Emotional vs sensitive
Help Me Understand: Why Am I So Sensitive?
Do you ever find yourself wondering why you’re so sensitive? If you feel things deeply, you may be a highly sensitive person.
Sensitivity is often framed as a negative personality trait. You may have been told that you’re too sensitive or overemotional and that you need to “toughen up.” Maybe you wonder, why am I so sensitive?
It’s important to understand that sensitivity is a personality trait. Being “too” sensitive is not a disorder. Like being quiet or being thoughtful, it’s not necessarily a bad trait, even though each can pose its challenges.
Several potential causes of sensitivity exist. For example, if you have a neurodevelopmental disorder like autism or ADHD, you might be more sensitive to certain stimuli.
Your sensitivity may not be linked to any particular disorder, though. If you feel things deeply, you could be a highly sensitive person (HSP).
Do you feel a cold coming on before outward symptoms show up? Do you notice that a lamplight is about to go out a day or two before it does because of slight dimming? Or are you deeply moved by someone else’s good or bad news just by picking up on their subtle expressions?
Why am I so emotional?
There can be many different reasons. Sometimes, we become more emotional when we go through difficult or stressful times. Recent bereavement, trauma, and stress can make us feel more emotional.
Some people tend to be emotionally sensitive because it’s a part of their personality. A highly sensitive person is someone who feels things strongly, whether those things are positive or negative. This can include their own emotions, the emotions of others, and sensory stimuli in the world around them.
A note on being highly sensitive vs. exceptionally emotional
We often use the words “sensitive” and “emotional” interchangeably. And indeed, highly sensitive people are more attuned to emotions.
One of the main distinctions between being exceptionally emotional and being highly sensitive is that highly sensitive people are very attuned to their emotions as well as the emotions of others.
Highly sensitive people also tend to be more sensitive to external stimuli, like lights, noises, and colors, as well as internal stimuli, like hunger and pain.
Another difference is that being highly emotional could be temporary while being a highly sensitive person is a part of your personality.
If you’ve been feeling emotional lately, several stressors could be contributing to it.
Highly sensitive people often feel emotions and respond to stimuli — both in themselves and others — profoundly.
About 15–20% of the population is thought to be highly sensitive.
While many highly sensitive people are dismissed as “too sensitive,” their perceptiveness can be a strength.
The discovery of the HSP
The term “highly sensitive person” was popularized by clinical psychologist Elaine N. Aron, who wrote the book “The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You.”
First published in 1996, this book is based on years of Aron’s research into being a highly sensitive person herself.
Sensory processing: Like being a human sponge
HSP are folks who are strong in a personality trait known as sensory processing sensitivity.
This is not a disorder or a mental illness, but rather a part of your personality.
Sensory processing relates to how you take in stimuli, including sounds, sensations, others’ moods, smells, and more. HSP often experience these stimuli easily, absorbing like a sponge.
In daily life
If you’re highly sensitive, you might be deeply bothered by violent movies or graphics. You might also be easily overwhelmed by a busy or noisy environment, such as a crowded mall or business conference.
Or, you might be able to savor pleasant stimuli intensely — a good meal, a wonderful song — on a deeper level. Your sensitivity to others’ feelings might help you cultivate strong relationships.
Understanding your sensitivity can be the key to managing overwhelm and leaning into the pleasurable aspects of being an HSP.
Aron’s research found being an HSP is an innate trait, identified in over 100 species.
However, others might learn to be sensitive for several reasons.
A traumatic event might put them on high alert, for example. Being sensitive to stimuli is also a symptom of conditions like ADHD and autism.
Over years of research, Aron identified a few common characteristics among highly sensitive people.
These traits include:
- having empathy toward others
- engaging in people-pleasing
- being sensitive to loud noises, chaotic scenes, and busy crowds
- often feeling overwhelmed by sensory stimuli or emotional experiences
- being sensitive to caffeine and medication
- having increased self-awareness
- being able to deeply savor and appreciate pleasant sensations
- avoiding violent and tense movies or books
- avoiding overwhelming situations
- often needing to retreat into a relaxed, quiet space
- having strong emotional responses
Not all HSP will have all the above traits. Therapy and self-work can help you address some of the more harmful tendencies or unpleasant experiences.
