BPD and High Emotional Sensitivity

Philadelphia DBT Therapy: Why am I like this? Why do things bother me so much?

Understanding High Emotional Sensitivity

Ever since you can remember, you’ve been labeled as “too sensitive”. Your feelings get hurt easily. You may “overthink” things at nauseam. You feel things deeply, more so than other people. When you feel emotional pain, you may literally hurt physically.

The problem isn’t with the “good”, positive emotions, like when you’re in love, or when laughing so hard with your friends. The problem becomes when you’re experiencing emotional pain. It’s like, holy shit, this emotion hurts, so much.

Emotional pain feels like a tidal wave of whatever painful thing you’re going through. Your feelings and emotions take over, and when they do, you wonder how long the pain will last.

In other words, when you feel shit, you really feel shit.  

When emotions hurt

People have called you “too sensitive”. You’d love to just turn your feelings off, but you just can’t seem to do that.

Borderline Personality Disorder & High Emotional Sensitivity

Many of my clients wonder how they ended up “Borderline”. In other words, they want answers to the questions, “What’s wrong with me?” and “Why am I like this?” I believe these are valid questions. The reality is that there are a bunch of variables.

One of the variables involved is that of High Emotional Sensitivity.

High Emotional Sensitivity

Some people are physically sensitive. For example, these are the individuals that begin to sneeze at the first sign of spring. Or, for instance, people who find the tags in their clothes simply intolerable.

Some people are highly emotionally sensitive. That means that they are more emotionally vulnerable than others. Sensitivity to emotions is biological. That is, highly emotionally sensitive people are most often born that way.

It’s part of what makes you, you.

How do you know that you’re highly emotionally sensitive?

Wondering if you have high emotional sensitivity, check out the list below.

Characteristics of a highly emotionally sensitive person.

1.     You are more sensitive to emotional stimuli.

What does this mean? You may already be familiar with the term, “Empath”. While not a clinical term, someone who considers themselves an “Empath” is someone who experiences a high level of empathy, more so than someone who isn’t a highly sensitive person.

If this resonates with you, you are probably someone who can pick up on other people’s moods quite easily. It means that you are very aware of other people’s changes in body language or facial expressions, sometimes more so than the person who is actually doing those things.

2.     You experience emotions more often than others.

You may have noticed that you tend to experience a shit ton more emotions than someone who isn’t highly sensitive. If this describes you, you tend to be moved by music, art, and the theatre. It means that you get hurt feelings easily and perhaps, cry easily. It could also mean that you become irritable more often or have been called “moody”.

3.     Your emotions may feel like they’ve come out of nowhere.

This means that sometimes emotions, particularly negative, painful ones, seem to occur out of the blue. You’re so “emotional” and don’t know why. You often notice that your feelings and emotions seem to “happen” without knowing why.

Like, when you’re in the middle of a conversation with your beau, and without realizing it, sobbing. You often ask yourself, “Where the f*ck did that come from?” 

4.     Experience more intense emotions than other people.

As in, your emotions hit ya like a big f*cking ton of bricks. If this resonates with you, when you experience negative feelings, they feel so painful; so debilitating. People may have told you that “you’re overreacting”. Or perhaps when you’re angry, oh man, watch out.

5.     Your emotions are long-lasting.

When you feel an intense emotion, such as sadness, shame, or rage, it may hang around a lot longer than other people who aren’t emotionally sensitive. Despite instructing yourself to “move on” or to “let it go”, you find yourself experiencing the emotion for a long time. It’s like, as much as you’d love to just let things bounce off of you, those feelings linger… much longer than other people. For instance, when you become really emotional, it may take you a large part of the day to come back down to your baseline.

It’s like telling someone who broke their legs to just “walk it off”.

High emotional sensitivity can be your superpower.

Being a highly emotionally sensitive person can be challenging, to say the least. On the other hand, I believe that being a highly sensitive person is a superpower.

Before you tell me that I’m full of shit, hear me out.

Reasons why being highly sensitive is badass.

1.     You are probably very bright.

Yes, that’s right. High sensitivity correlates to intelligence. In other words, people who are highly sensitive, also tend to be smart and possibly gifted.

2.     You tend to be very intuitive.

It’s like you “get” things without necessarily knowing why or having been taught. You’re very aware of others and notice subtle changes that other people do not.

3.     You’re probably a great listener and friend.

Why? Because you care so much about people; because you are empathetic and genuinely want to listen to others. 

4.     You are highly creative and imaginative.

This is due to having very in-depth processing—meaning you have a rich inner life. The intensity of your emotions helps fuel your creativity.

5.     You’re passionate about the arts.

Adding to the creativity piece, is that highly sensitive people are passionate. This is particularly true with regard to music, art, and theatre.

The Role of High Emotional Sensitivity in BPD

Some words of caution- Having high emotional sensitivity is not inherently indicative of borderline personality disorder. In other words, just because someone is highly emotionally sensitive, doesn’t mean they have BPD. What I am saying is that being highly sensitive to emotions is one of variables inside this hugely complicated disorders.

DBT Therapy in Philadelphia

When you have BPD or debilitating anxiety, high emotional sensitivity can be problematic. Your emotions don’t need to control you. Dialectical Behavior Therapy can help you can learn how to manage your emotions effectively.

As a DBT therapist, I help my clients who struggle with painful emotions and reduce their emotional suffering. I love helping my clients “make friends” with their high emotional sensitivity and embrace their inner badass.

Philadelphia DBT Therapist 

In my private DBT practice, I specialize in the treatment of Borderline Personality Disorder and anxiety therapy using Dialectical Behavioral Therapy. If you are thinking about DBT, you can schedule your free consultation HERE.