A-Z: Everything Gets Under Your Skin If You've Got Hyper-Sensitivity

Nails on a chalkboard.  Every (hearing) person knows and loathes that sound.  Nobody is very fond of the scratchy clothing tag at the back of our necks, either.

But what if many of the sounds, smells, and sights that other people enjoy, or at least, tolerate with seemingly little distress, set your teeth on edge?


You may be a Highly Sensitive Person.

Being highly or hyper-sensitive is not the same thing as actually being allergic to fragrances, foods, etc.  They simply really, really bug the HSP person.

From Being Highly Sensitive on Holistic Healing:

Porous Systems

As we have come to know, Highly Sensitive People's systems are very porous, meaning that external stimuli seems to be more directly absorbed into their bodies. (It has been said that it is as if HSP "have no skin" to protect them from these outside stimuli.) Non-HSP generally are less porous and have natural defenses which defuse external stimuli thereby not directly impacting and overloading their nervous systems.

Another way to think about this is to visualize the curve on a chart: At the point where the Non-HSP would have little or no stimulation, the HSP would be somewhat stimulated. Where Non-HSP would be somewhat stimulated, the HSP would be pretty well stimulated. And, where the Non-HSP is well stimulated, the HSP may be reaching, or might have already reached, a state of being over stimulated, over aroused and overwhelmed, which may manifest itself in Highly Sensitive People as getting upset, frazzled or even angry, needing to get away, or possibly "shutting down" and becoming unable to function.

From The Highly Sensitive Person: 

In defining the Highly Sensitive Person, Dr. Aron provides examples of characteristic behaviors, and these are reflected in the questions she typically asks patients or interview subjects:

• Are you easily overwhelmed by such things as bright lights, strong smells, coarse fabrics, or sirens nearby?
• Do you get rattled when you have a lot to do in a short amount of time?
• Do you make a point of avoiding violent movies and TV shows?
• Do you need to withdraw during busy days, into bed or a darkened room or some other place where you can have privacy and relief from the situation?
• Do you make it a high priority to arrange your life to avoid upsetting or overwhelming situations?
• Do you notice or enjoy delicate or fine scents, tastes, sounds, or works of art?
• Do you have a rich and complex inner life?
• When you were a child, did your parents or teachers see you as sensitive or shy?

from Wikipedia on Sensory defensiveness:

Common symptoms of sensory defensiveness include intolerance of high-pitched noises, intolerance of chewing sounds, intolerance of overhead lights (especially fluorescent lighting); experiencing a feeling of being attacked upon being touched (especially from light touch or sudden touch); intolerance of certain types of fabrics in contact with the skin; becoming nauseated upon smelling something that does not smell bad to neurotypical individuals; difficulty maintaining eye-contact; severe intolerance of foods due to taste, texture, or temperature; and generally becoming overwhelmed when exposed to a lot of sensory stimuli at once.

Intolerance in this context should not always be taken as unwillingness to be subject to the sensory stimuli in question; rather, intolerance is an inability to process the sensory stimuli in any way other than as over-stimulating, because the sensory stimuli provokes a fight-or-flight reaction. This is also known as sensory overload.

High or  hyper-sensitivity has been linked to autism, Asperger's Syndrome, ADD/ADHD, and at least via anecdotes, to OCPD. My ex was offended by my cologne, by the sounds of children playing, by too much light, and he hated being touched by me unexpectedly, whether it was a kiss, gentle touch on the arm, butt-pat in passing. (Yes, this did not have a healthy impact on our relationship.)  I've read dozens of accounts of others with OCPD partners who recount similar experiences.

I've blogged before on the analogy that people can be compared to vacuum cleaners.  We're "sucking in" about two million bits of sensory data every moment.

But we don't process anywhere near that amount, more like 40,000 bits (subconsciously), even less than that consciously.

from Internet of the Mind- How Thought Creates Reality

But what if our filter is damaged, like a vacuum cleaner with a missing bag, or one which is too tightly sealed? We might be taking in too little or too much data. We might be overwhelmed by it.