Contrary to what many people assume, highly sensitive people are not always introverted. It’s estimated that around 30% are extroverts.
If you think you might be a highly sensitive person, you can take the official quiz on their website here.
To be clear, you can’t (and might not want to!) stop being sensitive, but you can manage your responses to your sensitivity.
While many people may ask themselves “Am I too sensitive?,” it’s important to note that being a highly sensitive person is not a disorder and nothing to be ashamed of. It’s simply a unique trait, just like being tall or light-haired.
Being a HSP can be difficult and overwhelming for some people, especially if you don’t understand your sensitivity. But you might find it liberating to harness and channel that perceptivity.
Psychotherapy to help channel your sensitivities
Talk therapy, also called psychotherapy, can help you learn to cope with the challenges of being an HSP while cultivating the positive parts of your sensitivity.
The official highly sensitive person website has directories of therapists, coaches, and medical professionals who are knowledgeable about HSPs. This can be helpful if you’re looking for a therapist for yourself or a highly sensitive loved one.
Your sensitivity can be a superpower. There are many benefits of being a highly sensitive person:
- being very empathetic to others, fostering deeper connection
- being highly self-aware
- being observant when it comes to yourself and others
- profoundly appreciating pleasant stimuli, including food, fragrances, music, textures, and more
- being deeply moved by heartwarming and positive stories, books, and movies
- cultivating gratitude for the “little things” in life, in part because you notice and experience them keenly
Learning to route your sensitivity toward something positive can be extremely helpful. Often, this starts with accepting your heightened perceptivity and reaching out for help if you need it.
If you feel that you’re “too sensitive,” there might be reasons for your sensitivity. In many cases, it’s simply a part of your personality and not something to try and change.
While your sensitivity can cause overwhelm and lead to challenges, it can also be a strength. Learning about your perceptivity can help you harness this strength to benefit yourself and others.
If you feel that you need emotional support, you can start by reaching out to a therapist.
Sensitive vs Emotional - What's the difference?
| sensitive | emotional | As adjectives the difference betweensensitive and emotionalis that sensitive is having the faculty of sensation; pertaining to the senses while emotional is of or relating to the emotions. As a nounsensitive is one with a paranormal sensitivity to something that most cannot perceive. Other Comparisons: What's the difference?Insensitive vs Emotional Unemotional vs Insensitive Emotionality vs Sensitive
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how to survive for people who feel everything
It is common to think that excessive emotional reactions are something to be dealt with, as they destroy relationships, provoke conflicts and become the cause of many other rash acts. However, the author of the book “I've had enough! How to live with emotional sensitivity ”Imi Lo thinks completely differently and says that people who live in the world of feelings and perceive everything around them through them can actually see and feel what others cannot see.
To do this, you need to accept your high sensitivity and realize that this is not a weakness, but, on the contrary, a strength. We tell you who emotionally sensitive people are and what advantages they have. nine0003
Imi Lo
Mann, Ivanov and Ferber, 2020
Who are emotionally sensitive people
An emotionally sensitive person in the most general sense is a person who has a greater range of emotions than anyone else, and perceives the world and the events taking place in it sharp, bright and sensual. There are five signs of emotional sensitivity:
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Depth, intensity and complexity of emotions.
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Increased empathy and sensitivity
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High level of susceptibility.
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Rich inner world filled with feelings and vivid imagination.
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Creativity and existential anxiety.
These signs can determine whether you belong to the category of emotionally sensitive people.
Depth, intensity and complexity of emotions
If you are a person with high emotional sensitivity, it is as if you exist in the world of emotions and do not think of yourself beyond it. You perceive any events acutely, and you feel truly alive only when you feel something. At the same time, emotions can be not only bright, but also changeable: here you are at the peak of euphoria, and the next second you experience deep sadness. nine0009
Perhaps you approach everything with passion and can love strongly, grandiosely and without a trace, therefore, strive to create strong bonds with people, things and places, which makes it difficult to say goodbye to them, even if it is necessary.
