Any other HSPs on here?

The Emperor's Lounge
#22

Well the perceived physiological intensity of the stimulus for this statement, is based on how much subconscious FEAR you have.

Which is 100% BAD. So if you are to ignore the Causation then you are automatically concluding that High Sensitivity is and can be a BAD thing…
since for this statement FEAR beliefs —> High Sensitivity and the High Sensitivity in this case is an obstacle for the person.

The purpose of these tests is to help people self-identify and learn about themselves… now what would be more conducive to GROWTH and actually helpingsomeone in the right direction?

  1. You have a fear based belief system limiting your potential, here are the tools to become better…

or

  1. You’re highly sensitive

#2 is being focused on instead of actual awareness of causation for “High Sensitivity” (sensitivity within the context of FEAR which at that point just means you have bad belief systems)

and now what happens is there’s less emphasis of FEAR beliefs (the real issue) due to being under the label of High Sensitivity, and resultantly a normalization of those FEAR beliefs because it’s tied down to a neutral label like “Highly Sensitive person”

and that is why I say that, that specific statement, is more of an indicator of FEAR beliefs than it is an indicator of High Sensitivity, because the former is 10000x more important for the actual purpose of the test, and for the awareness of the individual.

The sensitivity is too contingent on a negative causation to the point that it becomes trivial in comparison, so it’s not realistically appropriate to be used as an indicator

You have to realize the bigger picture of what the point of all of this is and how it trains people to think lol

High Sensitivity with a negative context = Fear Based Beliefs
Low Sensitivity with negative context = Fear Based Beliefs

Calling those things High Sensitivity or Low Sensitivity, just trains people to be ignorant of their issues and less aware that they have an issue, especially when you put emphasis on a label

I’ve seen the result of it countless times lol

A good parallel is the Introvert/Extrovert. Most people who identify as an Introvert are actually harboring deep fears of rejection, expression, low self worth, fear of what other’s think, etc.

If you know how beliefs tie into behavior and if you’re well experienced in patterns of behavior associated with different types of subconscious fear, then you’d easily see that on any Introvert/Extrovert test, the indicators of the Introvert are just manifested behavior of FEAR based belief systems. However, you’ll see people walking around completely ignorant of their FEARS and the work that they need to do, comfortably settled into their normalized identity of an Introvert because “well you know I’m an Introvert and this is how they are”.

Lol

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#23

And that is your belief.

Nothing wrong with that. Your belief may be accurate and useful. It also may be inaccurate.

Without actual evidence, however, (something other than simply making a convincing argument), it remains only a personal belief.

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#24

Well, no

“When I must compete or be observed while performing a task, I become so nervous or shaky that I do much worse than I would otherwise.”

The behavior depicted in this statement is caused by subconscious fear and there is an insane amount of evidence for that. This is an objective fact so it can’t be inaccurate

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Evidence for the Impact of Subconscious Fear
#25

I suspect that we have some points of agreement. But this thread feels like it is getting derailed. I’ve created another thread if you want to present some of your evidence.

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#26

Did the test and got a score of 4…

Anyway, I have difficulty answering such tests. It’s the same with the MBTI tests. Most of the time, when the question is about my reaction to a situation (e.g. loud noises or chaotic environment), my answer would be “it depends”. I find it hard to give a straight yes or no answer.

#27

I’d guess that Emotionally Sensitive and Neurologically Sensitive may be distinct types (not necessarily mutually exclusive).

:thinking:

Those NLP Learning Style assessments would call me Auditory Digital.
A possible effect of that is – I get irritated when the Noise doesn’t make sense to me.

Here’s a curious example:

I have no issues with kids screaming in a park.
I get super-pissed when they do it in a bedroom.

Yet …
If I start a game, and they’re screaming as a part of that…
Others will show up wanting us to calm down, while
I’ll be completely oblivious of the ruckus we’re creating.

:rofl:

Anyway, what I really wanted to say was…

:point_down:t2:

My sensitivity to loud noises was much lower when I used the original versions of Regeneration (ND) and Dragon Reborn (Qv1).

I don’t do healing subs much; so can’t report on current versions.

Posting here for HSPs to check out.

:+1:t2:

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#28

I agree for example I usually put myself in situations that challenge my fear and help me overcome it my mother on the other hand avoids them I used to be like that but I felt like I was a prisoner of Fear facing my fear is what has helped me progress in life although its very uncomfortable during the process but the results have been very rewarding. Now concerts no I won’t do lol just because there is no benefit to passing out in a public place with a bunch of people that don’t care and they don’t know your HSP they assume your intoxicated .you still have to weight out the pros and cons with the situations you decide to get involved in.

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#29

Things such as?

