Issue #5: Are You Highly Sensitive?
Learn about being emotionally sensitive, our body responses to trauma and how to deal with loneliness
Dear mental health advocate,
This was a challenging time, dealing with COVID myself and having to isolate for 6 days. Being stuck at home meant having a lot of time on my hands and motivated me to write a new issue of The Present Psychologist Paper. I have some fresh psychology and mental health content for you again! A bit later than usual, but hopefully still a good read. I would love to hear your input about my newsletters, so if you have any feedback comment below or email me if you want.
In this edition I will first explain emotional and sensory sensitivity by delving a bit deeper in a topic that has led to a lot of discussion in the mental health community: being a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP). Some people are considered to have a personality trait that means they are more easily emotionally overwhelmed when confronted with both internal and external stimuli. I will describe the concept of HSP, where it comes from and why it is a strongly debated topic.
The second article explores our innate responses to trauma, focusing on the mechanisms in our body that can be triggered when facing a threat. Many know this as the fight-or-flight response, but did you know that psychologists actually distinguish four unique types? These mechanisms can be divided in the fight, flight, freeze or fawn mode. People all react differently to trauma and can show these responses in various situations.
Finally, I am focusing on a topic that resonates with many: feelings of loneliness. Around 1 in 3 adults experience this and their mental health is impacted for that reason. Sometimes feeling alone can be caused by a certain event like the pandemic, but for others it can be more chronic. Dealing with these feelings can be a massive challenge and is not easily fixed. Nevertheless, I will provide some advice how to cope with being lonely. Want to know more? Keep on reading…
Are You a Highly Sensitive Person?
As a young child I was quite easily overwhelmed. I remember crying quite regularly, even when there were times I was not expected to. People bullied me because of it saying things like ‘You are a boy! Why are you crying?’ or ‘You are so sensitive, boys are not supposed to cry’. Embarrassment engulfed me each and every time as I was not able to control it very well. So many things in my environment triggered it, I felt anxiety when people around me were feeling or showing negative emotions and the slightest change in the atmosphere around me could be disturbing. This sensitivity made me feel weak, fragile and weird. As if I did not belong or was supposed to ‘man up’.
I could not really put my finger on it why I was so sensitive or what was really happening. My emotions were all over the place, which meant having a lot of fears, feeling sad easily or just being ashamed of myself. But the great thing was that I also experienced a lot of strong positive emotions, laughing a lot, being open to all sorts of things, making many new friends and having a vivid imagination. Accepting myself was not a walk in the park, but after a while I just kept thinking ‘I guess this is who I am’. I felt like a chameleon always adjusting to the vibe and the people in the room. Sometimes I considered this to be a bad thing, sometimes it felt good.
When I grew older and became an adult, this sensitivity seemed to lessen a bit. Emotions were somewhat easier to control and I was not completely caught off guard every single time someone else showed their emotions. Still, it often feels as if I am more than average susceptible to emotions, vibes and other input compared to others. While studying psychology and reading a lot of mental health books I came across the term ‘high sensitivity’ and the concept of being a HSP (High Sensitive Person). I recognized myself a bit in the description, so I wanted to learn more. And here’s what I found!
What is a High Sensitive Person (HSP)?
In 1991, a clinical psychologist named Elaine Aron began researching people that seemed to have amplified and more intense sensitivity in their nerves when they are presented with various types of stimuli (these could for example be emotional, physical or even social). Aron gave this reaction the term ‘high sensitivity’ and is still being investigated by her to this day. Another regularly used label is sensory-processing sensitivity (SPS). I think what struck me the most about this heightened sensitivity is that the psychologists who are studying it mention HSPs are often called ‘too sensitive’. Well… I have been told that my entire life.
