What confidence! This courage to speak up so boldly surely began at home.
Charles’s parents were delighted by his sensitivity. In their circle of friends—their artistic, intellectual subculture—sensitivity was associated with particular intelligence, good breeding, and fine tastes. Rather than being upset that he studied so much instead of playing games with other boys, his parents encouraged him to read even more. To them, Charles was the ideal son.
With this background, Charles believed in himself. He knew he had absorbed excellent aesthetic tastes and moral values at an early age. He did not see himself as flawed in any way. He did eventually realize he was unusual, part of a minority, but his entire subculture was unusual, and it had taught him to see that subculture as superior, not inferior. He had always felt confident among strangers, even when he was enrolled in the best preparatory schools, followed by an Ivy League university, and then took a position as a professor.
When I asked Charles if he saw any advantages of the trait, he had no trouble reciting many. For example, he was certain it contributed to his musical ability. It had also helped him deepen his self-awareness during several years of psychoanalysis.
As for the disadvantages of the trait and his way of making peace with them, noise bothers him a great deal, so he lives in a quiet neighborhood, surrounding himself with lovely and subtle sounds, including a fountain in his backyard and good music. He has deep emotions that can lead to occasional depression, but he explores and resolves his feelings. He knows he takes things too hard but tries to allow for that.
His experience of overarousal is mainly of an intense physical response, the aftermath of which can prevent him from sleeping. But usually he can handle it in the moment through self-control, by “comporting myself a certain way.” When matters at work overwhelm him, he leaves as soon as he is not needed and “walks it out” or plays the piano. He deliberately avoided a business career because of his sensitivity. When he was promoted to an academic position that stressed him too much, he changed positions as soon as he could.
Charles has organized his life around his trait, maintaining an optimal level of arousal without feeling in any way flawed for doing so. When I asked, as I usually do, what advice he would give others, he said, “Spend enough time putting yourself out there in the world—your sensitivity is not something to be feared.”
A Reason for Great Pride
This first chapter may have been very stimulating! All sorts of strong, confusing feelings could be arising in you by now. I know from experience, however, that as you read and work through this book, those feelings will become increasingly clear and positive.
To sum it up again, 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. That first fact about you could not be true without the second being true as well. It’s a package deal, and a very good package.
It’s also important that you keep in mind that this book is about both your personal innate physical trait and also about your frequently unappreciated social importance. You were born to be among the advisors and thinkers, the spiritual and moral leaders of your society. There is every reason for pride.
• Working With What You Have Learned •
Reframing Your Reactions to Change
At the end of some chapters I will ask you to “reframe” your experiences in the light of what you now know. Reframing is a term from cognitive psychotherapy which simply means seeing something in a new way, in a new context, with a new frame around it.
Your first reframing task is to think about three major changes in your life that you remember well. HSPs usually respond to change with resistance. Or we try to throw ourselves into it, but we still suffer from it. We just don’t “do” change well, even good changes. That can be the most maddening. When my novel was published and I had to go to England to promote it, I was finally living a fantasy I had cherished for years. Of course, I got sick and hardly enjoyed a minute of the trip. At the time, I thought I must be neurotically robbing myself of my big moment. Now, understanding this trait, I see that the trip was just too exciting.
My new understanding of that experience is exactly what I mean by reframing. So now it is your turn. Think of three major changes or surprises in your life. Choose one—a loss or ending—that seemed bad at the time. Choose one that seems as if it should have been neutral, just a major change. And one that was good, something to celebrate or something done for you and meant to be kind. Now follow these steps for each.
1. Think about your response to the change and how you have always viewed it. Did you feel you responded “wrong” or not as others would have? Or for too long? Did you decide you were no good in some way? Did you try to hide your upset from others? Or did others find out and tell you that you were being “too much”?
Here’s an example of a negative change. Josh is thirty now, but for more than twenty years he has carried a sense of shame from when, in the middle of third grade, he had to go to a new elementary school. He had been well enough liked at his old school for his drawing ability, his sense of humor, his funny choices of clothes and such. At the new school these same qualities made him the target of bullying and teasing. He acted as if he didn’t care, but deep inside he felt awful. Even at thirty, in the back of his mind he wondered if he hadn’t deserved to be so “unpopular.” Maybe he really was odd and a “weakling.” Or else why hadn’t he defended himself better? Maybe it was all true.
2. Consider your response in the light of what you know now about how your body automatically operates. In the case of Josh I would say that he was highly aroused during those first weeks at the new school. It must have been difficult to think up clever kid stuff to say, to succeed in the games and classroom tasks by which other children judge a new student. The bullies saw him as an easy target who could make them appear tougher. The others were afraid to defend him. He lost confidence and felt flawed, not likable. This intensified his arousal when he tried anything new while others were around. He could never seem relaxed and normal. It was a painful time but nothing to be ashamed of.
3. Think if there’s anything that needs to be done now. I especially recommend sharing your new view of the situation with someone else—provided they will appreciate it. Perhaps it could even be someone who was present at the time who could help you continue to fit details into the picture. I also advocate writing down your old and new views of the experience and keeping them around for a while as a reminder.
2 Digging Deeper Understanding Your Trait for All That It Is
Now let’s rearrange your mental furniture and make it impossible for you to doubt the reality of your trait. This is important, for the trait has been discussed so little in the field of psychology. We’ll look at a case history as well as scientific evidence, most of it from studying children’s temperaments, which makes it all the more fitting that the case history is a tale of two children.
Observing Rob and Rebecca
About the time I began studying high sensitivity, a close friend gave birth to twins—a boy, Rob, and a girl, Rebecca. From the first day one could sense a difference between them, and I understood exactly what it was. The scientist in me was delighted. Not only would I watch a highly sensitive child growing up, but Rob came with his own “control group,” or comparison, his sister, Rebecca, born into exactly the same environment.
A particular benefit of knowing Rob from birth was that it dispelled any doubts I had about the trait being inheritable. While it is