Relationships can be difficult for highly sensitive people

“I am shy and I don’t start relationships with people normally. I guess I have a way that can seem aloof and sort of cold. They didn’t like me that much, but I never resented it. I was different than they were.”

Actor Kristin Kreuk – about being in high school.

Being highly sensitive may include or even encourage social isolation, and involve more than usual challenges with friendships and romance. True peer relationships can be rare and demanding.

Of course, highly sensitive is not the same as shy, but a majority of HSPs are introverted, which can mean you don’t seek out friends or other relationships as easily as most people seem to do.

People who are highly sensitive may also find they need protective separation, even from well-meaning family and friends, and likely romantic partners, to protect and more fully realize themselves.

Kristin Kreuk (tv series “Smallville” and other tv, movie projects) also said in the same interview that she did not have a real high school boyfriend: “No one worth mentioning – it just wasn’t something I found. I got a lot done that way!”

She said she was “totally OK” with not having a boyfriend, and notes she was not like many teen girls: “The friends that I surrounded myself with – we didn’t talk about boys and clothes and makeup; we talked about world issues and philosophy and the meaning of life.”

Emotional reactivity may be part of the challenge of any relationship, but can be particularly acute for HSPs.

In his book The Highly Sensitive Person’s Survival Guide: Essential Skills for Living Well in an Overstimulating World, Dr. Ted Zeff has a chapter titled “Harmonious Relationships for the HSP” in which he offers strategies to help work with strong feelings and reactions.

Here are summaries of a couple of his suggestion :

Practice the 1 percent apology. Because of their sensitivity to emotional turmoil it’s important for HSPs to develop conflict resolution skills that help them to restore harmony to a relationship with a minimum of emotional strife. Take responsibility for your part in the conflict – even if it is only 1 percent.

“Your expression of remorse gives an opening for the other person to apologize for their part of the disagreement… even if the other person doesn’t apologize, you have created peace of mind for yourself by opening your heart, not blaming anyone, and taking responsibility for your actions,” he says.

“Silence is golden and talking can tarnish the metal.”

Since HSPs feel more peaceful in a quiet environment it’s important for them to reduce the time they spend in mindless chatter. They should choose words carefully to avoid overstimulation.

[Also hear my podcast interview with Dr. Zeff.]

Linda Kreger Silverman, Ph.D., head of the Gifted Development Center, has talked about another issue: putting a relationship ahead of your own emotional needs.

She comments in her article Different Worlds at the Extremes: “Gifted children and adults often try to repress the real needs of the Self in order to maintain connections with others.

“They feel they must choose between loneliness and the negation of the Self.”

In his “Learn to Be Lonely” lyrics for The Phantom Of The Opera, Charles Hart acknowledges loneliness, but also encourages:

Ever dreamed out in the world / There are arms to hold you?
You’ve always known / Your heart was on its own
So laugh in your loneliness / Learn to be lonely
life can be lived / life can be loved / Alone.

Most of us when we were adolescents felt needs and pressures to be accepted and acceptable.

But being intellectually or creatively exceptional: gifted and talented – and sensitive – often includes having temperaments and qualities such as divergent thinking, asynchronous development and introversion which make fitting in with others difficult, even if you want to.

And many of us never really wanted to that much.

Not to sound too much like “socially awkward” physicist Sheldon (played by Jim Parsons, left) on tv show The Big Bang Theory, but intellectual and creative interests can be very highly valued by many of us – even more than relationships.

Elaine N. Aron, Ph.D., in an interview about her book The Highly Sensitive Person In Love, says people with more sensitive and excitable constitutions and personalities “need help with intimacy. Maybe we are afraid, have been hurt, and can’t forget it.

Feeling like we are “too much”

“Or we have trouble being known and appreciated for who we really are. Or we have trouble in relationships because of our different needs, so that we always feel “too much” or “overly sensitive.”

She also says highly sensitive people are “more likely to find sex to be mysterious and powerful, to be turned on by subtle rather than explicit sexual cues, to be easily distracted or physically hurt during sex, and to find it difficult to go right back to normal life afterwards.”

And she has found in her research there are as many men born with this trait as women, despite the cultural ideal for men to be aggressive.

High sensitivity can be an underlying inner pressure for many to avoid relationships that could become more than casual friendship.

For many highly talented people, isolation or reduction in social contacts can be a way to better incubate self development, and creative thinking and projects.

But there can be problems with isolation.

A research study found, “Teens who spend more time watching television or using computers appear to have poorer relationships with their parents and peers.” But there is no indication in the news story that teens were evaluated for giftedness or high sensitivity: Teens With More Screen Time Have Lower-Quality Relationships.

And if we choose to be in a relationship, there are special challenges, as both Elaine Aron and Ted Zeff write.

Anxiety can affect relationships.

One of those challenges may be anxiety, which can be especially intense for HSPs.

Mia Wasikowska (pronounced Vash-i-kov-ska) plays the lead role in TIm Burton’s new version of Alice in Wonderland. She has commented, “As a teenager I was very anxious. I had a lot of energy and passion that I wanted to channel into creative things, and I always felt like I wasn’t achieving enough.”

From post Mia Wasikowska on teen anxiety and energy.

For a variety of self-help and non-drug programs, see the Anxiety Relief Solutions site.

Related article: Sex and the Highly Gifted Adolescent, By Annette Revel Sheely.

Related pages :
Relationships
Relationships: teen / young adult
Solitude

high sensitivity, highly sensitive people and relationships, highly sensitive people books, highly sensitive people and love