Why Many HSPs Feel Like Something Is Wrong With Them & How Other People's Reactions May Be Shaping That View

 By the end of this episode, you’ll understand why highly sensitive people can be so hard on themselves, and what becomes possible when you start questioning where those judgments came from. In this episode, you’ll discover why so many highly sensitive people end up feeling like something is wrong with them, how years of reactions, comments, and misunderstandings can quietly shape your self-image, and why things can start to feel different when you separate who you are from how other people respond to you.

Welcome to this edition of Self-Compassion Wednesdays, where we dive deeper into understanding ourselves as highly sensitive people by exploring the unique traits that shape our experience. Many highly sensitive people carry some version of, “Something’s wrong with me.” Not necessarily consciously, but underneath.

Some version of, “I’m too sensitive,” or, “I’m too emotional,” or, “I’m too cautious,” or, “I’m too affected,” or, “I’m just too much.” Where did these conclusions come from? Did you arrive at these independently or did you learn them? I think many highly sensitive people learn them in a very natural way. We learn about ourselves through reflection.

Children learn who they are partly through this process of reflection, and they look at how people respond to them. This is natural. So when you’re enthusiastic and somebody smiles as a result, you learn that enthusiasm is welcome And if you are sensitive and someone becomes impatient, then you may learn that sensitivity is a problem.

Not because anyone explicitly taught it, but because reactions become information and we process that information and come to these kinds of conclusions. Over time, other people’s reactions can become your own self-talk. They call it internalization. You stop hearing, “You’re too sensitive,” and you start thinking, “I’m too sensitive.”

You’ve taken it on. You’ve believed it. You’ve come to the conclusion, and you’ve come to the conclusion that this is true, and so now it’s your belief that is operating. But you picked it up by drawing conclusions through that process of reflecting through other people. So let’s look at some common examples of how this can happen.

One area is the trait of thinking things through, which is part of being a highly sensitive person. It’s a natural quality. As a highly sensitive person, you naturally process things deeply, and you consider possibilities and consequences just naturally. That’s how you’re wired. You want to understand before acting.

But as you have naturally done that, processed deeply and wanted to understand before acting and consider all the possibilities, you may have seen reflected through other people a judgment that you’re overthinking, that you’re making things too complicated. Just decide already. That kind of impatience can bring you to the conclusion that there must be something wrong with the way I think So what’s important here is to look at it yourself and look closely.

Is this really overthinking or is this something else? Am I just processing things deeply? When you start to look at it objectively and when you start to see that this is something that I naturally do, then that self-judgment can start to lighten. And of course, it helps that they’ve done a lot of research on highly sensitive people so that you get an idea that you’re not alone in this.

In fact, 20% of the world’s population is highly sensitive, and so you’re looking at natural traits for those of us who have this trait So let’s look at another example. The natural quality is noticing things that others miss. Small changes or subtle cues. Things that feel obvious to you, but are invisible to others.

And when you bring these things up, naturally, either as a child or at any point in your life, you may get reactions from other people like, “Oh, you’re too picky,” or, “Why does that bother you?” Or “Nobody even noticed.” Or even, “You’re making that up.” So the conclusion is that I shouldn’t pay attention to these things, or that maybe I can’t even trust my own perception because other people aren’t seeing it.

See, what happens is we’re using their frame of reference instead of using our own direct experience. And so that same awareness of seeing things, noticing things, being sensitive to the world around us can end up being something that we judge instead of seeing it as something that allows us to see what other people miss.

And this is a gift. This is our ability. Instead of being ashamed of it, we can embrace it and use it. Another example is feeling things deeply. So HSPs naturally experience emotions quite intensely, and that can be anything from joy to sadness to beauty to loss to connection to anything, even negative emotions.

We experience them very intensely, and the reactions we will get from others quite often is, “You’re too emotional.” “You’re just too sensitive,” or, “You’re making too much out of this.” And so we can start to doubt ourselves. We may think that my feelings are a problem and that I shouldn’t have those feelings, and I can’t help it, so there’s something wrong with me, and this is how self-image gets tarnished, gets put…

We can start to lower ourselves in our own eyes. But it’s good to look at it more objectively. Perhaps your feelings aren’t actually wrong. Perhaps they’re simply strong- stronger signals than many people are used to. And perhaps the reason for that is so that we can perceive the subtle things in the emotions that often go unnoticed with many people.

The advantage from my point of view is when I’m aware of subtle emotions, I can make corrections, course corrections, even without it becoming something bigger. So we have that capacity to be aware of emotions, and what’s makes us feel very strongly emotional is still may be in the early stages of imbalance, whereas other people may not get to that strong of an emotion until it’s much later.

So we have some serious advantages. But when you use the reflections of others, you will just conclude that, “Oh, I’m too much,” and that’s not fair to the actual trait that you’ve been given Another example of this is needing recovery time. As HSPs, we take in a lot and we process a lot, and eventually our system needs time to reset.

This is just the natural effect of processing as much as we do. And so when we take recovery time or want to, you may notice other people giving feedback that points towards some kind of thing like, “Oh, you’re… Are you lazy? Or are you antisocial? Why do you need so much downtime? Are you just selfish?”

