Why am I so sensitive?

Getting excited about almost everything, worrying about things big and small, feeling the weight of injustices, getting upset about almost nothing… why am I so sensitive? There are many people who ask themselves this question for a good part of their lives. by feeling differentupon perceiving that their way of seeing, reacting and understanding reality differs from a good part of others.

Is it a personality style? Is it perhaps something organic or genetic? Carl Jung defined this profile as someone who was characterized by two basic dimensions: high emotional processing and innate sensitivity. Nowadays, as we well know, it is common to talk about “highly sensitive people (HSP)”, a concept popularized by Dr. Elaine Aron in the 90s and which would define, apparently, about 20% of the world’s population. .

Despite this, despite finding these classifications and definitions, the same question remains: why? What reason is there for someone to have such high sensitivity? And make no mistake, this reality is not exclusive to the female gender. There are also highly sensitive men who find it more difficult to enter that emotional spectrum..

Why am I so sensitive? These are the causes

If people wonder why I am so sensitive, it is because they feel strange, different and even displaced. We live in a society that values ​​and prioritizes that stoic attitude: the emotional is associated with weakness and even to the fallible. Immediacy also defines us; In fact, there is hardly time to perceive other people’s realities, to read between the lines or perceive how the most insignificant thing can be loaded with great meanings.

For the sensitive person, it only takes someone looking at them with disappointment or responding badly to them to be stuck for days. He suffers constant contagions, emotions, feels immense pain in the face of other people’s falsehoods and contradictions and cannot avoid being trapped in a kind of emotional treadmill. His lives oscillate between ups and downs; moments of happiness and enjoyment and moments of deep desolation.

All of this explains why high sensitivity and depression almost always go hand in hand. Being sensitive makes one feel vulnerable and vulnerability generates suffering, frustration and a sad feeling of loneliness. It is common to wonder why, what is the reason for feeling and processing the world that way?

Genetic reasons: your brain is different

In a May 2015 study conducted at the University of British Columbia, researchers concluded: “There are people who have specific neurogenetic variations. They have greater availability to norepinephrine, which makes it easier for them to have greater perceptual vividness and emotional sensitivity.” What does this mean?

There is a genetic variation called ADRA2b that would explain why there are more sensitive people. This genetic peculiarity causes a higher level of norepinephrine in the brain. Since there is a higher level of said neurotransmitter in the brain, it presents very specific variations that make it They make others “different.” For people with this genetic variation, says study author Adam Anderson, a professor of human development at Cornell University, all stimuli are processed emotionally.

Why am I so sensitive? It’s a trait of your personality

To the question of “why am I so sensitive” we can give another type of answer: it is another personality trait. It is true that we cannot separate this characteristic from a genetic origin, it does occur with a specific type of character. Sensitive people are defined by the following:

A sensitive person can be introverted and extroverted. They are observant and reflective. They have high creativity. Inclination for art, music, writing, etc. Sensitivity to loud sounds. High empathy. Difficulty accepting criticism. High emotionality, they understand life only from this prism. They understand life from a collaborative and non-competitive point of view. Difficulty establishing limits and saying no.

Trauma and hypersensitivity

If a person asks themselves “why am I so sensitive?” It is possible that trauma is behind this manifestation.. Having suffered mistreatment in childhood, abuse, having experienced the loss of a parent or suffering from any painful event has an impact on our brain. In many cases, this experience generates hypersensitivity.

This psychological wound often manifests itself with a much more sensitive way of processing reality.. Any event, circumstance or stimulus is experienced with greater intensity. They feel overcome by emotions, it is difficult for them to manage relationships because any word, gesture or situation can be interpreted in a negative way and suffer immensely from it.

We cannot neglect the way trauma can alter our personality and the way we process what surrounds us. These effects can be permanent and alter the psychosocial functioning of the human being. However, in this case, we would have a more negative, more difficult version of high sensitivity.

To conclude, the writer Amantine Aurore Lucile (under her pseudonym George Sand) said that, although the intellect searches, it is always sensitivity that finds. Even though this dimension causes us problems and some suffering, well managed it acts as an advantage. We must know how to understand it and use it to our advantage to be able to open that powerful gaze that sees everything, who intuits everything and knows how to improve its reality.

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