Being a Highly Sensitive Person Saves My Life. Here’s How.
Have you ever wished you could just swap your brain for a different one? As a highly sensitive person (HSP) with mental health struggles, I know I have. Sometimes, I dislike my brain. I dislike how much I overthink, how anxious I can become, how deeply I think about things, and why everything affects me so significantly. I dislike that I’m prone to the negative, easily overstimulated, and require time to process. Those all seem to be qualities the world does not reward. Sometimes, I wish I paid less attention, knew less, and didn’t care as much.
But if I’m honest, I know I wouldn’t be me without those things. I know my empathy and vulnerability are my strengths. I would rather feel everything than feel nothing. I know taking time to process and think about things allows me to respond thoughtfully. And I know being so sensitive to so much has honestly saved my life time and time again.
Mental Health and Highly Sensitive People
It’s not uncommon for HSPs to experience mental health struggles. There is research that being highly sensitive is linked to an increased risk of psychological distress. Further, highly sensitive people who face difficulties in childhood and adolescence are at a much greater risk of anxiety, depression, and suicide until they begin to heal those wounds. Long-term overarousal also makes a person more prone to depression (Aron, 2020).
Learning that, it’s not a surprise to me that I’ve struggled with chronic suicidal ideation and severe depression for over a decade (along with a laundry list of other mental health diagnoses). While being highly sensitive certainly didn’t cause those, I can see how it has affected them — for better and for worse.
3 Ways Being an HSP Makes Living With Mental Illness Harder
I don’t want to focus on the “for worse” much. I think for people with a basic understanding of HSPs and mental health, the reasons are relatively self-explanatory. But let’s look at a couple key ways being an HSP can make it difficult to live with mental health struggles.
- Especially in childhood, since HSPs pay closer attention to details and feel things deeply, they are more attuned to any chaos or stress at home, which can in turn affect their sense of well-being.
- Because HSPs process information and sensory input more deeply, if their environment is largely negative, it makes sense they may experience distress and overwhelm easily. If they do not have tools to regulate their emotions or healthy coping skills, it may contribute to feelings of depression or anxiety.
- We know HSPs often feel things more intensely — in response to positive and negative stimuli, HSPs have shown higher brain activity in the regions associated with emotion. So when a mental health condition involves negative feelings, being highly sensitive can intensify those feelings. Further, when people feel down, they may exacerbate those feelings by putting themselves in negative environments (consciously or unconsciously), worsening the spiral.
The Upside to Being an HSP With Mental Health Struggles
But there are positives to being a highly sensitive person when it comes to living with mental health conditions. It’s important to me to explain the pain first to be able to fully convey just how much of a healing force being an HSP has been in my life.
As I mentioned, I know the pain of depression and suicide intimately. I’ve spent countless days and nights curled up in the fetal position in my bed, crying, as the weight and heaviness of depression consume every fiber of my being. I know what it’s like to feel the pain so intensely that you’re sure you cannot possibly survive it. It’s a pain I wouldn’t wish on anyone (not that I wish any pain on anyone to begin with, but alas). I know what it’s like to pray you don’t wake up the next morning. I know the strength it takes to keep yourself from acting on suicidal thoughts, how much it can hurt to stay alive, and the battle that takes place in your mind.
I know how frustrating it can be to feel like your brain is trying to kill you. And I know what it’s like to turn to every self-destructive option in an attempt to quiet the noise.
Being a highly sensitive person while struggling with these thoughts, it takes so little to push me into a spiral. Already living on the edge, being so aware of and feeling so much, I can always find something that will land me stuck in bed for days.
But, being an HSP, it also takes so little to keep me alive. Living on the edge, so aware of and feeling so much, I can also always find something that will restore my faith in humanity. I don’t think I’d still be alive if that wasn’t the case.
How Being Highly Sensitive Has Kept Me Alive
Last year, I was having one of the worst weeks of my life. My suicidal thoughts were so loud and the depression was heavy. Despite it being September, the weather had still been unbearably hot (I’m a cold weather gal). One morning I woke up, I walked outside to get Dunkin’, and it was cool out — fall weather. That’s all it took. As I felt the cool air against my skin and let it sink in, I had a reason to stay.
