Why Am I So Sensitive? Advice from a Therapist

What is a Highly Sensitive Person?

A highly sensitive person (HSP) is acutely sensitive to sensory input, other people in social situations, and circumstances in their environment. Additionally, HSPs doubt themselves way too much and do so often in an unreasonably harsh way. HSP is not a clinical mental disorder; it is difficult to objectively evaluate one’s sensitivities except by the amount of distress experienced.

Characteristics of a highly sensitive person include:

• People pleasing: You are prone to pleasing others ahead of yourself.
• Overstimulation: You quickly feel overstimulated by loud noises, being rushed, entering crowded spaces, and anything unexpected. In loud environments, you may find yourself sweaty when it isn’t warm, desire to flee or avoid the situation, or need to cover your ears, close your eyes, and wish to be alone.
• Emotion dysregulation: You may struggle with emotional regulation and often feel out of control without knowing how to calm yourself internally.
• Rejection-sensitive dysphoria (RSD): RSD is when you experience severe emotional pain due to a failure or rejection. You may wish you could tolerate constructive criticism because you want to learn, but even a minor comment can feel like a slight that hurts too much.
• Procrastination: You find yourself procrastinating at tasks because you constantly feel self-doubt. For example, you may take an hour to dress because you’re unsure of your appearance or rewrite something at work repeatedly because you fear a superior will look down on you.
• Imposter syndrome: Despite your education, you always feel you’re fooling everyone and can’t do a job well. You get confused about your reasonable expectations, so constantly minimize accomplishments and generosity.
• Distrust of others: You presume compliments and flattery are underserved attempts to appease you. When someone admires you, you feel they only say it to be nice.

Why am I So Sensitive?

There are three possibilities for why you are so sensitive: you are genetically prone to hypersensitivity, you became sensitive due to the environment, or a combination of the two. If you are sensitive because of environmental traumas, the longer the trauma occurs, the more sensitive you may be. If your environment is volatile, it can result in intense self-doubt and anxiety.

Here are six reasons you may be so sensitive:

1. You are Genetically Prone

Some individuals are genetically prone to sensitivity. All children in the first three years likely fear the loss of a loved one, the loss of approval, and the loss of love.  However, some children have more difficulty than others growing past this developmental stage. Genetically this child is prone to a high level of sensitivity. It’s not wrong or abnormal; it just is.

2. You Have Past Trauma

Traumatic events, such as the death of a loved one, war-time stressors, and dangerous experiences, shape one’s view of the world. An individual who has experienced trauma will likely have fears of repeated experiences in future occurrences. Even with good emotional support and proper medical support at the scene, trauma can create emotional sensitivity in the long term.¹

3. You Have Underlying Mental Health Conditions

Various symptoms of mental health conditions can increase someone’s vulnerability to high sensitivity. A person may simultaneously have more than one disorder at the same time, and environmental trauma may also co-exist with these disorders. Environmental trauma can also cause or exacerbate mental health conditions.

Mental health conditions that can make a person extra sensitive include:

• Autism: Autism is a neurodevelopmental condition that can cause significant social, communication, behavioral, and sensory input challenges, including hypersensitivities to light, sound, and touch.³
• Depression: Major depressive disorder causes a significantly lowered mood and a loss of interest in activities once enjoyed. Additionally, how terrible the person feels can cause hypersensitivity to the world around them.²
• Social anxiety: Social anxiety is an intense, persistent fear of being watched or judged by others. People with social anxiety become hyperaware and sensitive in social situations.
• Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD): PTSD occurs when someone witnesses or experiences a single or persistent terrifying event and experiences subsequent flashbacks, nightmares, severe anxiety, and uncontrollable thoughts about the event. PTSD makes an individual hyperaware and hypersensitive to their environment because they try to ensure that the trauma does not reoccur.⁵
• Generalized anxiety: Generalized anxiety is a broad sense of anxiety in multiple situations that give a person a sense of nearly always being on edge. A person will also likely become hypersensitive around the person or situation that triggers their anxiety.
• Dissociative Disorder: Dissociative disorder is a mental state in which an overwhelmed, traumatized individual emotionally distances themselves from the actual present reality for periods of time. When you dissociate, your mind is disoriented, causing your sensitivities to spiral.
• Panic Disorder: Panic disorder is an anxiety disorder triggered by symptoms of breathlessness, chest pain, disorientation, and interference with thinking. When you are panicking, the disorientation you feel will heighten your sensitivities.
• Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD): OCD is characterized by repetitive thoughts or obsessions about ideas that feel distressing or compulsions which are behaviors meant to diminish these thoughts. During obsessive thinking or compulsive actions, you will be increasingly vulnerable, triggering your sensitivities.
• Sleep Disorder: When an individual has a sleep disorder, such as insomnia, they may wake up episodically during the night or may not be able to fall asleep. During the day, their excessive exhaustion will make them more vulnerable, causing their sensitivities to heighten.

4. You are Going Through a Transition

You may be changing a job, moving your residence, or going through a divorce. Coping with these changes requires immense amounts of mental and emotional energy. Additionally, such transitions mean you will get less sleep, disrupting your self-care routines and experiencing increased anxiety during the day. Both good and bad transitions can increase your sensitivity immensely.

