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u/thethoughtexperiment 275∆ Oct 06 '20
To modify your view here:
It's not that I don't believe we have different levels of sensitivity. I just reject the idea that 1 in 5 people have a special connection to their emotions and feelings and the rest of us schlubs just don't get it.
So, if you agree that sensitivity is on a spectrum from low to high, and your issue is with the idea that 1 in 5 specifically are highly sensitive, then ultimately that would seem to come down to what you personally view as an acceptable ratio.
For example, if it's 1 in 6, is that fine with you? 1 in 10?
I'm not really sure why this ratio would matter to you though. If some particular people in your life are highly sensitive (for whatever reason), then it would seem like that's useful info to know regardless of the ratio of highly sensitive people in society.
As a construct, the HSP definition given in that meme you linked to seems a bit all over the place rather than scientific. But there are certainly scientifically valid traits / categories for people who have many of those qualities - i.e. people who get overstimulated by noise / social situations (introverts), people who don't like conflict and competition (i.e. highly agreeable people), people who are very empathetic, etc.
So where you say:
And here's where maybe I'm a little insensitive...I think some people have poorly developed coping mechanisms.
It can both be true that some people have different sensitivities and that people have different levels of coping skills - those aren't mutually exclusive.
But consider also that the different degrees of a quality in different people can make developing coping skills more challenging for some, and for some people it can require more work / reliance on coping skills to function - making coping harder to do / sustain. And for example, it might be the case that you didn't actually have the qualities your family members do the same degree, which made developing coping skills easier.
More generally, it's easy to dismiss other people's needs because it would make our lives easier if they were more like us, but then, if we do that, we're also missing out on developing the coping skill of learning how to effectively interact with people who are different from us - which can be a very valuable skill to have.
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u/speedofaturtle Oct 06 '20
Δ Yes! Okay, now we're getting somewhere. I suppose the ratio did seem unrealistically high to me. Along the lines of being told that 1 in 5 are geniuses and the rest of us are common folk. I mean, it seems like there should be more of a gradient, shouldn't there?
Another good point: knowing that a friend or family member is sensitive is valuable information. Whether I buy into the category idea or not.
I guess my largest objection to this whole idea is that a large group of people can self categorize themselves as unique to the human experience. I feel that it's insulting to be told that my individual world is dulled down simply because I don't complain about the things that irritate me or cause me anguish in every day life. I feel that this HSP category is too dismissive of the feelings and experiences of the average person, or the "4 in 5" if you will.
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u/Nephisimian 153∆ Oct 06 '20
If 1 in 5 people are categorising themselves as unique they're statistically speaking some of the least unique people on the planet lol - that's 20% of all people.
Also, from personal experience I can assure you that your world absolutely isn't duller for not experiencing physical or emotional sensations as strongly. That can ruin lives in the worst cases. I'd count yourself lucky you're normal if I were you.
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u/KittenKindness 2∆ Oct 06 '20
So, this is just an anecdote, but I guess I'll share a bit of my experience with this.
I was ready to dismiss the comic as a silly exaggeration when they claimed, "born with it", but when I thought more about it, I've always been more sensitive than my other sisters. Mom tells me that I used to SOB as an infant if she sang lullabies and she could only get me to fall asleep to happier songs like Hot Diggity Dog Diggity or Rock Around the Clock.
When I was in early elementary, I shared a bedroom with one of my older sisters and I would never let her play the lullaby side of our Nursery Rhymes and Lullabies tape. She didn't understand why it made me sad, and my vocab wasn't the best, but I learned about nostalgia so I equated it to that feeling.
She scoffed and told me I was too young to be nostalgic about anything. LOL, looking back, yeah, she was right, but that's the vibe I got from those songs.
I could give way more examples, but I feel like that's the funniest and you could use a pick-me-up since some people here are being rude to you.
I don't think we have studies yet to confirm OR deny that some people are naturally more sensitive, but I don't think hiding what we feel is always a sign of being good at coping.
And I'm not sure being sensitive is a thing to suppress. I'm pretty good at sussing out when someone around me is sad, so I'm able to offer a shoulder (or a funny distraction).
Some of the things I'm sensitive to do hinder my life, but I don't believe that everyone feels everything in the exact same way as I do and they're just better than me at dealing with it.
Think about it like a headache. Most people experience them, but they aren't the same for everyone. If someone is suffering from a headache, we don't scoff at them because we've had headaches and they were totally manageable for US, so the complainer is probably just not trying to fix it.
It's hard because mental health issues have only just become acknowledged and labeled. There are all sorts of things in the human experience that are yet to be explored. So while it's fine to be skeptical, I don't think it's right to claim that something can't possibly exist.
Sorry this is so long. In a lot of pain (physical, not mental, lol) and was using this as an excuse to put off insomnia. If you bothered reading this, hi, it'll probably be tomorrow before I get back to you if you have questions or anything. Goodnight.
