Are we cry-babies?

Highly sensitive people can be considered “weak” “soft” “pathetic” and “cry babies”.

That comes from the following article, and reminded me of when I was a kid in Boy Scouts.

At one of our meetings, some of the other boys got the idea to have some fun by pantsing someone.

I was the chosen victim, and when several boys had grabbed me and pulled my pants down, within less than a minute I was feeling traumatized, and cried.

So the adult scoutmaster stopped the “entertainment.” But I was still called a “cry baby” by one or more of my “friends.”

I really don’t get how this can be considered “fun” – but then, some of the most popular YouTube videos are people being humiliated, according to some news reports.

This image of Johnny Depp is from one of my favorite John Waters movies: Cry-Baby (1990) [trailer].

Also see my video: Heath Ledger, Johnny Depp and other sensitive men.

In her article below, therapist Noreen Barron brings up some of the characteristics that may be affecting us as highly sensitive people – including potential medical and psychological issues.

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Being Sensitive

By Noreen Barron

Highly sensitive people can be considered “weak” “soft” “pathetic” and “cry babies”.

Have you ever been called too sensitive, too nervous, too highly strung, too many feelings, too deep, too analytical, too, too, too…?!

While being sensitive has its advantages, it’s also difficult being “too” sensitive. Sometimes we feel like we feel too much and we’d like to be able to switch our self off sometimes!

I switch off when I become aware and silent. In Italian, the word for sensitive is “sensible”, which means ‘to be aware of’.

Being aware of others, our self, nature, music, beauty, art, being kind to our self and others, treating others as we would like to be treated is being sensitive.

It does not mean fixing everyone, being responsible for everything and everyone, absorbing others’ energies, feeling depleted, feeling bad, feeling overwhelmed, feeling too much of everything and anything!

I think everyone has the capacity to be sensitive, it is a sign of emotional health to be aware of you, others and what is around you.

Being considered sensitive is not the prerogative of a few “chosen ones”. My belief is that being highly sensitive, as it is generally understood, is actually an overloaded and overwhelmed nervous system.

Common signs of being considered highly sensitive are hypervigilance, anxiety, nervousness, digestive problems, restlessness, sleeplessness, anger/rage etcetera.

These signs are strong indicators, not of being sensitive, but of undischarged traumatic imprints on the nervous system.

Energy that the nervous system generates to deal with threat to the organisms survival, and, for whatever reason, is not able to release and discharge, is called the freeze response. It is this frozen energy or imprint that causes these symptoms and that give rise to people being called highly sensitive.

Many highly sensitive people suffer from chronic conditions like IBS, CFS, depression, anxiety, autoimmune conditions and so on because of these repressed or unconscious imprints on the nervous system.

Trauma expert, Dr Robert Scaer calls these, “dis-eases of the freeze response”.

A dis-ease means a lack of ease. One of the most defining characteristics of being termed highly sensitive is a lack of ease. There is a nervous energy that always seems to be humming away in the background, and which can, very easily, be triggered into a ‘bigger’ response.

There are no reserves or what is termed resilience in the nervous system. It’s all just too much and the person often feels overwhelmed by what others can usually take in their stride.

Highly sensitive people can be considered “weak” “soft” “pathetic” and “cry babies”.

They are often shamed and criticized for their “over the top” responses, so they swallow and stuff many, if not all, of their needs, experiences, feelings, thoughts to keep “it all in” and contained, so as not to feel so overwhelmed or criticized by others.

So, an already overloaded nervous system becomes more overwhelmed and eventually this excess undischarged energy may manifest, and usually does, as there is nowhere else for the energy to go, in dis-ease.

EFT helps this frozen energy soften and move so it can be discharged from the overwhelmed nervous system.

Author: Noreen Barron M.A. EFT-Cert1 (Certified EFT Practitioner, Ireland)

EFT Practitioner http://energyandintention.com

Visit my blog http://noreenbarron.blogspot.com for tips, scripts and articles on how to use EFT more effectively.

Article source for links: Being Sensitive

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NOTE by Douglas Eby: Also see my info page(with video) on EFT – Emotional Freedom Techniques.

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