I’ve broken down in tears over someone holding the door for me.
A stranger saying hello or a baby smiling at me has filled my heart with hope during times I couldn’t find any.
I remember a particularly bad day a couple years ago, I was checking out at a store, and the cashier was just being friendly and smiled, asking how I was. Again, I broke down in tears.
I’ve gone through drive-thrus crying. One time, the Dunkin’ worker noticed and asked if I was okay and threw in a free donut for me. Already crying, it just made me cry more — not out of sadness, but out of such awe of the kindness of strangers.
When we look at research on mirror neurons, it makes sense, too. HSPs show greater activity in their mirror neurons and in the areas of the brain associated with empathy when looking at anyone’s face showing any emotion (though more activity is shown when the person is a loved one). There is also more activity in response to happy faces than sad (Iacoboni, 2009). It helps explain why simple interactions with anyone being remotely kind or friendly can affect me so much.
The Power of Awe is Tenfold When You’re an HSP
There’s a quote in Matt Haig’s “The Comfort Book” (2021) that perfectly encapsulates this power beauty and kindness can have when you’re struggling:
“There was a kind of pleasure I knew from inside depression. I don’t mean to diminish the depression. It was intense, and life-threatening, and I wanted it to end and had no idea when or how it would, but — but — despite that — no, because of that — when I experienced a moment of beauty or relief it would take on so much power. The night sky would almost sing with beauty. A kiss or a hug would be magnified with meaning. It was almost as though, in those moments, life outside my mind sensed the destructive force within me and was trying to combat it with wonder.”
I had never resonated so deeply with something until I read that. A beautiful sunrise or sunset reminds me how big the world is, how beautiful it is. A couple years ago, I had the chance to visit my best friend in Switzerland. Being at the top of the Swiss Alps, looking over the most incredible snowy mountains, I’ve never been in such awe. Even just looking back through the pictures, I’m struck every time.
Those breathtaking moments of beauty remind me that there is so much moreto this life. There is more to see. There is more awe to experience. There is still a reason to stay.
Research supports this, too. Being a highly sensitive person correlates significantly with feelings of awe, adding meaning and pleasure to life.
Just last year, I was on vacation in Italy when I learned one of my childhood friends who I grew up with died by suicide. My heart was broken. My own depression and suicidal thoughts overwhelmed me. I didn’t know how to be on vacation after that news. A friend told me, “everything you see, everything you experience — take it in once for yourself, and once for him.” It was beautiful advice. Over the next couple days, every sunset, every breathtaking view, every tiny moment of beauty — I was consumed with enough awe for both of us. As an HSP, nature especially has such a profound effect on me.
I took in so much, and building up those moments of powerful awe, I built up a reserve of reasons to stay. When things feel too much, I think back to those sunsets, those snowy mountains, those overlooks; I remember those feelings of awe. I remember that there is still so much more to see here. And I choose to stay.
But if I didn’t process and feel things so deeply, I’m not sure I would. Being highly sensitive has been life-saving to me. And it’s taught me the kind of person I want to be, and how I hope we can all strive to be.
Living Like an HSP
Kindness matters. Beauty matters. Try taking an extra second to appreciate the next beautiful sky you see or the next time you witness a kind interaction. Let yourself feel it. Find ways to show others that same kindness — it doesn’t have to be big! Not every person you smile to will be overwhelmed by it, but one might be. Being friendly might not yield anything for you, but you never know how far it might go. It’s my hope that together we can make a world that’s a little kinder, pays a little more attention, and makes a little more room for feeling and healing.
If you need support right now, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 or reach the Crisis Text Line by texting “START” to 741741.
References
Aron, E. (2020). The highly sensitive person: how to thrive when the world overwhelms you. 25th anniversary edition. New York, N.Y., Citadel Press, Kensington Publishing Corp
Haig, M. (2021). The comfort book. Life.
Iacoboni, M. (2009). Mirroring people: the science of empathy and how we connect with others. 1st Picador ed. New York, N.Y., Picador.
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