Sensitivity

[flexibeast]

Recently a couple of people on the Bi-Victoria Yahoo! group alerted me to the existence of Elaine Aron's book The Highly Sensitive Person. i've subsequently been browsing the Web looking for further information. Last night i came across this characterisation of highly sensitive people, about which sacred_harlot commented "gosh that sounded just like you! :-O"; and this morning, i took this test, scoring 66.75 out of a possible 100 points - just below the threshold which "clearly indicates a Super Sensitive Person" (apparently it's not in my nature for anything about me to be clear-cut ;-) ). Most of my low scores were actually in the sections relating to childhood, and i'm not sure how accurate the answers i provided were: i recently asked my father about whether i was stressed during year 12, since i don't remember being so, and he replied with "YES YES Very intense at that time we recall". So although i've a number of unpleasant childhood memories, mayhap i've suppressed more of them than i realise.

In any case, here is a selection of some of the statements about me which resonated the most, all of which i rated as "Extremely True":

• "I tend to be strongly affected by events that happened a long time ago and I still emotionally and even physically feel the feelings that I experienced when the negative event occurred, even if it occurred many years, or decades, ago."


• "It is/was very difficult for me to find the right type of work that was fulfilling, yet challenging and that tapped into my sensitivity enough for the nature of the work to matter."


• "I am coming to realize that my extreme sensitivity is a gift; I only wish it came with exact instructions. I can see the possibility of orienting my life around this trait, instead of merely 'managing it.'"


• "I need to isolate myself, or at least not socialize, when I have been overexposed to stimuli, even if it was for a short period."


• "My heart starts to beat really rapidly - pounding, really -- when I become frightened."


• "I don't like to learn by memorization. Rather, I need to feel the information so that I just 'know it." It's like I learn through my pores."


• "I tend to shut down mentally, physically or emotionally when I get overstimulated; I must stop, retreat or escape. I must."


• "Even if I like television a lot, I KNOW that it has move [sic - i assume it should read "more"] of an affect [sic] on me that I can 'afford.'"


• "I am often surprised by how things that affect me greatly can have almost no impact on others."


• "I strive to better things around me and reduce the problems that people are suffering from, because I feel these problems so deeply myself."


• "I feel that my life is much richer that others think it must be. It really is, no matter how it might look to others."


• "I have often felt that if I was less sensitive that I'd have been much more successful in the traditional sense."


• "I tend to be viewed as unsociable; I'm not one to want to be in a lot of other people's company."


• "People think that I care about things far too much."


• "People who are less sensitive find dealing with me a lot of 'extra' work and usually tire of it."


• "I often wonder if I'll ever be able to design and live my life in such a way so that satisfies me that I won't care at all what others think of me, my sensitivity or my life."

Very intriguing.
 

Comments

[winterkoninkje.livejournal.com]

One of the things that's always disturbed me about the idea/literature on supersensitive people is how much of a focus there is on fear. Now, I know that normal people aren't as introspective and intuitive, but I'd think supersensitive people would be more prone to figure out their nature and not to fear it. Some fear, some misunderstanding, sure, but not nearly so much as quizzes like that anticipate (15~20 of the questions in the first two sections!).

Take away the fear and it sounds a lot like me and all those key figures in my life growing up. But with the fear in place it sounds like me as a young teen in the throes of PTSD and OCD; Those are disorders as the result of childhood abuse, not me being "special" or "gifted" with sensitivity: it's called hypervigilance. As to whether my sensitivity is part of why I took the abuse as hard as I did, that's an interesting question. But I'd rather see the literature on sensitivity focus on sensitivity itself rather than the attendant issues one picks up because of it.