Highly Sensitive Persons

A HSP, Highly Sensitive Person is someone who's much more sensitive in perceiving impressions and subtle signs. Every day we get impressions through our sensory organs, hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting and feeling.
A HSP perceives these impressions more intense then the average person. They have a very sensitive nervous system. To others they might seem weak and that's one of the problems HSP's often have to deal with. They are often judged by their sensitivity in a negative way. So besides their sensitivity they also have to cope with the judgement of our society.

High sensitivity can be used as a positive quality. For example: When you're highly sensitive you can trace danger faster, tell when someone lies, notice subtle changes, enjoy music and art much more intense and concentrate better.

Like all qualities high sensitivity has its pitfalls. For example: Working overtime too much, caring about others and forgetting themselves, being a perfectionist, feeling overwhelmed by impressions and being afraid to make mistakes.

Highly Sensitive Persons:

*Feel moods of other people
*They perceive more subtle, intense and detailed
*Experience, reflect and feel deep and intense
*Dislike certain penetrating stimuli
*Get stimuli from things that others not even notice
*Get satisfied sooner by certain stimuli
*Are touched by nature, art or music more then the average person.
*Think about their life goal a lot
*Love to philosophize and have rich inner experiences
*Dream, fantasize and consider much
*Are attentive and interested
*Function best in their own pace
*Are accurate in signalising and avoiding mistakes
*Need to spent time alone and enjoy this
*They think respect and justice are very important
*Are often dutiful and anticipating to the needs of others
*Relatively experience more tensions, stress and physical troubles like headaches, stomach/intestine problems, skin irritations and allergies.
*Have mood swings and strong emotions
*Have a higher risk on becoming depressed, chronic fatigue and addictions
*Feel that the quality and satisfaction of a job is just as important as the financial profit.

Highly sensitive persons care a lot about their life goal. For them a psychic income (quality and satisfaction of a job) is just as important as the financial profit. Often HSP's have a job that beneath their abilities in this way they hope to cope with their jobs. But they'll miss inspiration and satisfaction on a higher level and therefore the job will eventually take more energy.

HSP's have to find a way to live in our society by using both their intuition and intellect. It's finding their personal balance. How can you live and feel in this world without being overwhelmed? Finding the balance and freeing the feelings that were suppressed in the past. Learning to be who you are and what you feel. Accepting fear, anger,sadness and happiness.

A HSP isn't better than others and doesn't has to be cured. They're just more sensitive then the average person. Feeling is no better then reason. They're ment to be balanced.
Highly sensitive persons can learn to cope with stimuli. This means taking emotions, feelings and thoughts serious, harmonise and integrate them into your life. In this way High sensitivity is a quality.

I didn't knew all this was part of being HSP. I now certainly know that I have it too.

Thanks for this explaination.

I'll post a story based on this

Nice it was usefull to you! And i'm curious about your story.

Well i can say pretty much everything on those statements fit in on me.
Either way im proud of being one and i love it

As with me too. Impressive. And I thought that empathic abilities were rare

Well Frank, you'll learn that most of the things you find rare are quite common on this forum.

Atleast, thats how I experience it.

I agree with Chip on this one

I didn't know that much about HSP. I learned a lot of this article! Thank you

Very interesting article, I learned alot from this. Helped me explain things I didnt know about HSP

I'm glad many people learned from this.
HSP is quite an unknown item over here, i dunno how this is where you live. That's why i think more people should know about hsp. About 15-20% of the world population has problems coping with stimuli. A lot of them don't know this and blame themselves. They think they're weak or are afraid to be judged by their sensitivity. So people spread the word!