When you're dating an HSP you'll quickly discover you're in the company of someone who truly cares. They will do everything in their power to make you feel accepted, comforted, and validated, because that's what they believe everyone deserves.
For HSPs, who exist in a world that doesn't always understand our needs and neurodivergence, dating can be especially overwhelming. The uncertainty makes the process inherently risky, especially for people who experience feelings on a more intense level than most.
When highly sensitive people (HSPs) confide about love, there is notable depth and intensity. They fall in love hard and they work hard on their close relationships. Yes, sometimes non-HSPs sound similarly enthralled and confused by love, but on the average, HSPs have a more soul-shaking underlying experience.
A verbal safe haven: HSPs thrive in relationships where they feel seen, heard, and valued. Since highly sensitive people feel things more deeply than most, their feelings often get hurt more quickly than others'. HSPs thrive in relationships where they feel seen, heard, and valued.
Due to their deep awareness of others and their empathy, HSPs tend to absorb others' emotions as their own. So when your partner is down, so are you. This can be especially hard on a relationship if your partner is often moody, anxious, stressed, or depressed.
Sights, sounds, smells, and other forms of sensory input may cause a heightened experience for HSPs. A sound that is barely perceptible to most people may be very noticeable, and possibly even painful, to an HSP. There's more to being a highly sensitive person than just being sensitive to stimuli.
Highly sensitive people want real intimacy and the best way you can give this is by listening. But don't just listen, truly listen. With both ears, not just one. HSPs swim through their emotions daily and they'd feel loved just knowing that they can share these feelings and thoughts with you.
Living with High Sensitivity
HSPs may struggle to adapt to new circumstances, may demonstrate seemingly inappropriate emotional responses in social situations, and may easily become uncomfortable in response to light, sound, or certain physical sensations.
Turning anger inward is especially common amongst highly sensitive persons and empaths. Their natural compassion has caused them to focus excessively on others' needs and emotions, at the cost of proper emotional and energetic boundaries for themselves.
The good news is that highly sensitive people aren't more or less emotionally intelligent than others. They just use emotional intelligence differently.
Highly sensitive people may be more affected by certain situations such as tension, violence, and conflict, which may lead them to avoid things that make them feel uncomfortable. You might be highly touched by beauty or emotionality. Highly sensitive people tend to feel deeply moved by the beauty they see around them.
And while sensitive people are highly intuitive, because they have such a strong sense of empathy, they can easily end up in toxic relationships more so than others.
The positive traits of people that are highly sensitive include emotional awareness, empathy for others, the ability to pick up on small cues that others miss, dedication to fairness and justice, passionate and innovative thinking, and an ability to demonstrate good leadership through valuing others.
Trauma affects highly sensitive and intense people more intensely. Like any other of your reactions to stimuli, as a highly sensitive person (HSP) your trauma reactions are also more intense than most. As a result, many HSPs have used trauma splitting, or structural dissociation, as a way to cope.
Close, meaningful relationships
HSPs crave deep connections with others. In fact, according to Aron, they may get bored or restless in relationships that lack meaningful interaction.
HSP isn't a disorder or a condition, but rather a personality trait that's also known as sensory-processing sensitivity (SPS).
HSPs are known to be highly observant, intuitive, thoughtful, compassionate, empathetic, conscientious, loyal, and creative. In fact, managers consistently rate people with higher sensitivity as their top contributors.
Dr. Aron estimates that about 70 percent of sensitive people are introverts, so it makes sense that these HSPs would love their alone time. However, even extroverted HSPs need plenty of downtime, and they may decline social invitations, too. It's not because they don't love their friends (they do, madly!).
Not only are HSPs extra sensitive to environmental stimulation, they're also sensitive emotionally. According to Dr. Elaine Aaron, author of The Highly Sensitive Person, sensitive people tend to cry more easily than others. “Sensitive people can't help but express what they're feeling,” she told the Huffington Post.
Sleep is crucial for HSPs, so make sure its highly quality and your night-time sleep is long. Most HSPs need at least 8 hours, and many sleep over the average -- 9 or 10 hours nightly. If you're not getting enough sleep you WILL burn out and edge towards depression, anxiety and become less capable of functioning.