After almost 30 years of research, Elaine Aron has a few clarifying statements and conclusions that try to debunk several misconceptions about HSPs. Below I want to highlight these to help understand what high sensitivity can actually mean:
It is a personality trait: being highly sensitive can be described best as a personality trait that some people have (which means they are a HSP) and some people do not have. This trait is not something that you can train or easily develop, but instead you are born with it. Elaine also mentions that several animal species have similar heightened responsiveness to stimuli like certain cats and birds.
It is more common than you think: while the majority of people are not highly sensitive, it is not uncommon or unique. Research shows that around 15 - 20% of the population are considered to be a HSP. This makes it common enough to not be labeled as a disorder, but it also means many either do not know about it at all or even know how it feels.
It can be a blessing and a curse: for some, having increased responsiveness can mean they feel like they have an enriched life because they experience stimuli more intensely. On the other hand, this sensitivity can lead to being easily overwhelmed, having more difficulties dealing with stressful situations and being drained when others would not be.
What are you like if you are highly sensitive?
To identify if someone is a HSP, Elaine Aron has developed a scale and questionnaire called the Aron’s Highly Sensitive Persons Scale (HSPS). This list of questions can specifically help to indicate if the personality trait is present. Before looking at this scale and list of characteristics it is crucial to note that every person might have this trait to a certain degree, but the difference can be found in how often it occurs and how intense these characteristics are. Self-diagnosis is always tricky, so it is best to discuss with a mental health professional if you believe you are a HSP. Find below a list of characteristics based on the HSPS (click the link here to do the test):
You are easily startled or stressed
You are regularly overwhelmed by sensory input (think of smells, lights, sounds)
You are quite sensitive to pain, more than average
You find loud noises extremely uncomfortable
You seem to pick up subtleties in your environment when others do not
You are seen as a very sensitive or sometimes even shy person
You notice and enjoy small details and delicate art, sounds, tastes and smells
You feel like your nervous system is easily triggered and working overtime
You are influenced by and know how to influence the atmosphere around you
You react very strongly to caffeine and try to avoid or limit it completely
You dislike movies and tv shows with horror and violence elements
You don’t like a busy schedule as it easily overwhelms you
What are HSP strengths and weaknesses?
As mentioned before, being highly sensitive can feel like a good thing and a bad thing. Similar to any other personality trait and characteristic there are advantages and challenges associated with it. Being highly sensitive is no different. Ask any person who identifies as a HSP if they enjoy their heightened responsiveness. Likelihood is they both love and hate it. There are various ways how high sensitivity influences someones life negatively and positively.
Advantages:
Emotions, aesthetics, art, music, and other similar forms of stimuli can move and touch a HSP much more than others.
Conflict and other stressful situations are often avoided in a HSPs life, leading to a calm and more comfortable environment (when possible).
Being highly sensitive leads to strong feelings of gratitude in many situations, appreciating what is present in someone’s surroundings.
If you are a HSP then it is likely you form deep and close connections with other people and bond well emotionally
Disadvantages:
If you need to do a lot of work or have many tasks still left on your plate, being a HSP means you are likely overwhelmed quickly and cannot cope.
Picking up subtleties and details can be nice, but it can change your mood and atmosphere around you as you will react intensely.
Conflicts or stressful situations cannot always be avoided, if they happen they can throw you off so much that recovery takes longer than usual.
Being highly sensitive means criticism is more difficult to deal with and leads to more perfectionism, sometimes creating impossible standards.
High sensitivity, autism and introversion
There is some debate about high sensitivity, especially about the fact that various psychologists claim that it is a personality trait. The challenge is that if you try to measure a trait like this it almost always requires filling in a questionnaire and thus it is dependent on self-reporting. A lot of subjectivity is involved and boundaries are easily blurred. Two people could both answer ‘yes’ when asked if they are sensitive to pain, but for person A this could mean something completely different than for person B. This makes it almost not possible to measure and research statements like ‘I am startled easily’ or ‘other people’s moods affect me’.
