Important!
This post is *NOT* about *high sensitivity*, but about possible developmental trauma. Reduced self-esteem, not trusting one's own perception, tendency to control... are NOT characteristics of high sensitivity, but arise from our experiences.
Every child can develop developmental trauma through such treatment. If you recognize yourself in this video, it is not an indication of possible high sensitivity.
In my posts, you will find information about typical characteristics of high sensitivity according to Aron's personality model and also distinguishing features from trauma consequences.
Mental illnesses do not arise from high sensitivity, but from experiences that have shaped us.
Don't feel like reading? Here you can watch the post as a video.
In this post, you will learn how highly sensitive children become mentally ill adults.
It is aimed at parents of highly sensitive children as well as highly sensitive adults who suffer greatly from high sensitivity.
Highly sensitive and unhappy, often a consequence of upbringing?
In my work, it becomes apparent that there is a significant factor that determines how happy or unhappy we are with high sensitivity. And it is important to know. Firstly, for highly sensitive parents, so they can support their children well, and secondly, for highly sensitive adults, to understand themselves better and to be able to act accordingly.
High sensitivity itself is not the trigger for depression, severe anxiety, or constant overwhelm. These symptoms very often arise from unfavorable experiences we have in our childhood. They are the consequence of an upbringing that, in most cases, is even well-intentioned but can be very damaging in the end.
Below I describe experiences of my clients, which have been told to me hundreds of times in a modified form.
I will start with the example of a typical morning for 3-year-old Anna. Afterwards, I will ask you a question about it and invite you to get something to write with to note down your thoughts.
The highly sensitive child Anna
Anna is a highly sensitive child, meaning she perceives very light sensory stimuli that she can filter less than average sensitive children. She feels emotions very strongly, her body is often completely filled with them. She is very empathetic and reflects a lot on the manifold impressions she experiences during the day. This makes her experience things in a much deeper way than average sensitive children. It is important for her to observe first before she does something, because this gives her a feeling of security.
Brushing teeth with highly sensitive children can be a challenge
In the morning, she gets up and her mom helps her get ready for kindergarten. There's always a fight when brushing her teeth because Anna doesn't want to open her mouth. The toothpaste is much too strong for her, and she expresses this by saying that brushing her teeth hurts. Her mother tries very hard, she tries to get her to open her mouth and then gently brushes her teeth. Anna tells her mom, "It hurts!" "No Anna, it doesn't hurt, look, I'm being very careful." The mother carefully brushes Anna's teeth, who repeatedly pulls her head away because it hurts her. Her mother repeatedly assures her that she is being very careful and that it cannot hurt at all.
The right clothing can be difficult, especially with highly sensitive children.
Then it's time to get dressed. Anna doesn't like tights because they are too tight on her toes, but she can't name it yet. It's winter and her mom bought her the expensive, super soft Lillifee tights especially for her. It's torture, Anna's mom keeps emphasizing how soft and comfortable the tights are, while it takes forever until they are finally on. Time is running out. Quickly have breakfast.
Highly sensitive children often have very specific eating habits
Anna gets a piece of bread with her favorite cold cut. The bread is a bit old and the crust is harder than usual. "Mom, I don't like the bread." The mother is slowly getting impatient. It's important that everything works out so she gets to work on time. "Anna, that's your favorite cold cut, now don't be so difficult and just eat. It's the same thing you usually eat, it tastes good." Meanwhile, both of their stress levels are already quite high. Now they set off together for the 10-minute walk to daycare.
Highly sensitive children need more attention, which can easily be overwhelming
They start running. The tights on Anna's toes feel terrible in her shoes. Again and again she stops, doesn't want to go any further, and says, "Mom, there's something in my shoes, it hurts." The mother kneels down to her, takes off her shoe, but can't find anything. "There's nothing, Anna, come on now." At some point her mother is totally exhausted and annoyed and drags Anna behind her. "Do you always have to make such a fuss?" Whining, Anna lets herself be dragged along. "Mom, are you mad at me?" "No," the mother grits her teeth, distorts her face, and stares at the daycare door, which they will finally reach soon.
To one person, the described situation might seem exaggerated, to another even too sanitized.
This small excerpt of the day can be seen as exemplary for a day that might have many more such situations.
And now I invite you to pause, it's best to write down your thoughts on the upcoming question.
The question is:
What did the highly sensitive Anna learn this morning?
