I’m a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP). It’s a type of neurodiversity. It’s not an official psychological diagnosis yet like ADHD. But my husband has a mild version of ADHD and I mentally frame the needs of our brains and nervous systems on opposite ends of a similar spectrum. He needs more stimulus to focus and feel healthy. I need much less.

museum, but they’re ready for more when you suggest an evening party. HSPs need solitude after such a day. They feel jangled, overaroused. Most people walk into a room and perhaps notice the furniture, the people—that’s about it. HSPs can be instantly aware, whether they wish to be or not, of the mood, the friendships and enmities, the freshness or staleness of the air, the personality of the one who arranged the flowers” (4).

If any of this intrigues you or seems to resonate with your sensibilities or the behavior of someone close to you, I’d highly recommend her book. She also has others addressing specific areas of life for HSPs. I found the one on parenting very validating.

• The Highly Sensitive Parent
• The Highly Sensitive Person in Love
• The Highly Sensitive Child
• Psychotherapy and the Highly Sensitive Person: Improving Outcomes for That Minority of People Who Are the Majority of Clients
• The Undervalued Self

I’m not an expert on HSPs, so if you want to learn more, I’d direct you to her website. But I will offer my two cents on why I have found this topic important to explore in my own life and how it might apply to yours (regardless of whether this label applies to you or not).

Attuning to a Pace my Body Can Handle

What HSP awareness means for me is attuning to a pace my body and brain can handle. This is something we all need to do. Consider:

When do you feel most grounded, whole, and like yourself?

Have you paid attention to when and how your body carries stress?

Can you make correlations between stress reactions or negative coping strategies and decisions about your social life, schedule, home space, or what you prioritize in your day?

Learning what makes you feel fulfilled and the balance between what is too much and what isn’t enough is a journey each of need to engage with. And the answers will be unique to each individual. What my husband needs in the category of stimulation is vastly different than what I need, and that means there’s a lot of give and take and negotiation in our marriage to try and find a good enough balance for both of us. If we are aware of our varying needs and not blindly stumbling through life getting frustrated and angry, then we can make proactive decisions to prioritize both of our needs the best we can.

In Marriage

When picking a restaurant for a date night, my husband will care most about the food. I care about the food, but I probably care more about the ambiance. He might want sushi, but then I might weigh in on which sushi restaurant based more on how loud the music is, or if it has flashy TVs or what the lighting is like. These are details my husband could care less about and wouldn’t give a second thought if he wasn’t married to me.

We are considering planning a vacation without our kids in the fall. Our destination is still in debate because we are trying to consider what would be a good enough compromise for both of us. My dream vacation is to go hiking in the Alps. I would love to go to Switzerland, hike in the mornings, find some good food, and then sit with my feet up looking at breathtaking scenery and reading a book every evening. My husband wouldn’t mind the hiking for a day or two and then he’d be bored out of his mind. His ideal trip includes lots of activity—things like board game cafes, jet skis, swimming, a concert. This means we are searching for locations that might offer pieces of both—activity and solitude in nature. I may have to save my bucket list trip to the Alps for a different season of life and perhaps a different travel companion.

In Parenting

Living with small children is incredibly stimulating. This is part of the reality of my world, and I have to plan for it.

One strategy is I send my kids to daycare in the mornings. This is partly so I can get work done, but it’s mostly to give me space to let my nervous system reset every day. Quiet, unstimulated time isn’t a luxury for me. It’s a full-on need. If I don’t get this consistent reset, I turn into an ugly person, fast. My threshold dramatically drops for tolerating the highs and lows of my children, their chatter and noise, their meltdowns, their conflicts, and my extroverted husband’s external processing when he comes home from work. I start snapping left and right, and it’s key for me to realize why.

Sometimes this plan falls apart. Someone gets sick and has to stay home. There’s a snow day, or an extended weekend because of a holiday. I’m not going to lie. These are all times I dread, especially when they happen suddenly and I haven’t had time to develop an alternative plan. Why? Because it means my nervous system is suddenly deprived of the chance to calm down and reset and I know what that means. It’s rough. On days like this I have to take what I can get—five minutes in the bathroom alone so I can breathe and try not to blow up. A purposeful soak in the bathtub while my kids watch a movie. Leaving the house once my husband is home for the night so I can get away from their combined stimulus. Or going upstairs and putting in earplugs and lying in the dark.

Regarding Noise Levels

I almost always carry earplugs with me. They don’t cancel noise, but they bring it down a few decibels and decrease the impact. I wear them while I’m cooking dinner and my children are bouncing around the house loudly or whining. They are always in reserve on long car trips for the times when I can’t control the noise level and I can’t leave the space. I even wear them in large crowds such as church or a concert to dial down the noise level. If I’m out and its noisy and I feel overstimulated, it’s something I can do for myself to acknowledge, this is overwhelming right now. I may not be able to leave yet, but I can put in earplugs to take care of myself in a small way.

