Many people wouldn't know it because I hide it well, but I am a highly sensitive person. Grrrr, I grit my teeth as I write that, because I find that to be one of those statements that can be applied perhaps more liberally to explain things away (i.e., make excuses or avoid responsibility for something else). Kind of like ADD has been painted on many, or used by many, as a handy explanation for occasional, or off-handed, inattentive behavior.
Most highly sensitive people would not choose a profession like mine -- real estate -- and that's a very valid point. It's been my struggle to be this way and to be in my business. On reflection though, life in general has been hard, with respect to the life of a highly sensitive person. As a kid, I was always the odd kid out. I was the one bullied and even tortured by a few select individuals. I never understood why, but I supposed that since bullying has no "appropriate" reason to exist, why would I be able to explain it?
Being a HSP and wanting to survive, and later when I had mastered surviving, wanting to thrive and be successful, I learned I needed to understand people. Deeply. I believe that understanding people really, really, well is the greatest single reason for my success in my business. Its funny, too, because I remember that in college, studying engineering at a large university, that skill helped me become a leader on campus, too.
Yet, it didn't reveal itself to be as helpful as a working engineer. Well, engineers deal in all facts; all provable; calculable; evidence. I loved my work as an engineer the most during those times when I was in a people-rich position. I sought out every opportunity, both while at UC Davis and later in my career, to visit schools and reach out to under-represented engineering student populations such as girls and students of color. I mentored others, engineering students not yet graduated and working on summer co-ops or internships; and I organized job fairs and resume-writing, and coached my own fellow students on interviewing and tightening their resumes.
Reflecting on these memories in the context of being a HSP, I realize now, all these years later, that gravitating to the "people" aspect of a technical job was an obvious outcome. Of course, in spite of the pain the sensitivity can cause, the "receptors" of my HS nature needed, had to have, such contact.
Most definitely, when I was young, the HSP inside me sought approval. I am not certain that all HSPs would align with the need to have contact with lots of people, or that this need would be in keeping with their nature, but it is most certainly a part of my nature. Or, it was a coarse characteristic that I feel I have honed to something much more refined and much less driving.
And, in relation to putting my neck on the chopping block by being in my profession, I think the payoff for being "killed" over and over by thoughtless people is that I am repeatedly blessed by those who recognize that I have connected with their closest-held needs and have addressed them as it relates to our process together. For every death I die, I am brought back to life by a person who has appreciated me and felt that nobody could have done the job for them better than I performed it.
Why, why, would anybody want to live in a life where feeling "killed" was a frequent feeling? you ask. I think living a life as a HSP, I could die by anybody's hand, on any day. Betrayal is a sense that creeps into the picture in large and small ways. I have always had a rather confrontational style. But when I was young, I couldn't figure out how to be the "tell you like it is person" and then take it when somebody handed me their version of the same thing.
So, because half of my immediate family members are the opposite, and the young "me" could see that was an easier place to vent my own ire--with people who were not confrontational whatsoever--I now recognize that much of my adult life was spent connecting with people who would not confront me. Over the years, I have come to refer to two categories of style: confrontational, and passive-aggressive (recently replaced by "non-confrontational").
The problem over the years has been that I have ended up feeling betrayed by my non-confrontational loved ones, because often, I would share my feelings of *whatever* and then they would not do the same. Then, the feelings they weren't sharing were more and more often kept to themselves until they literally just disappeared off my radar.
Yet, I didn't not know. I didn't not feel it. I just couldn't get them to express their feelings. People who are HS have to train themselves not to take on others' opinions and feelings. I was most susceptible to the suggestions of how I was failing, and I think that was because the people were people I loved or cared about.
In my 20's, as a small business owner, I began to learn how I was vulnerable to this, and how others would use it to their advantage. I was a female in a "males only" industry, and there was a great deal of manipulation applied with the intent to control me. I'm sure in some ways, it worked. In others, I resisted, and from the experience, I learned a great deal about managing the pain and frustration of being in that place.
So far, my 50's have been all about rebirth: the re-vitalization of my physical self after years of searing pain; the re-invention (transformation!) of my business into a full-fledged company; the re-connection with the social butterfly that was me in my years at college.
The people in my life are everything. I know now that people can't or don't always stay in your life forever; that different things lead us along different paths. I am taking the energy of my HS nature and applying it to connecting with all the best people I can find and with whom I can build that connection with. I do this for the very simple fact that there is no possible way that I can resonate with every person I meet, nor they with me. And, now, the ones I keep close are those bull-headed, "call-you-out-on-your-shit," have-your-back-forever, friends. They won't never hurt my feelings, but they will listen when I need to explain how I was hurt, even if some of that explanation comes at full volume. And they will also tell me their truths, and expect me to--if not agree--allow space for their truths in our friendships.
I note, I have at least one very close friend who has known me almost all my life. Amazingly, I can not remember any real disagreements. I know we've had them, but they just aren't important, in the bigger picture. So, even though I was who I was all those years ago, and she was who she was all those years ago, and even though we have grown in fairly different ways in the 50 years of friendship, we still are as deeply connected as we were then.
It's such a delicately balanced combination of things between any two people. It's certainly not about defining oneself as a HSP, or any other thing, It's also just about wanting to stay. And, my friends, I want to stay.
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