Further Reading: Being "Sensitive"

It's not just in your head: some folks really do need more peace and quiet.

Dec 01, 2023

Deciding whether or not a particular label suits us is is an important act of declaring. It invites us into a deeper relationship into the interior of ourselves — the way we experience the world, the way we respond to it. It also provides a new map of the landscape of our lives — possible reasons why we struggled here, and didn’t there. It provides a compassionate lens for revision on the story of our lives.

And yet like all concepts, the reality of our lives often wriggles out from underneath these labels, or the labels themselves change as the culture around us shifts.

This is true for those of us who notice a heightened sensitivity to their inner feelings and outer environments — what some researchers call “orchids.”

For us orchids, mindfulness can be a huge boon — our meditation cushions are places where we can finally reduce the stimuli around us in order to hear ourselves think. Literally.

Last week, a group of parents in my network met to talk about the body of new research on this topic, vis a vis our experiences of holiday overwhelm. We sensitive folks are notoriously hard to coax out of our cozy blankets, but we are so much fun when we show up – with laughter, with realness, with stories, with questions. It was a delightful conversation.

Below, I’m sharing some of the resources from that conversation — maps, mentors and fellow-travelers for the interior journey, if you are just beginning to investigate the notion of sensory processing sensitivity for yourself. If you have one to add, please post it below!

“We’re not an evolutionary accident, but an adaptation. We are not what you think we are. We are useful, valued, loved. We’re the scientists and artists, the dreamers and the engineers. We’re vital to all of it.”

—
Katherine May

Photo of mosaic by Giulia May on Unsplash

A few 101-level notes:

The notion of some individuals within a population being more sensitive to inner/outer stimuli than others is not particularly new or trendy. Indigenous communities have long noticed these traits in some of their community members. Many have prized these traits. They simply had their own ways of naming and cultivating those traits in individuals for the greater good.
Within the world of Western science, however, the data being generated to back up these longstanding observations is changing daily. Since the ‘90s, and especially since the 2010s, we’ve learned a lot more about the mechanics of sensitivity and are still working towards diagnostic tools that better define its parameters. These methodologies are not perfect, but they do offer worthwhile food for thought. I encourage you to comment here if you have more to add.
Labels work best when we claim them for ourselves. As I noted above, a new label can help us to name something that was previously un-nameable, and connect us with new resources and communities to which we feel like we belong. Diagnoses can offer us the same sense of connection and relief — finally, my story makes sense. However, labels don’t work so well when they are imposed on us from the outside, when they are used to exclude or “bad other” us, or when people engage in gate-keeping around whether or not we “really” meet the criteria to claim them. When exploring each resource below, I encourage you to note how each creator self-identifies (or doesn’t) vis a vis the topic of sensitivity, and to follow their lead when and if you choose to engage with them directly.

Not all people who experience sensory processing sensitivity have an associated diagnosis, such as autism or ADHD. They are not synonymous. It is true that folks with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and ADHD are often very sensitive to environmental stimuli, as you’ll see from the list of brilliant writers cited below — but that is not the only defining trait of those diagnoses. Meanwhile, sensitivity is a trait possessed by many who do not meet the criteria for any formal diagnosis. And many people who might meet the criteria still choose not to pursue formal diagnoses for reasons that range from the financial to the philosophical. TLDR: it’s nuanced.
People may experience their inner/outer sensitivity differently than you do. You may have the kind of sensitivity that can be easily “masked,” or you may be a neurodivergent person who cannot “pass” as neurotypical, and find daily functioning inside of many classroom and workplace spaces to be very difficult due to your sensitivity. My hope is that we can use these resources to better advocate for spaces that are inclusive for all levels of sensitivity, and my aim is to create such a space here. I welcome your feedback!

On Substack: Writers Writing on Sensitivity

Katherine May is among my favorite fellow nature writers, on Substack or anywhere. Her most recent book, The Electricity of Every Living Thing, explores her relationship to her sensory sensitivity, as well as her late-breaking understanding of herself as a person with autism. She has a roundup of resources on this topic here. Her sentiments on being a person with autism, quoted above, may ring true for many:
“We’re not an evolutionary accident, but an adaptation. We are not what you think we are. We are useful, valued, loved. We’re the scientists and artists, the dreamers and the engineers. We’re vital to all of it. We’ve been pushing it forward and holding it together while the extroverts take all the glory.”
Morgan Harper Nichols
shared in her blog that she too struggles with sensory overload, and this eventually led her to her own late-breaking autism diagnosis. As she writes:
A strong sensitivity to color or light or sound can come in handy when you’re making things. However, it’s not so great when there’s a line of people behind me in line for self-checkout line at the grocery store wondering why I am taking so long to finish the checkout process.
Amanda B. Hinton writes
The Editing Spectrum
, where she shares insights from her life in traditional publishing, as well as her experiences with a late-breaking autism diagnosis, and her attempts to build a more authentic writing life on Substack. I love her concept of writing “seasons” that honor one’s unique sensitivities and style of writing — including a season of rest. As she writes of herself in her days of “masking:”
My efforts to succeed fell apart over and over again because doing work that separates you from your instincts and who you are at a cellular level is a recipe for psychological collapse. We can only “fake it ‘til we make it” for so long until our physical bodies flatten from the strain…
Where I landed is this: Rather than writing being a problem solved by someone smarter than me, writing functions best when it’s rooted in my direct experience that naturally shifts through ever-evolving seasons. Writing absolutely can benefit from some outside perspective and insight—hello, hi, editor, here!—but never as a means to squelch your instincts, vision or conviction.
Reetu Kaushal offers an elegant metaphor along these lines in this recent post:
[I]f you start off as an acorn, you can only become an oak tree, not a redwood tree or a mango tree. If you are a tomato plant, you can’t grow roses and vice versa. This sense of a unique pattern existing inside us and shaping who we can be at our very best is what individuation is all about…We are limited by our potential, but we are also shaped by it.
Dr. Genevieve von Lob offers this sage advice to those of us who wonder why we don’t feel or perform “like other parents”:
Many of us can lie awake at night comparing ourselves with all the people who seem to have everything sorted for Christmas… But comparing ourselves with others is part of an old programming of competition, individualism and striving that leads inevitably to burn-out. Instead, we can acknowledge that we each have something unique to contribute. If you find yourself comparing, take a deep breath and then spend a few moments considering some of your own individual gifts and strengths. You’re worth a lot more than your mind likes to tell you.
Sensitive parents often have sensitive children — a combo both tough and beautiful. Julia McGarey recently launched The Lifeline to address this combo. Her recent manifesto on why the world doesn’t need more well-behaved kids had me pumping my fist in agreement.
We don't ask the ocean to be anything but the ocean. Asking children to be well-behaved, always helpful, or always choose the bright side is harmful. To then, to our relationship with them, to the future of our world. I want to see kids who take against injustice, who know how to ride the waves of their feelings instead of trying to contain them… Which means I have to be comfortable with a little bit of chaos.
In the same vein: Kate Lynch is the author of the
Atypical Kids, Mindful Parents Blog
. In this extremely helpful guide to Halloween, linked in my prior post about navigating the holidays as a sensitive person, she writes:
You know what’s best for your family, and you get to create the traditions and rituals that work for the whole family. There is not just one way … to celebrate.

