Dissociation

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On Being Misunderstood as a Highly Sensitive Person: How High Sensitivity, Emotional Neglect, and Dissociation Intersect

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Perhaps it was a matter of time. You can only wear a mask and keep up the façade for so long, and through so many painful experiences. 

I was sensitive.  Very sensitive.  I cried through every Kodak commercial on TV.  I cried when songs touched me deeply.  I cried when other people hurt, because the energy of their pain would flow over and through me.  And I loved everyone – intent on finding the good in all living creatures.  I was empathic and perceptive, with an internal guidance system running on felt sense that I did not even begin to understand.  I was met with strange looks, misunderstanding, and less than compassionate comments.  At times, my sensitivity was pathologized, and I was told there was something wrong with me. 

“You’re too emotional.” 

“You take things too personally.”

“You wear your heart on your sleeve.”

“It’s no big deal!”

“Toughen up!”

“Pull yourself up by your bootstraps.”

“Get your shit together!”

“What is wrong with you?!”

The words were hard to take.  The looks were harder.  People kept their distance.  Maybe they were confused.  Maybe they didn’t know what to say.  Maybe the depth of connection I felt overwhelmed them.  Maybe I didn’t know what to say, or how to express how deeply I felt everything, and how overwhelming that felt to me, too. 

No one reflected feeling back to me, or validated my emotion.  No one defined what I was feeling – much less helped me to figure out what to do with those feelings.  I wasn’t supposed to have those, and certainly not so intensely!  At least that’s the message I internalized as a young person.  That’s the message many young children internalize when they experience emotional neglect or high emotional sensitivity.

Then one day, it was like a switch flipped it all off, and suddenly I couldn’t feel anything.  Where my heart had held so much emotion, overflowing with empathy, concern, love, and connection (and often pain) – abruptly there was nothingness.  Emptiness.  Darkness.  I couldn’t take the misunderstanding, the rejection, or the judgements any longer.  I got it!  I was not okay.  I was weak.  I was broken.  There was something wrong with me. 

I shut down.  And I stayed that way for years.

As time progressed, I continued to do what I thought, and had been told, I was supposed to do.  Feel less, connect less, sense less (senseless?).  I went through the motions.  I lived as a shell, in a body I could no longer feel or connect with, with a heart that no longer radiated compassion and warmth.  I felt beyond empty.  I could remember how I had felt in the past, and I could wish to feel again, but I couldn’t reconnect to that empathic, perceptive sensitivity.  I couldn’t connect with myself, which meant that I couldn’t connect with others.  Without that internal guidance system, I was lost and alone in darkness.  It’s extraordinarily difficult to find a light switch in total darkness.

Sometimes, we get lucky… or (depending on your belief system) a greater power or the universe leads us where we need to go, and to someone who can help us find the switch. 

I’m grateful I was led by whatever force, at first by just a shimmer of the faintest light, back to feeling and relationship.  I’m grateful I was taught how to be discerning in who I chose to share my gifts of sensitivity and deep connection.  I’m grateful as I continue to learn how to harness my own emotional energy, protect myself from an overwhelmingly insensitive world, and share my light with those who won’t attempt to extinguish it.  I’m grateful for my deeply emotional experiences, empathy, and intuition. 

No matter what you’ve been told, or how often people have tried to define you as weak, overly-emotional, too sensitive, or broken – I want to challenge those beliefs that you have likely now internalized.  I want to share the hope that you can reconnect with your sensitivity and internal guidance system, learn to pay attention, and discern what it’s trying desperately to tell you.  I want to encourage you –

You are not weak.  You are actually amazingly powerful.

You are not broken.  You are remarkable.

There is nothing wrong with you.  Those were lies that people told you who just didn’t understand, because they didn’t share that amazingly beautiful ability to feel deeply, sense, and intuit.  You are way more than okay!

You do not have to remain feeling shut down, numb, or empty.  And you do not have to remain in a constant state of overwhelm either!

You can gain mastery over your highly sensitive and highly intuitive abilities, and learn to understand what your internal guidance system is trying to tell you.  You can learn to navigate through the cacophony of sensory and emotive overload that comes with every day in the highly sensitive life.  You do not have to sacrifice yourself for the sake of the comfort of others.  You can be freely yourself, and enjoy the experience!

