Elaine Aron's Research Changed My Life: Web Pages that May Save Your Emotional Life

If you're lucky, finding out that you are what Elaine Aron calls a "Highly Sensitive Person" goes something like this: You are four or five years old. You are riding in your parents' car, looking for an address in an unfamiliar neighborhood. You call out, "That's Pine Street up ahead," just as or immediately after you cross Oak Street.

You could have the kind of parents who would growl, "You don't know what the next street's going to be. Stop showing off."

You could have the kind who would gush, "There's no way he could have known that! He's psychic!"

If you're very, very lucky, you have the kind who say calmly, "When I was your age I could read street signs a block ahead too. Why don't you keep reading the street signs till we find Walnut Street."

(Important note to male readers: Not all HSPs are early readers. Some male HSPs are late talkers and readers.)

If you were born to fellow HSPs, you have at least three instant advantages over other HSPs:

1. Your family understand that your Highly Sensitive Perception is normal and natural--and will not necessarily even cause others to perceive you as a very sensitive personality. Some HSPs' biochemistry produces both "super" perception of stimuli, including discomfort, and also a high ability to tune out and work through pain.

So, some HSPs are fragile hothouse flower types, and some are drill sergeants. (For the record, both of my parents had this combination of hereditary traits; each of them took turns playing each role.) All HSPs do at least start out in life with the ability to perceive the subtle shifts in body language by which people communicate emotional feelings. Not all HSPs are motivated to pay attention to other people's emotional feelings, and some HSPs are cruel.