Problems That Only Highly Sensitive People Understand! Do You?

People who react exceptionally strong to stimuli are called highly sensitive. As a highly sensitive person, some situations and thought processes feel different to you than they do to less sensitive people. They can make you sweat, affect your stomach and rob you of your energy. Sometimes they simply occupy you more intensely and for longer.

The fact that high sensitivity can cause problems as we age is becoming more apparent than ever due to our fast pace of life and constant sensory overload. However, many can finally feel better understood through the ever-increasing awareness of this topic and also better understand themselves as to why some incidents cause them more problems than other people.

Nevertheless, it is not abnormal or even pathological to be a highly sensitive person. It is estimated that about 15 to 20% of people are affected. In this article, we'll share with you some of the things that can be problematic for you if you're highly sensitive. 

1. Sound volume disturbs you

A loud background noise feels like an assault on your senses. A simple concert or a visit to the cinema becomes rather unpleasant and it feels even worse if you don't have the possibility to reduce the volume yourself. In the company of your friends and family you feel like a leper in such a situation. Pain is also said to be felt more intensely by highly sensitive people. 

2. Time pressure gets to you

If you are often under time pressure, whether at work or in everyday family life, you may feel it more than others. As a highly sensitive person, this can even cause you feelings of anxiety. You may even do worse on tests at school or in exam situations because the time pressure makes things even worse for you.

3. Vacation is not a vacation

Where other people look forward to it for months, for you it means more stress and negative feelings. Getting there, making travel arrangements, and flying all create time pressure, and sleeping in a strange environment and a different bed makes you long for your own home. Finding your way around a foreign locality tends to cause discomfort as well. 

4. Lack of sleep

Due to the more intense processing of thoughts or situations, highly sensitive people also need more sleep. If you don't get enough opportunity to rest and reset your senses, you react even more sensitively to stimuli. You will be even more affected by them than usual. 

5. Emotional exhaustion

You are an empathetic person, so when your loved ones are feeling bad, you feel with them. This means you can end up feeling sad, even though you might have had a really great day. This can be quite exhausting in the long run, because you also have to feel and process your own feelings and that costs energy. 

6. Extreme reactions to both beauty and violence

You detest watching something violent on TV and may even feel physically ill as a result. This includes, for example, bloody or scary scenes in movies and books. You then have to look away or put the book down. But the opposite can also be the case. If you see something very moving or beautiful, it moves you to tears and you have to think about it for a very long time.

Even inappropriate comments or cruel jokes that others laugh at cannot be dismissed so easily. You continue to think about the situation afterwards. Cruelty or injustice are simply not topics that you think should be laughed at or joked about. 

7. Overanalyzing

As a highly sensitive person, you analyze every detail of your fellow human beings. This includes, for example, tone of voice, facial expressions, eye contact, but also small gestures. In this way, you may read too much into conversations, or an existing suspicion of dishonesty may be reinforced. Such dialogs then keep you very occupied in retrospect. You may not be able to fall asleep at night because you're still racking your brains for hours. 

8. Satisfy hunger as soon as possible

Highly sensitive people can get really angry when they are hungry. Of course, all people get hungry at times and also easily irritable in this state. However, according to American psychologist Elaine Aron, highly sensitive people seem to react particularly strongly to fluctuations in blood sugar levels. That's why it's especially important for you to calm your hunger pangs as quickly as possible. 

9. Conflict

Arguments, like highly sensitive people, are difficult to bear. If someone raises their voice against you, hits you, criticizes you or expresses their displeasure towards you, it is like a punch in the stomach for you. Because of your high sensitivity, friendly, normal interaction is especially important to you.

There is nothing worse for you than when someone is angry with you and shows it. In childhood, it was probably terrible for you when your parents or other authority figures scolded you. You may have cried immediately. Likewise, you may have been very upset when you saw other people being treated in this way.

This behavior is also reflected in your own actions. You avoid conflict and act in such a way that, in the best case, no conflicts arise. 

10. You have a hard time saying no

As we have already mentioned, as a highly sensitive person you are an empath. It is very important to you to please everyone and to help wherever you can. When someone asks you for a favor, your answer is almost always "yes". However, you often make agreements or compromises that you don't really want. In the worst-case scenario, you'll get things that you don't need and have to pay for them. 

11. Positive is negative

Even when positive things happen in your life that should make you happy, you have a hard time showing that reaction at first. You simply need longer to process these changes. This could be a job change or a marriage proposal, for example.

Even moving into your dream apartment means negative feelings for a while, because for you as a highly sensitive person, the daily routine without spectacular events is the most comfortable to bear, since this means you don't have to process any new stimuli. 

12. Social development happens in a more withdrawn way

Due to your high sensitivity, your leisure time activities may be different from those of your peers. For you, meeting in larger groups and trips bar or club are rather unpleasant due to the volume and the crowds. This causes you to avoid such situations and you may feel like an outsider. You are more likely to withdraw. 

Today's Conclusion

If you look at these points, being a highly sensitive person seems rather negative at first. However, if you are aware of which situations and environmental factors can be problematic for you, you can try to avoid them. Allow yourself sufficient rest periods and try to avoid stress. In addition, your empathic, sensitive character makes you the kind of person one can only wish to have in one's life.

Discussing problems with you can be helpful because you are able to put yourself in other people's shoes. You are also likely to be a very creative person because of your detailed, in-depth views. Take advantage of your high sensitivity and enjoy your emotional side. That's it for today.