Category Archives: HSP Symptoms

Highly Sensitive People (HSPs) have intense emotions, strong reactions to their environment-like temperature, light, smell, and noise-and think about things deeply. These posts are about those “symptoms”.

Why am I so easily distracted at work?

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Sometimes I am amazed that for a somewhat intelligent person, I have such a hard time staying focused on my work. Isn’t that a sign of being weak-minded or incompetent?

Nope, good news! I can blame it on HSP! :)

A recent article by HSP expert Peter Messerschmidt, “Time Management, Work and the Highly Sensitive Person” explains how to adjust your habits to HSP-proof your home office.

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turtles!!!

First of all — Does this sound like you?

You are sitting at your desk at home, doing work on the computer, when you notice the tissue box on your desk is empty. You stop typing mid-sentence, get up, and throw out the old tissue box. Then sit down back to work. A few minutes later, you are distracted by a picture hanging next to your computer from a recent vacation. You google the name of the vacation spot and spend the next 15 minutes reading about it. Back to work! A few minutes later again, you feel like a snack, so you head to the kitchen and notice the floor is dusty, so you decide to sweep it really quick. Ok, time to focus! After a few more minutes of working, you notice a program shortcut on your desktop that you haven’t used in a while. So you spend the next ten minutes going through your programs and deleting things you don’t need. You are not getting much work done!

I am ashamed to admit that that is sooooo me! I don’t think I even realize just how many things I get distracted by and how much time I waste!

Because HSPs are easily distracted by things around them (like an old tissue box or vacation photo) and annoyed by little things (like a dirty kitchen floor or unused desktop shortcuts), we need to work smarter. Not harder.

So acknowledge the fact that you get distracted easily… then minimize those distractions! Look around your work area and see what you can do to help yourself. Clear out clutter. I’ve installed software to stop myself from visiting certain websites when I’m working. The article mentioned a person who used a dedicated work laptop with only a Word processor but no internet connection when they wanted to focus on distraction-free writing.

And if you know there is a certain time of the day you are the most productive (for me, it’s late at night) specifically plan your day so you are working during those times. Take advantage of them!

Like I’ve said many times before, once you acknowledge your HSP traits and accept them, you can adjust your life to better fit you. You might feel like it isn’t “normal”, but who cares. You gotta do what works for YOU.

HSP Symptom: Sudden Noises

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A bus screeched to a stop in front of me as I waited to cross the street.

I grimaced and instinctively covered my ears.

I turned to my husband Jim and asked, “didn’t that sound hurt your ears?” No, he says. “Ugh,” I said. “It literally HURT my ears.”

A few days later, we are walking down the street and a car goes by and breaks the silence with a loud horn HONNNNK! I involuntarily let out a small yelp. And jumped a little bit.

“Why did you yell?” Jim asked, a little annoyed at my outburst.

“I can’t help it.” I said.

So, yeah. I’m very sensitive to sudden noise, loud noise, incessant background noise, and high-pitched screeching. When someone would walk up to my cubicle at work and start talking to me, often I would jump. I didn’t want to jump; I couldn’t help it.

Oh, and I can also hear when a TV is on but the sound is muted. Even in another room. There is some really small, high-pitched electronic-y noise that comes from TVs that I’ve been able to hear since I was a little kid. Sometimes I’ll be like, “that TV is still on,” even when it looks off. And sure enough, it turns out that it’s on. It’s a pretty useless superpower.

I asked my husband-since he’s known me for 10 years-if he could think of any examples of me being jumpy around noises. His answer was interesting: “You jump when you hear any loud random sound that’s unexpected. It doesn’t even have to be loud-just squeal-y or high pitched. It’s anytime anything unexpected happens to you.”

Oftentimes, I’m *thinking* about something when sudden noises occur, so the sudden noise is disturbing me and jerking me out of my train of thought. That’s why I jump. I’m jumpy.

As far as I know, there’s nothing I can do about this. I can’t prepare myself for unexpected noises.

Further reading: Here is a fantastic article about how noises affect HSPs more than others.

A solution for stinky garbage bins for us smell-sensitive people

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Stinky flower!
This is a gross story.

