Highly sensitive people (HSPs) are real - they are not people going crazy, weird, or over dramatizing things. In fact, 20 per cent of the population are considered to be HSPs! This article describes what it's like to be an HSP who feels anxiety often and intensely. She helps you make sense of a lifetime of stuff that will lift the lid for you on surviving sensitivity.
Anxious people experience overreactions to threatening things in their environment, which causes them to have a more severe stress response in their body than someone else would have to that stimulus. They are not able to tolerate uncertainty about the future very well as they fear many things that may go wrong. This could be about world events - including terrorism and plane crashes - or internal problems such as relationships ("What if he doesn't really love me?") or health concerns ("What if I've got cancer?")
The anxious person believes subliminally that there is danger all around in this world and that if they're not always on guard there may be potential threat to their body or psychological well being. They are constantly thinking 'what if this?' and 'maybe that?'
A person behaves a certain way because of a need to minimize or get rid of a stimulus or situation that is causing him to feel stressed. For example, a person may often say, "Yes" if someone asks him to take on more work, and is considered to be an obliging person. It is possible however, that he is actually anxious about receiving criticism and disapproval if he said, "No".
An anxious person may not be aware the he is experiencing anxiety. He feels physical discomfort and experiences gut, bowel problems, and immune and nervous system problems, which he thinks are physical problems needing testing and treatment, rather than recognizing that it may have something to do with his cognition (thinking).
It is common that a fearful or negative thought then becomes in itself the threatening stimulus, which results in the body producing adrealin, the stress hormone that prepares the body for a 'fight' of 'flight' response in the event that the situation really is dangerous. Adrenalin stores in the muscles and maintains in the person a sense of readiness in case danger ever occurs. This feeling of being 'on guard' or stressed can mean that one small event triggers an intense response due to the adrenalin build up. This is seen by others as an overreaction.
It is quite common for an anxious person to also be a sensitive person, prone to worrying. Sensitive people have a brain that is always on guard to any threat, resulting in the body producing adrenalin at the slightest suggestion of there being any "danger" in the environment. This could be in reality an external stimulus (heat, noise, unpleasant smells, bright lights, scratchy clothing, food with strange textures) or a threat from internal appraisals (feeling disapproved of, disliked or criticized).
A person with an anxious personality is likely to have strong floods of adrenalin in an environment where there are raised voices, irritable tones, or any suggestion of conflict, regardless of whether or not they are involved in the conflict. It is common for them to be jumpy and startle easily.
The nervous system, if aroused by adrenalin, gives a person the anxious feeling even before he or she can rationalize the situation. Once the brain recognizes that anxious feeling it stays on guard for the danger and the thoughts in the head are usually 'what if' this and 'what if' that. Typically the thoughts focus on the person's vulnerability at the time and that may be related to something about their health, finances, relationships, children, work, being disliked, being inadequate. The brain is looking for some danger to justify the fear feeling.
