The Overlooked Role of Sensitivity in Schizophrenia, Mental Health, and Trauma
Mental Health Series — Sensitivity Part 4
Sensitivity Part 3
Visual Processing Sensitivity
Visual sensitivity in highly sensitive people (HSP) extends beyond just seeing. The brain engages in additional subconscious image processing, which adds cognitive load without conscious control. This extra processing causes certain details to stand out, which others may overlook. This heightened sensitivity to detail has been particularly advantageous for me in IT, where I often spot subtle nuances or errors that others might miss. These small distinctions can make the difference between solving a problem and missing the solution entirely.
I make it a habit to take daily walks, which I find both beneficial for my mental health and a means of reducing and managing stress. Here’s a photo I took during one of my walks through my neighborhood. Do you notice anything specific in the image?
From a distance of about 10 meters, I spotted the issue with this car — a rear flat tire. Despite the tire’s low-profile design, which made the flat less noticeable, my brain quickly identified the problem. This kind of sensitivity to detail is something I’ve noticed before, especially when driving on highways like the 401. I can easily pick out under-inflated tires or vehicles with camber that is out of alignment.
Did you also notice the two sticks I placed on the ground to point at the tire and alert the owner? I strategically positioned them to ensure they would catch the owner’s attention without appearing too out of place in the neatly groomed driveway. While one stick could be random, two sticks should trigger an awareness of intentionality.
The next day, during an evening walk at 5:00 pm which is an unusual time for me, I encountered the elderly man tending to his car. I approached him and asked if he was aware of the issue with his tire, explaining that I left the sticks as a subtle signal. He expressed surprise and gratitude, mentioning that he had already taken the car to have the puncture fixed. Our brief interaction was a testament to the power of heightened sensitivity and the impact it can have on our surroundings.
I saw the same car several weeks later:
Visual Cues and Depth of Processing
Here’s another example where I spotted a relatively small issue from a great distance — something just didn’t look quite right, and my eyes were quickly drawn to it.
Upon closer inspection, the problem was evident .
In this next photo, taken late at night while my wife and I were delivering groceries to my elderly mother, the bright full moon cast a distinctive light. One characteristic of being an HSP is the depth of processing. In IT terms, it’s akin to a post-processing subroutine that searches for patterns in what I see. This is evident in how I often notice non-random license plate numbers. My eyes are subconsciously drawn to customized license plates while driving or stopped in traffic. Sometimes these are random plates that resemble actual words. Here’s an example I saw that night, where there’s no direct correlation between events, but my subconscious mind made a connection.
There are two full moons visible in the picture. This shows the brain’s capacity to process data subconsciously, in new and interesting ways. It often can find connections that are there, and connections that may not be there.
A few other items that I also pick up when driving are under inflated car tires, and wheel camber that is out of alignment. Here is a good example of the under inflation issue.
I realize the bulge is hard to spot especially in an image, so here it is blown up.
An example from an online psychology course on graceful degradation illustrates this concept. The brain can reconstruct the underlying image without all the data. When I look at the apple with the dots, I feel a visual pressure to look away due to the imperfections in the image. The higher the sensitivity that you have, the more intense this effect becomes. It is as if there is a higher cognitive load that makes it difficult to continue focusing on the image.
Subconscious Cues in Real Time — Putting Heightened Sensory Processing All Together
For me, Top Gun is a great movie because it tells the story of Maverick, a character who, in my opinion, embodies the traits of an HSP in the role of a fighter pilot.
Throughout the original film Top Gun, Maverick is portrayed as the most gifted pilot, contrasted with Ice Man, a conventionally talented pilot. In one of the opening scenes, Maverick flies inverted with a Russian Mig — an action that seems crazy to everyone else. However, Maverick has read the pilot’s cues and determined that he is not a threat at that moment, which others might find insane. Later in the movie, after several analyses of his combat style, Charlie tells him that she can’t tell the other pilots that she sees “genius” in his flying because it’s so unconventional.
People who are HSP often share certain characteristics: they have a few close friends but prefer deep connections over many acquaintances, they are often more deeply affected by events or environments , and they are highly conscientious. The death of Maverick’s close friend Goose partly as a result of his flying, nearly breaks him, and he has great difficulty moving past the event and blames himself.
Similarly, in the newer edition of the movie, when Maverick is escaping in an older fighter, he reads the enemy pilots’ cues as they transition from inspection to aggression, proactively engaging to gain an advantage. When Maverick takes on the task of training the pilots, the first thing he does is throw the existing flight combat manual in the garbage. He doesn’t mean that the manual has no value but that it’s simply the beginning of becoming an extraordinary pilot. They must go far beyond it and learn to trust their own instincts, something that HSPs are also very good at once they learn to listen to them.
I love the Lady Gaga video from the movie Top Gun: Maverick. I infer a lot of information (valid or not) from the movie. As a result, I also love the related Lady Gaga video, which is on my playlist. I often watch these videos for the imagery related to the music. Disturbingly, while watching the video many times, my mind surfaced an image of her face at 1:44 in the sequence, registering “pain” — more specifically, traumatic pain, similar to what I recognize in my sister. It could simply be a random facial expression, but I wanted to verify if there was any validity to my “feeling.” My search returned many articles like the one below.
Lady Gaga had a ‘psychotic break’ after sexual assault left her pregnant
Lady Gaga has revealed she suffered a breakdown as a result of sexual assault that led to pregnancy.
The star was 19 when she was raped by a male music producer, who had threatened to burn her music if she did not take her clothes off.
She says her alleged rapist then “dropped me off pregnant on a corner… because I was vomiting and sick”.
Years later, she had “a total psychotic break” and was in an “ultra state of paranoia” as a result of the trauma.
It began when she was admitted to hospital for acute pain and numbness, and was surprised to be sent to see a psychiatrist.
“I [couldn’t] feel my own body,” she recalled. “First I felt full-on pain, then I felt numb, and then I was sick for weeks after.
“I realised that it was the same pain that I felt when the person who raped me dropped me off pregnant on a corner, at my parents’ house, because I was vomiting and sick. Because I had been being abused, and I was locked away in a studio for months.”
The star added that trauma had changed her as a person, and would never leave her.
“I had a total psychotic break and, for a couple years, I was not the same girl. The way that I feel when I feel pain was how I felt after I was raped.
“I’ve had so many MRIs and scans where they don’t find nothing. But your body remembers.”
It took her two and a half years to recover, she said, but “getting triggered once” is enough for her slip back into feelings of physical and emotional pain.
However, she ended on a hopeful note, saying that, after years of effort, she had “learned all the ways to pull myself out of it. It all started to slowly change.”