Many women (myself included) report increased sensitivity to odors during pregnancy, and at different points in our menstrual cycle.  Likewise, the sensitivity to light and other stimuli that often precedes a migraine can also be tied to bodily cycles or consumption of certain foods. This points to the possibility that some chemical imbalance in the brain can be responsible for triggering migraines.

What becomes ever clearer, is the more we learn about the brain, the more we realize there is much we don't know.

My A-Z theme is Issues related to Mental Health or Mental Illness.

Have you had times in your life when you were super-sensitive 
to external stimuli? How did/do you handle it?

Your thoughts?

Related articles

• Sensitivity on a Spectrum - Part 3 (my.psychologytoday.com)
• Sensory Integration (thegraycenter.org)
• Neuroscience: Are You Too Sensitive? (taxi-dog.com)
• Why Nails On A Chalkboard Drives Us Crazy (npr.org)

Too Perfect Tuesdays - Chapt 7 - The Costs of Worry and Rumination

This post continues with The Costs of Worry and Rumination from Chapter Seven.

This series looks at a small snippet of The book on the Perfectionist Personality, aka The Obsessive Compulsive disordered Personality, aka OCPD, each week. Please follow along, leave your comments, engage more on the FaceBook website... whatever your heart calls you to do.

Too Perfect, When Being in Control Gets Out of Control by Allan E. Mallinger, M.D. and Jeanette DeWyze was published by Random House in 1992.  If   you believe you are dealing with OCPD or someone who is "Too Perfect," whether that's you or a loved one, please buy a copy of the book and read it for additional insights that will not all be covered in these excerpts.

The Costs of Worry and Rumination

<snip>failure to forgive and forget is much more apt to provoke resentment than it is to elicit a loving or nurturing response.  And that's only one of the costs exacted by these destructive thought patterns.

Since both worry and rumination are unproductive by definition, they waste time and energy.  All the time spent on either could be better used - either in some other activity or by concentrating more fully on the task at hand.

Worry and rumination also exert physical costs.  They may deprive one of sleep, and some physicians believe that the feelings of tension and anxiety accompanying them can trigger (or worsen) other medical problems ranging from heart trouble to ulcers. They also tend to be mentally exhausting, not only draining one of intellectual energy but also robbing one of time that's much needed for creative rejuvenation.  Although they're not physical acts, worry and rumination can be very strenuous.

Similarly, most rumination carries with it a sense of retroactive control.  By chastising themselves for some pitfall they should have foreseen (even if there's no way they really could have), they are denying the frightening reality that mistakes are inevitable.

Worst of all is the senseless emotional pain obsessives inflict on themselves with these thoughts. Chronic worriers or ruminators fail to enjoy most aspects of daily life because of this habit. They don't fully experience even pleasurable moments - time filled with family and friends, music, laughter - under the weight of their oppressive thoughts.

***

Again, it all comes down to perspective. Obsessive people have lost (or perhaps, never had) perspective. Like a two or three year old who throws a tantrum because some small thing didn't go his way, my ex would be crushed if something didn't work out according to plan.  Unlike a two or three year old, however, he couldn't be distracted with something shiny.

Each disappointment, each betrayal (as he saw it) by me built up and built up in his mind. There was no forgiving and forgetting the minor things; there were no minor things. He was frequently exhausted, he complained of chest pain (heart? anxiety attacks?  who knows?), but in the end, he couldn't even enjoying making music with his best friend.

Has worry and rumination cost you pleasure in the moment?
Do you chew the past to bits?
Your thoughts?

Vacuuming up the OCPD

After being inspired by a great post at My Mother-in-Law is Still Sitting Between Us, I've been pondering vacuums and filters, as they relate to OCPD.  Work with me here, it will eventually make sense.  I think.