A few years ago, I was standing in my kitchen and I faintly smelled something. Something bad.

I said to Jim, “Do you smell that?” Of course, he says no.

Now I’m on a mission. “I swear I smell something bad. Where the heck is that coming from?” I mumbled to myself.

If you are anything like me, you know what came next. I searched every single part of the kitchen looking for this smell.

I ran the garbage disposal, sniffed over it, and even used a cleaner to make sure it didn’t smell. I opened the dishwasher and sniffed around to see if it stunk.

I thoroughly smelled almost every item the fridge, holding them to my noise to see if they were spoiled.

I swept the floor to see if any food had fallen down there. I cleaned the countertop for the same reason. I sniffed around the oven and stovetop. I looked through all the cabinets with our dry goods.

I was sniffing over every single thing in the kitchen. Where the hell was it coming from? I was losing my mind.

Eventually, I had to give up. Maybe the smell would go away. I lit some candles and tried to think about something else.

The next day, I went to heat up some leftovers in the microwave. I open the microwave, and inside, I see raw chicken that I had put in there to thaw. Two days ago. That I had forgotten.

So. Gross. Raw chicken was sitting in my microwave two days!

Segue into the point of this post…

You don’t have to be an HSP to smell raw chicken malingering in your microwave. But as an HSP, I am sensitive to smells all the time. Anytime something starts to smell in the fridge, I can smell it before anyone else, and I will go on a rampage until I find the source of the stink.

This sensitivity to bad smells in the kitchen (often coming from the garbage bin) led me and my husband to take up what might be seen as a strange habit to some: we put all perishable garbage in the freezer.

So if I’m preparing carrots, the peelings go in a plastic bag in the fridge. Empty cans, containers that used to hold raw meat, banana peels — anything that could smell bad in the garbage goes into the freezer. And we always just remember to throw it out when it’s trash day. It’s helped eliminate crazy stink searches.

 

How to Explain Being an HSP to Your Partner

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When I first learned about what it meant to be an HSP and an introvert, it was life changing. But I had to find a way to explain it to the person who has to deal with me the most, my partner. How could I explain that there’s nothing wrong with me, but that I’m just different, and my desires and needs are just as valid as a non-HSPs?

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How to tell if you work with an HSP

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the beautiful world of cubicles

This great article by HSP expert Elaine Aron explains how to identify HSPs in the workplace. I wish some of my former managers had been this forward-thinking! She recommends using the acronym DOES to sniff out an HSP. Check it out:

Depth of processing. Does this person often come up with unusual, creative ideas? Is this person unusually conscientious (aware of consequences of failing to do things well)? Does this person prefer to decide things slowly, mull things over? Are his or her decisions often right? You might also ask if this person has thought about the long term goals of their part of the organization, or why something did or didn’t work. If the person feels safe to comment honestly, and many HSPs will be cautious about this, you will probably hear a surprisingly long, detailed answer.

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Deadlines, Schedules, and Commitment Stress Me Out

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tennis dogYesterday I was talking to my mom on the phone and she described a super-HSP moment.

She was a regular during the drop-in times at the local tennis club. One day, the club announced that instead of just showing up to play (the definition of “drop-in”), members had to schedule themselves for drop-in time.

As soon as this was announced, my mom instantly felt turned off. What she liked about drop-in tennis was that the decision to go was up to her. There was no obligation-even though she ended up going almost every week. She didn’t have to answer to anyone if she didn’t show. No commitment, no pressure. And now that she felt she had to commit, she didn’t want to.

As she explained this to me on the phone, I couldn’t help but chuckle, because I completely understood what she was coming from as an HSP.

I think this is also why I dislike working in a traditional office environment. At one job, I had to log in and log out of a computer when I took lunch, so my lunch times could be tabulated. I couldn’t stand feeling like every minute of my day was being counted. For example, if I took an extra 10 minutes of lunch time, why couldn’t I just stay 10 minutes longer at the end of the day? Being held to such a strict schedule made me feel trapped and controlled.

