Stephen said, “It’s hard to dampen excitement, terror, and rapture amongst other things, as the expectation is to remain more stoic as a man. So he would kind of push away his sensitivity, forcing those feelings to go away. When he first learned about HSP, Stephen, who’s in his 30s, said he realized that much of his life to that point had been about realizing the negative reactions of being highly sensitive and mitigating them to feel “normal”. I have been able to detach from myself to varying degrees to make myself feel less or more normal. Matthew, in his 40s, said, “I would say much of my history has been filled with trying to dull overwhelm. They may also keep small social circles and avoid getting too close to people, in case their true emotions are exposed.
Being a sensitive man made it even more difficult to blend in.”Ī common thread that runs through many of these sensitive men’s writings is that they avoid certain situations where they know others may see them react emotionally.
Everyone else was loud and one teacher nicknamed the class ‘the hockey team’, because it was like entering a locker room. “In senior high school I and two boys were the only boys in a class, the rest was girls. Here’s another story, this one from Fred in Sweden, who’s in his 40s.
Isn’t it amazing how one interaction in our youth can affect us for so many years? I wonder if Peter had instead been a little girl who started crying, would the teacher have made the comment about being too sensitive? It’s normal for girls to cry-maybe not so much for boys who are expected to be tough, right?Ĭheck out the book The Strong, Sensitive Boy by Ted Zeff for guidance on how to raise happy, confident, sensitive sons! From that point forward, for decades, I felt as though sensitivity was a flaw, resulting, in my adult years, in my attempting to hide who I was, to ‘put my game face on’ in just about all of my business and many other interactions.” Two minutes later, a classmate joined me and told me the teacher had said that I was too sensitive. The teacher suggested I go to the boys’ restroom to collect myself, which I gratefully did. Peter, who’s in his 50s, shared this story, “As a boy, I will always remember the time when, in second grade, something had happened in the classroom which resulted in me breaking down and crying. The challenges of being a highly sensitive man It seems to me that this could clash with the traits of being an HSP. Why did I want to write specifically about men? There is the cultural expectation that women are more emotional and sensitive than men–that men should be tough and stoic. While geared toward men, much of this can apply to all HSPs. For this post (and the accompanying podcast episodes), I asked several highly sensitive men to share their stories and opinions.