Sometimes taking an internet quiz on a random Tuesday night can change your life – first for the better, then for the worse.
Are you bothered by strong stimuli such as loud noises, strong smells or caffeine? Are you deeply moved by art or nature? Do you get upset when there is a lot going on around you? Do you have difficulty making big changes?
For as long as I can remember, I have felt life more acutely than many other people. I live my days flayed, open to the world. I smell food, the ocean, flowers when no one else seems to smell it. A beautiful sunrise will make me ecstatic. I am fascinated and in awe of the smallest everyday events. Large social events, such as weddings, can leave me confused to the point of dissociation. One day, while driving on the freeway, I saw a driver swerve to deliberately hit a brown snake with his tires. I cried so hard that I had to stop. Because it wasn't just this snake. For a moment this cruelty and suffering seemed connected with all the other cruelty and suffering, part of the same invisible weave, and it all happened. Now. Can anyone else feel all at once– I thought.
Then there's a quiz. Label. I was a highly sensitive person.
The term “highly sensitive person” (HSP) has been coined by psychologist Elaine Aron in the mid-1990s.. According to Aron and subsequent researchers, HSPs have a high level of sensitivity to sensory processing, a biologically based personality trait (such as introversion and extroversion) built into the nervous system. The theory is that HSPs are more receptive to stimuli, process experiences more deeply, are highly attuned to aesthetic influences, and live in a vibrant, complex inner world. Although it is not a disorder that can be diagnosed by a psychologist or by a formal test, research found There are differences in brain regions of people with high sensory processing sensitivity.
After the online quiz, I read everything I could about my new label. I signed up for the HSP email newsletter and treated it like the Bible. There were philosophical quotes, photographs of bookshelves and dense forests, discussions about the pain of being human.. These were my people. It was me. I felt seen.
Soon, being an HSP became an integral part of my identity. I pulled it over my head like a jumper, wrapping both arms tightly around myself. It was comforting, affirming, and encouraging—until it wasn’t.
Seven Common HSPS Sounds Should be avoided read the headlines of articles on the Internet. Why Highly Sensitive People Should Identify Their Triggers Before Every Social Situation; Eleven Things for HSPs Should feel calm.
Basically, I believed that being an HSP was a gift. It imbues everyday life with beauty and meaning and gives my writing greater depth. But I also recognized its shortcomings and sometimes struggled with trying to feel everything so deeply. But now it seemed like I needed to protect myself, to control my world in ways I hadn't even thought of.
The newsletter and social media accounts I started following told me there were things I could and couldn't do. Things that I must have feel peace. They told me that I was a fragile person, always at risk of collapsing from burnout. They gave me a list of things to do for the day, such as “environmental scanning” to avoid unwanted stimuli. There was a link to a cap with the word “stunned” printed on the front. This online world has taught me to pathologize my identity, to look at all my experiences—past, present, and future—through the lens of my label. When I did this, the world went from being a stressful place at times to a place full of landmines – threatening and provoking.
I've gotten very good at thinking through future events in my head in the name of self-preservation: if I go to birthday parties too long, I'll feel groggy and won't get a good night's sleep, then I'll be super tired tomorrow but the coffee will give me a headache, then I won't be able to concentrate during that work phone call, and then, and then, and then. I listed my fears until they were perceived as facts, and my thoughts pulled me along with them on a ghostly leash.
I soon realized that I had created a mental cage out of my sensitivity, turning it into anxiety. The more I focused on this, the more stressed I felt and the more I needed to control my environment to protect myself.
Self-labeling and self-diagnosis have become increasingly common in recent years as people turn to online information, symptom language, and identity structures to make sense of their inner experiences. But experts warn that it can sometimes do more harm than good.
“These days, because we have access to so much information and some psychological diagnoses and beliefs have become part of the general discourse, self-diagnosis can be a challenge,” says Hannah Jensen, a clinical psychologist based in coastal Victoria. “Some people may become hypervigilant to self-diagnosis symptoms, which can lead to increased distress without the support of a trained professional. The diagnosis may also be misdiagnosed, or people may over-pathologize relevant emotional experiences – for example, sadness or grief may be labeled as depression.”
I received a label that allowed me to feel understood, but I lost the ability to see my life for what it is: momentary experiences that I can respond to as an individual human being, rather than a personality trait that dictates how I act in the world.
I wanted to enjoy the “good” without suffering the “bad” of being an HSP, but I also didn’t want to live in a bubble universe of my own making. Is this possible? I began to wonder if I had more power than the label had taught me.
It turns out that the brain is extremely malleable when it comes to how we respond to the world. Over time, I learned cognitive retraining techniques and grounding practices, but mostly I learned that sensitivity is a biological tendency, not a fixed identity. My nervous system may be wired a little differently, but my attention is still mine, and when I stop scanning the world for threats, I'm more ready to notice the pure magic of life.
I unsubscribed from that newsletter and now there is little turmoil in my life, but just as much beauty and awe. I used to feel seen. Now I feel free. I know which one I prefer.
