Maybe your best friend grew up feeling just… a lotta, lotta things. When her parents would fight she’d want to run and hide, she hated crowds, and the idea of having to share her feelings out loud was simply too much to bare. Society isn’t gentle and nature isn’t kind, so living here on Earth can be hard for sensitive people.
Here are some things that you might want to know about highly sensitive people in order to understand them better. And if you ARE the sensitive person in your life, please add to the conversation. I’d love to hear what you have to say.
1. What most people say offhandedly, we take personally.
2. Change does not come easily.
We spend a lot of time building up buffers around us. Having to upend those buffers is a big deal.
3. “I feel your pain.”
When we say it, it’s true. Hurt on you feels like hurt on us. A blessing and a curse.
4. Words hurt.
When you spill anger or spite us, it burns because we think it comes from your heart.
5. We seem like the weak one in the herd.
Bullies are drawn to sensitive people because they can easily sense that their aggression impacts us.
6. We’re more likely to stand up for someone else than for ourselves.
Our empathy makes us protective of the victimized, not so much for ourselves.
7. Lashing out
Because we don’t do confrontation well; we let things build up, and then we unleash that pressure on loved ones.
8. The opinions of others matter (too much).
9. Too much introspection
We relive traumas hoping to find ways to do things better. It doesn’t really work though.
10. Criticism feels extremely personal.
We feel like we’ve failed and disappointed you, and it puts a spotlight on our shortcomings.
11. Parties suck.
Crowd behavior is different than individual behavior. It tends to be louder and less considerate.
12. We like being alone more than we like being with others.
13. We know we seem weird.
We didn’t ask to be this way, but sometimes how we cope with our feelings makes us seem super weird. Get over it. We had to.
14. “Get over it” doesn’t work.
We are unfortunately much too in tune with feelings to just ignore them, so telling us to get over it is like telling someone else to stop breathing.
15. We like silence.
16. We have perfected the fake smile.
We’ve learned how to hide what we feel behind a smile because we don’t like putting negativity onto other people.
17. We’re easy to take advantage of.
We’d rather avoid confrontation and do what we think you want than to disappoint you.
18. We lack aggression.
We don’t like it in others and we don’t like it in ourselves.
19. We cultivate a good imagination.
Spending time retreating from the world means we’re good at making other ones.
Don’t forget to add on to our list!