These are the kinds of reflections that may make you think that you should be able to handle more, you should be able to just keep going like everybody else, but that’s not how you were built Needing recovery doesn’t necessarily mean weakness. It may simply mean that your system has been carrying a heavier processing load, like a, just a bigger computer program is going to use more processing from the computer, and it can overheat more quickly.

So this is just part of how we’re built Another example is caring about other people. We as HSPs notice how people are doing. We care about the impact of what we say and do on these people. We care about relationships and feelings. And so when other people reflect back to us, they see us doing this, you may come to the conclusion or they may give you direct feedback that you care too much, that you’re taking it too personally, and stop worrying about everyone.

And so the conclusion can be that caring is a problem, that I’m doing something wrong by caring for other people But caring is what we are designed for as highly sensitive people. We’re made that way because someone has to care, and that’s our job. So it’s easy to judge ourselves when we look at it through other people’s points of view.

But when you look at your own experience and you look at the value of caring and how it serves both you and others, then this stops being something negative and something that you can be proud of, something that is a gift that you possess Then there’s an example of pausing before acting. This is the most common thing for all h- highly sensitive people.

We naturally assess the situation before moving forward. We think ahead, we consider consequences. I sometimes say we do our trial and error in our thinking before we actually take action. And the result is we often are able to do things very well the first time because we’ve done all of the prep work before we took our first step.

And yet, when you see– when you show up this way and other people see you, they may sometimes reflect back to you that you’re being indecisive. “Oh, you’re so hesitant. Just go for it. Why are you waiting so long?” As if you’re doing something wrong. And so the conclusion can be that you can’t trust yourself, that maybe you are doing something wrong.

Maybe I should just push myself into action more. And while there’s always a balance and sometimes there is value in doing that, if you just look at your own nature, you will see that it is intelligently set up, and if you take your time, you end up avoiding a lot of missteps. So sometimes wisdom looks slow from the outside, and the point here is to look at it from our own experience rather than always reflecting off of others Then one last example is appreciating beauty and meaning.

As highly sensitive people, we’re deeply moved by beauty, by music, by nature, by meaningful moments. These are the essence of life for us. This is what makes us get up and do things. We love these kinds of meaningful moments, these m- these moments that are beautiful and touching and meaningful. But when other people see us chasing these or s- or staying in them, savoring them, building our lives around them, they sometimes reflect the idea that we’re unrealistic or that we’re idealistic or that we’re too sentimental.

And so the conclusion can be that we think we start needing to be more practical, there’s something wrong with our sentimental side, with our idealistic side, and that’s not true. The same sensitivity that allows pain to reach you also allows beauty to reach you. And so our sensitivity is a gift when we allow ourselves to enjoy it, to use it, and to find our way with it, even if it’s not the way of other people So notice what just happened.

None of these qualities started as flaws. The qualities stayed the same, but what changed was the interpretation. So it might have started with appreciating beauty as a natural quality, and then there’s this interpretation that’s a bad thing, and then the balance comes in, no, it’s not a bad thing.

And that’s what I want to invite you to make your own interpretation, to find a balanced interpretation. Many HSPs don’t just inherit, inherent inherit sensitivity, they inherit a story about sensitivity. A story that says, “You think too much, you feel too much, you care too much, you need too much, you notice too much.”

And after hearing that story enough times, it can start to feel like it’s true But a strength can look like a weakness when viewed through the wrong lens. So what I invite you to do is to change your lens. Look at your traits from your experience, from your point of view, and see the value in them. And see them as the sensitive instruments that they are and take care of them.

When you take care of your sensitivity, then they don’t go out of balance. It doesn’t go out of balance. And when that happens, then you get the benefit of the sensitivity without the stress of being out of balance. So the goal isn’t just all positive thinking. You don’t have to convince yourself that every quality is wonderful, and you don’t have to replace every judgment with a positive affirmation.

But the goal is to be curious. Become curious. When you criticize yourself, start asking, “Where did I learn this? Where did I pick this up? Whose voice does this sound like? And is it actually a flaw, or is this a natural quality being viewed through a particular lens?” When you begin questioning those conclusions, something often softens.

You start seeing something that has always been there but has been clouded because it’s been filtered through someone else’s perspective. So the feeling I’m left with today is that the qualities we often most are ashamed of are actually our strongest assets. We just have to start looking at them from a more honest and truthful point of view.

In this episode, we looked at why so many highly sensitive people end up feeling like something is wrong with them, and we saw that it is because we have taken on the judgments of others. We have taken on the evaluations of others and come to conclusions that mean that we’re too much or that there’s something wrong in some way.

We’re different. And it comes with a feeling of judgment when it comes from that perspective. We also looked at how years of reactions, comments, and misunderstandings can quietly shape your self-image because it’s one thing if someone thinks something about us, judges us, but it’s another thing when we internalize that judgment and now start concluding that we really are that way, that there really is something wrong with us.

That’s how self-image gets formed. Only we can create that, but we also can dismantle that and create a new self-image based on something that is more true We also looked at why things can start to feel different when you separate who you are from how other people responded to you. And so that’s the difference.

You have to look at how you actually are, who you actually are, what your nature is, and see what is actually there and why it might be there and what’s good about it, instead of quickly jumping to conclusions based on how other people may perceive your traits. So thank you for listening. It’s always great to explore with you.

This program comes out three times a week on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Join me next time for Strategy Fridays, where we think about specific things you can do to help manage stress as a highly sensitive person.