Some people claim that being a HSP does not exist and that it instead means someone has autism instead. I do not agree myself, and the best way to explain it comes from clinical psychologist Rachel Samson in her article ‘No, Being Autistic Is Not the Same as Being Highly Sensitive’. While there are similarities between autism and high sensitivity, there are quite some differences too. For example, both conditions are a form of neurodivergence and have a form of sensory processing, but for a HSP this is always hyper-reactivity (responds strongly to stimuli) and for autism this could also be hypo-reactivity (does not respond to stimuli). Also, HSP is seen more as a continuum while autism is more seen as being caused by a difference in brain structure and present or not.
When it comes to introversion, people sometimes confuse high sensitivity to be the same personality trait. However, just like with autism, introversion shares differences and similarities with being a HSP. A similarity is that introverts need time to recharge and are often easily overwhelmed by spending time with many people around them, just like HSPs. The difference is more that high sensitivity is a neurological phenomenon based on heightened responsiveness while introversion is more related to how you interact with other people. Another difference is that Elaine Aron found that about 30% of HSPs are actually extroverts and not necessarily shy, as she believes shyness is more learned behavior and sensitivity is not.
Our Four Body Responses to Trauma
The fascinating part of being human is that we can contemplate our existence, we are aware of our thoughts and can think about the future and past. But, just like any other species we also have our automatic processes in our body we do not consciously control. Think about our heart, it just beats. We do not have to deliberately manage it every second of every day. Sure, we can become aware of how our heart pumps, we can listen to it or feel it. Fascinating, right? And there are more mechanisms inside of us that can be triggered in certain situations. One of these instinctive reactions you might have heard about is the flight-or-fight response.
If we are faced with immediate danger then our body and brain quickly calculate how we need to act. It is a natural and physiological feedback system, and it is a survival instinct that has existed for a long time. Walter Cannon, an American physiologist first mentioned the flight-or-fight response in 1915 in his book ‘Bodily changes in pain, hunger, fear and rage’. At first, he saw this as our acute reaction to intense stress. It stems from our history as hunter-gatherers. Way back then, we faced dangerous situations when we were hunting for food. Imagine that suddenly a lion is standing in front of you. Your life is at stake, so you have to react quickly. Do you run or fight?
How it works inside our body is very interesting. Our senses and brain perceive a threat to our life and trigger our sympathetic nervous system immediately. Hormones are released like epinephrine and adrenaline, preparing ourselves to either attack the thing that is a danger to us or to run away from it. This is such a fast mechanism, we are hardly aware as it is activated automatically and subconsciously. The body needs to defend or preserve itself. After discussing this flight-or-fight response, other people (mainly psychologists and physiologists) further researched how our body reacts. They found that besides fighting or running, there are other triggered responses too.
The four responses and their symptoms
Next to fight or flight, there are other options our bodies and brains consider when we are faced with a threat or danger to our lives. Psychologists nowadays differentiate between four systems and define them as fight, flight, freeze or fawn. To understand each of these reactions better, I will list them below and describe which symptoms generally accompany each response:
Fight: this mechanism is triggered when our body and brain believe we could potentially overcome the threat we are facing. It means our brain prepares our body to fight, which looks like this:
Feeling strong anger
Violent tendencies
Clenched jaw and fist
Willingness to punch, hit or kick
Being upset and in attack mode
Flight: this response is triggered when our body and brain are certain we cannot survive or deal with the danger around us. The brain then wants to ensure the body will move as fast as possible away from the threat. The following symptoms rapidly arise:
Tightening muscles
Strong desire to move
Fidgety and anxious behavior
Feeling restless in your whole body
Eyes dilating and looking around for a way to escape
Freeze: sometimes a person knows that fighting is not an option because they estimate the threat will overpower them, but there is also no possibility to escape. They believe they will not be fast enough or there is no direction to run away to. In that case, a person can shut down and completely freeze. The body and brain then cause the following:
Skin becoming more pale
Feeling numb and stiff, getting cold
Heartbeat rising quickly
Being overcome with fear and dread
Trying to accept and tolerate some stress
Fawn: the most unknown reaction to a threat situation, the fawn response can best be explained when the body and brain cannot freeze, fight or flight anymore. It is not a mode triggered by imminent danger such as a dangerous lion, but more caused by chronic stress and slumbering danger. Many times this is seen in abusive families and environments. A fawn response looks like a person trying to please to avoid escalation. The following behavior is often present:
Trying to get approval
De-escalating the situation
Not saying no to people
Crossing your own boundaries
Mirroring expectations and behavior
Trauma and why it happens
It is crucial to understand that each of these modes and responses are perfectly human, it is part of our instinct. Our will to live and to survive is such a primal force that we resort to various coping mechanisms if we face a crisis. These dangers could be acute trauma, like a building that is on fire or a snake trying to bite. But as seen with the fawning response, sometimes the danger is not necessarily acute and instead more chronic and dormant. Even if it is not immediately life-threatening, such situations like abuse can trigger all of these responses too. People should remember that childhood trauma or even adult trauma in many gradations lead to fight, flight, freeze and fawn responses.