#30

Being exposed to too much stimulus and then needing decompression time. It’s like the nervous system is ramped up and needs to calm down.

Tension in the air when around people with any sort of conflict. This can also be a trauma response that results in hyper vigilant awareness. But we’ve both talked about how we pick up on the general feel of a room when walking into it. On that note, being around a lot of people at once can be suffocating. Again too much stimulus.

Generally life difficulties due to having a lower threshold for being able to tolerate things. Customer service facing jobs are my personal hell.

Like I stated previously unfortunately I’ve experienced more negative than positive with being a HSP at this stage in my life. It’s hard to give concrete examples because so much of this is based on feeling.

#31

I see. Thank you for elaborating.

#33

So, one point to be clear on when we’re talking about variation and distribution of characteristics among human beings (and other animals) is that we’re generally talking about relative qualities, rather than absolute qualities.

In other words, we’re literally looking at distributions of qualities around population norms or means. Sometimes these population means may be imagined and sometimes they may be actual.

So, for example, we could look at height and divide people into so-called Taller people and so-called Shorter people.

There is no particular numeric height amount that is objectively short or objectively tall. These terms are relative and are only meaningful relative to some kind of internalized norm. In other words, whatever you take to be ‘normal height’ will determine what you experience as tall (taller than that norm) or short (shorter than that norm).

Norms are established through a number of ways. And none of those ways are particularly objective either. If we were going to be objective, even at a very primitive level, we would take the height measurements of all 7.8 billion people currently living on Earth. We’d add all of those heights together and divide the number by 7.8 billion and we’d end up with the true average height. If we were being a little more detailed, we would possibly stratify those people by gender and age groupings. And find the average heights for each stratum.

Doesn’t really matter though, because we almost never do that. Instead, we 1) eyeball it and 2) absorb whatever norms are broadcast to us by the most influential, credible or just damned persistent authorities and information sources around us. Sometimes this is TV. If a TV show tells us that 6 feet is the normal height. (or even better, the ‘ideal’ height) then we internalize that and hope to achieve it. Or we rebel and reject it.

Point is, some combination of the actual norm (or, the population average) and the subjective/cultural norm (the socially accepted standard) influences how we assign judgments in the world.

High Sensitivity is no exception. When we say ‘highly sensitive’ we’re talking about how an individual’s nervous system processes stimuli relative to how the average nervous system processes stimuli.

There are two main attributes of Processing Sensitivity.

On the Challenge side of things, we’re looking at Overwhelm and the sensations, experiences and consequences around the *overload of one’s avenues of input and processing. Relative to population norms, it takes a lower quantity, intensity, and magnitude of stimulation to ‘max out’ an HSPs processing bandwidth.

On the gifts and strengths side, we’re talking about Nuance and Richness of processing.

Relative to the population average, an HSP experiences and generates greater nuance of sensation and perception from the exact same stimulation source.

That’s all that Processing Sensitivity is. My favorite analogy is of a surgeon’s scalpel in comparison to an electric buzzsaw for cutting through trees.

The surgeon’s scalpel is highly sensitive compared to the electric buzzsaw.

Try to chop down a tree with a scalpel and very quickly it’s tensile strength and blade sharpness will be overwhelmed by the task. It will probably bend out of shape and the blade will become dull. That is Overwhelm.

In contrast, with a refined enough scalpel, it is literally possible to do reconstructive surgery on tendons and delicate body tissues. Try accomplishing that task using an electric buzzsaw. That’s the Nuance side of things.

Some societies and cultures recognize and honor the strengths of the “scalpels” who exist in the community. Some societies do not. The ones who do are the ones that value the human equivalent of ‘delicate surgery’.

In the societies that do not, it is typical to find such people hating themselves and burning themselves out trying their best to become better ‘buzzsaws’.

Human beings and other animals can achieve some truly miraculous things and there’s no reason to accept some mythical limitation on what you can be, do, or become. At the same time, it’s foolish to deny your strengths, limitations, and attributes; or to pretend that they simply are not there.

We can fly now because people kept trying to find ways to fly that actually worked; Not because people just kept randomly jumping off of mountains and buildings.

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#34

Anyway, back to the point:

High Sensitivity involves two main dimensions: Nuance of Processing and Threshold of Overwhelm.

It comes down to managing these two dimensions well.

If you’re 5 foot 8, 160 pounds and you think you should be 6 foot 7, 240 pounds; you may buy clothes that are too large, eat larger quantities of food than are healthy for you, and so on.

The point here is to develop strategies and visions that are optimally tailored to your actual characteristics. To love, to embrace, and to plan for your actual characteristics. (Love is meant as a verb here; not just a feeling. There is room for choice.)

#35

I wouldn’t have thought so otherwise, but then I took the quiz… 22 lol.