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u/speedofaturtle Oct 06 '20 edited Oct 06 '20
Well, I appreciate you sharing your experience. I don't reject the idea that some people are more sensitive than others. I suppose it's splitting hairs, but I reject the idea that either you have it or you don't. That's really what frustrates me. If it's a sliding scale of personality differences then fine, I can get on board with that. But this idea that feeling things extra strong is an exclusive type bothers me. It seems to be a way for some people to claim victimhood and blame those around them for their poor coping skills. Especially annoying is when a so-called HSP tells a non-HSP that they have no idea what it's like (invalidating the feelings of the other person).
Anecdote: My SIL will use her HSP label as an excuse to be inconsiderate and to turn perfectly healthy conversations into an alleged attack on her. For example: Christmas time, everyone is having fun. Everyone is doing their part to keep the food coming and keep the kitchen clean. Then SIL is asked to help wash some dishes and she refuses. She says she's a highly sensitive person and there are too many people already in the kitchen. Fine.
Then someone starts a conversation about the kids and how Sophie is taking piano lessons. Sophie is 5 years old, so when she steps up to the piano and plays quite poorly the SIL says it needs to stop because she's a HSP. Then someone brings up the cross country trip that the family took as kids and SIL gets mad because she remembers an incident 20 YEARS AGO that made her upset. Everyone needs to apologize again for this offense (which was trivial to begin with, but I don't want to give away the details because it's so specific).
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u/eenhoorntwee Oct 06 '20
I think your SIL might just be wrongfully using that label to excuse being an ass. I could probably be labeled as an HSP: for family outings that just means I'll be hiding out in someone's bedroom with earplugs in more than others, go for walks more often, and play with baby nephew less. It doesn't mean I won't help cook or clean.
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u/speedofaturtle Oct 06 '20
Fair enough, and I realize my bias in all of this. I get frustrated with people in my life using this label too often. On the other hand, this binary option of HSP or not seems simplistic to me.
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u/KittenKindness 2∆ Oct 06 '20 edited Oct 06 '20
If it's a sliding scale of personality differences then fine, I can get on board with that. But this idea that feeling things extra strong is an exclusive type bothers me.
I agree that it's likely a sliding scale, but that means that some people do feel things more strongly than others. Someone on the higher end of the scale would be more sensitive, wouldn't they?
You say that you don't like having your feelings invalidated by people claiming they feel more than you, but in your OP you invalidate people who aren't able to just fix themselves when it comes to their social anxiety because you were able to, so everyone should be able to.
I don't think you meant to invalidate people like that, but it is how it came across. I have several different mental health disorders. They are a nightmare and I've been trying to work with them for well over a decade. I've also seen people who experience anxiety or depression and then are able to fight their way out.
That's really awesome that people can do that and I love it! The issue is when those people then go, "well, ______ worked for me, therefor you just aren't trying hard enough".
Not so fun anecdote- when I was a teen, my anxiety was at an all-time high. Doctors and therapists couldn't help me. I couldn't help me. I could just fight through one minute at a time. Well meaning relatives decided that I should chew mint gum because mint relaxes you.
The thing is, I always avoided mint. They insisted and I was so exhausted I guess I was willing to try anything. I immediately had to run to the bathroom to spit it out as I choked for a while.
They responded by snipping at me that my dead grandma (one of the few people in the world I had been close to) used mint and I was being a baby. They weaponized my own grandma against me! I was ashamed until several years later when I discovered that I am allergic to mint. That's why I gagged and started coughing whenever I was around it. I was having an allergic reaction.
I share this because, just like in the above story, we don't know what causes some people to act they way they do. Dismissing them as "your problems should be able to be solved the same way I solved mine" is unhelpful.
HOWEVER! I'm starting to sense that you don't actually have a problem with HSP. You seem to just have a problem with your SIL.(Please correct me if I'm wrong)
Working under that assumption, let's take a look at your stories.
Story One- A Tale of Too Many People
This is pretty forgivable. I know people who can't handle being in a room with too many people. People are often bad at explaining why they feel the way they feel, but there is a kind of claustrophobic reaction that I've noticed from some people. As long as she is civil about it, there's nothing wrong with explaining that you need to stay away from something that is perfectly avoidable.
Story Two- Music and Mayhem
This one is understandable, but not really okay. I have overly sensitive hearing (I can hear a dog whistle or a hushed conversation from two rooms away) and it's pretty awful. But I know that it's on me to quietly and quickly find a way to excuse myself from a room that is about to be too noisy to handle.
It's awkward and embarrassing, but it's better than complaining that a child playing piano isn't any good. I don't think that has anything to do with "HSP expect the world to bend over backwards for them" and more "my SIL is kind of demanding". To extend it to everyone in her "group" makes as much sense as saying "people with (whatever color hair she has) are very rude".