See You In the Spiral greeting card, via Em & Friends.

On Substack: Relevant Reads for Sensitive Readers

Emily McDowell is my favorite card-maker for many reasons (see above). Her recent holiday post on
Unqualified by Emily McDowell
was a great read for those who find this season difficult.
Kathleen Smith of
The Anxious Overachiever
writes concise, actionable posts ideal for sensitive people who tend to sponge up the feelings of everyone the room. This recent post on letting people be disappointed was a helpful reminder for me, and to anyone else who feels the heavy burden of trying to make every online and offline space as inclusive as possible.
Erin Ryan Heyneman writes Rising and Gliding, about caregiving with a chronic illness. Her advice in her post on doing your best, not the most, resonates for me as a parent in this category, and may so do for many those who experience physical struggles as a result of or in addition to sensory overload.
AJ Singh of Mindbodies Decolonised identifies as “a Brown, Autistic, ADHD, Trans Masc Neuroscientist on a decolonising, neuro-embodiment journey,” and writes to “reimagine a reality where we all have our needs met and the infinite variability of human mindbodies is celebrated and cherished.” See: this recent post on re-imagining holidays like Guy Fawkes Day and Diwali.
Anne Helen Petersen needs no introduction on Substack, but I want to call out in particular her work in Culture Study on exploring the “leisure gap” between men and women. A hallmark feature of sensitive parents is that they can be as good or better at parenting than non-sensitive people, but they need more breaks. Yet men in hetero partnerings routinely receive more than women. When we deprive 50% of the highly sensitive parents in our midst of getting what they need to succeed, the effects for kids are not great, so we should all care more about evening the playing field here (slight pun intended).
I owe a huge and ongoing debt of gratitude to the parenting writers Melissa Moyer, a science reporter who writes
Is My Kid the Asshole?
and Dr. Cara Goodwin, who writes
Parenting Translator
. I learn from each and every post, I appreciate the way they both often seek out experts who can speak to the experience of neurodivergent parents and/or children, and I often find their work and communities to be complementary. I also love Dr. Goodwin’s book for kids, on heavy rotation in my house, that helps sensitive kids learn not to hit others when they’re having big feelings.

Off Substack: Links & recs

The work of Dr. Elaine Aron has come under valid critique by autistic people who do not feel her words represent their lived experience. I stand with those people and encourage folks to rely more on recent data and first-person accounts vs. Aron’s now-dated work. That said, her work is seminal in this field and folks may still find some of her practical advice helpful. This is her website, which features the simple tools she has developed to help people self-assess for sensitivity.
This concise read in the NYT is a great 101-level resource on sensitivity to send to those who may be unfamiliar with the terminology or research cited above.
Similarly, this NPR interview with Dr. Thomas Boyce lays out the differences between sensitive and less-sensitive children in a helpful way.
The Soulful & Sensitive Podcast has the perfect explanation of how to live with a sensitive partner if you are not particularly sensitive yourself.
For a deeper dive: Dr. Michael Pluess, a leading researcher in this field, broke this topic down engagingly on Your Parenting Mojo.
ADDitude Mag is a great resource for understanding neurodiversity in general, and the difference between sensory processing sensitivity and ADHD in particular. Highly recommended for partners and parents of sensitive people.
Susan Cain, author of Quiet and Bittersweet, has written great resources for raising sensitive children and helping them to claim their gifts.
Self-compassion meditation is essential for sensitive people, who so often receive the message from our culture that we are both too much and not enough. Kristen Neff’s research-backed findings and meditations on the importance of self-compassion have been life-changing for me.
Because I write for and work with the perinatal loss community, it feels important to include that perspective here, via the work of my colleague at RTZ Hope, Dr. Kiley Hanish. There is much more research to do at the intersection of sensitivity and perinatal mental health, and I’m hopeful that we’ll see more of this in the years to come.
More resources and links can be found here at my Bookshop link. (Some affiliate links are included above as well; this is my way of trying to direct web traffic to indie publishers, while keeping this all in one handy place.)

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