In 1996, psychologist Dr. Elaine N. Aron published the book "The Highly Sensitive Person." In it, she explains a personality trait found in approximately 20 percent of the U.S. population, characterized by increased sensitivity to all sorts of sensory input, from loud noises to bright lights to violent TV shows.
When I first heard the term "highly sensitive person," or HSP, I was fascinated. I've always been a pretty emotional person, so I assumed I would easily be considered an HSP. However, when I took Dr. Aron's online self-assessment (which you can take here), I only scored 12 out of 27. You need at least 14 to be considered an HSP. So if being an HSP isn't just being emotional, what is it?
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I figured the best way to answer that question would be to ask some HSPs themselves. After forcing friends and family to take the assessment, I stumbled upon two HSPs: a college friend and my little sister.
Although I've lived with my sister for all 14 years of her life, I was surprised when I realized she was probably an HSP. It occurred to me at a wedding last month when we were showing off our own little party trick: you can tickle my sister without actually touching her. I clamped my hands over her eyes and we tried to fake her out by not waving our fingers for nearly two full minutes, and she never fell for it. But the moment one of us tickled the air two feet in front of her, she started squirming and laughing like a madman. Her sense of touch seems to extend beyond her body.
The next day I had her take the self-assessment and she scored a 16, officially an HSP. Her scores demonstrated an increased sensitivity primarily to touch and sound. When asked to describe one experience that best represented what it means to be an HSP, she described her ongoing battle with cotton balls:
"Any time I touch them or like hold them, I get shivers throughout my body, I feel like my whole body turns ice cold... kind of like when you have the flu."
The other HSP interviewed for this article scored a 17 on the questionnaire and displayed an increased sensitivity to sound and emotion. The experience he chose to represent his heightened sensitivity focused more on the emotional side of things:
"On my birthday we were coming home from an award ceremony, and I essentially got nothing... It made me feel like I’d failed myself... And because it was my birthday, I had wanted to celebrate, but I started crying in the car because my parents hadn’t bought me a cake for my birthday. That’s something that’s stuck with me. It’s gotten to me to the point that every birthday from then on out I want cake. I cannot have a birthday without cake."
Although these two HSPs are sensitive in very different ways, both felt that knowing about the psychological concept of "the highly sensitive person" was helpful. My college friend felt that while his score did not come as a surprise, it offered insight into himself:
"I feel like it makes me more aware of myself and it makes me more aware of what I do and why I think the way that I do."
Finally, I asked my sister what she thought of all this, whether being highly sensitive was something she thought other people should know about, or even something she was just happy to know about herself. Her response eloquently summarizes both the power of labels and the simultaneous importance of the whole self:
"At least now I know that I’m not just super weird and, like, an oddball. I know at least other people feel the same way. But overall I don’t see it helping me too much in life. I think it’s important that they [others] don’t judge people who have this, but I don’t necessarily think it matters if they know what it is. For me it isn’t a big deal, it isn’t a huge part of my life. Some days the air smells like super nice and you can feel every spot of the sun on you. But cotton balls…[shudders] they’re the worst. Cotton balls will never be in my house when I get old."
