By Molly - aged 20.
I first learned about the trait of being highly sensitive just over a year ago. After years of thinking there was something wrong with me it finally allowed me to make sense of the majority my life.
As a younger child, confidence was never an issue for me. I was involved in lots of activities and was thriving socially. It wasn’t until I became a teenager I started to struggle with who I was. School wasn’t a problem for me until I became consumed by anxiety around the age of 14. I felt nauseous, dizzy and had panic attacks and brain fog that made me so confused I became a shadow of my former self. In class, I would sit frozen by fear in my seat, hearing the sound of my own heartbeat over the teachers voice. I would pray not to be asked to speak, as any attention on me at all felt like public humiliation and ‘exposure’. I could not perform or function in the spotlight. I became paranoid by how loud I was breathing and had a fear of being hungry in class, as I felt overly in tune and ‘locked in’ my body. I had also just been diagnosed with coeliac disease and was learning how to adapt to that and recover from how sick I had been pre diagnosis. I started struggling with things that were once second nature to me, and I lost love for my passions. This was quite a drastic change from who I knew myself to be before, so my self worth was very negatively impacted. In general, I found school very overwhelming - with all the people, bright lights, noise and the tangible atmosphere of stress. I really struggled with the harsh environment, as I took criticism and judgement very personally in fear of letting people in authority down or feeling like I was ‘in trouble’. I started using avoidance as a way to keep myself ‘safe’ from it all. I kept my head down, avoided all assemblies and walked out of school early most days. I would sit at the bus station by myself in tears, feeling so ashamed as to why I couldn’t cope. I sat in a room by myself during all exams because I was too anxious and hyper alert of my surroundings to sit in a silent hall full of other students. I felt like I was stuck in survival mode and controlled by irrational fear, whilst all my peers were growing up and enjoying life. By the end of school I was going in 2 out of 5 days a week, had no plans for university and was dreading my future.
Outside of school I also felt quite isolated from my peers. I would say I lived most of my life ‘in my head’ and had a vivid imagination. As a teenager, I couldn’t stand small talk and I forced myself to mirror my friends as I didn’t feel like I was naturally similar to others my age. My mind was always racing with thoughts, I couldn’t resonate with anything I found superficial and I had a need to be wholly understood by those close to me. I was very empathetic and always seemed to have a more intense and emotional reaction to certain situations than others had. I had a very strong value system and held myself to a standard of moral perfection - that everything I did had to be ‘done right’. By my late teens, I was exhausted by living ‘on edge’ all the time and being constantly in a state of overwhelm. To try and cope, I got into a cycle of binging and restricting with food, relying on people pleasing and alcohol to function ‘well’ socially, and escaped through mindless social media usage. I developed an obsession with ‘self improvement’, fixating solely on my physical appearance and neglecting my mental health to compensate for the fact that I felt flawed. I lost my personality to my fear of being wrongly perceived and had a need for external validation, as internally I felt so abnormal and out of control. I had lost all sense of self and thought the easiest option for me was to pretend to be someone else in order to get by.
Shortly after leaving school I was introduced to the concept of high sensitivity. It was a weight off my shoulders knowing that I was not the problem. Nothing has ever resonated with me so heavily as reading the list of highly sensitive traits and realising why I had felt the way I had. It was my sensitive nature that caused me to feel out of place in a school environment - as I'm affected by the moods of those around me and the environment that I’m in. It also summed up how I have navigated platonic and romantic relationships my whole life. Everything was so accurate, even down to my coeliac diagnosis. I was not aware that autoimmune diseases are common in HSP’s, as it affects us emotionally and physically.
Over the past year or two, I would say I’ve been on an up and down healing journey. I’ll be 21 this year and it is only now that i am starting to learn how to live my life authentically. It is such a comforting revelation that we do not need to change to fit an environment that was not created to suit us. High sensitivity is such a good reminder of our human uniqueness - there is no room for shame about who we are, as we are made in Gods image. There can be negative sides to being highly sensitive, but most of the traits are not to be hidden. The ability to have such understanding, empathy and care for others- feeling their pain as if it were our own. To be perceptive and in tune, deeply appreciative of the arts, music and nature and creatively and spiritually gifted. All of these things can be a blessing to those around us when harnessed. It is important that everyone who is highly sensitive is informed of who they are so they can live their life freely to the full. It is for this reason a platform like this has come to fruition- to allow a community of individuals to embrace the opportunity for vulnerability, to share in experiences and lift each other up. Molly.