The filter traps dirt, lint, pet hair, and so forth (tip: never look too closely at the "and so forth.") But the filter has to be porous enough to allow air, and yes, a little bit of dust out.

Sid’s fabulous story about accidentally vacuuming without a bag in place made me think of someone I’ve worked with. Warm, friendly, great salesperson, fabulous "big ideas" kind of guy - but utterly lost at sitting down and working out the little nuts and bolts of life, like staying within a budget, or balancing a checkbook.

When I think of - let’s call him Bagless Bob - I think of that vacuum, merrily sucking up everything and spewing out a lot of junk behind it. It’s like his filter is missing or damaged.  Lucky for Bob, he does have a some partners to act as his filter - and sometimes he even listens to them!

And for those with OCPD, it’s like their filters are TOO tight. They go waaaay beyond a HEPA filter to sealing theirs all over with duct tape, lest a tiny mote of dust get out. And, of course, that doesn’t work out, either.

When someone with OCPD writes a report, they often include too much unnecessary detail, because... they have problems figuring out which are the important bits.

When someone with OCPD hoards, again, it’s often related to problems discerning what is valuable and what is junk. So, better keep all of it, just in case.  (Or, in some cases, they want to throw everything away.)

When they nit-pick their partners or children, it seems their perception glides right past the 115 things we said, did or looked right, zooming in on the single thing we said wrong, the sole cat hair we missed when brushing off our slacks.  You know when they played that Sesame Street game, "Which of these things are not like the others?" they figured it out in record time.

It’s like the Bagless Bobs of the world only see this  

Georges Seurat - A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grand Jatte
via Wikimedia Commons



And the OCPDrs only see this  

Study for La Jatte - also via Wikimedia Commons



A "normal" person can zoom in and see the detail, or back away and see the big picture.

Sharon Begley (whose excellent, clear and informative writing is always worth reading, IMO) just wrote in Newsweek about information overload and how it affects judgment. I am reminded again of the overlapping symptoms of some with OCPD and some with autism - the reported sensitivity to light, sound, and odors. In addition, many have described having problems being in touch with their emotions. 

If the emotions are shut out of the decision-making process, we’re likely to overthink a decision, and that has been shown to produce worse outcomes on even the simplest of tasks. In one classic experiment, when volunteers focused on the attributes of various strawberry jams they had just rated, it completely scrambled their preferences, and they wound up giving a high rating to a jam they disliked and a low rating to one they had found delicious.

Now, even "nons" can experience information overload. This is why it’s crucial to periodically unplug from various devices and not have e-mail/text/video clips bombarding us 24/7.

But although the world is full of many, many things "coming at us at once," those without OCPD seem to have a built-in automatic filter that does a pretty good helping us focus. For example, I’m sitting at my desk, typing on the keyboard. I’m mostly aware of the monitor and the words appearing there, but if I pause, I can become aware of the scented candles I lit, the soft background music, the books and furniture and such that are all around me. It doesn’t feel "all in my face" at once.

Ex b-f frequently criticized me for "trying to do too much at once," and one of the places he stressed out the most was the car. I found music to be calming while I drove (especially with him) and he thought it was too distracting.  He was also always pointing out vehicles and other imminent dangers, as he thought, but was horrible at giving directions so I would have enough time to change lanes to make turns or enter the freeway.  Getting a vehicle with a built-in navigation system saved my sanity, because even if he thought it, too, was an unnecessary distraction, at least I could trust it to tell me when an turn was coming up.

Many other "nons" have related that driving with an unaware/untreated OCPDr is excruciating, regardless of whether they are the driver or the passenger.   This makes a lot of sense if those with OCPD are operating with a too-tight "filter." All the cars and signs and lights and pedestrians and so forth would seem to be coming at them at once, and that would be terrifying.

However... they do learn to drive, most quite safely, even if they white-knuckle it a bit in traffic situations, and, like anything else, the more they do it, the better they get at it.

So - can those with OCPD learn or be taught to loosen up their "filter"?  What's your experience with this?