2024-04-12 11:10:17
They can’t work under pressure, they experience other people’s emotions as their own, and they tend to be so overwhelmed by the noisy city environment that they have to recharge their batteries in silence. At the same time, hypersensitive people make up a fifth of the population. Among them is the therapist and author of the book Sensitive Alena Wehle. In the interview, he explains that sensitivities also have a number of advantages, they just need suitable conditions to develop them.
Hypersensitive people make up about twenty percent of the population. How do we know if we ourselves do not belong to the highly sensitive group, or if we don’t have someone like that in our environment?
The first distinguishing criterion is the depth of information processing. Hypersensitive people think a lot about everything. They analyze everything and connect it to other things. Small talk about the weather doesn’t fill them. Once they have a conversation with someone, they tend to get more out of them, find out who they really are and what emotions they are experiencing.
The second distinguishing sign is the reaction to stimuli. A hypersensitive person has a very sensitive nervous system, so nothing will leave him cold. At the moment, for example, we are sitting in a noisy cafe, where many impulses are flowing at us. Because I am hypersensitive, all messages from the outside touch me somehow, none just pass by. Therefore, highly sensitive people are often criticized by others for taking things too seriously. We hear, let’s let it float, after all, it’s nothing. However, details are often important to us.
Is hypersensitivity more common in some sociodemographic groups than others? Some might attribute higher sensitivity to women, introverts or the younger generation, for example.
Research shows that there is an equal representation of men and women among hypersensitive people. It is true that high sensitivity occurs more often in introverts, but at the same time, up to 30 percent of us are extroverts. In addition, many people are somewhere in between on the scale of introversion and extroversion. The degree of sensitivity then does not depend on the standard of living, as one might assume.
Unfortunately, we do not know if hypersensitivity was as widespread in society in the past as it is today. In the past, therapeutic care was not as accessible nor was it customary to talk about emotions so much, so we lack data. But, for example, in my surroundings I came across a number of more perceptive, empathic men who drowned their sensitivity in alcohol. They became lonely drinkers who had already given up on life. For them, alcohol was an acceptable form of suffocating their hypersensitivity. Displacement used to be a common practice, people took their sensitivity as a weakness.
“More sensitive people need to work at their own pace, rest a lot more, spend a lot more time in silence. But that didn’t suit me at all,” admits Alena Wehle. | Photo: Jiří Svoboda
You only got to work as a therapist when you found out in your thirties that you yourself belong to hypersensitive people. Before that, you worked as a business manager. Did you previously perceive your own sensitivity as a weakness that is better to hide?
Certainly. I come from the Beskydy Mountains, from the steel town of Třinec, and it always seemed to me that not only resistance is cultivated there, but also greater rudeness. People there didn’t show so much what they were experiencing inside, they hid behind a rough facade. That’s why I tried to manage it too. More sensitive people need to work at their own pace, rest much more, spend much more time in silence. But that didn’t suit me at all, I needed to keep pace with others, so I outdid myself for a long time and then I was completely exhausted in my work and personal life.
When I found out that sensitivity is behind everything, I was very relieved. At the same time, I realized that, thanks to hypersensitivity, I have certain gifts that others may lack. For a long time, I thought that what I perceive, everyone else perceives, only I am tired of it and take it too much. It didn’t occur to me that I have an intuition that is not so common and can, on the contrary, help me.
A number of companies today, on the other hand, emphasize resistance, performance, speed and flexibility. How can highly sensitive people navigate such an environment without being completely crushed?
Difficult. Sensitive people do not tolerate pressure well. If there is too much, they will block completely. They start to make mistakes at a fast pace and gradually stop managing the work. In companies that emphasize efficiency and try to get the most out of employees, hypersensitive people are the first to drop out.
They need to be motivated in a more subtle way, positively stimulated and in tune. Only then will they get into the flow and give their best. Hypersensitive people are like orchids. If they don’t have the right conditions, they just live and look like they’re going to die. But if you start taking care of them properly, they will suddenly bloom and surpass other flowers. With a good nutrient soil, their advantages become even more pronounced.
