Bill | Takapuna
“For many years, many years, I’ve known that I am an HSP.
People who know about HSP know exactly what I’m talking about. People who are not familiar with the term HSP, it’s Highly Sensitive Person… and it’s a condition. It’s not an ailment. It’s not a disease. It’s maybe neither good nor bad.
I’m well acquainted with this condition. I know it’s a condition that they say 20 per cent, even 25 per cent of all people have, and it’s, well I, I don’t want to go into it right now, except people who are interested in it, it really is an interesting topic.
Basically it’s people who have a high sensitivity to certain things. It could be noise. It could be light. It could be feelings. You are a person. You are aware of everything that’s going on around you… People’s needs. So this condition that I have, I don’t think it helps me in any way. Probably exuberates my little, ah, feelings I have about my son. Ah, so that’s maybe one of the important things I would like to mention about my personality, my sort of condition.
They say it could be hereditary. They’re not absolutely sure about it. There is a lady, a professional who’s studied the thing for many years. She has a PhD, her name is Mrs Aron and she has many, many books about the subject. How do I deal with it? Ah, it’s difficult. I sometimes try to explain my condition to people, to friends, why I have reacted this way to this certain circumstance. Alright, and most people who I’ve spoken to, they sort of ignore it. They don’t really, they don’t really believe in it. Some years ago I tried to explain. I sat my wife down and my son down together and I tried to explain my condition, because maybe they were a little bit surprised at some of my behaviour, my actions. Ah, they were not interested really. So I stopped there. I think that’s it. It has its good points and it’s bad points. I probably suffer a little bit more because of it. I expect too much from people probably. My wife says, oh you’re expecting too much from people. But I’m not like that, and I probably think that a person maybe should act in a particular way, maybe in a way that I would possibly act in that circumstance, and they don’t. So I’m disappointed and depressed, and my wife quite often mentions this to me; aha, why are you sad, why are you so angry, upset about this person didn’t do that? So, I live with it.”