I hand out headphones to my family members liberally. My husband needs stimulus, so he often turns to music or videos. I am constantly throwing his earbuds at him if he forgets. It’s a way for him to get his stimulus and me to get my quiet. I’m starting to do the same with my daughters. They have a Yoto player that they absolutely love. I want them to love music and dance parties and audiobooks. Hadassah is listening to Charlotte’s Web on incessant repeat these days. Despite my fondness of the story, sometimes I just can’t stand to hear it one more time. So I offer her a choice. You can go upstairs and listen to that, or you can put in your headphones. She gets a choice, both of which offer her a piece of what she wants, and I can live with either of those choices. It’s a negotiation of needs.

At Family Gatherings

I’m the oldest of nine kids. Six of us are married or have long-term partners and there are eight grandkids in the mix and counting. This means that Thanksgiving dinner can be twenty-some people without any extras. We are a massive crowd all on our own. Navigating this is a constant struggle for me. There have been so many times when I’ve been triggered or incapable of navigating family events with the ease and success the rest of my family appears to be able to do. This leads to thoughts of feeling like a failure or what’s wrong with me? Sometimes I’m imagining my family thinking I’m uptight or an isolationist. The reality is that I’m an HSP.

Knowing that has freed me to communicate about this differently and also to plan accordingly. Examples include:

• When a sibling gets married, sometimes I opt out of all the pre-decorating and prep events—possibly even the rehearsal dinner. I might even do something strategic for self-care the morning of the event like having alone time, getting a massage, or soaking in the bath. All of these things might seem like I’m avoidant, but I make all these choices intentionally so that I can work to be fully present during the moments of the large gathering that matter most.
• The last time my family held their bi-annual family vacation we went to Branson. My parents rented a ginormous house for everyone to stay at which was incredibly generous. It’s also impossibly overwhelming to me. That year was the first year my husband and I decided to rent our own condo space for our family. This meant that we could join in the family activities, but every night we had our own space to retreat to. I knew I could de-stimulate and sleep in quiet, without having to negotiate a whole houseful of people. If I got overwhelmed during the day, I had a back-up plan and space where I knew I could go and take care of myself. It was the first family vacation in my adult life where I didn’t leave in tears feelings like I had failed.

Other Social and Cultural Events

Being an HSP also means I have to pace myself in my social interactions. Don’t get me wrong; I love connection! But I’ve also learned I can’t pile too many things into one day, one week, or one weekend without giving myself space for recovery in between. Things means you might look at my calendar and think I have tons of margin, but I might look at that same schedule and know that I’ve hit my max for what is wise for me and my family. Adding more will have consequences. Occasionally I will make choices to push the envelope, but only when it really matters, and I do so knowing what it will cost me on the back end.

It also means I have to adjust my expectations regarding the type of person I am or what I like to do. For instance, there is an annual cultural event in my town called Jazz in June. Every Tuesday evening in June there is live jazz music in a green space. It’s family friendly. There are fun food vendors, picnic blankets, a live performance. It’s a free community event with a suggested donation. I used to love this event. In my single and early married life, I could navigate this experience with relative ease. The past few years I’ve kept thinking, I should take the girls. I love the idea of it. But the reality is that by the time 6:30pm rolls around, I’ve been navigating stimulus all day and I’m done. The idea of heading to a crowded public space with two children in tow does me in and I don’t go. Then I struggle with feeling like a failure. I wanted to do this and I can’t. I used to be able to enjoy this. What’s wrong with me?!

Nothing is wrong with me. I’m an HSP. I used to live alone in a quiet apartment, so engaging with a cultural event was a welcome change and a joy. Now I live with small stimulating humans all day long. They are my priority and I have to let go of other expectations. There’s nothing shameful in that. It’s just practical adjustment. Maybe in a decade or so when my kids are older, I’ll have more margin to navigate spaces like that again.

These examples are my story.

Yours will be different, whether you are an HSP or not. You might have a different kind of neurodiversity. You might have a physical limitation. You might struggle with anxiety or a mental health issue or past trauma. What can you do to embrace what is? My HSP-ness isn’t going away. I have to gamify it. Where do you find yourself continually brushing up against difficulty? Is there a reason why? Get curious. Explore. Learn all you can. Find examples of strategies. Then experiment and find what works for you. Don’t give in to the false sense of shame that you should be different. It’s how you’re made, or part of your story. Work to embrace it.

There are positive aspects to being an HSP too. We tend to be very deep thinkers and processors. We often have very vivid internal spiritual lives. We tend to be intuitive in picking up on the nuances of others’ needs. It can be a gift in attuning to my children and helping them navigate through life. It has its ups and its downs. I have to work to embrace all of it.