Increased empathy and sensitivity
Probably from an early age you were interested in the lives of others, you were worried even about people who had nothing to do with you. You may also feel a stronger connection with animals and nature, the other person's inner world and their physical sensations.
Surely it will not be difficult for you to understand what your interlocutor feels and why he feels this way - and you feel it so clearly that sometimes other people's experiences are perceived as your own. nine0009
You tend to be empathetic towards people, and in close relationships you can romanticize and idealize your friend or partner, forgiving him many shortcomings simply because you deeply feel his inner world. Moreover, some highly sensitive people have a low pain threshold, suffer from misophonia (intolerance to certain sounds), hyperacusis (sensitivity to certain frequencies and strengths of sound), and allergies.
High susceptibility
You do not tend to be satisfied with superficial knowledge, because thanks to empathy and sensuality, you can penetrate the very essence of things, see relationships and important details that many miss. Sometimes you can predict the occurrence of a certain event in advance, understand the state of a person long before he explains it himself, and also recognize true intentions.
True, the ability to anticipate something does not always play into your hands, since some images and possible scenarios influence you so strongly that you cannot get rid of obsessive thoughts and emotions. nine0009
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Rich inner world and vivid imagination
A wide range of emotions gives rise to various images and associations that can be combined into metaphors, ideas, fantasies and entire worlds.
You are probably very inquisitive, prone to constant reflection and searching for answers to questions, therefore you are attentive to the information that you study and to the people with whom you communicate. You may suffer from perfectionism, prone to excessive self-criticism.
When you read a book, watch a movie or a theatrical performance, then most likely the rest of the world ceases to exist for you - now there is only a fictional universe that you sensually explore and to which you vividly react. nine0009
Creativity and an existential crisis
Through insight, you may have often thought about the meaninglessness of existence, experienced fear of loneliness, and also annoyance that other people do not want to think about what is really important .
You often get hung up on thoughts about the transience of time and the finiteness of everything that exists, because of this you try to use every moment of life to the maximum, reach creative and career heights.
Perhaps you have several hobbies, and you are absolutely not satisfied with the idea of a meaningless life without any goals, aspirations and global desires. nine0009
Problems of highly sensitive people
A person who perceives the world vividly through feelings is often considered an emotionally immature person, since his reactions to various events seem excessive and inadequate to the situation. This really happens - for example, when it is necessary to resolve a conflict, and instead a person who is overwhelmed by emotions swears even more and does not want to find a way out of the situation.
But why is this happening? By and large, only because until the end of the 20th century, IQ was the only indicator of intelligence and giftedness. However, this coefficient took into account only the abilities of the mind, but did not at all reflect the ability of a person to perceive the world differently - through empathy, the ability to take the place of another, feel the mood of the interlocutor, see his intentions and potential hidden from the eyes of others.
Therefore, in society, it was intelligence, analytical and linguistic abilities that became important, and not emotions and creativity. nine0009
It was only in the 1980s that scientists began to develop new models of giftedness, and this is how emotional intelligence appeared. Canadian psychologist François Gagne was the first to separate the concepts of giftedness and talent in his book The Differential Model of Giftedness and Talent. In his opinion, talent is something that develops over time through training and education, and giftedness is an innate ability, a predisposition to a certain activity. He divided abilities into five categories: intellectual, creative, socio-emotional, sensorimotor and others (psychic abilities are included here, but there may be many questions about them). Only along with this division came the understanding that giftedness is not only intellectual, and a person who does not have sufficient analytical abilities should not be considered stupid or mediocre.
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Around the same time as Gagne, the American psychologist Howard Gardner developed the concept of multiple intelligences, which included, for example, social intelligence - how we build relationships with others - and intrapersonal intelligence - how we perceive ourselves and how inclined to self-reflection.
Despite all the advances in psychology and the active popularization of emotional intelligence, not everyone realizes how important emotions are. It is customary to develop intellect in children, but no one tells them how to perceive the world through the "wisdom of the heart." That is why especially sensitive, gifted children do not receive proper support, stop showing their emotions and, as a result, face a huge number of problems in adult life that result in conflicts, impulsive decisions and the inability to understand themselves and others. nine0009
Storytel is an international subscription audiobook service. The Storytel library contains audiobooks from almost all genres, from classics and non-fiction to lectures, stand-ups and podcasts.
