Do you have a friend or family member that makes you feel like you are constantly walking on eggshells? Do you mind what you say and how you speak to this individual? Do you often feel depleted after you’ve spent time with this person?
We often feel this way when we’re dealing with individuals who are highly strung or highly sensitive. There are two types of people in the spectrum. One reacts emotionally and therefore, tearfully and the other gets angry and offended. Either reaction is still an overly emotional response.
I have a few people in my business and social orbit who are highly strung or highly sensitive. Having a bit of a bulldozer personality, I have to be particularly careful when interacting with sensitive people.
More often than not it feels like I have to walk on eggshells or tip toe so that I don’t offend or hurt my highly sensitive friends. Mostly, I can deal with it because highly sensitive people love deeply, care deeply and often help others. But some days I want to hold my head and scream, “It’s not always about you!”
What it feels like for less sensitive people
We must watch what we say
When I am with highly sensitive people, I know that everything I say will be interpreted through their veil of emotional sensitivity. I have a fairly direct approach to life and I rarely say something I do not mean. There is no ulterior motive and I don’t say one thing and mean another. What I find when I’m with a highly emotional person they project their past pain and sensitivities onto something I have said and immediately react to what I have said from a space of high emotion and therefore they may be hurt or offended. This happens irrespective of whether the subject matter is about them or not. Therefore, when I am with highly sensitive people I have to watch what I say constantly so that I don’t hurt or offend them. This simply becomes impossible for me to do.
Being careful not to talk about our own accomplishments
When we are with a highly sensitive individual and we mention our own accomplishments it seems as if they interpret this to mean that their own accomplishments are somehow diminished in the face of ours. The highly sensitive individual will then immediately begin to speak about their own accomplishments in order to feel equal in the conversation.
What the highly sensitive person doesn’t realize is that our accomplishments do not detract from theirs. In fact, our accomplishments have absolutely nothing to do with their achievements at all. with a highly sensitive individual we will rarely receive acknowledgement of our own accomplishments but will rather immediately be told about something they feel proud about. What highly sensitive people do not understand is that very occasionally less highly sensitive people also need a pat on the back, but this rarely happens.
Being constantly misinterpreted
What are the things that frustrates me with highly sensitive people is that they seek meaning in something that I have said to see if I have been sarcastic or judgmental in the words that I have used. Perhaps this is because highly sensitive people will avoid saying something that others may be offended by and therefore, they watch what they say and do constantly. So that they guard against hurting others. None of this is done intentionally and most certainly not done out of meanness or spite. Quite the opposite. Overly sensitive people guard what they say in order not to hurt others an in this way seldom actually say what they truly mean. Because of this they might assume that others rarely mean what they say as well.
Hiding when something good happens to you
I have observed that when I am with a highly sensitive individual and something great has happened in my life, I rarely want to share it with them because they are seldom happy for me. It feels as if my happiness detracts something from them. It feels as if my hapiness somehow causes there to be less happiness in the world for them to have.
Nothing we do is enough
Highly sensitive people are by their very nature, very generous and kind. However, they seldom see the generosity and kindness of others as equal to their own. I find that they only remember their own generosity and kindness and will seldom acknowledge that someone else is doing something for them out of the goodness of their hearts. So, the measure of the sensitivity from the highly sensitive individual is always only from their own perspective. It feels like they keep score, but they write this score of others in invisible ink and quickly forget the generosity of others. The score board clearly displays everything they do for other people.
It is always about them
I don’t believe that the highly sensitive person is even aware that they make absolutely everything about them. Let me give you an example. Let’s say the highly sensitive person is attending a wedding and minutes before the wedding starts the caterer drops the beautiful wedding cake and it smashes to the floor. The highly sensitive person will look on in horror and immediately think how badly such a situation will impact them and how upset they will be if this happened to them. It doesn’t seem to occur to the highly sensitive person that their empathy should be with the bride and groom rather than with themselves.
Let me give you another example. Two people may be sitting sharing a private conversation. If there is a highly sensitive person in the room, they may immediately assume that the two people who are having a muted, private conversation is talking about them. They may react confrontationally or overly emotionally in this situation. You see, the muted conversation is not about them and has nothing to do with them but still the highly sensitive individual will see it that way.
This is what we mean when we say don’t always make it about you. Virtually every situation will be turned around in this way.
Why it is so exhausting
I find it really hard to be constantly on guard about what I say, how I say it, when I may share something great in my life, or when I share an accomplishment. It simply exhausts me that the highly sensitive individual makes every single event or issue about them. I find it hard having to explain my motives as often as I do with a highly sensitive individual. Mostly, one understands that the highly sensitive person is highly sensitive and one can let many things go. But some days it’s just all too much for me and walking on eggshells exhausts and frustrates me.
The highly sensitive person may even tell us how difficult it is to deal with one of their highly sensitive friends but seldom recognise this in themselves.
I do not have the answers to this situation. And I know by merely writing this article I will offend my highly sensitive friends. Always remember that less sensitive people also need acknowledgement and care. Just because we do not have emotional outbursts does not mean your bulldozer friends or family members don’t hurt or feel things intensely.