The Sensitive Man -How Sensitivity Has Impacted Me Negatively

A Blog about Sensory Processing Sensitivity from the Worldview of a High Sensing Male
                                    
Socrates: Everyone wants to tell you what to do and what's good for you. They don't want you to find your own answers, they want you to believe theirs.
Dan Millman: Let me guess, and you want me to believe yours.
Socrates: No, I want you to stop gathering information from the outside and start gathering it from the inside.

 From the Peaceful Warrior

In spite of the fact that I truly believe that high sensitivity is a gift, it does come with a downside. All the capability for absorbing and processing sensory input comes at a price. Overload and overwhelm are quite common in HSPs (Highly Sensitive Person), and the result can lead to anxiety and depression and other mental and physical health issues.

There are social complexities that many HSPs face around interpersonal issues. The world at large does not value HSP traits and certainly doesn’t accommodate our needs. Many people misunderstand sensitivity, see it has a personality problem, which comes with many pejorative terms to describe the trait, i.e., high strung, tightly wired, too sensitive, whiny, drama queen/king, etc. This can be especially vexing to HSPs, and we are all subject to being adversely affected by the criticism.

For the record, the list of “negatives” I am listing here are all based more on my own personal HSP traits and my experiences. Yes, they may be shared by other HSPs, but those listed are ones I hear from many HSPs. So, take them as fairly accurate generalizations.

