The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You

by Elaine N. Aron

But remember that this book does not substitute for a good therapist when things get intense or confusing.

What this difference in arousability means is that you notice levels of stimulation that go unobserved by others.

So, yes, when our trait leads to overarousal, it is a nuisance. But it is part of a package deal with many advantages.

behavior is at least partly genetically determined.

His experience of overarousal is mainly of an intense physical response, the aftermath of which can prevent him from sleeping.

you pick up on the subtleties that others miss and so naturally you also arrive quickly at the level of arousal past which you are no longer comfortable.

With sensitive children, physical blows or traumas aren’t required to make them afraid of the dark.

The fears were strange and unrealistic to us, but they were certainly real to him.

This kind of HSP would be both very curious and very cautious, bold yet anxious, easily bored yet easily overaroused.

Without secure attachment, however, a startling experience will produce long-term arousal.

Taking good care of a highly sensitive body is like taking care of an infant.

The moment there is danger, their bodies will reunite and become attached again. Secure.

You needed understanding, not special problems.

All energy must be directed toward keeping the world from intruding. The whole world is dangerous.

The point of all this is that how others took care of you as an infant/body has very much shaped how you take care of your infant/body now.

Their care for you and their attitude toward your body directly affects your health, happiness, longevity, and contributions to the world.

You may push yourself out too much—overstimulate yourself with too much work, risk taking, or exploring. Or you may keep yourself in too much—overprotecting yourself when you really long to be out in the world like others.

The moral is that, at least to some extent, the stresses will always be there, for we bring our sensitivity with us. What we need is a new way of living with the stressors.

The way to come to tolerate and then enjoy being involved in the world is by being in the world.

The problem with staying in bed while awake, however, is that some people begin to worry or otherwise overarouse themselves with their thoughts and imaginings.

Besides sleep and recreation, HSPs also need plenty of “downtime” just for unwinding and thinking over the day.

Your mind will imitate your body.

certain people you cannot be with anymore but who live on in memory,

I especially don’t want you to think of me as sick or weak.

An insecure attachment style will persist throughout life unless one has an unusually secure one with someone in adulthood, such as a mate or during long-term psychotherapy.

The bottom line is that in those first years you either learned to trust the other, and the outer world generally, or you didn’t.

But it is also true that in the first two years the child adapts an overall strategy or mental representation of the world which can be quite enduring.

Research at the University of California Medical School in San Francisco found that children who were “highly sensitive to stress” had more injuries and illnesses if they were under stress but actually had fewer when not under stress.

Being so good all the time, however, meant ignoring many of your normal human feelings—irritation, frustration, selfishness, rage.

There appear to be just as many males as females born as HSPs. But then your culture gets hold of you. Cultures have strong ideas about how little men and women ought to behave.

Other studies explain why gender matters so much: people tend to treat baby boys and girls quite differently.

When new situations produce overstimulation because they are unfamiliar, and unfamiliar things in the past have turned out to be upsetting, then naturally we reject everything new without trying it.

Remember, too, that overarousal can be mistaken for anxiety.

Another, equally important part of growing up is no longer pretending we will be able to do absolutely everything.

respect and understanding she showed as she taught me how—one gentle swing at a time.

more and more attention came your way—just what you did not need.

It is also possible, however, to displace energy or anxiety onto sex because the real source of the anxiety is harder to face.

At the other extreme, I found many highly sensitive men who were filled with self-loathing—not surprising, given the rejections they had experienced.

Many of the women I interviewed felt that their first marriages were mistakes, attempts to deal with their sensitivity through adding another person to their life or by assuming a safe role.

It’s also true that some HSPs avoid strangers, parties, and other group situations because of having been rejected by peers and groups in the past.

see people as sources of safety rather than reasons to be on guard.

HSPs can reduce all rules of etiquette to a four-word rule: Minimize the other’s overarousal. (Or to two words: Be kind.)

Then others may well find that their best defense is rejecting you before you reject them.

In respect to falling in love, my research suggests that we HSPs do fall in love harder than others.

You have fallen intensely in love, and it really has less to do with the other person and more to do with how long you have delayed reaching out.

The best protection against falling in love too intensely is being more in the world, not less.

HSPs’ relationships to everyone and everything are greatly affected by the nature of their childhood attachments to their first caretakers.

very cautious about close relationships (avoidant), or very intense in them (anxious-ambivalent), can still consider yourselves quite normal.

Other research has found that we are more likely to be romantically attracted to someone else if we are aroused in any way, even from running in place or listening to a tape of a comedy monologue.

But be careful not to make your relationship so soothing that you do not do anything new together.