5. You are Grieving a Loss

Death is one of the most challenging experiences, and learning to cope takes time. When experiencing loss, small reminders of the person you loved can set you off into a grief spiral. Additionally, small unkindnesses that normally wouldn’t shake you may feel a lot more cutting. If someone you love dies, your grief will exacerbate your daily reactions to upsets, increasing your sensitivities.

6. You are Physically Ill

When you are physically ill, your body will use its energy to restore health,  which lessens your emotional ability to ward off disturbing thoughts and feelings. When you are ill, even with the flu, your body loses its usual capacity to fight off sensitivities to sensory overload or diminished emotional supports.

What if Others Say I’m Too Sensitive and I’m Not?

It is important to consider that you might not too sensitive, but a deeply empathic person, and someone in your life is gaslighting you into believing you are too sensitive. Being named “too sensitive” is often a phrase used in gaslighting because it makes you look ‘crazy’ or ‘stupid’, inflating the other person’s importance and burying their low self-esteem.

Benefits of Being So Sensitive

Sensitive individuals often are empathic to others with similar sensitivities. They consequently may form lasting friendships, engage with others easily, be acutely observant of anxieties in others, and develop careers helping others. In addition, hypersensitivities to visual and auditory stimulation may assist the development of the enjoyment or pursuit of creative talents in art and music.

Drawbacks of Being So Sensitive

Hypersensitivities may lead a person to avoid people and activities that lead to feeling overwhelmed, frightened, and any circumstances that require vulnerability or close physical contact with others. Without adequate support, the sensitive person may isolate themselves, leading to loneliness, fears of leaving home, and major emotional disorders.

If these avoidance behaviors remain unchecked, a person may continue to close themselves off more and more from others. Avoiding social situations and interactions can provide a temporary sense of comfort, but it leads to more inhibition due to increasing fears of feeling defenseless. If this occurs for a prolonged period, enjoyable activities, socialization, and career possibilities shrink.

How to Manage Emotional Sensitivities

While being sensitive can make you a wonderful person, it can also be emotionally exhausting. Learning to manage your sensitivity is important, so you can appreciate the benefits of being sensitive fully while limiting the drawbacks, such as emotional burnout and anxiety.

Some ways to manage your emotional sensitivity include:

• Become self-observant: The first step to managing your sensitivities is to become self-observant when you start to feel uneasy. If you recognize when you are becoming sensitive, you can take steps to take care of yourself appropriately.
• Begin therapy: Therapy can help you feel supported and shift how you think about the world. Working with a compassionate mental health worker will give you feedback that strengthens your capacity to tolerate rather than avoid people or situations that make you sensitive.⁴
• Check the facts: It is sometimes important to remind yourself that your hypersensitivities can sometimes come from an internal trauma rather than an external trigger. Asking a nonjudgemental and loving friend for their point of view can dramatically change your perspective.
• Repeat helpful mantras: Find mantras that speak to you, and repeat them daily. Mantras can help you slowly develop new thinking patterns about situations that used to make you hypersensitive. Examples of helpful mantras include, “Everyone makes mistakes,” “No one is admired by everyone,” and “Learning new skills and meeting new people takes time for everyone.”
• Ask for support:  Asking for support is incredibly empowering. Seek out emotional support from others who are empathic. Being understood by a loved one who is compassionate and non-judgemental goes a long way in reducing self-consciousness.
• Be more open: Being vulnerable in small doses in the company of a friend or professional can, over time, weaken fearful reactions. This may take a long time and consistency with a supportive person. Only try exposure with a reliable and trusted person in small doses to avoid more anxiety.
• Tell yourself you are capable: If you tell yourself you can tolerate your sensitive reaction for one or two minutes, in time, you will be able to increase your capacity to tolerate the strain.

When to Seek Professional Support

It is time to seek support if your sensitivities persist and your avoidance of situations that trigger sensitivity becomes so frequent that your life is restricted. There are various treatment approaches; Some therapists are trained to provide skills for hypersensitive physical reactions to sensory, while others are trained to offer psychological skills for reducing social sensitivities. Finding the right treatment and therapist for you is essential.

If you find the search distressing, professional guidance about finding the best support suited for you as quickly as possible is highly recommended. An online therapist directory is also helpful in finding the right therapist in your area. It is important to remember that it may take months or years to see a change in your sensitivity. It takes time to discover the particular causes of your sensitivity, your ability to observe when sensitivity is occurring and learn how to modulate yourself when sensitivity occurs.

In My Experience

In my professional experience, early intervention and accurate diagnosis are paramount. Hypersensitivity therapy options range widely, from cognitive behavioral therapy to psychodynamic approaches. Rarely is a professional trained in all these approaches. However, a well-trained professional will know if they offer the best treatment for you or if they should refer you to another professional. A good match between therapist and client is also important. In other words, empathy and compassion must be combined with skill and training in a professional. Neither is sufficient alone.

Seeking help alone can become tiresome and frustrating. Being emotionally supported by a loved one in this process is so important. When a loved one supports the treatment search process, it becomes a positive and rewarding journey, fostering close connections for both of you.