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High sensitivity symptoms and properties
contents
- Properties with high sensitivity
- The weaknesses of sensitivity
- slowness?
- harmony
- Highly sensitive children
- The highly sensitive at work
- The niches of the sensitive
- What to look for in a high sensitivity?
"We are born as Joker in the poker game of life. But as we grow up, we become heart and check, cross and spades. That does not mean that the joker disappears completely. " (Jostein Gaarder)
High sensitivity: People suffer from various complaints. Image: Artem Furman - fotolia The brain absorbs no more information than "normal", but filters out less from these impressions. The highly sensitive is thus flooded by stimuli.
Hypersensitivity is probably also present in other mammals, not as a mental disorder, but as a special ability that ensures the survival of the population: Highly sensitive animals are more risk-averse, thus avoiding unknown dangers.
Sensitive people perceive the moods of other people more intensively, they analyze thoroughly and have a pronounced sense for details of a situation.
Properties with high sensitivity
Affected persons perceive stimuli not only deeper but also more intense and store them in this range.
For example, while others only remember the woman smoking a cigarette at the next table, the person involved memorizes the slender fingers and the vermilion nail polish, remembering that she only used the John Player Special up to two-thirds before she expressed it and herself Immediately after lighting a new one, conclude that she is nervous, thinking that she may be waiting in the cafe for her partner with whom she wants to have a crisis talk, but she does not come and does not know whether to call him or not.
Not only are they hypersensitive in the sense that they are very responsive to stimuli, they also perceive the environment as elevated.
Afflicted are often extremely imaginative people, and their imagination consists of many layers in which to connect mental impressions, external realities, analysis and reflection with unconscious content.
In them, therefore, not unconscious content hunt each other as for example with manicists, but those affected especially differentiate social relationships very finely.
They are easily enthusiastic about new things, and they have many-sided interests, which they usually find difficult to reconcile.
The long-term memory is well developed, but they forget many everyday things in the short-term memory, because they also save for others unimportant. The pronounced long-term memory results from the fact that their increased perception of details stores this detailed information in the unconscious, where they are retrievable.
They recognize the feelings, the constitution and the motives of other people easily and in detail; Others often feel that the highly sensitive person is "behind the scenes". Sometimes this pronounced empathy is scary to other people. They feel that the highly sensitive person knows them "better than they do themselves".
Affected individuals are often unaware that other people do not have this perception and are therefore easily exploited. Some highly sensitive people take on the role of the Soul Comforter: their good and lesser acquaintances visit them to unload their problems.
This puts sufferers at risk, because it is true, true, what the other depressed, but also has a "thin skin", so can hardly demarcate and stores the problems of other people in itself.
At the same time they are easily influenced by the moods of other people and can often not separate whether a feeling comes from them or their counterpart.
Relatives often do not understand why their child, who was still well in the morning, squats sadly in his room at night after visiting a friend whose uncle has died.
Some even experience films or novels as if they were there. With every mental problem that they hear about, they recognize themselves and often fail to understand that this is only because of their self, in that they can empathize.
In addition, there is an intensive intuition for those affected. As we know today, fast, intuitive thinking is an autonomous system that corresponds to slow, intellectual thinking.
Headmen usually bother the highly sensitive that they make decisions "from the guts", and sensitive people get into trouble when they have to explain seemingly illogical actions.
Talented highly sensitive people often become artists, ie people who put on the picture or paper what starts in a society, but still growing in the unconscious, and they experience art and music intensively.
Experiences are more effective in them than others. For example, they often remember a trip years later, and moments like the first kiss remain in their memory as if they had happened only a few minutes ago.
Sensitive think in big contexts. Many are concerned with politics or spirituality. They have a social vein, seek harmony and perform tasks conscientiously to perfectionism.
High sensitivity is none Psychological disorder, but the highly sensitive are complex personalities, especially their feelings know very well, so have an intense connection to themselves.
However, some mental disorders are similar in the first place, and secondly, they can arise in the highly sensitive, whose special personality has been deeply hurt. This applies, for example, to the borderline syndrome, but also to various psychoses.
The weaknesses of sensitivity
Those affected process stimuli intensively and therefore seem to others usually introverted, sometimes even arrogant. That's because their unconscious works hard, mostly without the sensitive sharing their inner stories with others.