Warmly,

Kristen

Kristen Henshaw, an HSP and Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC), specializes in counseling and EMDR therapy for the highly sensitive person, the highly intuitive person, and those wanting to recover and heal from painful childhood, life, and relationship experiences.  For a gentle, respectful approach to healing, feel free to schedule your free 30-minute consultation to learn more.

Thriving as a Highly Sensitive Person

Hypersensitivity?

All my life people have told me that I’m too sensitive, too emotional, and that I take things too personally.  I have always been deeply moved by art, music, literature - and ASPCA commercials bring me to tears.  When I’m having a "hypersensitivity" moment, I often get that look from people who know me (and those who don’t) that says, “You’re odd,” “you’re broken,” or, “what’s WRONG with you?”  For a long time, I thought there WAS something wrong with me.  I felt embarrassed and ashamed of how I was – of WHO I was.  I felt weak, broken, and different.  Most of all, I felt misunderstood, hopeless, and alone.

I spent years trying to change myself – to make myself more normal, adequate, and strong.  I attempted to turn what some called my “overly emotional” tendencies into something more socially acceptable.  I tried to “pull myself up by my bootstraps,” grow thicker skin, and project stoicism.  And it seemed to work for a little while.

But something was off.  I wasn’t any happier.  My relationships weren’t more meaningful.  I didn’t feel any less alone.  I felt like I was in disguise, incognito, and more isolated than ever.  Now, not only did others misunderstand me, but eventually I didn’t ever recognize myself.  I had bought into the comments, the looks, and the judgments – and I had run out of ideas on how to conform and fix my broken self.

Hope for the HSP

Finally, while researching internet wisdom, I stumbled upon the work of Dr. Elaine Aron.  Her research found that high sensitivity, or Sensory Processing Sensitivity, is an innate and normal trait found in as much as 20% of the population.  This meant that, while I wasn’t in the majority, there was nothing wrong with me!  My high sensitivity was just part of my neural design.  It was no different than having any other genetic trait like blond hair or hazel eyes.  I was relieved!  It didn’t fix all of my unique challenges, but I wasn’t broken.

Transitioning from Coping to Thriving

An important part of my journey toward thriving as a highly sensitive person involved accepting my innate sensitivity, learning more about myself and my needs, and tending to those needs.  The following is a list of tips to help you get started on thriving as an HSP:

1.       Surround yourself with positivity.  

The highly sensitive person is much more in tune with the world around them.  We soak up everything, process it more deeply, and feel it more profoundly.  So if you are finding yourself in toxic situations, or surrounded by pessimistic people, you are going to be internalizing much more negativity than the average person.  It is important to find people and environments which exude positive, accepting energy so that what you are absorbing is hopeful and enriching.

2.       Develop a calming and quiet space to decompress.  

The world is bustling, hectic, chaotic, and loud.  The highly sensitive person is much more likely to become overwhelmed by all the commotion.  It is important for us to create a space that minimizes bright light, noise, and other sensory stimulation so that we can re-center ourselves and give our nerves a break.

3.       Pay attention to yourself.  

Most of us have been led to believe that there is something inherently wrong with us.  But we think and feel more deeply than most, and when we’ve spent so much time trying to change that about ourselves, we learn to ignore what our thoughts, emotions, and bodies are trying to tell us.  If we can tune into ourselves, we can learn to read what our bodies are trying to say.  This will help us do something about it before we become overwhelmed. 

4.       Set and maintain personal boundaries.  

Highly sensitive people are much more in tune with others.  For that reason, it is easy for the HSP to empathize.  It is usually easy for us to fall into the habit of putting others before ourselves.  This can drain our energy ever faster than usual.  Take time to stop and think about what is best for you, and practice and get comfortable saying, “No.”

5.       Practice self-compassion.  

We naturally tune in to, and tend to the needs of others.  As we learn to accept our high levels of sensitivity and tend to our own needs, it might help to remember the upsides to being a highly sensitive person.  We are passionate, intuitive, creative, perceptive, and able to connect more deeply with others.  At times, our hypersensitivity isn’t comfortable, but we can find ways to use it to our advantage.

Kristen Henshaw, a Licensed Professional Counselor Intern at Counseling South Austin under the supervision of Ann Stoneson, LPC-S, specializes in working with highly sensitive people on a variety of issues including self-esteem, coping with environmental sensitivities, childhood trauma/abuse/neglect recovery, dissociation (including DID-Dissociative Identity Disorder), managing anxiety, and caregiver stress. She practices holistic and affirming counseling and welcomes diversity.  Contact her for a free thirty-minute consultation.