Intersections of Sensitivity and Complex Trauma

This is certainly no light topic, but one that I feel is important to bring more awareness to. If you are new to my newsletter, I have been sharing what it means to be highly sensitive, and how/why some people are sensitive and others are not.

People who are highly sensitive are quite a unique subset of the population. Some research has shown that some people just have an inherently more sensitive constitution, and that early life relational attachment can heavily enhance this sensitivity.

Before I dive into this, I want to first and foremost say that sensitivity is a GIFT. If you are a sensitive person, your gifts are needed in this world! Thank you for being you.

Just because you are sensitive doesn't mean you are wounded. However, all people who are inherently sensitive (which is a minority) likely have unconscious ways of protecting their sensitivity, especially in this insensitive, industrious culture where productivity and extroversion is praised. Sensitive people receive constant subtle messages from society that their sensitivity is not welcome or valuable.

Being a sensitive person can be extremely overwhelming if, as a child, you were repeatedly neglected, misattuned to, or at the very worst, abused.

I will say here that some parents have the best intentions, and may be incredible parents. And, the culture at large may be the primary impacting force.

For example, an incredibly attuned caregiver who has to work 60-80 hours per week to put food on the table may not be giving their young one the attunement that they need for reasons beyond their control. Or, racial discrimination or other forms of marginalization can have an impact on the child and family in ways that can plant strong internalized messages for that child.

As an adult, this overwhelm can continue, especially if you don't even actually know that you are sensitive and/or have no tools to work with and harness your sensitivity into a strength. You could very well be like a fish in the water, not knowing you are swimming in water.

My hope is that this information can support you to consciously protect your sensitivity, and use it as a strength. Like protecting a candle flame from the harsh winds of the world so that it can provide nourishing illumination.

In order to manage the powerlessness and overwhelm if relational wounding occurs very early in life (infancy), two primary responses will occur.

The first is the sensitive withdrawn strategy which will contract inward physically and psychologically. The experience can be that of the outer world not feeling safe, and the inner world not feeling safe. What occurs here is that the body physically contracts, and core energetics go upward into the mind, where the infant can find refuge.

Some of the core experiences of a person with a sensitive withdrawn orientation may be one or more of the following:

· Generalized anxiety

· Difficulty resting

· Chronic tension in the body

· Avoidance of social situations

· Not feeling much in the body at all

· Most relaxed and connected when alone

· Ability to deeply engage in mental activity, creativity, and/or spirituality

· Intellectual brilliance and innovative thinking

The other wing of this sensitive spectrum is known as the sensitive emotional strategy. Someone in this strategy carries the same core beliefs (we talked about core beliefs in last week's email) about safety and belonging as the sensitive withdrawn, however, they usually have the core energetic tendency to reach for something outside of themselves to help anchor them.

The infant may be more emotionally temperamental, and as an adult the experience can be more of an internal chaotic feeling with a heavy amount of autonomic dysregulation in the nervous system that can present very similarly to symptoms of trauma.

The focus is outward with a desire for connection with others while simultaneously having a hard time taking in nourishing connection.

Some of the core experiences of a person with a sensitive emotional orientation may be one or more of the following:

· Fear, terror, panic attacks

· A lot of intense feelings and yet difficulty cultivating insight

· Difficulty concentrating

· Strong ability to track the emotional needs of a group

· Devotion to caring for others

· Ability to easily make connections with others

· Longing for intimacy and simultaneous challenge with taking it in

· Ability to empathize deeply

The sensitive strategies, along with the other strategies developed later in childhood are not bad. As you can see from these lists, there are many strengths that sensitive people carry, along with the challenges.

What is most challenging about being a sensitive person is that these strategies were developed in infancy, and it requires an incredible amount of inner work to begin to see the water you are swimming in.

In Hakomi Somatic Therapy or Coaching, we define strategies as unconscious ways of coping with a core wound. So, the sensitive withdrawn and sensitive emotional strategies are ways that an infant has learned to protect itself.

The only defense an infant has is their autonomic nervous system, so they can either contract inward for refuge (withdraw), or cry out for an external anchor (emote).

Complex PTSD occurs from repeated, chronic exposure to threatening events from which escape is impossible. So, if you take a sensitive system, and combine it with chronic misattunement, this can take on the form of C-PTSD, even if it seems like to an outsider that the misattunement "wasn't that bad".

As stated previously, an infant has no degree of conscious awareness that the outside world is differentiated from their internal world.

To an infant, their inner sensations are one continuous experience to their external environment, with no consciousness dividing the two.

The experience that occurs in infanthood is “If something is wrong outside of me, then something is wrong inside of me.” Of course, the reverse is also true, and this experience is not a conscious thought, it is a very basic felt sense.

Often this process of awakening to the core wounds of the sensitive strategy is one of immense confusion and overwhelm. However, once realized, I truly believe that highly sensitive people are some of the most insightful, soulful, creative people on the planet.

They are usually the healers, artists, and innovators who can experience things on a much deeper level than the average person.

If you believe that you fall into one of these categories, and you need help making sense of your experience, I would love to help you with that process.