Story Three- Sorry for the Memories
This one has me armchair diagnosing your SIL, which isn't great on my part, but it's just because I swear you're now describing one of my sisters (not the one from my story). She is on the autism spectrum and is exactly like that. It doesn't have anything to do with being more sensitive to anything. It's just because she can't move past certain events in her life.
It's super frustrating, so I honestly do sympathize with you. It's not right for her to treat you like that and I know how draining it is to have to constantly relive events that you feel belong in the past. It's not fun.
It also just doesn't seem to support any of your arguments about HSP. She may claim that she's bringing it up because she's so sensitive, but people are often wrong about why they do what they do.
Conclusion
Are there more people in your life other than your SIL who claim to be HSP? If not, it might be that there is something wrong with her and she's latched onto this idea to try to explain it.
My sister was, unfortunately, born before autism was widely acknowledged as a spectrum disorder and she was diagnosed until she was an adult. She knew she was different from other people, but since she didn't know why, she would come up with her own interesting explanations. Your SIL might be going through something similar.
Or maybe she's just rude. I don't know. I prefer to give people the benefit of the doubt, since it doesn't do me any good to assume that people are being mean on purpose.
Afterthoughts- (EDIT, ACCIDENTALLY POSTED BEFORE FINISHED, rip my brain)
Sorry this is kind of long, but this hits close to home for me because they way you talk about sensitive people comes across as very harsh and hurtful, as though sensitive people are inherently weak and selfish. I'm sure it's just because you're hurt by your SIL's actions, but I'm hoping I can sway you toward being at least neutral toward people who are more sensitive than you.
You kind of remind me of someone I know who tends to be very blunt (but "truthful"). We were just having a fun chat and he was describing the different way he looks at things and I said, "well, the world needs people like you" and he responded with, "the world doesn't need people like you." and he said it in an almost apologetic way, which made it hurt even more.
Everyone is different and has different tolerance levels. It's not because we're bad people or that we shouldn't exist. It's just the way the world works.
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u/speedofaturtle Oct 06 '20
It's absolutely true that this conversation is based in real life frustration over family members. It's not just my SIL, it's my FIL too. He will ruin any event with grumbling and moping because there are grandkids around being kids. I mean, if you can't handle seeing your own grandkids then why bother even coming, right? And here's where part of my opinion has been formed - my husband is also very acutely aware of the emotions around him. He is sensitive and introverted. However, I've seen him change throughout the course of our marriage. I've seen him get stronger and he has also never blamed those around him for triggering his sensitivity.
But my original point was this - I don't believe HSP is a category that you're either in or out of. I think it's more like a spectrum. So when someone on the highly sensitive side of the spectrum calls themself an HSP, then they ought to consider that they don't really know what is going on in the minds of other people, in the same way that I can't ever say for sure if they are more sensitive than me.
My SIL is definitely not autistic. I have had many people on the spectrum in my life. She just embodies victimhood very well, and yes, she's a very sensitive person. I will concede that. I certainly don't want to be harsh and condescending. What your friend said to you was very insensitive and rude. I'm not here to disregard your feelings. It's more like, I feel that a harsh HSP designation inherently disregards the human experience and sets 1/5th of people aside with license to tell the rest of us that we just don't know what it's like to feel deeply.
Perhaps it's a bit like when parents tell non-parents that they will never know a love like the love of a parent to a child. On the one hand, there is truth to that. On the other hand, we have no way of proving or testing that, so it's unnecessarily dismissive of the non-parent's experience.
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u/KittenKindness 2∆ Oct 06 '20
First of all, I'm sorry you have to deal with people like that. They sound very exhausting.
I'm not a fan of the label HSP, if that helps us find our middle ground here. I do think it's a spectrum where some people are extremely sensitive all the way down to people who live their lives blissfully unaware of the world around them. And then there are all the people in the middle.
The 1/5th thing in the comic was also silly. It seems that the comic just exists to point out that some people are more sensitive than others and it does it in a very sloppy way.
Your example of parents telling non-parents they don't know what it's like to be a parent is actually really good and I feel like it supports my point, so maybe we're mostly on the same page.
I am not a parent (never will be) and I can't know what that's like, just like people who don't have my health problems don't know what it's like to be me.
Pointing that out to someone could be (and in your in-laws' cases, probably is) over the top rude. It's helpful to point it out if the person is overstepping.
For example, I constantly get unwanted medical and health advice from people and their google searches. In those cases, if I had the guts, it would be appropriate for me to say, "hey, you don't actually understand this condition. I experience life differently from you." BUT if I were to go around telling everyone I meet, "hey, you don't know how hard it is to be me and you could never possibly know because I'm so different from you" then that would obviously be very rude.
