Am I a Highly Sensitive Person? Eight Ways to Identify if You Are an HSP
Highly Sensitive People, or HSP’s, often perceive and navigate the world from a heightened state of being. As a result, they can often be misunderstood or made to feel as if their awareness is a drawback instead of a gift. Often, HSP’s experience anxiety symptoms due to the depth of which they experience emotion and life events. HSP therapists can often be a balm to understanding what it means to be a highly sensitive person. Additionally, there are treatments for highly sensitive people, as well as couples therapists that can help HSP’s in relationships. Here are eight ways to determine if you might be an HSP:
You are highly attuned to tone, mannerisms, body language, and rhetorical shifts in conversation that others may not notice. A highly sensitive person, on seeing someone they love in distress, may pick up on cues before others are even aware. Even a small change in voice register, in how one participates (or doesn’t) in conversation, become radically apparent to an HSP. For example, if a HSP person is out to dinner with a partner, they may notice that subtle shifts in behavior when certain topics come up. Discussing tougher subjects like finances, delayed promotions, or holidays with relatives may cause the HSP’s partner to break eye contact, engage in a nervous habit, or change their pattern of speech. While others may not note these changes, an HSP is not only going to see them but will also note the emotional state of their partner at the same time. Which brings us to number two:
You tend to have deep compassion and empathy, which can, in some cases, become a compromise of boundaries. In the example above, a highly sensitive person will not only note their partners shifts in behavior, but also feel compassion for their partner’s distress. While empathy is a welcome response, the danger comes in when an HSP may also be conditioned to take on their partner’s agitation or concern. This can lead an HSP to feel emotionally flooded, to experience guilt at broaching difficult subjects, or illicit a fawn response to smooth everything over. Having compassion and empathy for a partner is crucial, but as an HSP, setting boundaries is also extraordinarily important for mental health.
You avoid disturbing content. HSP’s may feel overwhelmed by watching tragedy unfold on the news or on social media. They may have a deep aversion to horror movies, dramatic outbursts, or to gore and violence. Loud music may also be disconcerting. When it comes to being an HSP, often there is a struggle for emotional, mental, and physical regulation. Media that puts an HSP in overload may be highly triggering. Concerts, crowds, or events where people are letting loose may also prove especially taxing to HSP’s.
You prefer communication to be consistent and/or in a certain way. Because HSP’s are sensitive to tone in person, they can also be highly aware of shifts in behavior regarding types of communication as well. Communication can be especially challenging for an HSP because questions will inevitably arise around overthinking: “Is she not responding to my text because it is finals week or did I do something to upset her that she is afraid to discuss with me?” “In our last few phone calls, Mom did not say ‘I love you’ before hanging up. Is this a sign that her dementia is progressing or is she still angry that I forgot Dad’s birthday?” “My boss is like clockwork—he always emails two weeks before our annual conference to go over presentation details. We are only a week out and he has not responded to my emails or calls. Is this because we have taken on more clients recently or is he passing me over for the conference this year?” For an HSP, these moments can morph into an overthinking nightmare.
It takes longer you to process information. Because an HSP is highly attuned to their environment and people around them, unexpected turns of events can leave them feeling overwhelmed, overstimulated, and can put them in a state of freeze. Even a breakup discussed from a place of love and kindness, can be a serious challenge for an HSP. It may take them time to identify and truly process all of the emotions that surface—often much longer than most people. Sadness, regret, anger, and brokenheartedness can be especially difficult to reconcile. Not only is the HSP wrestling with their own emotions in the navigation, they are also having to make sense of the varied emotional responses of their partner from a place of compassion.
You have been told you are highly intuitive. Have you ever walked into a restaurant with an overwhelming urge to leave, but not for any particular reason you can explain? Have you moved to a different spot on the subway because you had a “bad vibe” about where you are standing? Have you ever not gotten along with someone who everyone else seems to adore but you cannot place your finger on why? Refused a job even though it seemed like a dream opportunity? Along with being highly sensitive, people who are HSP’s often have a keen sense of intuition. Often, they may not even be able to explain why they have made the choices they have. They only know that intuition or a guiding force led them otherwise.
You are extraordinarily emotionally articulate. While others may struggle to put a label on how they are feeling emotionally, you are able to describe your emotional state in great detail. This attentiveness to your emotions can often be confusing to others, or cause them to question their relationship with their own emotions. For example, an HSP may not just be feeling overwhelmed by the material they are studying for exams, they may also be keenly aware of additional layers of anxiety caused by other factors: a professor known to be particularly tough at midterms, lights and sounds in the library that are causing an inability to focus, a feeling of distraction because they are angry at themselves for not attending class more during the semester.
You identify with one or more of the sensitivity types: mental, emotional, physical, chemical, social, and energetic. While mostly self-explanatory, an HSP will sense that they are highly affected by mental strain, emotional stress, physical overload, chemical sensitivity, social overwhelm, and/or heightened energetic states.
If you or your partner identify with some, any, or all of the eight hallmarks above, there are a variety of options especially geared toward HSP treatment, HSP therapy, and HSP counseling. Additionally, dating coaches, relationship therapists, and marriage counselors can also help partners and family members of those with HSP feel more supported, nurtured, and understood. While being an HSP can be a challenge to navigate, having heightened sensitivity, awareness, and attunement are gifts that help us more deeply understand the human experience.
