What does it mean when you say someone is too sensitive?
I've been seen as emotional and sensitive all my life. I've fought it all my life too. Because I was born on July 15th, people who believe in zodiac signs say that I'm a Cancer and that Cancerians are ubersensitive. They also say that to protect their oversensitivity, Cancers exhibit a tough outer shell that makes them seem tough when they're actually the opposite. I don't do horoscopes, but I will admit that I have been guilty of using a hard outer shell to protect myself from insults and insensitive comments that impact me much more than they should. Insults that most people could care less about tend to sink into my mind and stay longer than they oughta. I'll admit that my sensitivity is one thing I HATED about my personality for a long time. I would actually pray repeatedly that I would care less about what people thought or felt about me. I prayed that every negative (and unconstructive) thing that someone said about me would bounce off without my even noticing its hostile intent. But, it appears that God has not honored that request.
I explained to a friend of mine about how the whole sensitivity thing works. I love that God gave me insight into it. It helped me not to HATE it so much in myself. I compared it to someone with a food allergy. I had a teacher who taught me that some people have such strong peanut allergies that they will get an allergic reaction if someone were to throw away PART of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in a garbage can TWENTY MINUTES EARLIER. They can walk in the room and begin to itch and swell.
So this is how I related this to my friend. I told him something to the effect of this:
Just because that person has an allergy does not mean that they are weird or to be looked down upon. Just as you wouldn't look down upon someone who is very sensitive to shellfish or peanuts, you should not look down upon people who are sensitive to insults and unintentionally insensitive remarks. The people with either type of sensitivity CERTAINLY didn't ask for it. I promise I was not in the womb and asked God to make me hypersensitive to the comments of people. I PROMISE I did not. And neither did people with allergies for pet dander, pollen, peanuts, shellfish, diary products, and gluten. So treat emotionally sensitve people the same way you would treat people with other sensitivities. You wouldn't ask a friend with a pollen allergy to have a picnic in the spring under a tree unless you were evil. You wouldn't invite a lactose-intolerant friend out for ice cream unless you were cruel. You wouldn't invite your friend who was allergic to cats to your apartment with the five fluffiest cats ever unless you were a meanie! So why would you keep making hurtful comments to someone who you know cannot tolerate it?
I bet my two sisters will laugh if they read this because they've always thought I was too sensitive over the silliest things. They think I read WAY too much into comments and other's behaviors towards me. But that's because they don't have the same "emotional allergy" as I do. For example, I have a friend who is not at all sensitive to what people do or say to her; and for the longest, I envied that in her. She will have a guy not call her for three days and will not be the slightest bit offended. But I, on the otherhand, think that's disrespectful for a guy who claims to want to be with you not to contact you. She'll call or text the guy first, but I'll say, "No way! If he likes you like he claims, then he'll call or text first!" She doesn't understand why I think the way I do, but I do.
Now, I have a new appreciation for my sensitivity. My sensitivity helps me to weed out the bad guys. And she always finds out that I was right about the guys she was dating. My sensitivity is like the people with strong peanut allergies. She can't sense the "peanuts" - so to speak - like I can. I'm so ubersensitive to the "peanuts" that I can smell them a mile away while she'll just bite into a cookie without even noticing the label that reads "Warning; This product might contain peanut products."
Does that make me any better than her or her any better than me? No. We have our different strengths. Her strength is that she can tolerate a lot of male crap, and I can't. As soon as she tells me about a guy and how the first date went, I can IMMEDIATELY tell her whether he's good or not because of my intuition (mental sensitivity). That's why my sisters need to listen to me! :)
To make the point clearer, I will give a scenario from the point of a nonsensitive young lady and from the point of a very sensitive young lady. The scenario is that they are both seeing very similar guys. The guys have the same behaviors. On the first date, this is what happens for both of them:
Both guys pick them up 10 minutes late. Both guys tell them that they look really good in their outfits. Both guys take them to a drive-in movie theater. Both guys receive a phone call that they leave the car to answer. Both guys buy them what they want to eat. Both guys ask them if they want to go home right after the movie. Both guys don't call the next day. Here's how both of them interpet the date.
The nonsensitive young lady would say that the date went very well and that she is excited about going out again.
The very sensitive young lady would say, "How dare he pick me up late? Everyone knows that first impressions are often last impressions. If he really respected me, he would have come early. Then he told me I looked good in my outfit which was cool. The only problem was that he stared a little too long. That's disrespectful; what kind of a Christian guy stares at a woman's chest like that? Then he took me to a drive-thru movie. Is he embarrassed of me? Is he trying to hide me from a possible girlfriend? Was he just hoping to get some in the car? Then he left the car to talk on the phone for a whole 5 minutes. Was that his girlfriend that he didn't want me to know about and that he didn't want to know about me? Then he asked me if I wanted to go home right after the movie. Does that mean he wanted me to go so that he could see the girl he was on the phone with? Or did it mean that he was not enjoying himself and did not want to spend another second longer with me than he had to? And to make matters worse, he didn't even call to see how I was the next day! That jerk!"