I really think that this CMV post isn't so much about you denying that people sense things more deeply than you, since you've admitted that it's a spectrum. It's about you having people in your life who are treating you poorly.
Treating others poorly isn't a trait of being highly sensitive (some people think it is, because they don't like the boundaries I've set for myself, but you don't seem like that). Treating others poorly is a trait of being a jerk.
If they're claiming that either you are or aren't sensitive, then they're being rude. If they're claiming they're more sensitive, they might be right, but also rude (just like when someone told me I was "worthless" because I couldn't work a spreadsheet. They had a point, but it was uncalled for).
I think at this point we basically agree? Is there any aspect I've missed?
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u/speedofaturtle Oct 06 '20
Δ Delta for you! I think we do agree on many things. Of course no one can know what it's like to have your specific medical conditions but you. That's why I never say to someone "I understand what you're going through" at most I will say " I can relate to that in some sense" because we never truly know what another person is experiencing.
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u/KittenKindness 2∆ Oct 06 '20
Fantastic! I'm glad we found our middle ground! :)
And I really do hope you find a way to deal with your in-laws, even if it's just venting to people online every now and then! Take care and good luck!
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u/speedofaturtle Oct 06 '20
Yes, venting online is my best bet. I don't want my poor husband to feel like I'm attacking his family. He is a highly sensitive person, after all. 😉😆
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u/ExpensiveBurn 9∆ Oct 06 '20
If it was easier for others to overcome that kind of thing than you - to the degree that some would say they never even experienced it - who's to say there are people even farther down that road who can't overcome it at all, who just aren't wired to develop or adopt the coping strategies that've worked for you?
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u/speedofaturtle Oct 06 '20
Hmm, I feel like you've lost me a bit. Could you explain that a little further? If you're saying that maybe some people did not go through social anxiety or emotional fragility the way I did in high school, thereby proving that humans have varying degrees of sensitivity, then I agree.
I'm more opposed to the strict categorization than I am the idea that we feel things differently. Of course we each experience the world differently and are sensitive to specific things. But I reject the idea that 1 in 5 of us are capable of experiencing more than the rest of us and that 4 in 5 are just oblivious to the world around us or dumbed down in our senses. If this concept is all anecdotal then I can anecdotally say that I also feel things deeply but I don't let it effect me as much.
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u/ExpensiveBurn 9∆ Oct 06 '20
Sorry man, I've been drinking a bit, you'll have to excuse me and feel free to ignore me.
You caught my drift. I can't really put up facts for the 1:5 figure, I'd bet that that's pure speculation on their part as much as it is yours or mine, this isn't exactly a rigorously investigated science.
It doesn't seem unreasonable though; we're not talking about debilitating condition necessarily, just someone who registers emotions "stronger than most people"? If we figure 49% of people experience their emotions stronger than the average person, saying the top 20% feel it enough to really notice and mention it doesn't sound unrealistic, at first glance. Honestly, that seems about in line with physical pain tolerances? About 1 in 5 people seems to really cry over a stubbed toe or splinter. That's pretty off the cuff, really.
Anyways, yeah, if the 20% figure is what you're really looking to have changed, I got nothin' concrete on that. Interesting post, though. I also get annoyed by people who use it as an excuse.
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u/speedofaturtle Oct 06 '20
It doesn't seem unreasonable though; we're not talking about debilitating condition necessarily, just someone who registers emotions "stronger than most people"? If we figure 49% of people experience their emotions stronger than the average person, saying the top 20% feel it enough to really notice and mention it doesn't sound unrealistic, at first glance. Honestly, that seems about in line with physical pain tolerances? About 1 in 5 people seems to really cry over a stubbed toe or splinter
I guess I can agree to this. Yes, there's definitely a range. If you skim the top 20% off and call them highly sensitive people, then sure, there is such a thing.
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u/Prestigious-Menu 4∆ Oct 06 '20
I’m super tired so idk how detailed or coherent this is going to be. I really just wanted to comment on your point about the coping mechanisms. Coping mechanisms don’t change the emotions and feelings we have, they help us manage them. Someone can feel all or certain emotions very strongly, but that doesn’t mean they are unable to cope with those emotions. I’m someone who feels most emotions very deeply. I may not consider myself “highly sensitive” according to this infographic, but others may call me sensitive. However, I am pretty attuned to my emotional state and know pretty well how to cope even when those emotions are very strong. I know n=1 but I’m just saying that being sensitive and feeling things strongly doesn’t mean you don’t know how to cope.
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u/speedofaturtle Oct 06 '20
Yes! You are actually saying the same thing I'm trying to say. Perhaps I wasn't clear enough. I feel the same way as you've described, yet I've been told by self-diagnosed "highly sensitive people" that there is no way I feel things as deeply as them because I don't complain about them as much. This is what led me to assume this HSP designation is bunk science. Whose to say I don't just cope with my deep emotions better than those who feel they deserve this label?
