just sensitive people.)

Once self-care is in place–acknowledging and respecting individual rhythms, limits and needs–then it’s a short step to putting sensitivity to work. Often HSPs can intuit what’s going on in a large crowd; they may not be the leader at the podium, but they may be nearby, sharing impressions and perhaps advice. While they prefer not to take on too much, they may be able to concentrate and produce work of a substantively different quality than others. They definitely can make family life go more smoothly by “being sensitive” to each person’s role and feelings. And, if nothing else, the fact that they may turn down the many sources of sound in the house can have a salutary effect on everyone else as well.

Post “ah-hah,” Matlock puts her sensitivities to work on the job as an environmental educator. She reports that “on a hike, it’s easy for me to key into where the participants are, who needs what out of that hike.” She is proof positive that HSPs do not have to move to Alaska and live in the backcountry to find relief or happiness. They may elect simple lives that others would call dull, but they themselves experience such lives as full of reflection, creation, connection and communication.

As for communication, Strickland initiated “HSP Gatherings,” weekend getaways for her community. She consciously chose to avoid the words, “conference,” “workshop” or “seminar;” those words sounded too much like stress, strain and effort. Instead, the idea for the first gathering, which took place in 2001, was simply to get together and see what came up. One thing was the great variety of people. By no means are all HSPs artists or poets; they could just as easily be actuaries or athletes or attorneys.

The take-home message for HSPs? Once you’ve identified yourself, and healed from a lifetime of not quite fitting in, and learned about caring for yourself, then watch out–a new, very positive world is very likely to unfold!
The take-home message for non-HSPs? Says Matlock, “Eagles need to be eagles, and owls need to be owls. We all have a role to play, and if we try to be something different, that’s when it all falls apart.”

Highly Sensitive People Resources

www.hsperson.com is the website of Elaine N. Aron, Ph.D., who coined the term “highly sensitive people.” Included is access to the online “Comfort Line Newsletter” for HSPs. You'll also find the definitive self-test to see if you may be an HSP, and information about Aron's four books: The Highly Sensitive Person, The Highly Sensitive Person's Workbook, The Highly Sensitive Person in Love, and The Highly Sensitive Child (all published by Broadway Books).

www.hspsurvival.com opens with “How to create inner peace and joy in an over-stimulating world...” Who could resist? It's really a website for The Highly Sensitive Person's Survival Guide: Essential Skills for Living Well in an Overstimulating World by Ted Zeff, Ph.D. (2004, New Harbinger Publications), a book foreworded by Aron. In a user-friendly format, the book celebrates the upsides of highly sensitive living. The website has a “coping strategies” section, so you don't have to wait for the book to begin creating that promised inner peace.

For an on line discussion group, try http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/hspbook/. It asks that you read up on HSPs before joining.

Locally, try www.lifeworkshelp.com, the website of Fort Collins' Jacquelyn Strickland, licensed professional counselor. She's the co-creator of “HSP Gatherings,” long weekends where HSPs can get together, as well as a private coach or counselor who specializes in HSPs.

Local:
Elinor Nygren Szapiro, MA, LPC 303-530-5391