This is a service that solves the problem of reading. It lets you listen to audiobooks anytime, anywhere: while exercising, preparing meals, commuting to and from work, on the plane, before bed, and whenever you want. Storytel creates and records its own unique content - lecture projects, podcasts, audio series, and also collaborates with the best voices in the country. nine0009
How to deal with it
Truth Time Exercise
If you realize that you are experiencing a lot of emotions and cannot manage them, you are very likely to be trapped in prejudices, old traumas and beliefs that do not allow you to realize all your potential. The purpose of the exercise is to refer to unpleasant past events—for example, family experiences or embarrassing situations in society, among friends, or at work—in which you came to the conclusion that your emotions are wrong, and to understand why you think that sensitivity only bothers you. Here's what you need to do:
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Take a diary and remember as many painful past events as you can.
Do you have a tendency to minimize negative feelings? Or, for example, try to separate from your experiences, as if you do not want them to be yours? -
Be honest with yourself and remember your childhood. How did your parents react to your sensitivity? Did they support her or, on the contrary, tried to suppress her? Did you receive support when you were sad, and if so, from whom? Could you experience your emotions with loved ones, or did you have to do it alone? nine0009
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As you remember, pay attention to how your body reacts. Does your heart rate increase when you think about certain situations? Maybe your jaw or shoulders are tense? Emotions tend to show up outwardly, so pay attention to your body's signals.
In the process of this exercise, if you dig deep, it may become clear why you cannot accept and acknowledge your high sensitivity and, as a result, make it work for you. nine0009
Feel the events of the past
Some traumas from early childhood or just in the past can still cause negative feelings in us, such as sadness, anger, sadness or disappointment.
It's okay to experience them, but if the events still feel painful, then you haven't let them go yet. Therefore, allow yourself to relive all emotions, even though it may be unpleasant.
Think of all the situations that make you feel sad, toxic jealousy, angry, or any other negative emotion. Try to feel it all over again, allow yourself to react exactly as you would react if you didn’t forbid yourself to freely express your feelings, even the most unpleasant and negative ones. As in the previous exercise, pay attention to the reaction of the body: do you have a lump in your throat, are your cheekbones tense, do you feel like crying? And if so, then allow yourself to feel it all. Re-living emotions is like a way of healing and clearing out what has been bothering you for a long time. When you fully experience everything, it will be easier for you to let go of events and move on. nine0009
Exercise "Mental rehearsal"
When we are nervous, anticipating not the most pleasant or just exciting event, we begin to activate our defense mechanisms in advance so that the situation does not turn into a disaster for us.
However, by winding ourselves up, we only make things worse, while the event may well turn out to be not as terrible as it seemed at first. To avoid misreactions, do the following:
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Imagine an event that triggers your anxiety. Consider it in detail, but not from the point of view of a passive observer, but as an active participant. nine0009
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Imagine all the possible scenarios in which this event could develop. Will people say things that will make you sad? Or maybe pissed off? Imagine everything that can provoke a strong emotional reaction in you - from the smallest troubles to the biggest.
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Develop a plan for each option. What do you say if your relative gives unsolicited advice? What “mantra” will help you maintain your composure and not take it out on your loved ones? nine0009
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Choose the most successful of all the strategies and imagine how you apply them in a particular situation.
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Imagine all scenarios and solutions.
Then you will be more prepared, and emotions will no longer control you, but you will use them for their intended purpose.
Building Your Own Altar Exercise
To feel confident alone with your emotions or in company, build a secure base of things, events, and objects that give you confidence and joy. This should include everything that seems stable and comfortable to you. To discover these things, ask yourself a few questions:
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Analyze past events. What helped you to return to balance when shocking, traumatic events occurred?
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What morning and evening rituals do you have that give you a sense of stability?
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What brings you joy?
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What can you control?
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What kind of people support you in difficult times? In what ways do you feel confident? nine0009
When you collect all the answers to the questions, you will notice that you do not really face the world alone, and there are things, people and internal mechanisms that allow you to stay afloat and not be at the mercy of emotions so that they it was impossible to control.