In my seminars, the answers to this question vary widely. Rarely is the very aspect mentioned that might make life very difficult for Anna later on. Therefore, I will only go into this aspect in the following.
Anna learned today that she cannot trust her perception! Perhaps you are asking yourself, why is that? Let's take a closer look at the situation.
The toothpaste hurts Anna because it is too spicy for her. The mother denies the child's perception and explains to her that it cannot hurt because she is being very careful.
For Anna, Mom is the person who knows how things work. Who knows everything. And when Mom says: „that doesn't hurt," that must be right. And then Anna's feeling cannot be correct. Let's look further:
Anna finds her tights uncomfortable. Her mother explains to her that they are quite comfortable after all. Once again, the daughter's perception is questioned without any ill intent.
Anna does not like the taste of the bread, and once again she is lectured that she is mistaken.
Why highly sensitive people often feel like they don't fit in
Anna can't go on, her feet hurt. She stops so that it hurts less. In addition to the negation of Anna's perception, another aspect comes into play here: the mother's rejection. Anna learns that if she acts according to her needs, her mother turns away and scolds her. She gets the feeling that she has done something wrong.
Empathetic as highly sensitive children are, she senses that her mother is angry with her.
However, the mother denies her anger because she doesn't actually want to be angry and wants to show the child in this way that it is okay.
And here, too, Anna learns that her perception is wrong.
The more often we succeed in truly perceiving our highly sensitive child, the happier they will be.
This is how Anna systematically learns to trust the perception of others more than her own. Of course, there are always such situations in upbringing. A child who is generally seen and affirmed in their perception can also cope with a lot without being harmed. However, if this happens too often, it can have devastating effects on the child's psyche. In the worst case, developmental trauma and/or a personality disorder can also develop from this.
This is how highly sensitive children become mentally ill adults
What are the specific consequences of such experiences?
Anna learns that her feeling is not right. She begins to distrust her own feelings and to ignore them. In some cases, perhaps, even to feel nothing at all, because the inner discrepancy would otherwise be unbearable for her.
Anna learns to feel others better than herself
As a highly sensitive empath, Anna can wonderfully sense how others are doing and what they need later in life. However, she finds it very difficult with her own feelings. When asked how she is doing, the thought loop automatically starts: "How should I be doing?" A typical saying is then:
"You're doing well, so how am I doing?"
Anna will find it difficult to set boundaries
Because Anna's boundaries were not seen or respected, she will find it very difficult to set boundaries later in life. An instance within her always considers the boundaries of others more important.
In his great book "Up to here and no further," Rolf Sellin names this phenomenon the " unbounded self ". Those who have difficulty perceiving and setting their own boundaries will find a lot of information and practical tips in this book.
Anna loses access to her own needs
If we don't perceive our limits, this has even more far-reaching consequences. It is difficult for us to name needs because we have lost access to our own perception. We then tend to conform, as this gives us a sense of security. Unfortunately, this usually also means that we do things that we don't actually want to do and that are not part of our nature. And this can permeate all areas of life. We eat things we don't like or start studying even though we actually want something completely different. We then have no sense of what is good for us because we always think about what others would expect. That's why we conform and ignore our own needs, or sometimes don't even notice that we are acting against ourselves. The needs of others are always prioritized.
This can even escalate to a dependent personality disorder.
If our behavior is devalued, we learn guilt and shame.
Guilt and shame often come into play as well. When our perception has always been devalued and we have been frequently suggested that we should be different, the conviction can grow within us that we are wrong. We then feel ashamed of our behavior and ultimately of ourselves. If someone with this fundamental attitude tells others they are highly sensitive, it is usually in the form of an apology. With this conditioning, we constantly fight against ourselves, and we cannot win this fight.
Experiences like Anna's can result in us:
- resigning , feeling incapable and lacking confidence. We don't even start things or give up on them because we internally assume we won't succeed anyway. We only see the closed doors and run past the open ones. And this is a great tragedy because it repeatedly confirms to ourselves that we cannot do something.
- rebelling (rather rare in highly sensitive people) – If I can't please anyone, I'll just do what I want, regardless of the consequences and/or am fundamentally opposed to whatever it is. Often associated with a feeling of arrogance. I am the knowledgeable one and the others have no idea. If they share my opinion, at least they are not completely lost. However, sympathy can quickly wane if the other person also happens to have a different opinion. If a damaged nervous system is added to this, which constantly scans for dangers and suspiciously eyes everything, it's fertile ground for developing a tendency towards conspiracy theories or similar. Or we look for a scapegoat to compensate for our suppressed feelings of inferiority.