They also have such a rich inner world that they can excellently move in it, and that for hours. Outsiders often interpret this wrongly, namely as contact aversion, shyness or social inhibition.
Highly sensitive people react above average to drugs, drugs, alcohol and caffeine. Firstly, addictive substances have a strong effect on them, secondly they have problems to keep their limits. Their already over-rich fantasy foams over under the influence of drugs and alcohol, whereby outsiders find no connections in what the affected person wants to communicate.
Their empathy is so great that they unreflectively close themselves to others and thus get into difficult situations. For example, a highly sensitive person might enthusiastically write a fantasy novel, meet a publisher, and assume that the storyteller is equally enthusiastic, while the other person is concerned with what opportunities a book has on the market. The highly sensitive person gets into work and lands on ice.
They are also quickly overwhelmed by internal and external requirements and can easily be distracted by aesthetic stimuli. Their strong excitement through external stimuli they often find themselves uncomfortable, be it that they can not enter a room in which there is cold cigarette smoke, or that they are exhausted when they go on the commute through the city center and perceive the moods of the crowds.
The main problem, however, is that their particular perception collides with the lifestyle of the "normal". They think deeper and feel more intense, they suffer from the smooth facades of the commodity world, they search for what is "behind the facade" and are shocked when there is nothing there.
If Sensitives do not recognize themselves as highly sensitive, but as "dreamers" already lonely in their childhood and ended up in a, in their eyes, superficially cold profession, expresses their particular predisposition in behavior, they perceive themselves and others negatively.
They show a low frustration tolerance, become aggressive because the stimuli overwhelm them, seek "the mistake with them", are considered "princess on the pea" or "sensitive".
When they feel the subliminal conflicts between employees, they are considered "someone who pokes his nose in everywhere".
Those affected are well advised to look at the potential of their weaknesses, because most of them are properties that have a negative effect only in a harmful environment.
He is considered "hypersensitive"? Is not that a hallmark of his sensitivity? He reacts too emotionally? So a description of his intuition? He always wants to explain everything? So he thinks in context? He is a cross driver? So someone who finds creative solutions?
The sensory overload leads to the disorders associated with stress: depression, lack of concentration, muscle tension and high blood pressure, sleep disorders and inner restlessness.
slowness?
Highly sensitive people actually sleep a lot and develop "slowly". However, although they learn more slowly as children, because they have to withstand much more stimuli, they unfold, in an appropriate environment, as adults, unimagined abilities.
They can retrieve knowledge very quickly, and they remain mentally alert to old age. While externally they seem lethargic at times, their inner life is extremely active and constantly puts new impressions into existing patterns.
Mentally, the sensitive are anything but slow, but are constantly evolving.
harmony
They often consider themselves shy of conflict and are considered "cowards" by "normals". That's not true, but when they are angry, they have to process that stimulus first, so they can not respond immediately.
They work through a conflict in every detail, putting it in the patterns of relationships, seeing their own part, the background of the aggressor and the layers of complexity.
Highly sensitive people, who use their potential positively, grow in conflicts, integrate them and understand their counterparts.
In the direct confrontation, they mostly pull the short straw. But in the long run, they are the ones who benefit from the conflict because they reflect it.
Highly sensitive children
Affected children often encounter incomprehension among their parents, kindergarten and school. Unenlightened parents find the child "difficult" because it does "everything" that works for other children.
As a toddler, it screams in the stroller on the Schützenfest because the crowds flood it with stimuli. In kindergarten, it hides and cries when it has to leave the house in the morning.
If it is invited to a birthday, the mother of the birthday boy calls, because the sprout wants to go home.
If the child has become accustomed to kindergarten and school, it still takes time to process the impressions there. When he arrives home he withdraws or reacts aggressively, wants to have his peace.
Perplexed parents sometimes have a false suspicion. The child's behavior is interpreted as Asperger, autism or ADHD. Even worse, when the highly sensitive feels misunderstood and retreats into his abundant fantasy world, because then he seems even more like an autistic person who has an abstract relationship to social relationships.
Worst of all, though, he realizes that his peculiarity is pathological, and that's precisely what shows him as a behavior that supposedly confirms this "disorder." When he cries because of his strong empathy for tormenting an animal, he is considered hysterical. Being stigmatized in this way is a fundamental insult to the child.
