In today's Western society, being highly sensitive is seen as unappealing and inconvenient.In most jobs, the employees need to be thick-skinned to keep up with the competitive capitalistic world. In relationships and friendships being sensitive is annoying, overbearing, and tiring for the other person or people.
For highly sensitive people like myself, keeping up with our anti-sensitivity society is exhausting and almost impossible.
Being highly sensitive is defined by most psychologists as having hypersensitivity to external stimuli, a greater depth of cognitive processing, and high emotional reactivity. So basically, people who are more sensitive notice things more than other people, and thus are more easily overwhelmed by these things. For example, people who are highly sensitive notice sounds more easily, and thus very noisy places or even repeated annoying noises can become overwhelming.
Sensitive people are also more in touch with their thoughts. They think more deeply about things, which can be good but also can lead to overthinking and anxiety.
Lastly, highly sensitive people react more intensely to their emotions, They feel things more deeply and fully than most people do. These emotions can range from happiness to sadness to anger to jealousy etc. Sensitive people feel emotions so deeply and, because of this, sometimes their reactions to their emotions are out of line with what is considered a normal reaction.
I have been highly sensitive all of my life. I've always felt like I've viewed life so much different than everyone else, and I realized a few years ago that it's because I am sensitive.
I vividly remember getting in a fight with one of my friends in high school, and I politely told her how she was making me feel and her response was, "Just stop being so sensitive." I ironically cried immediately after this comment. I hated myself for being so sensitive, especially since I've always wanted to be viewed as strong and confident.
Being highly sensitive is something I used to try to change about myself because it inconvenienced other people, but I'm starting to grow to accept it. According to an article in Psychology Today, being highly sensitive is a biological trait that people are born with. It's not something we can change, it's literally apart of the anatomy of our brains.
Although most of society considers high sensitivity to be an undesirable trait, I wouldn't want to change even if I could (which I can't). Being sensitive can get super annoying, especially when it triggers my anxiety, or when it interferes with relationships. However, I love how special it makes me.
I notice almost everything, which is almost like a superpower. Since I feel emotions so deeply, I can easily empathize and show compassion for people who are in pain. It makes me a great listener for other people's problems because I feel what they're feeling, and can help them feel better because they are not alone.
I can feel and understand music and art on a completely different level than most people. Since my senses are so sensitive, hearing music and looking at art completely moves me, and I can easily feel what emotions are being portrayed, which is incredible.
So to all those people out there who trash sensitive people, calling us "special snowflakes" or "babies" or even "crazy," give us a break! Stop putting us down for having a trait that more people in the world should have. If people were more sensitive, there would be so much more compassion and understanding in this world.
Also, people can be highly sensitive and also be strong and confident as hell! So stop trying to change us, and start learning from us.
