Sensitivity seems to work like a multiplier. It amplifies everything a person feels — happiness and pain alike — by the same factor, with perfect impartiality.
Maybe sensitivity doesn’t come from a childhood short on love. Maybe it comes from the opposite: from having felt so much love as a child that when it receded, pain rushed in to fill the space it left behind.
At least, that’s how it feels for me. Ask me about childhood trauma and honestly, nothing comes to mind. Maybe I’ve forgotten — and forgetting is probably for the best. With many things, not remembering brings more comfort than remembering ever could.
Growing up meant leaving home, step by step, going farther and farther. I met more people and ran into messier situations, and somewhere along the way I lost the ability to say whether sensitivity is a good thing or a bad one.
I’ve come to believe that a trait this innate can’t be erased — only restrained, or at least tucked away, kept from showing so plainly. My genes decided who I am, and I can hardly rewrite them. All I can do is put on the best disguise I can manage, day after day.
I know perfectly well that sensitivity does me no favors, and that a thicker skin would serve me better. But it can’t stay hidden for long. The sensitive part of my mind keeps springing out on its own, seizing control of my thoughts at random moments.
If I had to name a culprit, it would be other people — sensitivity flares up mostly in relationships. Alone, it can even be a gift. I can perceive my own needs with real clarity, then go and meet them. At work, a little sensitivity means fewer things slip past me and more things catch my eye.
Sensitivity may well be a precious superpower — one that too often gets spent on over-analyzing things that were never meant to be analyzed. Suspicion, perhaps, is simply sensitivity showing its dark side.
A sensitive person is always convinced that others see something deeply wrong with them. A sensitive person is always convinced that a single wrong move could hand the people who love them a reason to stop. A sensitive person keeps tossing their own restless, overactive brain onto a hot pan and frying it back and forth — pure self-torture.
So when does the sensitivity ease? My guess: when you realize that things are never as wonderful as you imagine, and never as terrible either. It comes down to narrowing the gap between happiness and pain. I don’t believe anyone can feel extreme happiness without also feeling extreme pain.
Force is relative, and so is perception. Maybe that thick skin people talk about is really just a mind returning to calm.
…
Growing up means watching the world’s crueler face unfold before you, bit by bit. The tide of growing up pushes me forward mechanically, out into the world — no turning back, no stopping. And all manner of things come down like rain driving in sideways, pelting my sensitive, suspicious brain without pause.
Maturity is the calm you hold onto as human nature slowly reveals itself in front of you. Live through enough disappointments and you grow up on your own. Let whatever happens happen — even if the sky falls, meet it with composure.
…
The best antidote to sensitivity is probably not a person who makes you feel safe enough. Everything outside of you is unstable by nature. Real stability comes from a strong heart within.
Every sensitive person seems to walk around holding a magnifying glass. It is our superpower, an advantage we were born with. Use it well — to notice both the beauty and the suffering of this world. Be a messenger of the beauty, and a healer of the suffering.
Perhaps the best antidote to sensitivity is simply to become a mature person who is at peace — easygoing, yet never careless.
I’m glad to be a sensitive person, because sensitivity itself is a superpower — a deeply romantic one — even if it brings me some pain along the way. After all, even the most beautiful rose has its thorns.
…
I will love you with everything I have; and if you don’t love me back, there is nothing I can do. If that day ever comes, I will simply smile, keep walking forward, and go on being someone who stands for what’s right.
I love this world, and I love even more the search for what it means — what my being here means. But I’ve come to see that the meaning of this world, and of my existence, lies in the very act of searching for meaning. It sounds like a paradox, but if we could actually find the truth, we would have no reason to spend any more time here.
Most of all, I love myself, because love is not something demanded from the outside but something given from within.
May every sensitive person grow into someone full of strength, someone who stands tall in this world. And may the world treat every one of us with kindness.
Wishing you all well.
2024-10-20
Santa Clara