Affected children spray with ideas, often developing deep thoughts about the meaning and nonsense of the world that are far ahead of their years. Six-year-old parents are confronted with questions about life after death, which overwhelm many of them.
In the worst case, these children take on the role of counselors, but they are no match for them. Their simultaneous fantasy pushes them to unfold, and they should, in all "philosophical thoughts," get to know nature, listen to music, read, play in the mud and thus enrich their thoughts with living experience.
This is enormously important for them because otherwise they lose contact with the material world at an early stage.
Although they are capable of contact, they withdraw into a shell if they can not fulfill their fantasies.
Parents worry about their children. But when parents of the highly sensitive make these "worries" and the empathic child perceives them as fears, they block the potential without wanting to.
Especially for those affected are phrases like "I'm worried about what will become of you when we are no longer" or "your imagination is good and beautiful, but the reality looks different" like blows in the face.
Those affected want to do everything right, they dream of a just world, and in addition to the pressure of their parents, they now feel the burden of having to be different from what they are in order to live up to their own ideals and misconceptions.
In addition, because the sensitive child finds it difficult to separate himself from the projections of others, he increasingly feels himself to be the cause of the difficulties in the family. The parents worry about their perception because they are wrong the way they are.
The highly sensitive loses the self-confidence that is enormously important, especially for someone who finds himself different.
The more this pressure increases, the more the child's nervous system is overloaded and the more the child reacts irritably. At the end, in the worst case, there are psychosomatic illnesses that confirm that the child is ill.
Much more than normal sensibility, it is important for parents to convey to them that they are valuable as they are and do not force them to adapt, not to compare them to the "others," which is usually negative and not overwhelming them in tasks for which these children are not suitable.
The highly sensitive at work
Highly sensitive people capture with their senses complex and in detail. Because their own thoughts, their perception of the feelings of others, and even philosophical questions about sense and nonsense are intensely mentally processed in them, they need a lot of time and energy for this processing.
Less sensitive therefore mean that the sensible gets lost in "side streets", does not work systematically, "should come to the point" or "too slow" would be.
Although the highly sensitive is at risk for the stimuli to get out of hand, he also recognizes relationships that remain hidden from the "normals" because their consciousness filters them out.
In the workplace, this means over-demanding quick decisions, and can not focus on just one task. Multitasking, on the other hand, is one of her abilities.
They are not in conformity, not because they are "born rebels," but because they work in their own rhythm and perceptions that the "normals" perceive as "different.".
This does not mean that they can not work on deadlines, they even do it diligently. But they need their own quiet atmosphere, preferably their own office where they can organize their thoughts.
In intimate relationships, as in their professional environment, the "normals" often perceive the intuitive conclusions of the sensible on the behavior of others as over-interpreted, or conversely, they are too close.
A high level of empathy is not always wanted, just authoritarian superiors who put on the mask of imperturbability, feel reluctant to "illuminated" by employees, what the highly sensitive does without consciously controlling it.
However, when peers value those affected as "out of this world," they miss a potential that they themselves do not have. Highly sensitive people understand complex conflicts in the workplace and find extraordinary solutions that do not appear in the horizon of the "normal".
Through their long-term memory, many of them are "walking encyclopedias". In the workplace, for example, this means they remember past mistakes that others have forgotten and can thus warn about current undesirable developments.
They think in context, and this predestines for occupations in which holistic perception and action in chaotic situations is necessary. They are suitable as diplomats as well as therapists, as reporters in crisis areas as well as humanists, but also as a supervisor in the human resources department.
Things that others do not perceive, however, bother them, be it that the smell of their desk neighbor's nuisance is unbearable for them, whether the secretary places the empty coffee bag in front of the laptop of the highly sensitive.
Moreover, they have their own order, and this frame of reference is hardly understandable to others. If someone goes about their things, for example clearing up the desk of the highly sensitive, that can destroy this order.
The affected person needs time and energy to gather and reacts accordingly aggressively. Order does not mean that others recognize an order in it. The diverse interests and multi-faceted thoughts of the sensitive often make his job for others look like chaos.