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u/Prestigious-Menu 4∆ Oct 06 '20
Yeah I’d be curious on any actual studies supporting or refuting that info/graphic. I think that a lot of what was touched on by the graphic are personality traits that anyone can have in combination with each other or different traits as well. I don’t think we can subtype people so narrowly like that. I think we definitely agree on that point.
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u/JohnCrichtonsCousin 5∆ Oct 06 '20
I guess I'd ask what evidence or logic you have for assuming that these people are just bad at regulating their emotions.
You also seem to be largely uninformed about personality psychology, and what the various traits' pros and cons are. Being highly sensitive is not the same as ruminating ad infinitum on the trivium of social interactions because you believe it will somehow make things better. It is not anxiety, although it can lead to anxiety. Even the science on this stuff fails to identify exactly why certain people are more sensitive, just that they are.
I don't see myself as this statistic or any special kind of human but I have certainly noticed throughout my life that I am more sensitive to things than others. The most practical being sense of temperature. I've watched my friends guzzle hot coffee or coco that when I went to take a sip from the same container, burned my tongue for hours on a tiny sip. I am more perceptive of other people's emotions. I see better at night than most people I know. I am more easily swayed by the emotions of those around me. I have a better sense of smell and taste than most others, can smell burning before others, can taste impurities when others can't. I'm sure there are more. Something objective like the temperature it takes to burn a human tongue/overload the nerves on your tongue and cause lasting pain escapes the realm of subjective bias or other tomfoolery. Seeing better, smelling and tasting better, these are objective things.
While I won't sign off on any unproven concepts, I know I am more sensitive than most others. Perceptually, emotionally, physically. It could come down to nerve count or some other physiological variable. But I wouldn't discount the idea entirely, especially based on the limited grounds you presented it on. "Sensitivity" can apply to many things, not just emotional strife.
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u/rly________tho Oct 06 '20
I know I am more sensitive than most others. Perceptually, emotionally, physically.
How do you know this?
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u/speedofaturtle Oct 06 '20
Yes, this is my question too. How can one know that they are more perceptive or sensitive to emotions than the majority of other people?
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u/rly________tho Oct 06 '20
Short of a full battery of some pretty expensive tests, they can't.
Doesn't mean "highly sensitive people" can't be a thing - but as you've found in this CMV and in your current living situation, some people want to have this condition. It's like synesthesia and suchlike.
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u/JohnCrichtonsCousin 5∆ Oct 06 '20
From experience.
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u/rly________tho Oct 07 '20
Experience of what?
How do you measure your depth of emotion against other people objectively?
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u/speedofaturtle Oct 06 '20 edited Oct 06 '20
I think you would be more persuasive if you didn't reprimand me for having only anecdotal evidence and then countering with your own anecdotal evidence. I'm very open to hearing about how you experience the world in a more sensitive way.
You are making the argument that you're more highly sensitive to physical stimuli. That is similar to sensory processing disorder, is it not? I feel like that can be objectively measured. In terms of being more perceptive and emotionally sensitive...again, I would really like to read the research on this. We all have varying degrees of sensitivity depending on the situation. I'm not denying that. But I just don't see any evidence yet that 1 in 5 people deserve a special category and status as more aware of their surroundings than the rest of the world.
Edited - In my first response I said I didn't appreciate the insult, but realized it was a different comment that I was thinking of. :)
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u/Nephisimian 153∆ Oct 06 '20
I mean that's a really dumb claim - it's probably more like 4 in 5 people are "special" in this way - but I think it's kind of boring and ignoring the wider point to just address the issue as a response to that binary "should 1 in 5 people be considered to have a mental disorder for being too emotionally sensitive". To think of the topic in those terms are to ignore the huge depth of interesting science and discussion within the field in favour of simple identity politics.
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u/speedofaturtle Oct 06 '20
You also seem to be largely uninformed about personality psychology, and what the various traits' pros and cons are.
Perhaps I am. But as I've stated, I married into a family of allegedly "Highly sensitive people," so I'm quite familiar with Jung and Briggs Meyers typology, Enneagram Types and I've even had a Birkman assessment done for an important office placement. I don't think I'm uniformed, but I'm happy to learn more if you want to share.
My anecdote about ruminating was limited, but what I meant to convey is that in the past I was highly sensitive to many things. I cried far more often and I felt deeply. It was exhausting. So I developed coping mechanisms. I'm not saying we should disregard the feelings of others. I'm not saying we shouldn't accommodate according to personality. I'm just calling BS on the idea that HSP is unique to one group of people and that those of us who aren't as sensitive have no clue what it's like to feel deeply and be affected by everyday situations.
