“Do you see words, like subtitles, over people’s heads when they talk?” A friend recently asked.
“No.” I replied, wondering what she was talking about.
“I do,” she said. “I just thought everyone did. I worked out it’s a thing called synesthesia. It’s a brain thing that happens involuntarily. Some people taste words or hear music as colours. I see what people are saying.”
Isn’t that fascinating? Not just neurological phenomena like synesthesia… but how we tend to think everyone else experiences the world like us.
It wasn’t long ago, maybe 15 years now, that I had one of those moments. I had lived a good 30 years of my life under the impression that everyone felt other people’s emotions and environments like I did. I would enter a living room of people, immediately feel depressed, and wonder why people were kind of happy and normal. Of course the depression (or whatever emotion was around me) wasn’t mine, it was someone masking or hiding theirs, but no one told me that is how it worked. No one trained me to discern invisible environments or attune to my own state of being. I just assumed everyone could feel other people’s emotions – in the same way everyone in the room could hear background music or smell a bad fart (…by the way, are there good farts?) Needless to say, 15 years ago I discovered that I was a Burden Bearer.
Burden Bearer was the first descriptor I was given. I soon found out that this phenomenon/trait was known by other names: empath, super-empath, spiritually sensitive, psychic, emotional sponge, intuit, and highly senstive person.
The last one, highly senstive person (HSP), was coined by therapist and researcher Elaine Aron in the early 1990s. She and some other researchers put some quantitative and qualitative legs to the phenomena. They discovered HSPs have a finely tuned nervous system created to discern safe and unsafe environments. She estimated that at least 20% of the population are HSPs. And no, it’s not just females who are sensitive; the trait transcends genders, etc. appearing in men and women equally. In fact, the genetic predisposition spans across many animal species. Highly sensitives are often leaders in other animal species because they can sense danger before others in their pack/flock/herd. When a HS horse senses danger, pops its head up in alert, and runs, the entire herd follows. Species have survived thanks to this HS trait. There is a self-test for HSPs, a good number of books, movies, and more. If you are a Gabor Mate fan, he recently spoke about it too, highlighting that most artists are HSPs.
Knowing that I carry this trait has been a journey. Healing old wounds, grieving decisions, forgiving caretakers, and managing its intensity have been a process. Being a HSP has its pros and cons. Joy is intense. Sadness is gripping. I don’t recover from conflict and shock as quickly as others. It makes me an attuned listener, but I also know when people are not (or will not) feel their own feelings… and that can be crappy. When I am around others, I struggle at times to know which emotions are mine, including the unpopular ones. But being highly empathetic is the reason I can write volumes of poetry, have deep conversations for hours, and almost prophetically, tell someone what they are experiencing.
What is it like being a HSP man? This much has been certain for me, and for other HSP men I know: Growing up as a highly sensitive boy, into a HS man, in a world steeped in the insensitivity of patriarchy, is hard. Awake, sensitive, tender, self-managed, sober, non-addicted HS men are a rare find. And I mention addiction because addictions are what many men turn towards to numb their sensitivity – because life is ‘too much’. Conforming to conflicting, violent, hierarchical, patriarchal norms is a heavy assault to HS men’s nervous systems and souls. For me, these numbing/distracting addictions have been more subtle than drugs or alcohol. They have been work, status, religion, and other people’s emotions.
I’ve sometimes wondered what a world would look like with HSPs in charge. In fact, I have no doubt that many non-violent religious figures like Christ, various Buddhas, Fatimah al-Zahra, Mother Mary, etc. would have been classed as HSPs. Yet, the other 80% of non-HSPs prevail in humanity – along with their violent, dominating, and destructive ways. But I remain hopeful for our future. I witness the parents of young boys and young men getting educated and accommodating their child’s sensitivity, making adjustments, and fostering this fragile gift. It gives me hope when young parents dare to move beyond the confines of ‘man up’ or ‘toughen up’ or ‘don’t be so sensitive’, and make room to foster and educate their HS boys to pay attention to the outer world, and their inner world.
In closing, I’d like to say to anyone reading, regardless of sex or gender, that if you have, (or suspect to have) kids, friends, relatives, or colleagues who fall into this burden-bearing-spongy-empath category, to be extra kind, stay curious, and ask them what it’s like. And if you, like me, have spent your life absorbing and feeling the richness of this world as a HSP: I see you, I feel you, I honour you, and I’m sorry if you are late to this awakening.
There is nothing wrong with you.
We need your voice, your insights, your burden-bearing, and empathy… but not at the expense of your own self.
Please tune in, get help, get wise, and take care. We desperately need you.
Much Love
David Tensen
#HSP #HSmen #empathy #patriarchy #creatives #mentalhealth #burderbear #highlysenstive.