Some of these things I’d just consider to be traits of an introvert, and wouldn’t everyone check this one??

I am annoyed when people try to get me to do too many things at once.

By definition, it’s “too many things”, and is, therefore, an impossible request… or, at least, impossible to do properly. My wife is always doing this - she’ll ask me to do one thing, and then immediately afterward, asks me to do something completely different… then wonders why I’m not already doing it.

Can anyone tell me why “I’m still doing that other thing you asked me to do!” isn’t an acceptable excuse?? lol.

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#36

Haha.

There’s some level of overlap between the two constructs. Most but not all HSPs are introverts. I think the stat was 80% or so.

For most people, the term ‘sensitivity’ connotes emotionality, sympathy, empathy, etc. HSPs can of course have such qualities, but the term refers to processing sensitivity.

Anyway. Welcome to the thread, @BLACKICE.

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#37

I do my best to damp down any of that kind of sensitivity; I’ve never been able to wrap my head around the idea of why would anyone want to watch something they knew would make them so sad they’d cry??

My mother is a proud card-carying HSP and even participates in an online (danke, Covid…) support group. If anything, it’s made her even more over-sensitive, not less!

Me? I study neural function, and understand based on detailed scans of my own brain that I have an overactive amygdala, and an underactive vagus nerve. Meditation helps, but I’m still quick to anger and I crave serenity. Give me a quiet cabin in the country over a downtown condo any day of the week.

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#38

Wow. There must be an interesting story behind this.

#39

I suppose! in late 2019 I went to a week-long EEG neurofeedback program and it involved extensive brain mapping, combined with qEEG neurofeedback sessions in isolation pods.

At the end of the week I received a binder with all of my brain scans and EEG data; I still need to get a fMRI to investigate one thing of interest, but then covid happened and I’ve been putting it off since then.

Things… traits, symptoms, etc… don’t just appear from space. They’re the result of underlying conditions, many of them most-decidedly non-optimal.

My mom was told she was a HSP and treats it as a cast-in-stone certainty. I have no such diagnosis, merely an observation of my symptoms, and my takeaway is there is room for improvement in my neural functioning.

I also have low T, but am working on that separately. My Dr. wants to know for certain that we’re NOT going to have any more kids (undecided as of yet) before she’ll put me on TRT. I haven’t taken the time to investigate whether any of the OTC supplements will be actually effective enough, and I’m not trusting that to the bro science that abounds on the internet.

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#40

Just for the sake of clarity for anyone who may be unfamiliar and reading about this for the first time, high sensitivity is a neutral trait. It is neither a disease nor a symptom of a disease. Thus it is not ‘diagnosed’ any more than one’s height, hand dominance, or eye color would be diagnosed. It is simply assessed, measured, and described.

On the other hand, like any other trait or capacity, processing sensitivity can be managed well and functionally, and it can also be managed poorly and dysfunctionally. While the dysfunctional management of sensitivity may lead to symptoms and problems, the sensitivity itself is not the problem. This is similar to how dysfunctional management of one’s teeth can lead to cavities, caries and tooth decay; but possessing teeth in the first place is not a disease to be diagnosed. (haha. The latest medical thriller-- Diagnosis: Teeth! .)

High sensitivity describes the intensities and thresholds of one’s optimal range of sensory stimulation and processing. It’s only labeled as ‘high’ due to where it falls relative to the population average. Other than that it behaves quite ordinarily.

Human beings can hear pitches covering about 9 octaves of sound ranging from 31 Hz at the low end up to around 19000 Hz at the high end (or 20 Hz to 20000 Hz). But the average person hears most clearly sounds that are between 2000 and 5000 Hz. For loudness, the range of human hearing is from around 0 decibels to 140 decibels.

A person who easily hears pitches in the 10000 Hz to 19000 Hz range (or pitches lower than 900 Hz) or who can hear sounds quieter than 0 decibels can be described as having ‘highly sensitive’ hearing. That hearing by itself is not a “disease”. The disease would come if this person were to choose to spend lots of time around construction sites, airplane runways, and other loud areas without wearing ear protection. The noise in those places would damage anyone’s hearing over time, but it will probably damage our Highly Sensitive Hearer faster and more extensively. Diseases associated with high sensitivity are, in other words, the results of its mismanagement (as is true for so many dysfunctions).

HSPs may be like the canaries of the human coal mine. But simply being a canary is not, in and of itself, a disease. On the contrary, the wise—and healthy—canary chooses, whenever possible, not to accompany humans into coal mines in the first place. And if she has to go down there, she wears a little canary respirator (as do also coal miners, by the way).

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#41

Also this:

#42

Very true - my opinion that it’s a negative situation is just that, an opinion.

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