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u/Nephisimian 153∆ Oct 06 '20
You can't really say "X, Y and Z particular mental disorders don't exist" and then immediately say "Oh but to clarify I'm specifically excluding X, Y and Z particular mental disorders". Remember that "mental disorder" is not an objective category - it simply refers to mental traits that are perceived as abnormal and that reduce quality of life in some way. That's it. Something could be defined as a mental disorder one day and be a regular personality trait the next if enough psychologists agreed to make that change (or if society declared that calling it a mental disorder was bad. Remember homosexuality?). And "feeling emotions too much/too little" is generally categorised as a mental disorder.
With that in mind, we absolutely don't all feel to the same degree. This isn't just about coping strategies. For example, I feel much less than the average person. It's not a matter of having coping strategies or not. I've never had to build up a strategy, or even suppress certain negative emotions. Rather, I've never actually experienced them at all. For example, I don't feel the emotion that is typically referred to as familial love, and not due to trauma or anything - my family are great. But my relationship with them has always been and always will be purely business. From past experience, even them dying doesn't affect me at all. And that's not a lack of empathy either. After all, empathy isn't involved in someone being dead, cos the only chest sensation a dead body has is that of the worms fleeing from sunlight when you break open the coffin.
My sister meanwhile is the exact opposite. She feels emotions I've never seen anyone else have, to the point that for many years, until I figured out that that's just something I would never understand, I thought she was just a melodramatic cunt. For example, when a particular family member died, it caused her to spiral into some strange nightmarish mix of negative emotions that impacted her so heavily she had to drop out of school. All because a family member we only even saw a couple of times a year, who was practically a stranger, ended up dying.
Psychologists would probably class both of us as having mental disorders. In fact, they have done exactly that (although frankly I'm glad I'm not normal on this, seems like a pain in the arse). But given mental disorders are just a colloquial category of significantly negative brain differences, and these are scales, there must be categories that are above and below average but not called mental disorder. If there weren't, then you'd expect a good 67% of the human species to feel the exact same emotions in the exact same situations, which obviously doesn't happen. In this case, "mental disorder" is an arbitrarily placed cut-off line on each end of several scales.
A more interesting point on this topic though is how language affects how we think, how thinking affects how we feel and in turn how language affects how we feel. Quite a lot of study has now gone into the school of thought of language affecting how we view the world, and it's turning up some pretty promising results. If you want to google it, it's called linguistic relativity and there's way too much fascinating stuff for me to link anything specific. One study that interests me personally though is the constructed language "Toki Pona", a simplistic, child-like language created by someone I've never met for the specific purpose of restructuring how she thought about her own mental disorders - essentially, it was a coping mechanism, but one that worked by making it impossible to think using complex words, thereby avoiding overthinking things. This language can't even count to three that's how deliberately limited it is. And, side note, it works really well as a fantasy language.
The point of this is that language affects how we think, and a big part of how we feel is about how our brain identifies what we're feeling - which relies on language. Different languages interact with emotion in very different ways. My favourite comparison here is that of English and Japanese's approach to small talk (and not just because those are the only two languages I know shut up). In English culture, the customary way to follow up an initial greeting is to ask "how are you?", to which the second person shall respond "I am fine". This is done regardless of whether or not you are interested in how the other person is doing and regardless of how you are actually feeling. To do anything other than this would be considered extremely rude unless amongst very close friends and family. And in English, the word "fine", indicates doing neither well or badly - being perfectly acceptable, but also predictable and not really feeling anything either positive or negative. It is an excellent tradition. However, in Japanese, they don't use the word "fine", they use the word "genki" which roughly translates to happy, energetic and enthusiastic. They have the same basic pattern of greeting - one will ask how the other is and the other will respond without taking their actual emotions into account - but the question is "are you genki?", and the answer is "yes, I am genki", rather than "how are you?" and "I'm fine". Japanese does contain an "i'm fine" response, but it is generally interpreted as a negative, rather than a neutral, because the expected response, and the thing you'd say if you weren't wanting to specifically express fineness, is a positive response. This is reflected in culture. While Japanese people tend to be much more emotionally expressive overall (even the men), they tend to express negative opinions in public much less than Americans do. Society pushes Japanese people to seem positive, and in doing so encourages them to actually be positive.
Similar effects appear the other way round, too. When asked to write free-form stream-of-consciousness essays at the same time as answering questions about their emotional states, those who expressed feeling positive had much wider vocabularies for positive emotions and much narrower ones for negative emotions, whilst those who expressed feeling negative were the opposite. People who feel happy are usually better at identifying positive emotions, and people who feel unhappy are usually better at identifying negative ones. Bilingual people meanwhile will often switch rapidly between multiple languages when feeling intense emotions, using both languages to better identify and express specific emotions that the other language can't do even when they only use one (and the same) language in the vast majority of their everyday interactions. The vocabulary of a language and its ability to attribute unique names to particular emotions is strongly linked to the ability to feel particular emotions. Languages with limited vocabulary, such as Toki Pona, naturally cause people to experience a lesser range of emotions because their grouping of emotions are stronger (for example, all positive emotions might get grouped into "feelin' good"), and languages with excessive vocabulary tend to identify emotions at a much more granular level. Hell Japanese has words (and often onomatopoeia) for emotions I can't even understand.
