Are you a HSP? Highly sensitive person?

[HSP2022]

Apparently 20% of people are classified as a highly sensitive person.

I'm certain I fit the criteria but do any of you?

Is there a way to get absolute clarification?

Do you just accept that's how you are or have you been able to change aspects so you are not as highly sensitive to certain things?

Whatever will we do when we run out of labels for everyone's special personality diagnosis?
Oh yeah, they will have to consider themselves normal (as that is quite a wide spectrum for human beings, wide enough that most of us don't need a special label)
Sorry to burst your HSP bubble but you just aren't that special because you're delicate.

It definately is a thing and l believe its the reason as to why some people are more prone to anxiety disorders and panic attacks than others. The brain is acutely sensitive to inward and outward stimuli, it is constantly processing information on a different frequency, rather like a fine tuned radio.
HSP cannot tolerate noise, crowds, feeling trapped, it floods and overwhelm their nervous system. It is probably the reason behind alot of school refusers who struggle with the school enviroment, noise, boredom, over crowded classrooms ,complete lack of privacy, as well as feeling trapped. Most school refusers are highly intelligent with previously good attendance records and thrive once taken out of an enviroment that no longer serves them.
There are a lot of closed minds and shallow way of thinking on this forum OP, which goes to show "the deeper you go the less swimmers you see. "
Facebook has some kind and interesting groups on this subject as well as Empaths. Its obvious from the comments l have read hear posters have no idea what it entails, but there you will find your kind of people, "people who don't just hear the music, but feel it too"

Mumsnet hates HSP and empath, but I think I am too (as well as having adhd). I just never talk about it or express it in real life because most people don't get it, including my husband.

I can't watch any violence in movies, I just stare at the bottom of the screen instead so people don't know. I hate bright lights and background noise, I pick up on the tiniest emotions in people that others don't notice. There's too many things to list here and I've mostly forgotten how I deal with things as it's just become part of normal life. Just give yourself time and space to decompress as much as you can, and avoid the people who make you feel shit

HSPs in my experience take other people's traumatic events and make it all about themselves. Scientology would love you OP, have you thought about taking their personality test?
99% of HSPs are also mimophants. Have you considered if you are also a mimophant?

Here, not hear.

Ditto!

I am not sure if this is a parody or just unintentionally hilarious

20 % of MN readers would burst into tears If I wasn't sitting on my hands.

No, those would be dickheads. They may also be highly sensitive, but that doesn't stop them being dickheads

Agree

I scored 23. Fairly sure I'm high functioning autistic.

Well that's not very sensitive is it? Thank God i'm not a highly sensitive person or I'd have to take myself off for a cry...

I would have said this was bollocks - but thinking about it my DD age 9 ticks most of these boxes. She is hugely emotional even for a 9 year old, can’t deal with change, worries about everything (climate change, drought, war, illness, future exams etc), easily overwhelmed by noise, can’t handle time pressure.

She has also been close to a Sistine Chapel type emotional reaction in a church in Rome (not the actual Sistine but another highly decorated one)

She has one diagnosed neurological condition and I strongly suspect she may have ADHD or ASD as well.

The people who think this is silly, do you think of it as something talked about on social media? Are you of an age to remember stiff upper lip and depression/anxiety being a source of shame and something to be hidden?

I hid the book from my flatmates!

I think we lost stiff upper lip with all the Diana hysteria...25 years ago!

I'm beginning to wonder if I'm more suited to gransnet.

If your DD ticks most of these boxes, please please get her assessed for autism and ADHD. Not HSP, which you can't get adjustments for.

I scored highly in the quiz as I am sensitive to noise/violence/smells/stress etc but I am autistic so about as far from an empath as is possible to get! It's complete nonsense!

The criteria provided are deliberately very vague, and if you wanted to pathologize them you’d find they can fit with a number of neurodiversities, mental illnesses, and personality disorders. Unsurprisingly, at least in the case of personality disorders, because all are behaviours present in ‘normal’ people, but taken to an extreme.

Taken as they are, however, they’re all normal human emotions that will be present to greater or lesser effect throughout an individual’s life, dependent on a number of factors.

