Irena’s mother was very uncomfortable with such comments. At the same time, she knew that her daughter possessed at least average intelligence. She was also an affectionate, cheerful, happy, and sensitive child. Her mother had observed similar behavior in some of the girls at her school, which gave her peace of mind. That’s why she was slow to go to a psychologist’s office, to avoid having her daughter labeled because her intuition told her that Irena simply felt and behaved differently from her cousins and her friends’ children. When she finally sought professional help, it was confirmed that there was no disorder. After some time, she found on the web, by chance, that there were HSC, highly sensitive children, thus unmasking the mystery of why Irena acted and sensed life in her own way.
JANE 38 YEARS OLD
Jane had spent her whole life trying to please the people around her, even if it meant discomfort for herself despite her growing awareness that she was losing more and more self-esteem because of her attitude. As a child, she was obedient, unable to say what she thought so as not to hurt her parents’ feelings. As a teenager, she didn’t have her own criteria. She let herself be “crushed”, as she said, especially by her mother, who constantly manipulated her to mold her into the daughter she had designed. Her youth was filled with social problems with friends as she could not make her own decisions, she had not learned to do so. This also led to relationship problems, Jane was so empathetic that she gave everything without asking for anything in return, letting her fear of failure get the better of her.
The most traumatic experience Jane recounted was living with a partner who acted as if the world revolved around him and who had an exaggerated sense of his importance and entitlement. In therapy she discovered that her partner was narcissistic, a person who had to be the center of attention at all times and who needed continuous praise. A person whom she needed to praise constantly to have his approval and who would punish her if she didn’t comply with his wishes.
Like most people, Jane thought she was different and that this was her lot in life. Two factors overlapped, being a highly empathetic person and her old-fashioned upbringing, that is, growing up hearing phrases such as: “Turn the other cheek.” Or, “You’re much prettier when you’re quiet.” Or, “Don’t do to others what you don’t want them to do to you.”
In treatment, the starting point was Jane’s recognition of the four highly sensitive person’s trait factors. Secondly, they worked on social skills, especially assertiveness, and also improved her self-esteem. The patient learned to detect people who did not make her feel good and to defend herself against them. The fact that she had hit rock bottom in her relationship was also her salvation, as she sought professional help and realized that she should not allow another person to manipulate her, that she should not expect a narcissist to respect her sensitivity, nor should she have to continually praise him to get the slightest thing from him. Jane shook off her fear of failure, feeling proud to be herself and to be able to choose who she wants to share something with and what decisions to make. Now she is not afraid. She is not even afraid to make mistakes, as she prefers to make her own mistakes and learn from them rather than to not be herself.
References
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