Sometimes people have been subjected to so much trauma or threatening situations that their nervous system and fight-flight-freeze-fawn responses are activated when there is no danger. When people suffer from phobias this is seen as an overactive and falsely triggered mechanism for example. Trauma deregulates our bodies and therefore healing requires not only talking and therapy, also body work. Think about meditation, working out, mindfulness, yoga, breathing exercises and consistent sleep. A deregulated system needs consistent care.
How to deal with loneliness?
One of the strangest things in life is that we have billions of people in the world and even then around 1 in 3 adults suffer from feelings of loneliness. Yes, I know we can feel lonely even when people are around us. Still this is something that is quite awful and challenging to deal with. Whether you feel alone because you have no one around you or because you feel alone in a room full of people, it is frustrating. I have definitely been there. At times I have felt lonely. Missing a place or group of people where I belong. Or simply feeling misunderstood. Simultaneously it is a part of being human. No one else can look inside your head. There are things you have to do alone.
Nevertheless I want to give some tips today to deal with loneliness. I know that the pandemic has been a very lonely time for many. Luckily we are getting out of it and in many countries lockdowns have been lifted, but it might have led to some struggles or loss. Everyone has individual needs and healing from loneliness can require different things. Sometimes this means that people need to have more people in their surroundings, other times people need to deal with acceptance and being alone without feeling lonely.
Here are some general pieces of advice. Find out what works for you. Some of these might not be relevant in your own situation, so if you need tailored guidance try to find a mental health professional close to where you are.
Try volunteering. It can be very satisfying to help other people, it leads to gratitude and is a perfect way to connect with other humans. Volunteering has less pressure involved than working for money. Casual contact and doing something for society has been proven to work with loneliness.
Get outside. Many people who are feeling lonely are stuck in their house, with the walls closing in on them. While going outside does not necessarily mean meeting other people, it can still help with feeling better. If there is sun, soak it up. If there is a park, forest or other beautiful nature, go have a walk.
Join an online community. Think of a hobby you have or another activity you like doing. There are others in the world that will enjoy the same thing. Go online to find a community with similar interests. Do you like cars for example? Find other car enthusiasts to discuss and share your love for it.
Check in with people. Often we are completely stuck in our own rhythm and busy schedule forgetting to share time with loved ones or other people. Try to make time, call that friend, schedule a nice get-together and communicate your feelings. You would be surprised how many people feel the same.
Talk to a therapist. A mental health professional is someone objective and will listen to your struggles. It can be good to reflect on both your issues and feelings, especially if you are feeling lonely. As said, everyone is different and dealing with loneliness requires a unique approach for each individual.
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My name is Alf Lokkertsen and I am a psychologist and writer, creating mental health content for you. My passion is to raise awareness about topics related to psychology, as it has helped me greatly in my personal life. I strongly believe that many problems could be avoided or dealt with better if everyone had some in-depth psychology knowledge.
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