Consider about what we know about HSPs. We don’t like feeling controlled, we don’t like having too much to do, and we don’t like feeling overwhelmed. When I have something to do on my schedule, I can’t stop thinking about it all day. Even if it’s just one thing, I base my whole day on it. And having MORE than one thing scheduled in a day? I instantly feel my stress rise.

Having a clear day with nothing to do feels like a dream. No stress, no obligations, and I can make my own decisions. Ahhhh.

Eating outside is overrated

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It gets really hot in New York in the summer. 90 degrees isn’t unusual. When I lived and worked in Westchester County, just outside NYC, my coworkers always seemed to want to eat lunch in the courtyard outside our workplace. Even when it was like 90 degrees and humid.

eating outside is overrated

most people think this looks like a pleasant lunch. it looks like bug bites, sunburn, and sweat to me.

I think their reasoning was that since they were stuck inside all day, lunch was their one time to escape and be outside. I understand that, but I also don’t want to sweat in my nice work clothes when an air conditioned building is right next to me. It simply doesn’t make sense to me.

I remember one time opening the door to go outside and it felt like air from a furnace hit me in the face. “You guys, it is really hot outside… are you sure you don’t want to eat inside with the a/c?” came my whiny plea. No, they inexplicably just HAD to be outside. Even though we were suffering the entire time. It wasn’t nice. It wasn’t pleasant.

Then there were the bees. There was a bee problem in the courtyard at my job, and everyone knew about it. Why sit outside, sweating in a cloud of bees, when you don’t have to?

And when I was a kid, my dad built a cool picnic table for our yard. I think the idea was that we would eat out there occasionally. I dreaded putting my legs under that table, wondering what spiders and other bugs would be having their way with my ankles. I was always on the lookout for ants and flies around our food. Why can’t we just eat inside, where there are no bugs?? (if that sounds whiny, it’s because it is whiny.)

So, anytime I’m given the opportunity to eat or work outside, most of the time, I’d prefer to be inside. Sorry. I can’t help it.

Buzzfeed did a funny series on why eating outdoors sucks.

You Might be a Highly Sensitive Person if…

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Bright light

could someone please kill those lights?

  • You can’t sleep because you hear a clock ticking in the other room.
  • You can’t sleep because there is a tiny sliver of light coming in from between the curtains.
  • You can’t sleep because you can’t stop thinking about something someone said to you that day.
  • You can smell something going bad in the refrigerator even if no one else can.
  • It takes you a long time to decide on what food to order at a restaurant, and even after ordering, you aren’t sure if that’s what you want.
  • You need your environment to be just right before you can get fully engrossed in work.
  • You jump when you hear a car horn honk. Or squealing tires. Or when someone talks to you when you are deep in thought.
  • You can’t shop when someone is waiting for you.
  • You’ve been startled by your own shadow.
  • You have a 5 degree temperature window where you are comfortable.
  • You never travel without an eyemask and earplugs. In fact, you use earplugs more than anyone else you know.
  • You have a lot of pet peeves.
  • The idea of going to a crowded club or bar sounds like the worst thing ever.
  • You avoid coffee and soda because they affect you too much.
  • The TV is too loud.
  • The lights are too bright.

Second-Guessing Decisions

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file000564085117“I’d like the spaghetti carbonara, please,” I told the waiter.

No sooner had the waiter turned his back when I was mumbling to my husband Jim, “Damn it. I should have gotten the dish with the red sauce instead. Argh!!”

This is soooo stuuuuuupidly common with me. I regret probably 75% of my restaurant food orders.

Why? Because HSPs are cautious decision makers who weigh every piece of information before making a choice. Sometimes it takes us longer than “normal” to make choices. And when me, I’m usually still weighing all the information even after I’ve been pressed to make my choice.

Here’s what’s going on in my brain (and probably what’s going on in my husband’s brain) when choosing something to eat at a restaurant:

Me: Do I want pasta or meat? Will pasta be too filling? Should I get red sauce or white sauce? White sauce is so bad for you. But I haven’t had it in so long! Chicken or ham? Maybe I should get something less expensive. I want the chicken, but only if it’s not breaded. I wonder if I can get it without peppers? I should get something with more vegetables.

Him: Steak sounds good. I’m getting steak.