Highly Sensitive People & Feeling all the Feels

 In my sobriety, I've acquired a few things in my toolkit that I employ on days when I am feeling a little more sad or ill-equipped to handle the day-to-day stuff that comes with parenting, adulting, and feeling all the feels. One of those tools is listening to podcasts, and although I do have a few sober-specific podcasts that I love, I also enjoy listening to Glennon and Abby on their "We Can Do Hard Things" podcast. This week, they had Alanis Morisette on talking about highly sensitive people and empaths, and I was immediately locked in to the conversation. Not to mention that Alanis was the soundtrack to my 8th grade year, hello Washington D.C. trip memories with my walkman and Jagged Little Pill on cassette tape. 

I've always been fascinated by psychology and sociology, and as I mentioned on my blog earlier this year, I have a keen interest in the ennegram and the way that different people work. On this podcast episode, I learned about highly sensitive people (HSPs) and how that connects to empaths. I may have shared this previously, but I am an empath, as is my 17-year-old daughter and I thought my 10-year-old son was also an empath, but now I am leaning towards him being an HSP. HSP's feel things on a different level than non-HSPs and the way it was discussed on the podcast, a non-HSP will walk into a room and have to filter through 50 pieces of information. An HSP walks into the same room and has to filter through 500 pieces of information. They feel things, experience things, and respond to things at a higher level than non-HSPs. All empaths are HSPs, but not all HSPs are empaths, so Micah could very well be an HSP instead of an empath. I am convinced that Rylee and I are both. 

So what does that mean? Why do I care? And why should you care? 

Let's start with definitions.

An empath is "a person who is highly attuned to the energies and emotions of those around them...they are said to feel what others are feeling so deeply that they 'absorb' or 'take on' the emotions themselves, often at the expense of their own well-being." (Healthline)

A highly sensitive person, "biologically speaking, highly sensitive people pick up on more stimuli within and around them. Studies have shown that the HSP brain is more active in areas related to attention, emotion, action-planning, decision-making, and having strong internal experiences." (Psychology Today)

So the empath in your friend group is the one who always knows how others are feeling, responds to those feelings, sometimes carries the weight of other people's feelings even to their own detriment, and is always giving more of themselves to any given situation or friend in need. 

The HSP in your friend group could be an empath, but isn't necessarily an empath. The four traits of HSPs are depth of processing, overstimulation, empathy and sensitivity to subtleties (Goalcast). HSPs process things on a different level, can easily be overstimulated by an excess of emotions, processing through thoughts and situations, and are extra-sensitive to subtle non-verbal cues or environmental cues that others wouldn't notice. 

Think about that for a minute, especially from the perspective of a child who is an HSP. What a heavy weight for them to carry, right? The more I learn about this stuff, the more intrigued I am, and the more I think that some of the struggles I had as a kid and teenager were a direct result of being an HSP and an empath. I carried the weight of everyone else's emotions, and was unable to process those in a healthy way, which led to an addiction to self-injury, an unhealthy relationship with alcohol, codependency in my first romantic relationship, and a need to find outlets for all of the feelings I had bottled up. These outlets could be positive - playing soccer religiously for years, strong work ethic and need for perfectionism, tattoo/ink therapy addiction in my 20s and 30s, unhealthy relationship with drinking as an adult, and with eating starting as a teenager. 

Mind. Blown. 

Can you identify an HSP or empath in your life? What are some ways that you could support them with a little more understanding about how heavy the weight of feelings and processing for them might be? As an HSP and empath, I can't wait to dig into this more, and just ordered Dr. Elaine Aron's book. I do know that even though some days are harder (yesterday was an emotional day for me, with no real rhyme or reason behind it), and that's ok too. Because the sun will always come out again, and rainbows and sunshine will crack through the clouds when we least expect it.