Growing Up Highly Sensitive

When I was growing up, I talked a lot and loved people. I was the family entertainer, full of life and known as the sensitive one.  I lived in extremes of excitedly happy, really upset, or easily scared. All of which affected me physically. I was scared of the dark, and slept with many blankets on top of me, thinking that would keep me safer.  In grade one class time was social time for me. This resulted in having to do my work on the floor away from my peers.

I remember going to the airport with my parents to drop their friends off and being overcome with sadness even though I hardly knew them and trying to hide my emotions.  In grade four I began to panic when I didn’t know what I was doing; so I started faking sick for certain tests. The first morning of riding camp I saw a boy get bucked off a horse and hit the ground hard. It terrified me to my core.  So I decided to spend most of the two week riding camp in the infirmary not feeling well, anything to avoid that terrified feeling.

I would scream with my mouth closed when I heard buzzing and saw a wasp around me.  I would do a spider check in my room every night before bed and if I found one I would not be able to rest until it was gone.   If I was hungry I needed to stop and eat right away in order to continue with what I was doing. I connected very deeply with our dog and we spent a lot of time together, he knew when I was upset and would stay with me.  

I was supposed to use my inhalers daily for my Asthma but hated the way the medication felt in my body.  In high school, exams were very stressful for me, to the point where my stomach would get upset throughout every exam time.  I couldn’t handle watching scary movies and anything suspenseful created such a charge in me that I wasn’t able to sit still.  

How Did I Cope?

My feelings would be hurt easily, and I would often get overwhelmed. I worried about what others thought of me, and I compared myself to others.  It was exhausting. My coping strategies included avoiding people and things, sometimes trying to control people and my environment and unhealthy people pleasing.  I often retreated into my head to daydream, purposely lost myself in music, or placed myself into the books I read. My sensitivity carried into my adult years. It just grew bigger.

My family did their very best to help me along with their expectations and the expectations of this world.  Naturally, I was encouraged to toughen up, get thicker skin, to be organized and to focus on the task at hand.  When I look back my younger years, it was a lot to be me. Most things felt like too much for my system to handle; whether it was externally in my environment or my internal thoughts, feelings, emotions and energy charges.

I’m sharing part of my story as you may resonate with this personally, please know you are not alone. Or maybe you have children or a loved one that is highly sensitive and it will bring in some awareness of what it can be like.   There is hope for us highly sensitive people; we do not need to live in isolation! Hope is upheld with knowing that whatever is going on for us, or around us, we have the power to look inwards, work on what’s coming up for us, and make new choices for our wellbeing.

I would love to hear from you. You can join the conversation on Facebook, or you can send me a private message here.

Nicole