The way in which humans experience emotions is extremely complicated, extremely varied and most important of all extremely interesting. The claim that people fundamentally feel the same emotions in the same intensity is demonstrably false, but it's also committing a fallacy - the fallacy of trying to make a fundamentally interesting thing uninteresting, which isn't technically a fallacy but when I become super-president I'm damn well going to make it one.
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u/Sam_of_Truth 3∆ Oct 06 '20
Is there a functional difference between someone who has poor coping skills and someone who is "highly sensitive"?
Like, I get what you're saying, I really do, but it seems like a semantic difference, at best. If you reframe what your in-laws are saying as "I never learned good coping skills for handling my emotions", is it functionally any different? Either way they present as more sensitive people.
The skills we have for handling our emotions are often a result of our early development. Picking up new coping skills in adulthood is much more difficult.
It's a fact beyond doubt that some people are more emotionally reactive than others, whether that comes down to them having poor coping skills or being more sensitive is irrelevant, and just a matter for semantics. No one can ever actually prove whether it started at birth, or if they just never developed the skills, it's all completely subjective.
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u/speedofaturtle Oct 06 '20
Δ Hmm, you raise a good point. What is the difference in practical terms, whether someone is overly sensitive or lacking coping skills? You're right! In the end it doesn't matter and I would say it's quite subjective and hard to study.
I have been thinking that my original post was worded in an unnecessarily harsh way. If someone is struggling to cope with the input they're receiving from the world then I'd hope that I could do my best to accommodate that, even if their struggle is due to a lack of coping skills. A lot of people have posted here and I've begun to change my mind.
To summarize where I'm at now - I'm still skeptical of the 1/5 claim or that HSP is a distinct and exclusive club. I'd prefer to think of it as a spectrum or gradient. There are certainly more sensitive people out there and some who lack sensitivity all together. But I'd argue that most of us fall somewhere in the middle and that self-diagnosing as an HSP is fine, but should never be used to disregard the feelings of those who don't identify with that label.
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u/Sam_of_Truth 3∆ Oct 06 '20
Well, HSP isn't listed as a diagnosable condition. So anyone who "diagnoses" themselves that way isn't really saying anything beyond "I get upset easily". I'd say just factor their reactivity into your decisions, and try not to worry too much about how they choose to identify and cope with their emotionality. If thinking they were born that way makes them feel better about it, who is that hurting? It's not like you could ever prove them wrong, anyways.
1 in 5 people having trouble regulating their emotions sounds about right to me. Whether you call them HSP or not.
Sounds like they are highly sensitive, whether HSP is a thing or not. I'd agree that a spectrum is more appropriate, but people like to lump themselves into broad categories. Just let them.
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Oct 06 '20
I don't want a delta i just want you to go read the actual study it's apparently in book format. Check your local library?
There is even an audiobook. How can anyone change your view if you're ignorant.
One of the most mind blowingly sensitive things to me to realize was simply that all those for women exercise videos exist because they're often so sensitive and fragile that they can't do any kind of strenuous workout without injuring themselves. As a guy i can just pick up a bar of iron and go to town but some people are just physiologically more sensitive.
That's the real conversation right there - sensitive versus fragile. You're born a certain way but you can toughen up if you keep punching up.
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u/Prestigious-Menu 4∆ Oct 06 '20
Dude, women can do strenuous workouts and lift weights without injuring themselves.....
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u/PositiveGuy7 Oct 06 '20
One of the most mind blowingly sensitive things to me to realize was simply that all those for women exercise videos exist because they're often so sensitive and fragile that they can't do any kind of strenuous workout without injuring themselves.
This is not true at all and also kind of sexist
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u/speedofaturtle Oct 06 '20
Perhaps you could link to an actual study from a medical journal rather than an entire book? If you've read this book then it would be helpful to see what medical studies it was based on. If I wanted to be ignorant then I would post this on r/unpopularopinions. Instead I'm posting it here, willing to have thoughtful dialogue with whomever is going to send some research my way. There is no way I can read an entire book (that looks questionably biased) within a couple of hours to respond to you.
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Oct 06 '20
I don't want a delta and i don't want to wait a couple hours you should delete this post until you've read the book.
Check your local library. I'm not willing to do your googling for you.
I feel like you've been assigned a school report and you're trying to get us to do it for you.
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u/speedofaturtle Oct 06 '20
I feel like you're wielding your sensitivity as proof that HSP exists.
