The Healing of a Highly Sensitive Person

Something happened for me yesterday that, I have to say, has been the most heart-warming and self-affirming compliment I have ever received. This is what makes the shit in this hell-bitten world quickly fall by the wayside and become less important. This is the stuff that real life should be made of and that daily news should be comprised of: I helped someone.

Photo: Original How to Heal a Broken Heart" (2006, digital photo collage) by Madalina Iordache-Levay altered by Digits.

With the kind of work I do, which is quite honestly my purpose in life, I get thanked a lot. My work involves the intentional helping of people. I provide validation where a person has had none. I try to help the codependent become autonomous in his own life. I try to help the alcoholic intent on destroying her life see that she does have a life worth saving. I help kids who have been in alcoholic dysfunction and I otherwise try to validate the seemingly "invalidatable". And I also do something that is a lot less mainstream and a lot more secretive: I let the lonely and confused HSP know that s/he is NOT alone and that she is not a freak.

Read more about the Highly Sensitive Person

But I am going to cheat a little. I am not going to write this article except for a few brief introductory words. Then I am simply going to cut and paste the message I received. I want everything I read to stand in this message because it was all perfect. The timing was perfect, how I got it was perfect, and the way it was written was perfect.

My intent in making this into an article is to show people that this is what it is all really about - Helping people; Helping and being of service to people who need or want "help" [understanding, clarification, validation, a new direction, healing, etc.] and by natural extension, the world. I have asked myself several times before going through with this if it is about my ego. Unfortunately, too, I have discovered that it is. But the ultimate truth is not whether it is about my own ego, but that this letter could be addressed to any single one of us who chooses to enhance life for another person. We each, do, have this amazing ability to affect people and so the question is really, for me: "Do I want to affect a person for the better or for worse?"

I think of often how people have told me how I helped them and each sentiment is another green "go sign" in my heart that tells me to keep going. Even if I feel like the seeds I am sowing are not growing or taking root, the once in a while sincere statement, message, or email is what continually reminds me that I don't know who the heck I may be affecting. I have heard it in recovery that I may be the only example of recovery someone sees today but I extend that to a larger picture: You may be the only act of kindness or compassion someone sees today. Here is the letter.

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Hi Digits,

At the beginning of this year, I wrote a little message to you...

This evening, I want to send you an other one because it's really important to me to show you how you've changed my life. I apologize for my English, it's difficult to write clear things like feelings (even in French, I think ^^)...

Last year was like any other year in my life : I was sad every day, feeling that I was different, and I couldn't accept me or even consider me as a normal person. Since 6 years, I've suffered the loss of my girlfriend (who committed suicide... it was my first, and only, love story), and I tried 2 times to leave this world... By some strange (magical?) facts, I "failed", due to some obscure and unexplainable reasons. I began to lose myself in a world of suffering, darkness... I chose to embrace gothic culture, and I spent a long time sharing my sadness with other friends (not so many) who were like me, in my gothic group, and have known terrible events in their life. (Now, many of them have disappeared, some committed suicide, and other fell in alcohol or drugs.)

It was a really hard moment of my life, and even my parents, and my closest friends weren't knowing anything of this !!! I always acted, even if it was terribly difficult, as a normal and HAPPY person... I spent my WHOLE life to LIE to EVERY people !!! And the more I grew up, the more I was considering me as a person WHO DIDN'T HAVE TO EXIST... I hurt myself so deep and so strong... now, I wear scars in my soul, and on my body...

After the years, I began to accept myself a little more, but it was almost the same : a life of LIES and TEARS...which has developped in me high sensibility... I was in an ocean of feelings, and was feeling all the hurts of other people... I couldn't leave my house, couldn't go out with people of my age, couldn't do normal activities even with 1 other person !!! Oh God it was hurting me... I was alone, and I was suffering, and I was LOST, in my personal world of magic, poetry and darkness...

And one sad day, I found, I don't know how, YOUR profile on StumbleUpon. I was just liking your avatar :-), so I began to browse YOUR stumbles. It lead me to HSP forum, and websites on this subject... It was like a storm in my head ! Two days later, I finished reading Aron books, and a little sparkle of hope began to burn my whole soul !

See, I HAD FOUND people LIKE ME ! And they were LIVING ! And even people had written things on a person LIKE ME ! No, I wasn't LOST ANYMORE !

And now, I feel deeply better... It's not perfect, but for a person like me, it's 10 times better than perfection ! It has motivated me, and it guided me on the path of self-acceptation... Now, I feel GREAT ! This evening, I write this (hoping it didn't bothered you ^^), and I feel GREAT ! I feel the POWER of LIFE ! I feel the power of FAITH !!! I feel that I'm not blind anymore !!!

I've began to make outside activities, I exercise yoga, I play guitar, I do plenty of things with FRIENDS !, I've just found a GREAT job (my first, hey, I'm no more a student :-) )! I spread my hands and Life gives me plenty of beautiful things !!! And the most important thing, I've found friends who can listen to me, and you can't imagine how it has freed me to tell my story to one person !!!

Now, I'm trying to exercise and improve myself on my affective side... Relationships, etc...As I've always been alone, it's really a new world for me to discover. It's really difficult, and I'm always coping with my difference of being able to feel others' feelings, but I don't lose the hope to find a person who will share her life with me ^^

I hope you are still reading this looooooooooooong message... (it would make me so happy ^^)

I really want to THANK YOU ! You can't imagine how you've changed my life !!!

I will never FORGET you, even if I really don't know you... But for me, you've made the best thing that my life needed !!! I hope one day (in an other life ?), I would be able to give you what you've given to me.

Eternally yours, ___________

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Links & Resources Mentioned in this Article:

• The Highly Sensitive Person Introduction & HSP articles at my website
• HSP Quiz - Could you be a Highly Sensitive Personality?
• Books on being HSP - Or related books depending where the HSP is on their journey