Highly sensitive people (HSPs) really do exist! In fact they make up about 20 per cent of the population. The HSP has a sensitive nervous system, a basically neural trait. It means you are aware of subtleties in your surroundings, and will be on guard for potential "danger". For example, grey clouds, wet pavements. It also means you are more easily overwhelmed when you have been out in a highly stimulating environment for too long, bombarded by sights and sounds until you are exhausted in a nervous-system sort of way.

It can be an advantage or a disadvantage to be sensitive; in some societies being sensitive is highly respected. In Western culture being sensitive is not considered a positive trait and parents and teachers often spend time trying to help children overcome their sensitivity.

The highly sensitive person often feels out of step with everyone else because they're in a minority. Being easily hurt, they can feel "affronted" when spoken to by a non-HSP in tone that an HSP would not use. The HSP therefore does not understand how others can be so direct, critical or abrasive. Usually the HSP does not confront others, but if offended will withdraw and dwell on the interaction that took place desperately trying to understand what he/she did wrong to explain why the confrontation took place.

Usually non-HSPs have no idea that they have said anything "wrong". Conflict, confrontation, and loud voices do not affect their nervous system in the same way and they have no awareness that the HSP's nervous system is now aroused and "hurting". No wonder the HSP calls non-HSPs "insensitive" or mean.

Loud music or crowds can seem ordinary to others yet highly stimulating to the HSP nervous system, resulting in stress. A certain number of these stimuli can feel good to the HSP initially, but when it becomes "too much" or too long the HSP can become overwhelmed. The HSP then needs time to be alone in order to calm down his nervous system because he knows that tomorrow there will be more stimuli to deal with again.

Most people walk into a room at a party and perhaps notice the furniture and the people and that's about it. HSP's can be instantly aware, whether they wish to be or not, of the mood, the friendships and hostilities between people, the freshness or staleness of the air. They will notice small things; threads on the rug, the curtain tied back untidily, the dust on the picture frame.

HSP's do not necessarily judge these things, but they notice, and the nervous system becomes overwhelmed with all these things it has to "notice". The HSP becomes easily overwhelmed in new environments as the nervous overarousal is usually experienced as anxiety leading eventually to the feeling of being overwhelmed.

Arousal should not be confused with fear. A person can become overaroused by nonconscious thoughts or low level stimuli but show no obvious emotion. An HSP will typically feel fearful simply with increasing levels of arousing chemicals in his body, even though there is nothing for him to feel fearful about. HSPs interpret this as an indication of their possible "craziness", as their feelings are incongruent with their conscious intellectual awareness.