Do you often feel overwhelmed by the sensory overload of being a parent (the noise, the mess, the constantly being touched…)?

Do you find it difficult to make decisions around parenting? Maybe the different options go round and round in your head making you anxious because you want to carefully weigh up the pros and cons and get it RIGHT?

Do you seem to feel things more deeply than other people? Maybe you feel your children’s emotions almost as if they’re your own.

Are you super perceptive? You’re always first to notice when nursery have put the wrong clothes on your child or you notice subtle social cues that other people tend to miss.

It might be that you’re a Highly Sensitive Person (note the capitals – it’s a thing).

Around 20% of humans (and quite a lot of other animals) are Highly Sensitive. This is a genetic difference that isn’t talked about very much in the way that other differences are, such as neurodiversity.

Back in caveman times, it was an evolutionary advantage to have a few of us around as we’d be the first ones to spot the sabre tooth tiger or that the weather was doing something weird.

My experience

I am Highly Sensitive and, for me, it has been both a blessing and a curse.

I absolutely love being Highly Sensitive as it makes me great at my job; I pick up on subtle things that my clients are communicating and I am deeply empathic as a person.

As a mother, it means that I am very good at picking up on what is going on emotionally for my children and I am great at spotting danger and responding quickly.

However, sometimes being Highly Sensitive in a world designed for less sensitive people is a bit of a challenge.

I get more easily overwhelmed by sensory stuff and have to limit the number of busy, social things I can do in quick succession as I need more downtime in between to process things and decompress.

If I don’t get this time or do too much, I can get irritable and resentful. This can be quite inconvenient for family and friends who don’t have the same needs.

I also used to struggle a lot more with boundary setting as I could feel the other person’s disappointment or anger as my own and struggled to sit with the REALLY INTENSE feelings of discomfort that this would bring up; much easier in the short term to avoid this by people pleasing. (Cue counselling, but that is a story for another time…).

Parenting as a Highly Sensitive Person

If you seem to be finding parenting more difficult than other people, it could be because it IS more challenging as a Highly Sensitive Person.

You are likely to need more sleep and decompression time and we all know how easy those are to come by as a parent…

Take sensory overwhelm, for example. For people who aren’t Highly Sensitive, the onslaught of parenting might be like standing in a downpour with a small umbrella; you’re going to get a bit wet but it’s not a disaster and you’ll dry out fairly quickly once you get out of the rain.

For a Highly Sensitive parent, it’s like standing in the same downpour but your umbrella has lots of holes in it; more of the rain (or noise/ mess/ sensory stimulation) gets through and it’s going to take you a lot longer to dry out (or decompress) when you get a break from the rain.

The worst bit is that other people can’t see that you have holes in your umbrella so they wonder what you’re complaining about. You also might not be able to see that their umbrella is nicely in tact and so blame yourself for somehow getting wetter than they are; we’re unaware that we’re not comparing like with like.

How can counselling help?

Having your experience validated as real can be so, so helpful, particularly if family and friends don’t seem to understand why you are finding things so difficult. Lots of Highly Sensitive clients really benefit from self-compassion and self-acceptance work to counteract the negative messages that they might have received and internalised about their sensitivity.

I work with my clients to look at the roots of what is going on if they are struggling with anxiety or depression; often there are unhelpful beliefs about themselves that were given to them as children and need re-writing.

I also use somatic tools such as breathwork to help clients practise grounding themselves and regulating their nervous systems when anxiety or overwhelm threaten to strike. So many of us weren’t taught how to self-regulate as children and so are doing the gigantic task of trying to teach both our children and ourselves to self-regulate at the same time. For Highly Sensitive clients, this can feel particularly overwhelming as we feel things so much more intensely.

Get in touch

Have you been reading this thinking, holy moly, that’s me? If you have been thinking about coming to counselling, I could be the right therapist for you. Get in touch to book a free 20 minute initial call to see if we might be a good fit or to book an initial appointment: info@formbypostnatalcounselling.com

Or to book a 20 minute call:

https://zcal.co/ruthrenouf