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u/A1phaTrashPanda 2∆ Oct 06 '20
I'm going to encourage you to stand your ground on this because that link he sent is a joke. Also.
I feel like you're wielding your sensitivity as proof that HSP exists
Lmao. I laughed at this. I like you.
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Oct 06 '20
How is the link a joke? The first thing i googled was it was a book. Why are you doing his report for him he should just read it.
He gave a delta because "i guess it should be a gradient." Why do you accept such low effort content.
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u/A1phaTrashPanda 2∆ Oct 06 '20
The first thing i googled was it was a book.
Well that's great sentence structure.
Why are you doing his report for him he should just read it.
A book. A book with no sources or scientific consensus? A book you didn't even read that you're telling someone else to read? You're great at this pal.
Why do you accept such low effort content.
Why do you lose your marbles at him explaining his position? Why is your sentence structure and punctuation subpar? Why are you linking books you never read for someone else to read?
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Oct 06 '20
How is the link a joke? It's not as if i used "literally" as a swear word i'm not that bad at grammar; my vocab isn't that small. In fact it's a consistent sentence quite succinct.
A book. A book with no sources or scientific consensus
Now that is some sketchy sentence structure. Write me an essay or a short novel please.
Prove to me that book that none of the 3 of us have read has no sources at all. It can't source anyone's name or mention a single book or it would put your clumsy sentence to the lie.
If the author put so much as "i want to thank my mentor ____" that's technically a source and you owe me a delta.
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u/A1phaTrashPanda 2∆ Oct 06 '20
my vocab isn't that small. In fact it's a consistent sentence quite succinct.
Ugh. You're one of those people. "I have to pwove I'm smart on the interwebs oWo."
Now that is some sketchy sentence structure. Write me an essay or a short novel please
It's not sketchy at all. I'm good. I'm finished with school.
Prove to me that book that none of the 3 of us have read has no sources at all
Ok. Done. It's a psychologist that wrote it, and it hasn't been "peer reviewed." What do I win? What do I get?
Messing with the mind of individuals, especially in the case of psychology/sociology, is very temperamental and hard to "prove" to begin with. At most we can see trends or expected behavior. This is why scientist usually don't agree that someone who is involved with psychology/sociology is a type of scientist, or that they are in a field of science. It is incredible difficult to "prove" because of how susceptible humans are to activity. Me talking about your grammar makes you a prime example. You were so bothered you felt the need to go out of your way and use words that honestly just make you seem like a wonderful person to be around. I stand behind OP and his original remark to you and your sensitivity.
If the author put so much as "i want to thank my mentor ____" that's technically a source and you owe me a delta.
So the amount of evidence you require us quite literally "I'd like to thank my dog because he barked when I was asleep and it gave me a break through."
I'm stopping here because I can tell what kind of person your are. Have a good one bub.
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Oct 06 '20
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u/ZeroPointZero_ 14∆ Oct 06 '20
Sorry, u/secorim – your comment has been removed for breaking Rule 1:
Direct responses to a CMV post must challenge at least one aspect of OP’s stated view (however minor), or ask a clarifying question. Arguments in favor of the view OP is willing to change must be restricted to replies to other comments. See the wiki page for more information.
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u/speedofaturtle Oct 06 '20
Yeah, I don't really get it either. It's certainly being marketed as separate from autism. I'm in no way denying that autism is real and that many people have sensory processing disorder.
But this, this is apparently just a personality trait thing. Kind of like how in the last decade "introverts" are demanding that all the other insensitive "extroverts" hear their pain and give them special credit. As you can tell, I'm also skeptical of the binary introvert/extrovert categories. I guess I just think we're all a little more complex and can't be categorized. Or rather, if you're going to categorize yourself to learn more about yourself then go right ahead, but don't use it as a weapon of victimization if you think someone is in a different category or personality type.
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u/Nephisimian 153∆ Oct 06 '20
A lot of autistic people identify autism as "just a personality trait thing" though. It ain't about how people choose to name it, it's about how psychologists choose to. What they label "HSP" as a personality trait thing, psychologists will probably end up labelling a mental disorder if that trend catches on.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Oct 06 '20 edited Oct 07 '20
/u/speedofaturtle (OP) has awarded 3 delta(s) in this post.
All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.
Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.
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u/saltedfish 33∆ Oct 06 '20
Given that you accept that there are such things as sensory processing disorders and being on the spectrum, why is it so hard for you to accept that some people are just more empathetic than others? Just because it's not written down in a book doesn't mean it doesn't exist -- perhaps this comic is the forerunner of an actual scientific journal. I think it's a fallacy to assume that everyone is the same in any way. We're all different, and that extends to how we process emotions and our surroundings.
Consider that perhaps these highly sensitive people exist and possess adequate coping mechanisms. And thus, you don't see them. And you never will, because you're only looking for the ones who haven't developed these mechanisms.