In the 1990s, Dr. Elaine Aron created the term Highly Sensitive Person (HSP), which he explains in detail in his book “The Gift of Sensitivity.” Highly sensitive people are those who can capture positive and/or negative emotions and sensations intensely. These types of people, rather than being guided by reason, They tend to be guided by their instincts, which they have highly developed and use it to make almost all types of decisions in their life. It is said that between 15 and 20% of people, regardless of sex, have this type of personality, but how do I know if I am a highly sensitive person? What factors influence me to be so?
In this PsychologyFor article we discover you How to know if I am a highly sensitive person so we are going to resolve all your doubts about this topic so that you can finally determine if you are indeed a highly sensitive person and/or learn to identify people who are.
The main characteristics that identify highly sensitive people are the following:
They process information deeply. Highly sensitive people tend to reflect and internalize their thoughts and emotions. They are very introspective people who tend to think about their issues a lot and analyze each situation in detail in order to reach a good conclusion.
Tendency to feel overstimulated. Another characteristic of highly sensitive people is that they process a lot of sensitive and emotional information at the same time, which is why they tend to feel overstimulated. Therefore, finding themselves in environments where there are many stimuli causes them discomfort and makes them lose their mental and emotional balance. It is for this reason that PAS people prefer to be in quiet places where there are few stimuli.
They are very empathetic and emotional. The nervous system of this type of person is programmed to feel everything more intensely. This is why both negative and positive stimuli will be experienced with greater intensity. The person can deeply perceive and experience their own emotions and sensations as well as those of other people, which makes them more empathetic since they easily put themselves in the other person’s shoes.
They are sensitive to subtleties. They have a great ability to perceive changes that occur in their environment, no matter how small they may be. As well as they are also capable of perceiving changes in the emotional state of other people.
Difficulties of highly sensitive people
When a highly sensitive person He does not know how to manage his emotions in a healthy way it is very likely that you will face different types of difficulties that may appear throughout your life.
Between the main difficulties What people who are highly sensitive may face include:
They can have the feeling of not fitting in with others due to their condition of being highly sensitive. Which in the worst case can cause the person to become increasingly isolated from others.
Because they experience positive and negative emotions more intensely, they may be too sensitive to criticism, which if they do not know how to manage it well, ends up gradually deteriorating their self-esteem.
Difficulty setting limits to others because by feeling rejected and finding themselves with damaged self-esteem, they may be doing everything possible to try to please others.
They may appear problems in the workplace due to the overstimulation that regularly occurs at work and the great need to work individually and with minimal stimuli.
Among other problems also related to the lack of acceptance of their own personality, not learning to manage their own emotions and leaving aside the advantages they have depending on their individual situation.
Signs to know if you are a highly sensitive person
Below is a little test Although it cannot guarantee 100% that you are a highly sensitive person, responding positively to most of the statements is an indicator that you have a greater probability of being one of them.
I enjoy time alone much more than being accompanied.
I tend to cry very often.
I am an extremely intuitive person.
I take everything very seriously.
I am a very introspective person, so I know myself pretty well.
I prefer to work alone than in a team.
I consider myself a very intense person, I usually experience negative and/or positive emotions with great intensity.
The criticism that others can make of me hurts me a lot.
When I make a mistake I can’t stop thinking about it and it’s in my head all day.
I get too stressed when I am surrounded by many people.
I consider myself a very creative person.
I usually avoid seeing or hearing bad news and I don’t like movies where there is any type of violence.
I am a very empathetic person.
If you want more information about emotional hypersensitivity, we recommend taking the following sensitivity test.
This article is merely informative, at PsychologyFor we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
If you want to read more articles similar to How to know if I am a highly sensitive person we recommend that you enter our Clinical Psychology category.