The one about art appreciation - okay, so how has this been observed and measured? Because whilst I’m sure it’s a great appeal to the ego, it seems quite without foundation.

The one about reading people - yes, psychopaths also are skilled at that, and honestly it’s not something that’s difficult for anyone halfway observant. It’s not some exceptional trait of a ‘HSP’

Not liking having to do too many things at once - that is literally everyone.

People roll their eyes because it’s taking normal experience, or even mental illness/disorder, and dressing it up in a superiority complex. It just makes someone look like they consider themselves normal and boring, and are desperate to be ‘special’ in some way at: Before ‘HSP’ it was ‘empath’; and before that it was ‘indigo children’. It’s the same shit with a different label.

Any psychologist worth their salt will tell you that there is no such thing as an empath, since most humans feel empathy for other humans. The term is a buzzword and totally overused on social media.

However, I believe it was Psychologist Elaine Aron who coined the term HSP, though it isn’t a condition or disorder, simply a set of personality traits.

Anyone describing themselves as a HSP is an immediate red flag.

🚩🚩🚩

The criteria provided are deliberately very vague, and if you wanted to pathologize them you’d find they can fit with a number of neurodiversities, mental illnesses, and personality disorders. Unsurprisingly, at least in the case of personality disorders, because all are behaviours present in ‘normal’ people, but taken to an extreme.

Taken as they are, however, they’re all normal human emotions that will be present to greater or lesser effect throughout an individual’s life, dependent on a number of factors.

The one about art appreciation - okay, so how has this been observed and measured? Because whilst I’m sure it’s a great appeal to the ego, it seems quite without foundation.

The one about reading people - yes, psychopaths also are skilled at that, and honestly it’s not something that’s difficult for anyone halfway observant. It’s not some exceptional trait of a ‘HSP’

People roll their eyes because it’s taking normal experience, or even mental illness/disorder, and dressing it up in a superiority complex. It just makes someone look like they consider themselves normal and boring, and are desperate to be ‘special’ in some way at: Before ‘HSP’ it was ‘empath’; and before that it was ‘indigo children’. It’s the same shit with a different label.

whump "People roll their eyes because it’s taking normal experience, or even mental illness/disorder, and dressing it up in a superiority complex."

in my day <waves stick> - definitely a sign of being an inferior person. Have to hide it at school or you get bullied. Physically, not on social media.

pp saying no one likes to multi task - many people thrive on it, and let's face it, they are the successful ones.

I have not rtft OP but look up retained reflexes. I startle easily and sometimes react when my kids start talking to me from behind. But I was subjected to violence as a child so lots of things on the list tick me boxes. I don't consider myself a empath or anything like that. I suspect I would meet threshold for ASD and I'm damaged by my childhood but I don't identity as anything.

A bit like my son having sen. They aren't ASD, they have it. It's part of their mix. I'd hate to think it defines them. Like being a empath. Yes I cry at things but it doesn't define me.

Anyway. Retained reflexes if your open minded which I guess you are.

I'm an HSP. Didn't know until I finally came across the concept when looking up why I and my child were having such a hard time - I first understood my child to be an HSC. I don't much care if other people don't understand it, it's been super valuable for me to learn about. For me, it helped me understand why my little one held back, why she was so reactive. I'm not interested in anyone saying it's other things, ADHD or anything else. I've had several checks, and besides, high sensitivity is not mutually exclusive to anything else. Now I know, I can be prepared to have more realistic expectations for when my children can go on a roller coaster, paddle in the sea, use powerful hand-driers in public toilets, watch most Disney films, understand their unexpected happy tears when watching something relatively mundane. I also understand myself more, why others can go from one event to another in the same day, and I very much avoid this. If it helps others, none of the highly sensitive traits are mutually exclusive to being highly sensitive. There's plenty of overlap. HS is not something that can be changed. But one can learn adaptations, and become less reactive over time with experience.

If you were an empath you'd know how laughable this is.

Load of bollocks. I have a friend who sent me this nonsense a few months ago. Everything affects her. She is literally the angriest person ever. The slightest noise that someone makes, she is giving them filthy looks. But it isn't her fault because she is a Highly. Sensitive. Person.