Own your HSP | Highly Sensitive Introvert

As long as I can remember I’ve been too sensitive.

As a young child, I was extremely emotional. I cried often. I was sensitive to the cruelty of others, even when it wasn’t directed at me.

I would pick up on unspoken emotion, particularly tension or anger, in other people. I was shy also and sensitive to fear of new experiences and new people

For most of my life I did not understand what made me different. Even as an adult, It was difficult to grasp that most people did not have the same experience with emotion as I did. It was strange too, because while the source of my ‘differentness’ baffled me, it almost felt as though those around me could pinpoint it better than I could.

The problem was always, always pointed out as being my sensitivity.

My feelings were the problem. My emotions were the problem. Very soon this translated to my brain as the problem being me – this person I am, was the problem. It did not take long for a solution to form.

The solution to the problem of “me” was that I needed to grow a thicker skin.

To grow a thicker skin meant life would be easier, I was told. I would be hurt less, I would be less emotional, which meant I would be more logical. Logic was the goal. And logic, I was told, is devoid of sensitivity.

If I was logical, my opinions would hold more weight too. Oh, and I would be tough, which would mean I was strong. Cause you can’t be strong if you’re sensitive. And being strong was the only way to get through life well.

This idea about growing a thicker skin is not something I can completely blame on other people though. That message was told to me in a thousand different ways over my lifetime by others, but it was something I told myself a thousand more times.

Even to my emotional mind, it is what made the most “sense” – I was too sensitive, so to fix that problem, I just need so toughen up and stop being that way.

Simple solution: Stop. Being. So. Sensitive.

Except, not so simple when sensitive is most of what makes you, you. Not so simple when emotion runs in your veins.

But still I tried. For most of my life I tried.

When I was well into my adult life, my main solution to fixing this problem of being too sensitive, had become to ignore my feelings. I tried to pull them down inside and lock them away.

I was organized about it. My mind is very analytical. Over my lifetime I had developed the ability to detach myself from my feelings fairly well, so this is what I did. Rightful anger, hurt, sensitivity, devastation, I turned my back on them all when they appeared.

I could be wilting inside from pain, but I would put on my mask of being “fine”. I’d tell myself to suck it up, and carry on. I shoved those feelings, and all my dreaded sensitivity down inside. I tried to ignore them.

The act of shutting my emotions off was the only thick skin I could figure out how to grow.

It didn’t work though, not in the way I had planned. Rather than killing just my sensitivity alone to make me more logical, what happened instead was it killed all emotion I had inside.

One day, I woke up to discover I had shut off my emotions so many times that I was unable to turn them back on again, for anything. I felt nothing.

Sure, shutting off my feelings gave me some sense of control over my heightened sensitivity, but I also felt no good anymore – no happiness, no excitement, no calm. Nothing.

I’ve had some challenging people in my life, as I think we all have. When you’re naturally sensitive, you do tend run across people who get under your skin and hurt you at a level which is uncomfortable. For me, it’s always negative people, gossips, backstabbers.

When I was trying to “toughen up”, I could withstand a lot of hurtful things, but there was a particular group of negative people in my life at the time who seemed to be able find that weak spot in my armour, and affect me drastically.

They were not people I could avoid. I had to try to deal with it. There was one lady in this group who almost seemed as though she could sniff out my sensitivity, and took satisfaction in making me feel uncomfortable or hurt.

I went through many years of not handling this situation well. I would let their barbed words wound me. I would let the gossip hurt me.

Outwardly, I would react with hurt – not explosively by any means (that is not my normal way of reacting) – but I would be visibly upset, or would get really quiet and stop being able to be myself.

Either way, they would know they had gotten to me.

Inside, the effects were far worse. My mind would latch on to the stinging hurt of their negative opinions about me. I would feel angry and hurt, and helpless to stop it.

My mind would roll their words around, unable to let go. I would take those negative opinions about me as being the truth of who I was, and let them pull my already low sense of self worth even lower.

As I began to embrace my introversion, I also discovered that I am a highly sensitive person. I hadn’t heard of the term highly sensitive person or HSP before. As first glance I rejected the idea.

It seemed too ‘out there’ for me. At that time, I was still working to try to become more in control of my emotions, to be more logical and ‘stronger’, so why would I latch onto something that was only an excuse to let my emotions run amok? I was scared of what accepting being HSP would mean, so I resisted.

Still, it pulled at me. In my heart of hearts I knew it fit. I began to get to know some other highly sensitive people. I began asking questions, and reading and learning.

Coming to accept that I am HSP was a process for me. There was no lightbulb moment. I had to slowly relax and grow accustomed to the idea, and then let what being HSP meant seep into my mind and my heart.

It was a major shift in focus. I had spent my entire life resisting being highly sensitive. Being sensitive was bad. It was a problem that I was supposed to eradicate.

But now, all of a sudden, maybe being sensitive was ok? It was part of who I was. There was positive in it.

This message was one that my mind had never heard before: to go ahead and just be the sensitive person you ARE. And to learn how to best utilise that sensitivity as a good thing.

It took some time, but I am used to thinking that way now. I can’t count the amount of times I have encouraged another sensitive person by saying ‘BE who you ARE’. Those are words I live by now, if I had a motto for myself in life, that would be it.

Be who you are. Own your HSP. They are life changing words, they bring freedom.

Own your highly sensitive nature. Learn what being HSP means for you. See the positives with enthusiasm, and learn to build on those things. Acknowledge the negatives, and learn solutions to work with them.

When I finally came to the acceptance that this highly sensitive heart, which is both a curse and blessing, is OK to have – it felt as though chains fell off me. I could breathe for the first time in my life.

I could start figuring out who ‘myself’ was for the very first time. It was a new beginning.

The difficult people are still in my life. As I have grown in acceptance of who I am as a highly sensitive introvert, a quiet confidence has also grown.

This confidence has helped me in learning how to manage the difficult people too. Rather than trying to kill my sensitivity by separating myself from my emotions in situations like this, my focus instead became separating myself from the importance of their opinions to me.

It took thinking through and being deliberate.

For a while, it took using my mind to consistently remind my feelings that their opinions don’t change who I am. Now it’s been long enough, that they rarely upset me anymore.

I am calm now, and pleasant in demeanour when around the difficult people. The the best part is that calmness is not an act or a defensive front. Is a true reflection of how I am feeling inside.

The change in me has been noticeable enough that a few months back one of these ladies said something to me about it. We were talking, casually. Out of the blue she looked at me with a puzzled look on her face and said ‘Leila, you’re…different, lately. You seem like you’ve really grown a thicker skin finally”.

I laughed, and stopped for a second. “No” I said back to her, “the reason I’ve changed is not because I grew a thicker skin. The reason I’ve changed is because I finally accepted and embraced how sensitive I am”.

She looked confused. I smiled, but didn’t say anything more. I couldn’t. I was overcome by emotion as I swelled with pride inside.

Emotion and pride, because I had not realized how true those words were until I said them.

And I had not realized how much joy owning my highly sensitive nature had brought me until those words came out of my mouth. It is a different life. A better one.

Leila Elizabeth

Always a lover of words, I began reading them at a young age, and began creating with them shortly thereafter.

A bend in the road led me to embrace my introversion, and to discover my identity as a highly sensitive person. As I have moved along the path in learning more about who I am, how to take care of myself as an introvert, and how to handle the challenges of life as an HSP - my love of writing has been rekindled and embraced once again. It intertwines with the journey I am on, and is reflected in what I write.