What to do if you are too sensitive. And this is noticeable
Increased emotionality is no longer a sign of weakness - it is a feature of the psyche. The existence of highly sensitive people has been scientifically proven. In a world where more and more people cannot cope with stress, American psychologists are closely studying those who are especially prone to worry about any reason. "Lifestyle" offers to join them. nine0009
If you can't stand bright lights and turmoil around you, you can't watch horror movies, and after watching the news about an earthquake or a military conflict, you start crying out of pity for the victims, you are a highly sensitive person. According to the author of the term Elaine N. Aron, there are about 20% of people like you in the world. This means that it's time to stop hiding your feelings and no longer be ashamed of crying in the movies.
In today's Western world, it's a shame to be a weakling — and that's why we have to hide our feelings, constantly keep in good shape, pretend that we can live without lunch and sleep and work 12 hours a day, otherwise our colleagues will look askance at us , and the authorities - to make jokes about us.
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In our country, it is not customary to be capricious, and that is why we are forced to agree to the conditions that we have, to work in a basement or open space, under the wind of an air conditioner, under the harsh light of fluorescent lamps and under the cries of colleagues from neighboring departments.
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Are we suffering from all this? Yes, we suffer. In general, we suffer a lot from things: we can’t stand the feeling of hunger, we can’t watch films about the war, we don’t wear woolen things because they prick, we tear off the tags from T-shirts because they get in the way. We cannot work when it is cold, hungry or noisy, we react sharply to criticism and take any comments personally, we catch changes in the mood of others. It remains to say who we are. nine0009
We are highly sensitive people. Do not rush to laugh and call us sissies - and not only because it is very offensive to us.
Perhaps you, too, are one fifth of the world's population, which is characterized by a particularly sensitive processing of sensory information.
Then you are one of us.
Perhaps you, too, were forbidden to watch the news program as a child, because they show war and starving children in Africa? Maybe you were dying of shame when a geographer slapped you a deuce once in your life? Maybe they hated running and, in general, any form of competition, when everyone is looking at you, and you run no more than a three? Maybe at school it was a real torment for you to raise your hand in class, even if you knew exactly the right answer? Maybe. Or maybe you have other examples from your childhood that will help you to say that you were a highly sensitive child and probably grew up to be a highly sensitive adult as well. nine0009
The term "highly sensitive person" was first used in its current sense by Dr. Elaine Aron, a scientist and author of The Highly Sensitive Person, published in the United States in 1997. The hypothesis that high sensitivity to external stimuli is a feature inherent in about 20% of the inhabitants of the Earth was put forward by a psychologist twenty years ago.
However, the real interest in this idea has awakened among the public only now, when it became clear that more and more people can not cope with stress. nine0009
And I woke up just in time: for twenty years, Dr. Aron and her colleagues have done a lot of research that helped to understand what processes occur in the brain of a highly sensitive person, and to conclude that this feature is innate: certain parts of the brain of such a person react to external stimuli sharper than other, less sensitive people.
And not only negative ones, but also positive ones too. Yes, highly sensitive people feel acute discomfort in awkward situations. But brighter experience the pleasure of contemplating objects of art and views of nature, listening to music, communicating with pleasant people. nine0009
How to know that you are a highly sensitive person
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1. You have deep feelings
One of the main characteristics of highly sensitive people is the ability to deeply feel what is happening around.
They have developed intuition, which allows them to be more perceptive than their less sensitive comrades.
2. You react more emotionally than others
Highly sensitive people experience more intense emotions and are often infected by the emotions of others. These are not necessarily close people, they can easily pick up a bad mood from a friend or take care of a colleague's problems. This makes them hate delivering bad news or making unpopular decisions – they worry about how others will react to it. nine0009
3. You are often told: “Don't take it personally.”
Sensitive people are treated differently in different cultures: if in the West emotionality is a manifestation of weakness, then in the East everything is not so simple.
Dr. Ted Zeff, author of The Highly Sensitive Person's Survival Guide, states based on his research that in India and Thailand, sensitive men are very rarely teased, while in North In America, men with a fine mental organization are often the objects of ridicule.