Both people could be right. But the sensitive person is so in-tune to the fine details that the nonsensitive person wouldn't notice. Of course, the sensitive person could be WAY off. But what if she's not? What if the nonsensitive young lady is just ditzy and in La-La Land? The good thing about the sensitive person is that she won't end up in a bad marriage because of her missing the warning signs on the FIRST date. But the bad thing about the sensitive person is that she MAY NOT GET MARRIED AT ALL! She seems so sensitive that she may blow things out of proportion!
The nonsensitive person's good quality is that she is very easy-going and can have a good time without being paranoid. She won't let insecurity and paranoia ruin a good relationship. The bad news about her is that she has no intuition and can end up in very bad relationships because she can't pick up on the early warning signs that say "DANGER! DANGER! Turn back now!"
I'm not nearly as sensitive as I used to be; I used to be like the overly sensitive girl in the scenario. But I've learned as I've gotten older that NO ONE is perfect. I still notice the small things, but I also cover them with grace. If someone is late, I give them the benefit of a doubt now. I think to myself that perhaps they spent a little more time in the mirror trying to look just right for me. Or maybe someone in traffic or at a store held them up. Or maybe he got lost. I say that if he stares a little too hard, that means I look great! (And the truth is that many women intentionally dress in clothes that accentuate their better features.) If he leaves the room to talk on the phone, it could be because it's just an important, private phone call he was waiting on that's none of my business, or it could be that he doesn't want to disturb the movie for me and yet really needs to take that call. (THAT would be rude if he talked while I was watching a movie!) I still don't have much patience for a guy who doesn't call the next day, but just to make a point, it could be that he heard a bunch of lame advice from his friends that said, "Dude, if you call her too soon, she'll be turned off because she'll think you're desperate. Don't call until two days later! Trust me!" Maybe he's not had a lot of dating experience and doesn't know that you are supposed to call a lady the day of or the day after a date.
Another example I gave my friend that I was explaining emotional sensitivity to is this:
I told this person that if he knew of a little person who had difficulty working in the same workplace as him because of her height, would he be so cruel as to tell her, "Oh, well! Get over it! I'm not short, so your shortness is a personal problem. It has nothing to do with me!" I explained to him that if you really care about the little person and desire to have a close friendship with her, you're going to have to get over yourself every once in awhile and accommodate her height. You'll start using the lower shelves so that she won't have to get assistance or use a ladder every time she has to get that thing off the shelf. If you really care about her, you'll "inconvenience" yourself every once in awhile to make life easier for her.
The bible says to bear the burdens of one another. So if her height is a life burden for her (just as some people will ALWAYS have peanut allergies and some people will ALWAYS be emotionally sensitive), then you are supposed to put self aside to accommodate this loved one. If someone is in a wheelchair for life, what manner of person would not leave a chair off of the table so that that person can fit at the table? What manner of man would not hold the door open for them? What manner of person would not help them get in the car? If somebody is destined to be emotionally weaker than you for life, get over your emotionally strong self and help them by not saying every thing that comes into your mind.
I've met SO many people who seem to feel that it is their God-given duty to let me know that I am very skinny. I used to be very sensitive to that as a child, but I'm not anymore because I realize that I look good at my size. But I don't go around calling them fat even though, ironically, most (if not all) of them are overweight and are currently on diets and workout plans. And the reason I don't do this is because I know that many people are sensitive to that even if they're not naturally sensitive. I have NEVER went up to someone and said, "You're fat." It's just good common sense not to say things that hurt people. My sensitivity makes ME feel sensitive towards them whether they're sensitive to me or not!
After reading some of a book called The Highly Sensitive Person, I now see my sensitivity as a definite plus. I consider myself so fortunate that I can detect small details and warning signs that are important. It's done me well. I've never had a bad relationship. Never been cheated on or abused. That shows me that my sensitivity works! But I have friends and family members who have little intuition, and because of that, they end up with the greatest jerks. I feel sorry for people who can't perceive evil in people because they end up getting hurt unnecessarily. Also, my sensitivity helps me to write great notes that help many people. I can feel people's pain and struggles because of intuition. People without that hypersensitivity can't be the best psychologists, therapists, counselors, etc. because they won't have that natural ability to empathize without treating the person like another number or paycheck.
But just so that it doesn't seem like I'm bragging, I'll reemphasize the negative parts of my sensitivity. I can be so sensitive that it makes me not take risks that might be well worth it. I may not get married if I don't lose some of that sensitivity because I'll find something bad in every guy I date! I need to accept that NO ONE is going to be flawless. I have bad parts and so does everyone else. So if I can perceive bad in others, I need to understand that I too have bad parts that I would like for others to cover with grace. Another negative aspect of hypersensitivity is that you may be paranoid about things that aren't necessarily true. I may wrongly attribute a comment to be someone's attempt to tear me down, but it might just be constructive criticism to make me a better person. I may call a genuinely helpful person naive or a hater. You can think many people are "out to get you" when they aren't even thinking about you. (My big sister drove this point home for me!)
So if you're emotionally sensitive like I am, there's nothing wrong with you! You're actually special! Don't let your sensitivity take over your life though. And if you have friends and family members who don't respect that, it just makes good sense to me to distance yourself every once in a while - if not permanently - if they insist on hurting you (if they were friends). (People with pet dander allergies are not evil people for avoiding fluffy pets!)
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