No One Is Born Anxious

How to live with our high sensitivity, not our anxiety.

Were you doomed to become an “anxious person”, “prone to anxiety and panic attack”? If you had not [insert whatever triggered your first panic attack or really anxious moment] would you have still become anxious? This is a question I asked myself a lot.

For me, my first panic attack happened while I was “coming down” from MDMA (which by the way, I never take usually) and my anxious and hyperactive mind had quickly made the link. I kept wondering again and again if I had NOT taken it that night, would anxiety had left me alone and I would have been happy ever after? Well, the answer is no. It would have come anyway, not because I was doomed to have anxiety but because I led a very stimulating and stressful life, full of travels, high-intensity jobs, high-intensity emotions and, and and… I am a highly sensitive person. And here this is an important one.

Most likely (not for all of you, but the majority), you were not born anxious but born highly sensitive. What is highly sensitive? Is that some terms I just made up this morning between tea and breakfast? Nope. It is actually a trait studied in psychology. It is estimated that around 20% of the population is highly sensitive. I discovered the trait because my psychotherapist suggested that I was a highly sensitive person (HSP for short) and recommended I read a book about the trait. When I finally got to read that book (here the book for those interested), DAMN, it was a truly “Aha” moment, well I recognized myself and re-evaluated most of my life through an entirely different lens.

So what is a highly sensitive person? It is someone who basically has a very reactive nervous system, be it sensory system (e.g. very sensitive to loud noise, bright lights, strong smells) and/or emotional system (e.g. can feel emotions strongly, feel the emotions of others or emotions in a room, etc.). Being an HSP comes with certain obvious challenges: basically, you are “overreacting to everything” and the world overwhelms you, hence the: “Oh Hello Anxiety!”, but being an HSP also comes with certain perks. HSPs are more likely to be quite intuitive people, they are empathic and they can detect subtleties in their environment that other less sensitive people can miss. Some might say they are the visionary, the teachers and the advisor of this world (okay enough of the pat pat in the back). It comes as a “package”, you can’t have one without the other.

To cope in a world designed for “non-sensitive” people,  HSPs develop all sorts of strategies from an early age to cope with the overwhelming nature of their environment. Some remain very introvert and avoid the world and people as much as possible, some force themselves to be very extrovert and very “in the world” to show themselves that they are not sensitive and they can do it like everyone else (my case), which eventually turns out against them.

So, to go back to my original point. You are probably born highly sensitive (or just sensitive) but not anxious. Which carries with it good and bad news. The bad news (better to start with the bad news always) means that you will never become like your friend who can take on so much stimulation, so much stress, so many people, and still be completely fine, still have the energy to take on challenges one after the other. My best friend is like that, and only last year I realized and accepted that I will never be like her. This means, you are going to have to take it, easy man, ride the slow life and consider doing less in a world that always pushes you to do and be more. You’ll also have to develop techniques to manage your sensitivity and anxiety. Maybe you’ll never become that CEO, president, or whatever other jobs in a high-pressure environment you might have once fantasized about. You’ll have to always watch out to keep too much stimulation and too much stress at a distance so as to keep depression and anxiety at a distance too. SO better accept yourself sooner rather than later!

The good news (yay there is one!) is that if you accept yourself, make the changes you need to make, you might and will keep stress, depression or anxiety at distance, and enjoy all the perks of being a highly sensitive person without being a highly anxious person. I’ll give an example of a highly sensitive, highly anxious person who managed to not only keep anxiety at distance but also become well… a worldwide renown meditation master. Yongey Mingyour Rinpoche tells the story that when he was young he used to have panic attacks very frequently… (clearly highly sensitive, the boy), then at 13, he was like: “Yo, I’m so sick of being like that so I’m gonna stay in my room for 3 days and practice meditation and get rid of that condition.” And he did and managed to continue practicing meditation so much that he became a master, and then also used his highly sensitive superpower to be able to relate to other people and became the spiritual guide of so many people. Quite cool eh? Moral of the story: stay in a room for 3 days and practice meditation to get rid of your anxiety. Nooo. Moral of the story: you might always be highly sensitive, you don’t have to remain highly anxious, it’s on you.