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

by Elaine N. Aron

Children seem to thrive when their caretakers are sensitive.

My research results make it clear that HSPs who faced extreme difficulties in childhood and adolescence are going to be at a much greater risk for anxiety, depression, and suicide until they acknowledge their past as well as their trait and begin to heal their own wounds.

Those born highly sensitive are more affected by everything.

Also keep in mind that the earlier the problem occurred or began and the more that it was rooted in the behavior of your primary caretaker, usually your mother, the more deeply rooted and long-lasting the effects.

Sensitivity to pain also varies greatly. For example, some women feel almost no pain in childbirth, and research on them has found that such women rarely feel pain ever in their lives.

In getting to know our shadow, the idea is that it is better to acknowledge our unpleasant or unethical aspects and keep an eye on them rather than to throw them out the front door “for good,” only to have them slip in the back when we’re not looking.

In general, anything that has been our particular specialty has to be balanced by its opposite, what we are bad at or afraid of trying.

HSPs tend to dislike aggressive self-promotion, hoping to be noticed for their honest hard work.