For him, however, it makes sense that, for example, the photo of the Eiffel Tower is right next to the book on business strategies, and the coffee cup with the Mona Lisa next to the calendar with the cat picture.
The objects also have symbolic value for him in that they activate his unconscious patterns, which for him are to a much greater extent than for the "normal" basis of his work.
They process much more sensory impressions than others, so sometimes they take longer to evaluate situations, but they do so thoroughly. So they do nothing less than the "normal", but they do something different and often big.
Employees often find them less efficient because they are upset over "trivia". Others are annoyed because it is too hot or too cold for the highly sensitive, because they pull back, do not take up positions immediately in discussions, it bothers them if the sugar shaker is not to be found, etc., they need more breaks and at a decision "first want to sleep on it".
Normally sensitive people sometimes see this as a "shirking", as an "indecision" or even as someone who "always needs his extra scrutiny".
Highly sensitive but have a different work rhythm. They are not undecided, on the contrary they need the distance, because they capture a difficult to understand situation in their complexity instead of "Hauruck solutions" to offer.
They not only perceive their own point of view, but also the opinions of others and think of them as a networked system.
Unfortunately, many sensitive people grow up with the fact that they are "different" and internalize that they "always do everything wrong". That's not true, on the contrary, they need their own management.
Sufferers stigmatized for their peculiarity sometimes go into a self-defeating struggle. They see it as a weakness to be stressed and try to harden themselves to be "like the others". They copy the behavior of the "normal-sensitive" to become normal and are becoming increasingly dissatisfied because they can not compete in this race.
At the same time they ignore their abilities, and this in turn opens the door to abuse: The same colleagues who bully her as a "princess on the pea" ring after work to get advice for their marital problems, which of course they do not consider the gifted as work honor.
The same supervisor, who previously cursed "they always deliver too late," calls late at night whether the highly sensitive could not "rework" the staff plan for the next month.
However, those affected today are no longer generally considered "useless dreamers". Even in management, magic words such as "social skills" or "emotional intelligence" are circulating today. Holistic leadership is increasingly seen as a perspective towards neo-liberal hitting and stinging emotional cool ego-centrists.
Highly sensitive persons are therefore no longer necessary in large companies Mobbingopfer, or under constant stress misunderstood ones, which do not fit into the standards of school and occupation into it.
Highly sensitive people are often bullying victims because they are different from the others. Image: BillionPhotos.com - fotolia Unusual ideas to solve problems, to think outside the box, networked perception and high social competence are now regarded as key qualifications and at the same time describe high sensitivity.
Concerned people capture interpersonal processes better than their colleagues and also worry about a harmonious working atmosphere. While this does not make them popular with employees who want to keep just what the Sensitive recognizes secret, from covert collusion to fraud, companies who love to be together and justice in the workplace are indispensable to those affected.
The niches of the sensitive
Affected, trying to adapt, usually fail. Although very few of them end up in social nothingness, they suffer from stress because their social skills are claimed "for free", while at the same time they have to endure a behavior they consider rude.
However, people who have recognized their gifts oppose this path of adaptation, one early, the other later. The easiest way to do this is if her closest environment supports her.
Often, however, the hurtful experience of being different is at the beginning. First attempts to adapt, fail, and only slowly understands the highly sensitive as its otherness as strength.
Since there is no professional profile for them, they usually have to go through thorns for their own journey until they find like-minded people and niches that are not only suitable for them, but can not occupy the "normals".
For example, "normals" also like to read psycho-thrillers, seclusion, the intense perception of the human psyche, meticulous research without the end-of-month paycheck, and the ability to understand human relationships in their networks "from the outside," while translating them into fictitious stories but do not have these "normal" ones.
Some focus their in-depth perception and stored knowledge on intellectual work and not on their emotional state. Compared to "normal-sensitive", they develop a great passion for their work, with which they pursue their focus for years.
Many are artistically talented, and creativity enables them to shape their suffering from the constraints of society. Highly sensitive painters and writers often say that they have to paint or write in order not to go mad. They too are overwrought, but they turn this flood into works of art.
Many also work in social professions. On the one hand, she has the empathy and the emotional intelligence, without which it is not possible to become a good therapist, caregiver or curative educator, on the other hand, some miss their true potential, because they develop a helper syndrome.
