Who’s a Highly Sensitive Person?

On sensitivity, survival, and what changed when I gave in to my wiring.

In 1997, I moved from a small advertising agency of a dozen people to a sprawling, high-voltage office at Ogilvy. I had no idea how much it would rattle me. The difference wasn’t just in the number of people—it was the energy. The pace. The way people moved and spoke. The underlying aggression that seemed to be required, not just admired. It was electric. And I, very quickly, short-circuited.

I felt like I was underwater in that atmosphere. Like I had to swim harder than everyone else just to stay in place. I was slower, quieter, more tentative, and I knew it. I felt inferior and I was ashamed. By the end of my first week my body and mind couldn’t take it anymore. I fell ill with chickenpox and was bedridden for three weeks.

When I returned, I noticed something had changed—not just in my body, but in my sensitivity. Something inside had dulled. And oddly, that dullness helped me survive. I coped. I adapted. But something valuable, maybe even sacred, had dimmed.

For years I didn’t examine that too closely. I was doing fine. But somewhere deep down, I knew I had moved forward using a version of myself that wasn’t entirely me. Like I had shut off some of my sensors in fear of overload. It was a thinner version—less porous, less present, more performative.

And then, about five years ago, I stumbled across the term Highly Sensitive Person (HSP). I don’t remember where or how, but that same day I took the self-test on Dr. Elaine Aron’s website. According to the quiz—and everything I would read afterward—I fit the profile exactly.

Find out if you are a Highly Sensitive Person

An HSP is someone whose nervous system is more responsive to stimuli, both external and internal. They tend to notice subtle changes in their environment—sounds, smells, facial expressions, even the emotional temperature in a room. They feel things deeply. They get overwhelmed easily. They process everything more thoroughly, including art, conflict, and internal states. Only about 15–20% of the population is thought to be wired this way.

Common struggles include:

• Needing more downtime than others

• Being easily rattled by noise, crowds, or deadlines

• Feeling overstimulated in fast-paced environments

• Being deeply affected by criticism or interpersonal conflict

• Struggling in competitive or high-pressure workplaces

• And in some cases, being labeled too sensitive or “not tough enough”

Elaine Aron has written extensively about this trait, noting that it’s not a disorder—it’s a temperament. It has evolutionary value. It exists across species. And it often comes with creativity, empathy, and a strong sense of intuition.

When I learned this, it felt like someone had lifted a weight off my life.

What I had long mistaken for weakness or fear was, in fact, just sensitivity. I wasn’t afraid of people—I was overwhelmed by them. I wasn’t lazy—I just needed more time to recover. I wasn’t aloof—I was watching, listening, absorbing. I wasn’t fearful—I just needed time to process things emotionally.

I began to live differently—not defensively, but attentively. I gave myself more permission to retreat. I stopped pathologising my need for quiet. I started protecting my emotional bandwidth. I found joy in slowness, in stillness, in not fighting against my own nature.

Somehow, the world made more sense when I stopped pretending it didn’t hurt.

This reframing gave me access to parts of myself I had written off or hidden away: my capacity for immersion, my depth of feeling, my strange sense of timing with people, my hunger for meaning. I stopped trying to “keep up” with the noise. I let myself fall behind. And then I found that, in many ways, I was ahead.

Interestingly, there are plenty of well-known figures thought to be HSPs—like Alanis Morissette, who has spoken openly about it, or actors like Nicole Kidman and Keanu Reeves, who often show the quiet watchfulness associated with high sensitivity. Even Carl Jung, the psychologist, showed traits that now align with this temperament.

And no, it’s not perfect science. I know that. The studies are still young, the definitions evolving. But even if HSP remains a “soft” diagnosis, it has made my life harder to ignore—and easier to live.

I still don’t know what exactly broke in 1997—whether it was a kind of nervous overload, or a brief collapse of the old self. But I now know I wasn’t broken. I was simply not made for the pace, the culture, the code of that place. And I tried to survive it by turning off something sacred.

Now, I try to live with that part turned back on.

It means I sometimes have less energy for the world. But more presence within it. It means I’m not the quickest in a room—but I’m usually the one who notices what everyone else missed. It means I miss out on some things. But I also experience things others may never feel. And it means I now measure my life not by how much I achieve, but by how deeply I perceive.

I remember telling a colleague many years ago that in our world, everyone is pretending to be a lion. If you know you are a rabbit, and live like one, you can really live like a very good rabbit—and have a good time while you’re at it. It took me many more years to realize this myself—and act accordingly.