High Sensitivity/HSP: a useful concept to learn about, might just be relevant to you

Let's get the trivia out of the way: I'm a somewhat too clever for my own good, introverted nerd, who ran into a wall in my late teens to the point where I'd be too scared to go to the bakery because holy shit, I'd make a fool out of myself for sure somehow. I've always been a bit shy/socially anxious, my self-esteem tanked when in college it turned out that for all my bluster I had nothing really to show for myself, started getting a little squirrelly in the head with depression and surviving on peanuts for a week because I was too anxious to get groceries, good stuff. I got my shit together, sort of, in the ten-ish years since.

One thing I learned is about is HSP, Highly Sensitive Person. Basically, just like in a lot of animal species, somewhere around 15-20% of humans are also more intrinsically 'sensitive' than others, meaning they show lowered sensory detection thresholds, a lower bias filter for information, and more thorough processing of information, especially the social/emotionally relevant kinds. The result is that compared to most people, HSP's often prefer having more time to soak up and process information, and they get tired out more quickly. The upside is that this deeper processing can result in pretty neat new angles in thinking, noticing connections better, taking into account a more complete set of variables when trying to problem solve and noticing very subtle things.

This leads to a 'vantage sensitivity', basically that if there's beneficial factors in the environment, these get picked up and put to use better than average. Unfortunately negative factors, like critical parents, bullying, economic insecurity etc. also gets taken to heart way more and results in more negative outcomes for HSP's than average.

I was actually sort of baffled by research showing that kids that score low on the HSP trait can encounter a scary acting unfriendly adult, and minutes later forget all about it and play happily with other kids in the playground. HSP kids tend to feel unsafe and off-balance and inhibited long after such an unpleasant encounter, showing sustained higher cortisol levels.

I'm like what, kids exist that can be spooked like that and 'just not care' immediately after??? Holy shit! I'm certainly the kind to keep my guard up and wonder wtf I did wrong for hours, I thought everyone was like that. Turns out that's not the case.

Research also showed that brief positive interventions, like a few workshops on mental health, have a significantly more positive and long-lasting impact on HSP teens compared to average. It shows you can use this to grab hold of support, of good ideas, of helpful advice, and actually do something with it rather than go 'shrug' and go about business as usual.

I think it'd be useful for quite a few peeps here to look into this in a bit more detail.

Self-understanding and putting into perspective how my own world just looks and feels a little different from many other people helped me be a lot less hard on myself and made me stop expecting me to turn myself into a completely different kind of person. It helped me see that some of my most shameful flaws were the result of a mismanaged asset, and that if I learned to respect and use this trait I have rather than look down on it, I could use it to my advantage.

It helped me realise that when other people 'have no problems with this', it might just be because their brain and senses just honestly do not give a fuck, while mine does, because that's how it works. It helped me see that my neurotic over-thinking is just what I do 'naturally', and that I can learn to decide when to give things more thought, and when to go 'alright, there's nothing to gain from chewing this over forever, maybe I need to just let it go and try to move on'. That this is a skill I could learn, like learning how to drive a car, once I realised I have some control over it.

Knowing that I 'have' this (it's just a trait, not a disorder, since it's so ass common and it's got it's good aspects) helped me to think of my anxious tendencies as something to learn how to manage, rather than a blemish on myself that I had to try to erase.

Maybe not everyone will relate, but I get this niggling feeling it'll be more common here than in the broader population.

Here's a collection of some sources on this, for anyone who'd like to start digging a little deeper

https://hsperson.com/some-new-research-on-sensory-processing-sensitivity-sps/