They have internalized that their self-understood empathy is as welcome as it is free, that they unconsciously seek attention by helping others.
Affected people need a professional environment that allows them to focus on one thing. You need calculable processes, sufficient rest and balance between the areas of life.
Above all, they need meaningful work, because the feeling of doing something important is more important to them than a big salary. They have to be true to their values, they want to take ownership and take the initiative.
They need a place where development is more important than positions of power, so they are well suited as freelancers and professionals, less as leaders.
Sensitive ones thrive in a work environment characterized by cooperation, fairness and coexistence, while competition and competition are detrimental to their performance.
They are well suited as advisers, but not as aggressive sellers of things that are of no value to them. In companies, that means they are good at providing intensive support to existing customers.
Their diligence quickly turns into perfectionism, then the highly sensitive has to learn to let go.
Their holistic thinking can outgrow and they get bogged down. The learning experience here is to set a solid framework.
Intuition allows them to quickly grasp situations, but the highly sensitive should reflect their intuition through their minds.
Creativity makes it possible to link seemingly incoherent relationships with one another, to convey knowledge with images and stories, while at the same time the highly sensitive person must harmonize design, time and specifications.
Social work in animal welfare, in aid organizations or with children corresponds to their empathy, but the highly sensitive overwhelmed quickly because they do not delineate enough.
Planning, co-ordination and advice are yours, whether as a life coach, in adult education or depending on where you gather your specialist knowledge.
As teachers they are well suited with knowledge, enthusiasm, creativity and an overall view, but at the same time they are stressing big classes, problems with pupils like parents, and curricula.
Their access to the unconscious makes them perfect for professions such as doctor, psychologist, Gestalt therapist or speech therapist.
Assuming the specific aptitude, the highly sensitive are excellently suited as profilers in the criminal police. Which pattern of crime is a crime, what happens in the offender, what his environment might look like his motives, such an analysis corresponds to the ability to put into other people.
An eye for detail and a quiet workplace at the same time predestine a highly gifted person to work as a restorer in an art museum, as an archaeologist during excavations or as an archivist.
An eye for the whole and at the same time his sense for aesthetics offer him the opportunity to develop in the garden, as a landscape architect or as a consultant for home furnishings.
Her creativity opens the way to the performing and visual arts. But beware! Concerned individuals who suffered in their early years, who were marginalized because of their otherness, and later discover their potential, sometimes seem to me to be premature "great artists.".
To the existing perception and the inclination now an exact coaching should come, how this potential can be implemented. The danger is great that a highly gifted person wants to realize himself as a painter, sculptor or writer and at the same time does not grasp the murderous competition in the book market and the art scene - this almost inevitably means failure.
Instead of the "big hit" he could try to get started in his interests, for example as a storyteller in kindergartens, or he combines his artistic with his social talents and educates himself as a Maltherapeut.
What to look for in a high sensitivity?
High sensitivity is not a mental disorder. This knowledge alone helps the "different" to discover their potential.
At the same time, highly sensitive individuals can only develop their properties in an environment that suits them. As many of them grew up becoming "normal" at the same time as having an increased need for harmony, they too often pressed into relationships and jobs that hurt them.
For some, this leads to mental health problems, many of them to work but to stay far below what they can do, such as assistance in the care of the disabled, which draws tatoo motifs for their acquaintances.
The greatest potential lies in the tension between their in-depth perception and the real violence structures of society. Often they suffer a lot, but the insight into the constraints of the circumstances gives them the perspective to explore open spaces and to create a meaningful environment.
Everyone is different, yet there are some things in common that help them realize their special needs and talents.
First of all, focus on your strengths and seek ways to make them happen in the world instead of fleeing the world.
High sensitivity does not mean hopelessness. More than normal-sensitive persons, the highly sensitive have to find their own way, they experiment more, but can also rely on resources in their unconscious that have less sensitivity.
They bring the unusual solutions when others do not know how to proceed. They develop in secret, while others exhaust themselves in everyday life. They can come into play if and when the situation is tricky.
Those affected are well advised to trust their inner resources. Then they can do great things. In a society that is becoming more and more complex, where information takes the place of hard physical work, and in which increasingly teamworkers rather than lone fighters are needed, the highly sensitive play the joker - if they are aware of their gifts. (Dr. Utz Anhalt)