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4. You prefer to exercise alone
Highly sensitive people hate team sports, according to Dr. Zeff. And our experience confirms this: such people like cycling, swimming or walking, but playing football or basketball causes them to panic.
However, there are exceptions: if such a person is lucky with smart and understanding parents, he may not be afraid to show himself in a team.
5. You find it difficult to make elementary decisions
Highly sensitive people are attentive to the details of the situation and the subtleties of circumstances. From this, they try to take everything into account and fall into a stupor, because there is too much of this.
Even the task of choosing an ice cream can confuse them. However, there is good news: having once understood how to behave in a certain situation, in similar conditions in the future, such a person, without getting lost, will immediately do the right thing. nine0009
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You get upset when you make a mistake
Mistakes upset everyone, but highly sensitive people - especially: because of annoying little things and oversights that others have forgotten to even think about, they can suffer for weeks, imagining that they still remember the mistake.
7. You are an introvert
But there are exceptions: according to Dr. Aron, 30% of highly sensitive people are extroverts. This happens when a person grows up in a closed environment where everything is in plain sight, in a village, a small town, a religious community or a family of a public person. nine0009
8. You know how to work in a team
Paradoxically, the depth of experience makes highly sensitive people excellent employees. Only they should not take positions in which they must make final decisions: for example, if it is a doctor, he should have the opportunity to consult with colleagues before prescribing treatment.
9. You are prone to anxiety and depression
This only happens if you have suffered a lot of adversity in the past - but who among us is lucky to do without them at all? Shy people are often teased in childhood: if a highly sensitive person was not given proper support in childhood, he grows up with the feeling that the world is hostile, and only doctors and antidepressants can help here.
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It is worth taking a closer look at your child: high sensitivity is often inherited.
10. You can't stand sharp sounds
Someone can't stand it when Styrofoam squeaks on glass. Someone - the sound of a perforator or drill. It annoys someone when others eat loudly: champing and smacking is really impossible to endure, why do people even allow themselves to eat with their mouths open ?!
11. You can't see the violence on the screen
A highly sensitive person cannot watch horror films about dismemberment, disaster films about drowning dogs, and arthouse about rape. Lars von Trier, Gaspar Noe and Michael Haneke are cinematic enemies.
Salo by Pier Paolo Pasolini? Look in your VGIK, and it’s enough for us to read the plot.
But you can watch Game of Thrones by closing your eyes in certain places, because the costumes are beautiful.
12. You can cry from scratch
When such a person is hurt to tears for some reason, he is really capable of bursting into tears.
And, by the way, it costs him a lot of effort not to do this. A sad film (without violence), a touching commercial for a charity campaign, a story about a penguin who annually comes to the Brazilian (or Chilean?) who saved him - in general, anything can cause a surge of feelings.
13. You are very polite
Good manners are a hallmark of highly sensitive people: it is important for them not to hurt the feelings of others. They try not to inconvenience others: they regularly give up their seats on public transport, carefully place their carts in the supermarket, let people go ahead, and endlessly apologize and thank you. So sometimes it's even annoying. nine0009
14. You are sensitive to criticism
Highly sensitive people literally cannot stand criticism, taking it to heart. When their team is criticized, they take everything personally.
Because of this, they often use ridiculous defense mechanisms: they try to please everyone in advance, they criticize themselves, they avoid everything that can be a source of criticism.
Dr. Aron claims that self-defense such people use the following methods, which may seem strange to most: minimizing contact, blaming, trying to achieve too high a result, resentment, projecting, refusal to compete. nine0009
15. You can’t work in an open office
Open space is a nightmare for any office employee: noise, bright light that not everyone can stand, constant flickering, talking on the phone, arguments and extraneous smells - all this makes you a highly sensitive person's head is spinning, but it does not work out in any way. He is generally incapable of working under pressure: maybe someone needs a good kick to start working, but not for him.
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10 Rules for a Highly Sensitive Person
1. Remember that you are not alone and that what happens to you is normal.
2. Avoid people you don't like.
3. Avoid situations that make you tired.
4. Don't overload your schedule - otherwise you can fall off at the most inopportune moment.
