A Letter to My Sensitive Friends

I just want to hide in the shadows. Photo credit Justyna Kulam

It’s well documented in our family that I needed zero ‘disciplining’ as a child, since the mear stern glance from my parents would reduce me to tears. I was so famous for sulking that my grandma would say ‘you could sit a monkey on that lip’ in her broad Lancashire accent.

Into my teens, divorce lead the narrative. It hit me like cold bare knuckles and my (already) emotional inner world compounded. I couldn’t understand or process the anger; nor could my personality voice it: so I “sulked”. Sinking mercifully into melancholy: it became my sanctuary of solitude. 

“You’re too sensitive'“

“You worry too much”

“You’re too emotional”

“You think about what others think way too much”

This dialogue has followed me for my entire life. Well meant words from loved ones and apathetic acquaintances alike: weaving like weeds through my mind. And yes, I am all of those things. I react strongly and emotionally to many events and situations, often for reasons that would seem so benign to many.

I’m a people pleaser to the absolute letter of the definition: I often meltdown when making social arrangements; I want to cry if my partner “takes a tone”;  I get anxiety attacks if I even feel like I’ve upset somebody (even if evidence says I haven’t); or find myself in a remotely conflict-feeling situation. I feel tight chested in loud, busy or visually complex environments; and seemingly tiny things often feel massive in my inner world: visceral sensations engulf like tides.

Engulfed. photo credit @stormseeker via unsplash

The problem with platitudes like the list above, is that inherently they only deem to make us feel worse. Like we’re over-reacting, or ‘making a big deal out of nothing’, and worse of all: that we’re ‘being dramatic’. And, truthfully I’ve assumed for years that I was weird, or broken, or not coping, or falling behind somehow in ‘the mental game of life’: my mind in chaos, obsessed with self-help and the reactions of other people; and wanting therapy to ‘fix’ myself.

Breathing Chaos (2021): celebrating the beautiful and the broken. One of the very first works in my debut series which celebrates anxiety, sensitivity and the chaos of our inner worlds of emotion.

Of course outwardly no one but my ultimate support network would truly know any of this about me: 39 years of  masking and a sprinkling of ‘extrovert’ has dealt with that nicely. I always focus on others: I’m the listener, the advisor - the ‘nice one’: But as I approach my 40th year, It’s exhausting, and I’m tired.

I kind of gently believe in the universe: I believe things and people find you at the exact time you’re ready to learn something new about yourself and grow. And so when I stumbled upon the work of Elaine Aron, Ph.D and her book ‘The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You’   during a marathon middle-of-the-night-Google-reassurance-research-meltdown-in-the-dark kind of session (If you know you know): of course, I hit ‘Buy’.

The colour of Melencholy.

I wept through most of it in classic ‘Highly Sensitive Person’ style. Chapter after chapter, wide eyed and in disbelief: not disbelief that I was relating to much of it, but disbelief that  I’ve spent a lot of my life feeling like I was a weirdo; bending out of shape for other people and hiding my opinions and truth for fear of the emotional backlash. And that made me sad. And whilst I’m sure my parents could have told me I was sensitive 39 years ago - without a book or a label  - reading this meant so much more to me. Because I simply felt validated.

All the Answers are Here (2021) explores the mental landscape of decision making and chronic anxiety. The concept that everything we need and want is already presently residing inside.

It’s true that in this world sensitivity isn’t given any air time. In our non-facing, de-friending, ghosting and gaslighting culture, being polite, conscientious and sensitive to the emotions of others (and ourselves!) is not rewarded, or admired, and often (worse) it’s mocked or dismissed.  It’s not the message we’ve grown up around  - which becomes near impossible to shake. Seemingly, we need to be rude and ‘not bothered’, and go-getting and busy and strong and constantly sociable and endlessly productive.

This mis-alignment of our personality to the messages we’ve grown up with and are living around - in my opinion - creates anxious people. People who become stressed and overwhemed by the world and want to retreat: often feeling the need to make excuses rather than speak their truth, because seemingly saying ‘“sorry no, I can’t see you tonight because I need a break before we’ve even started” doesn’t feel the right type of opening line to making new friends.

My Home. My safe space. My sanctury from the world. Photo credit Justyna Kulam

And so we diminish ourselves. We grow smaller and worry that we’re not the type of people who typically do ‘best’ in this world, or worse, try to keep up: and burn out.

But guess what? 

The longer I live and the more people I meet, I realise that it is the sensitive types that stand the tallest in my esteem. It is the quiet creatives, the conscientious and the empaths; the listeners, the collaborators and the emotionally intelligent who grow and add value to our lives and the conversation for the duration. It’s these people that stick around in my life and in my mind, as the loudest and most uncaring surface-level types fade away from significance. 

The people I need and the people that we all need are all ‘too sensitive’, and ‘too emotional’ and always ‘think about others too much’; this is the type of person I will teach my son to be: but can we just drop the ‘too’??! Because it doesn’t help any of us to feel validated.

Teaching my son that being sensitive is a super power will be one of my greatest achievements . Photo credit Justyna Kulam

The long and lonely road to understanding and accepting sensitivity in our culture.

So, do I need to work in 2023 on creating more boundaries for myself and for my life? Yes - its a whole other blog post in itself, and one of the reasons I find myself in (yet another) mental hole. Do I need to consciously create more down time and opportunities for alone time and self care? Yes, yes I do - for my sanity and my mental health. It’s a long and often lonely road getting to know yourself - before you’ve even started trying to let other people know what you want and need. But at least now, with this base knowledge, I know I’m not ‘broken’. And maybe, just maybe - my sensitive friends - you can realise that too.

For the Journey,

Nikki