- control – We try to have ourselves so under control that we are untouchable. Everything must be perfect. The garden, the apartment, the appearance, the activities…
We are incredibly hard on ourselves and have zero tolerance for mistakes. All to be as invulnerable as possible or out of the extreme desire to do everything right. An incredibly exhausting approach because we never find peace this way. It is not possible to please everyone. When we then fail to be perfect, we feel guilty, have a bad conscience, and blame ourselves.
This need for control is then also partly transferred to others, which is an even more impossible undertaking. And when this over-control affects children, a tragic cycle is set in motion, as these children can also never please their caregiver. If we have this program in our basic structure, it can, in the worst case, also lead to obsessive-compulsive disorders.
Such experiences also have an influence on our later relationships.
For example, highly sensitive people with a "diffuse self" tend to enter into relationships with narcissists. These are not good for them, but their personality structures connect perfectly.
Making decisions is difficult
Furthermore, they often find it difficult to make decisions. Since they do not perceive or take their bodily resonances seriously, no final judgment is made. Head and gut do not work together. And this can also permeate all areas of life. From the decision of which jam I want to buy, to whether I want to get married.
It is difficult to develop goals
Goals cannot be developed either, on the one hand because perhaps a (mostly unconscious) authority assumes that I am fundamentally incapable of creating anything. On the other hand, because I cannot name a goal if I do not know what I want. Imagine we get into a taxi and ask the driver to take us home without telling him where we live. The driver has no chance at all of taking us to the right place.
We no longer perceive warning signals from our body
Another tragic consequence that I repeatedly witness in my work is that with such conditioning, we ignore warning signs from our body. And that is where it becomes especially dangerous for highly sensitive people with their tendency toward perfectionism. If we do not perceive our needs, we can hardly feel when something becomes too much for us or is otherwise not good for us.
We are at high risk of burnout
We then tend to permanently overexert ourselves. Especially for highly sensitive people, for whom it is particularly important to recharge their batteries in time, this ability is particularly crucial in order not to fall into constant stress. If we also have a program of wanting to please everyone, not being allowed to make mistakes, or having the claim that we have to be able to do things just like average sensitive people, burnout is programmed sooner or later. We overexert our body-mind-soul system until our organism capitulates and nothing works anymore. Either through illness or burnout.
Burnout as an opportunity
For many highly sensitive people, however, this is also the time to shift down a few gears, clear out old patterns, and reorient themselves.
But let's come back to Anna
Is this the educational goal that Anna's mother wanted to achieve? Hardly!
We are usually not aware of these connections. And even if we are aware of them, it doesn't mean that we will never act that way again from now on. The way we raise children is deeply rooted in our own experiences of how we were raised. This also applies to our parents, and their parents...
Parents are only human too 😉
I am a childcare professional, a social pedagogue, have many additional qualifications, have been working through my own history for many years, and love my daughter with all my heart. Nevertheless, I mess up some situations completely. Sometimes even with my eyes open, and because I am overstimulated, I can't act any differently in that moment. And that's human.
Nobody is perfect, everyone has their own story that shapes them. If we have the expectation of doing everything right in parenting, it puts us under so much pressure that we can only fail. Because failing is simply a part of being human. But you can learn from mistakes. It is not about being a perfect parent, it is enough to be good enough.
Collect bonus points for a happy life for your child
Every time we succeed in recognizing and taking our child's perception seriously, it is a bonus point for their self and their later, happy adult life.
I invite you, in the moments when you don't succeed, to take a victory lap and be loving with yourself. Just as your child needs it right now. This time it didn't work out. Embark on the path of the learner. You learn from mistakes, so one isn't enough. It's already a big step that you've noticed something is going wrong. This brings a lot of calm to the situation and increases the chance that it will work out next time. If you get so tangled up in your structures that you can't get out, get professional help. For example, a Marte Meo practitioner.
When your own experiences are stronger
If you recognize yourself in the described patterns, the intensity of the effects can vary greatly; depending on how intense or frequent the situations were and what positive imprints you received as compensation.
What you can do if you are personally affected, or how you can helpfully support your highly sensitive child differently, you will learn in my seminars and training courses.
If you would like personal support for your situation, you can find my Coaching and consulting for parents of highly sensitive children .
