Do Be So Sensitive!

And all these years I thought it was because I'm a Virgo! You know the traits: particular; critical; precise, et cetera, et cetera.

Now I know different. I'm what's known as a highly sensitive person. It isn't a case of 'don't be so sensitive' anymore. I can't help being sensitive. I'm actually hotwired to be sensitive.

If I had a pound for every time someone has said to me in the past, "Don't be so sensitive.", I'd be too busy sailing round the world in my luxury yacht to write this blog. So yes, I knew I was 'sensitive'. But I never really understood what that actually meant. Until now.

Being a highly sensitive person means having a nervous system that is more finely tuned to the subtleties of the senses. Basically, your brain processes information far more acutely and reflects on it far more deeply and for a far longer period than non-highly sensitive people.

Anywhere between 15-20% of the population are estimated to be highly sensitive: there's a self test that you can do. And there are degrees of high sensitivity, as there are with most all things. So you could be moderately highly sensitive, or extremely, and anything in between. I think I'm somewhere in between!

Being highly sensitive means you are more likely to get ovestimulated, stressed out and overwhelmed. Often mistaken for being 'touchy', 'tempremental', or simply a 'pain in the f*cking *rse', actually highly sensitive people are nothing of the kind! And it doesn't mean you are introverted or inhibited. You can be, and I am, extroverted and uninhibted.

What it does mean is that you are highly tuned in to ALL that is going on around and about you, and you think about it more and for longer. Not surprisingly, it can all get a bit much at times. Hence getting overstimulated, stressed out and overwhelmed.

It is said being highly sensitive is NOT a curse. The biggest problem is realising and then accepting that you are highly sensitive. Then you have to understand what that means and make allowances for it in your life. That's where I'm at: early days, but I'm a fast learner!

It's not all bad: highly sensitive poeple are "often unusually creative and productive workers, attentive and thoughtful partners, and intellectually gifted individuals." (Elaine Aron).

It's not bad at all. I'd prefer not to be highly sensitive. But it's a large part of who I am, so I'm embracing it. It would, though, have been good to discover and understand all this at 13 rather than 43 - especially as I was born the youngest of 12! Overstimulating, overwhelming, stressing? Not much!

Ah, well: better late than never, eh?!