On the other hand, which qualities can hypersensitive people excel at work?
For example, they excel in creativity, they are often gifted with various artistic talents. But creative people tend to be fragile at the same time. Imagine if you were hypersensitive and in the editorial office they pressured you to write articles as fast as possible and on topics for which you are not completely ready. In such a situation, you wouldn’t come out of anything very silly. But if you were given the space you need, you could give the articles a lot of care and create something really interesting.
Another quality that can be put to good use is intuition. If I stick to your profession, a hypersensitive person can intuitively sense which social topics might be interesting because they pay a lot of attention to what is going on around them. Highly sensitive people also tend to be the glue of the collective. They try to connect with others, prevent conflicts and draw attention to shortcomings in the bud, which could mean much bigger problems in the future.
Highly sensitive people also care a lot about how others perceive them. Although they are full of thoughts and emotions, they cannot express them so easily.
Yes, only through gradual self-discovery can we arrive at how to share our inner processes with the world. If I’m constantly overwhelmed and don’t think about my limits, I’ll end up so exhausted after a few hours that I won’t even be able to communicate normally. I will just retort to all questions from those around me, my outer facade will look like no one wants to talk to me. If, on the other hand, I realize that I can’t stand sitting here in a noisy cafe for more than two hours, I can already tell you in a human way that I have to leave.
We must learn to communicate our sensitivity in a way that others can understand. For example, I like to use the simile that I feel as if I have fifty fingers on both hands and with each finger I am touching something new. Suddenly I have to process so many sensations that I need silence. When I explain it vividly to my loved ones, no one will say anything against it. But if I overstep my bounds and suddenly start yelling at them, they won’t logically understand what’s going on.
“When you wander through the countryside for a long time, you can look into your inner drawers and find out what topics you are always charged with emotions,” emphasizes the therapist. | Photo: Jiří Svoboda
To make matters worse, hypersensitive people tend to be much more sensitive to other people’s emotions. They experience the suffering of their loved ones as their own, which is another onslaught on their personal boundaries.
Yes, even in this case we often cross our own boundaries. Our typical characteristic – considerateness – comes into play. We wish that the people around us are well, and we believe that then we will be well too. We tend to care for others and at the same time we want them to reciprocate our care, or at least appreciate it. But when we fail to help a loved one and we see that they still feel stupid, we tend to be terribly disappointed and consider it our failure. If our colleague is getting divorced, we are burdened by his relationship troubles just as much as he is, because we are experiencing them with him. In some couples, the men are so attuned to their partners that they go through childbirth and menstruation with them.
Don’t hypersensitive people more often end up in toxic relationships in which they completely neglect themselves?
Such relationships tend to be quite common, especially when highly sensitive people grew up with parents who did not teach them to respect their own boundaries. Then when they meet a toxic person who needs a lot of space and response, they automatically open the door to their intimate zone and lack the inhibitions to define themselves towards him.
Among other things, you organize therapies in the forest for your clients. How can being in nature help hypersensitive people?
We find peace there. This morning, for example, I was woken up by the singing of birds, which, like other natural sounds, activates the parasympathetic system and makes us relax, even though it can be quite intense. However, with therapies in the forest, it is mainly about the experience of wandering, which I consider to be a great method of psychohygiene. When you wander the countryside for a long time, you can look in your inner drawers as you walk and see what topics you still have emotionally charged or do not have them stored enough so that they do not burden you. You can continuously return to them and find new solutions.
When you are not closed between four walls, but looking out into the landscape, you can gain perspective on situations. Movement awakens the capacity for action in us. Some problems suddenly seem trivial to us, we realize that we can make a change and that it may not be as difficult as we imagined. At the same time, in nature we gain trust relatively quickly towards the person with whom we travel. Sometimes just walking together for an hour is enough to put aside some of our embarrassment or defenses and be able to connect with others. When we walk, we don’t look in the eyes, but in front of each other, so we lose our shame and the topics can flow freely.
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