Posted on 05/15/2012 7:19:51 AM PDT by BenLurkin
LOS ANGELES (CBS) — Do people say you are highly sensitive whether it be physically or emotionally? While it can feel like a burden, it can also mean a greater capacity for work, love and compassion.
“I knew that I was more sensitive, that I took things deeper and harder,” Ane Axford said.
“I felt things and they were heavy,” added Sandra Clifton.
Both women are so sensitive, they say that it has affected every aspect of their lives.
“It’s a whole different way of being in the world,” Axford said.
Now scientists say that they know why some people feel so much more. New research has indicated that hypersensitive people are genetically different than those who feel a normal degree of sensitivity.
“We’ve done brain activation studies,” said Dr. Elaine Aron.
“Sensitive people show more activation, both in the secondary intentional areas,” Dr. Arthur Aron added.
Clinical Psychologists Elaine and Arthur Aron conducted the studies and ultimately found that a large portion of the population – 20 percent — is made up of highly-sensitive people (HSPs), as the Arons have categorized them.
“They’re a bit more emotionally reactive. They process things more deeply,” Elaine said.
Do you think that you may be one of them? You can take the Arons’ self-test, that is comprised of 27 questions, to find out.
Some of questions in the test include:
•Are you easily overwhelmed by bright lights and noise? •Do you startle easily? •Do other people’s moods influence you? •Does caffeine have a great effect on you? If you answer “yes” to a quarter of these questions or more, the Arons say that you may be an HSP.
The Arons’ research also shows that highly-sensitive people, who had a difficult childhood, may struggle with shyness, anxiety, and even depression. In those cases, therapy or even medication may help.
“I felt like there was something wrong with me,” Axford said.
She says that just getting the label HSP helped her; knowing she was not alone.
Still, Clifton says her HSP can be such a burden that even the characters from books and television provoke overwhelming feelings of emotion.
“Sometimes I have to say, ‘These are fictional characters. This is a character in a book,’” Clifton explained.
Both women say that being highly sensitive is unlike anything else, so in tune they want to tune out of life. Everything sound, every voice, every mood is amplified by a million.
“The volume is turned up on everything,” Axford said.
“There are times when I say, ‘Just one day, I want to be free from this,’” Clifton said.
Although some HSPs do benefit from medical help or therapy, the Arons say that most just live normal lives and tend to be the best workers, highly creative and extremely compassionate
That’s been standard operating procedure since at least the 1950s-60s. Valium was called “mommy’s little helper”, especially when mixed with a glass of wine or two. Xanax is even stronger and prescribed like candy today.
Today, anti-depressants are getting more popular. They don’t give a noticeable “high” or impairment when you take more, so abuse isn’t really a problem. Just a nice semi-permanent numbing of all your “bad” emotions and the ability to work while doing so.
Instead of actually solving people’s problems, we give them drugs to cover it up. This is because many of the problems and injustices people experience in this super-corrupt society aren’t resolvable. Talking about it only makes the rot and hopelessness more obvious so drugs are the only solution.
Former heroin junkies are also highly sensitive.
The brain secretes chemicals, called endorphines, that are the bodies natural painkillers. But even more so, they block the vast amount of nerve input to our brains, so we do not get overwhelmed by sensation.
But with addiction to heroin and other opiates, it dampens the natural production of endorphines, often to the point where they will never full again be in full production.
This is why withdrawal is so physically painful, because the brain is flooded with some much sensation that it can’t block out, that the body is overwhelmed. This is called “climbing up the walls”, and is a unique kind of pain.
Even after withdrawal is over, and the brain is again producing some endorphines, former junkies still get more than the normal amount of sensory input. This makes them a combination of photosensitive (to light), audio sensitive, tactile sensitive, odor and taste sensitive.
This is why they tend to be somewhat “jumpy”, like that other group of notoriously sensitive people, paranoids.
Don’t try to sneak up on a paranoid. They can often be very situationally aware.
Amen I think it’s why they made gun safes.
True dat. It doesn't stop the bleeding hearts from demanding a government program to resolve the unresolvable, though.
ping.
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