• Overwhelm/overload – Where do we begin with this defining HSP trait? Perhaps the most universally common trait in HSPs is the tendency towards emotional overwhelm. Our greatest gift, emotional awareness can seemingly turn on us and overload us with sensory data that can’t be processed fast enough to assimilate this energy. Almost every HSP has to deal with this at some level. Quiet, silence, downtime retreat and removal are the most common remedies. Without knowledge of how to throttle the input, many HSPs struggle with this aspect of the HSP personality.  The Worldview is sometimes harsh with this – it is seen as weakness, wimpiness, whininess.
• Closely coupled with this is a tendency for emotional overreaction.  HSPs may seem to others to be overly dramatic, but the overreaction is really a coping mechanism for releasing the excess energy. HSPs aren’t naturally emotional manipulators (that would cause far too much guilt), but the need to offset the emotional pressure may seem to a non-HSP observer to be a manipulative gesture, which, of course, it is not. Our high emotionally charged systems need a way to vent,  or overstimulation occurs. Again, this can be countered with quiet downtime or some distractive mindful activity. The Worldview is – we overreact and are childish.
• Social anxiety -  HSPs are not all introverts and as a rule are not remiss about social bonding. However, many HSPs would prefer small, quiet gatherings with carefully vetted friends. I myself am an introvert but can tolerate larger parties or gatherings for periods of time. In fact, I can even find solitude in crowds if I am free to flow around. The social anxiety HSPs generally experience comes about when either sensory, emotional or social pressures get too great. This doesn’t make us great party animals but neither should we be considered disaffected loners. The key is to find a balance.  The Worldview is – we are socially inept and withdrawn. No fun.
• Oversensitive to criticism – When I participated in sports as a kid or even in my corporate days, I was often subject to what I thought was harsh criticism on my performance. This would typically hurt my feelings, and I would withdraw. As a youngster, I would marvel at how other kids, perhaps, even most kids, would bounce right back from the verbal blow and seem to be unaffected. I would dwell on it for hours, trying to replay the error in my head until I could figure it out and determine what I had done wrong. Seems silly now, but it was an integral part of my life, affecting many life decisions and even creating avoidance behaviors. It’s almost like an addiction to perfectionism. The problem is that we HSPs will “never just get over it.” Of course, we will move on eventually, but the process doesn’t change. Criticism digs at us like nothing else.  This can be debilitating in performance focused areas’ like work, sports or academia, which forces a lot of us away from high profile, high-pressure careers, where sadly our insights could be useful. The Worldview is: we need to toughen up, too sensitive, too thin skinned.
• Overthinking – The deep processing aspect of HSP personality produces a lot of positive attributes. Yet, underneath it  can lie the flaw of overthinking. Granted this is not just an HSP trait and not all HSPs overthink, but with the capability to deep thinking, comes the possibility that action is neglected  and replaced by overthinking, leading to analysis paralysis. Our cautionary natures can be a two-edged sword and lead us to overthink if we get caught up in the notion of perfect solutions for imperfect problems. The Worldview is: we can’t make a decision, or can’t make decisions quickly, too passive.
• Feeling too much (over empathy) – Many HSPs, including myself, are prone due to our empathetic natures to care too much. Of course, that doesn’t really sound too bad until you think that overcaring can lead to traps with bad relationships, connecting to something or someone on purely emotional grounds bypassing reason and logic. This can setup naïve, blind trust with unscrupulous individuals or causes that could, in the end, harm us. Our empathy is our shining quality, but we can sometimes be burned by it.  The Worldview is easy marks, targets.
• Sensory silliness or hypersensitivity gone wild – This is real touchy ground. I realize that all HSPs are not wired exactly the same, but it seems to me, some of us HSPs are always complaining of supersensory sensitivity that just seems to be over the top. I am not saying that some people aren’t truly experiencing discomfort with sounds, sights, or kinesthetic stimulus, but sometimes I think we are prone to some exaggeration. To hear some people complain,  you’d think they need to live in a protective bubble.  Perhaps, I’m being callous here, or heaven forbid, insensitive, and yes, I was pretty bad as a kid, but continued exposure might be the antidote to these external elements overloads.  Maybe it's worth considering.  It helped me. The Worldview is Jesus! Get over yourself!
• Not fitting in, not trying to fit in or giving up – We as a group are truly a minority and yes, in many ways we don’t fit in. It will always be this way. We are different. Nevertheless, as humans, we are a species of social animals. That’s not an option – it’s a requirement. We need to find our niche and fit there. However, there is a larger world out there, and we belong there, too. Perhaps, not framing “fitting in” as being the goal, but rather “participating” just as we are. The World needs us and not in our protective closets. Showing up counts, fitting in doesn’t.  The Worldview is: Conform or die! Why can’t you change to fit in? Why are you so different?
• The trouble with work, right livelihood – We need to see ourselves as specialist humans. We are designed differently.  As Dr. Elaine Aron says,  we are evolutionarily necessary. This doesn’t make us better or more valuable than other humans, but we have a specialist function as advisors/counselors to our species. With that said, we need meaningful work that  respects that specialty. If we find ourselves in pedestrian, mundane, meaningless roles, we wilt and shrink and don’t realize our potential.  Right livelihood  for us  is critical. Without it, we forego our tasks as human specialists and as individuals can lose our way.  Now,  really this is not a negative trait but can lead to the negative outcome of wasting our potential. We need to be careful to choose wisely.  The Worldview is: Again, why don’t you fit in? We cannot accommodate your needs!
• Finding the right partner – Again this is not a negative unless it's done incorrectly. Finding a good life partner is difficult for most HSPs. Sometimes we luck out, other times we don’t. Having an understanding and sympathetic partner is critical to relationship success in our lives. This is not to say that happiness will elude you if you don’t have a partner, but for most of us, the right partner makes all the difference; someone who understands you and is your helpmate. They don’t have to be an HSP, just aware enough to get you. Let your heart guide you, and your intuition and instincts instruct you.  The Worldview is: frankly, the world doesn’t care. This is on us.
• Finally, being an HSP male in an unforgiving world – There is so much to say about this. The HSP male may be the most maligned of all HSPs. We straddle the line between rigid manhood and the frontier of the new feeling, aware male, the new masculinity. We are often told by both males and females we aren’t man enough,  or measure up - by some archaic and abstract definition of masculinity. But yet we know at our core self - we are simply feeling humans. I am writing a book about this experience, so stay tuned for that. Needless to say, I don’t see being an HSP male as being negative, but it can have some negative consequences.  The book will go into that. The Worldview: men don’t show emotions, toughen up, be a man.
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Despite all of these “negatives,” being an HSP is almost a calling or a mission. First, you have to frame the quality as being such. Perhaps, the worst HSP trait is focusing or ruminating on the negative aspects of being HSP. This is not the right way to approach this. A knife is a useful tool and has a myriad of productive uses, but it can also be used in destructive ways – to hurt, to maim , to kill. The tool is actually neutral; it’s usage defined by the user.

​We need to start educating ourselves about reframing the whole HSP meme and associated mythologies and start making it more useful and seeing it as the productive gift that it is and allow ourselves the leeway to experiment and make mistakes, to be hurt, to grow and wield this mighty sword for good. So, don’t despair your uniqueness and your special talents, nor despair about those times when all seems too much. Learn to recover, learn to bounce back, learn to use your tools. Use it wisely. Thrive.
 
 
Socrates: Sometimes you have to lose your mind before you come to your senses.
From The Peaceful Warrior