EP035 // My Daughter is a Highly Sensitive Person // Mom to HSP

In this episode of You. Outside the Box, I share about my experience as a mom of a highly sensitive person or HSP.

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Transcript

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hello and welcome to this episode of you outside the box i am super excited that you're here this is kind of an off the cuff episode based on just an experience that i had yesterday that got me thinking about the broader perspective of this so my daughter who is now seven is a highly sensitive person or hsp and this is currently considered a personality trait not a neuro divergence though so what is let me get into it so what does an hsp mean what is a highly sensitive person what does that mean it means that your sensory perception the and stimulus the information that comes in through your senses you know the five senses sight smell hearing taste and and feeling that the that the information the stimulus that comes in through that can is just its heightened your experience their experience of that of those senses and the information that comes through them and what it means is is heightened it's more it's just more than what is normal in quotes or common or average and you know we we all learn our senses the sight smell hearing sound you know it sound i always say hearing and sound but they're the same thing taste feeling you know we we learn those like in preschool or kindergarten right and then and we kind of forget about them but they are important because those senses our senses are the way that our nervous system experiences our life experiences the world you know think like you don't know that it's daytime until you open your eyes and see it's daytime or maybe you feel the heat of the sun and you know that it's sunny you feel the wind on your skin and you know that it's windy or you see the the leaves of the trees moving around and you know that it's windy and anything in between you know that the neighbor is cooking bacon because you can smell it you know what watermelon tastes like because your tongue senses the chemicals in it and sends signals to your brain and your nervous system and that's how you experience you know what a soft blanket feels like versus velcro because of the sensors in your fingers right so these our senses are the way that we experience the world it's how the information the external stimulus from our environment from our outside world from our life from our house from any situation or circumstance that we are in it's how our body our brain our nervous system knows what's going on knows whether we're safe or not safe or comfortable or not comfortable hungry not hungry you know any of these things okay so a highly sensitive person the the processing of that information is just more it's more so what is what does that mean that means that sounds sounds too many sounds that it can be overwhelming and there's lots of ways that this shows up you know this is how my daughter experiences this and i'll pipe in with a little bit of my own experience too but sounds lots of sound you know like loud loud noise for her it's loud she it kind of shuts her down because it's too much it's too much for her brain and her her nervous system to process it it becomes overwhelming it overtakes the other processes happening and she kind of freezes okay what else smells there are some smells that she just cannot be around because it over what it overrides anything else right so like she could be mid sentence and smell a smell you know certain smells and and just be like you know it just stops it like loss of thought loss of it just it overrides whatever else was happening site this is this is a newer one that has come about in her specifically for her it is fruits she there's actually most most fruits she can't look at because it stimulates a almost like a gag response in her but it's the inside of fruit so she like can't look at cut up watermelon and if you ask her she says that it looks like flesh it looks like meat and that's gross to her she can't look at like an apple that has a couple of bites taken out of it and it's starting to turn brown like that's gross for her those are the words that she uses to describe it right so things like that but also she really she's sensitive to the feel of clothes you know a lot of times these things get associated with autism and there is some overlap but being highly sensitive does not make you autistic and not all autistic people have highly are highly sensitive to things and what what i've come to notice is that one as her mom i get to take these things into consideration and be in attuned with what she's experiencing and with a lot of these things like i may not experience them i may not even notice yesterday for example we went to a place that has roller skating rink bowling alley some arcade games laser tag bumper cars you know that type of thing and we went there to roller skates but we ended up doing like the bracelet deal where you get to do kind of all the things except for the arcade games you gotta pay for those but you get to use all the other things including a bowling game and we went you know it was earlier in the day it was before 5 o'clock so there wasn't a lot of people there but even then as soon as we walked you know it's got the like the double doors like you walk through one glass door and you're kind of in a threshold and then you walk into another glass door and then you're inside we've just walked through the first glass door and we had been holding hands and i didn't even notice this wasn't something that my senses even noticed any uptick in anything but as i go to open the second door i notice she's not holding my hand anymore and i turn around and she's frozen in place like a statue and it takes me a minute to realize what's going on and it was the noise it was the noise of the music the noise of the arcade games just the noise and the she's always been sensitive to noise but this more like freezing response is somewhat new like maybe in the past year i've been noticing it more and more though it's always been that way like if we were at a playground or someplace where there was a lot of people or if there was a band playing or there was music you know there was there's been situations like that that i can look back on now and realize oh that's what was happening because now she's you know she's seven she has a vast vocabulary and ability to communicate she can communicate these things with me now but when she was three she couldn't exactly when she was two she couldn't exactly so that's the importance of like really being attuned to your child because she had these these experiences when she was young but could not verbalize or communicate them and i just you know got the opportunity to attend to her with nurture and love and kindness and even if i didn't understand even if i didn't understand because i don't have to understand what's happening to attend to her right and a lot of times that's triggering for us cause like they're upset they're they're not wanting to do something they're digging their heels into the ground they're refusing they're you know i remember when she was like the toddler thing that they do and they don't want to get in their car seat and they like go like stiff as a board and there's like no bending them to get them into the car seat you know there could be some of that going on like they have these reactions and these responses that we don't necessarily understand what's even happening but we don't have to in that moment to be able to respond with love and nurture and attention and respect and acknowledging that that they're experiencing something they are having a hard time with something so back to yesterday like because this has been an ongoing thing we now carry earplugs with us and they're just the normal like foam kind actually my sister was the one that lent them to us one time because her her husband is very sensitive to sound so she had gotten accustomed to carrying these with her with her so she she gave them to us so you know luckily i had those or we would have had to turn around and and leave right then and that would have been okay too that would have been okay to that would have been okay too even though we had left the house to go roller skating we were both excited about it we were both going someplace new and doing a somewhat new activity that we were both excited about even even in that situation if we had gotten there and it would have been too overwhelming for her to function we would have just turned around and left and that would have been okay but i was prepared so we put those in and she was fine she was fine beyond that and we went in and we had we got our skates we got our bracelets we skated around and that was all great and so then later another way that this showed up was another way that this does show up for her anyway is that she is a little she's sensitive with transitions and being in experiences in which she's not familiar so doing new things can be overwhelming for her and again it's related to the sensory processing because she's doing something new she's doing something that her senses have never sensed before like noises that she's never heard before things that she's never seen before feelings that she's never felt before maybe smells that she's never smelt before like it's all and this goes into to food too you know but that's that's a whole other thing so we go to play laser tag and i've never played laser tag so i didn't know how to prepare her in any way for it and she'd never played release or tag before of course so we you know we get equipped with our like vest thingy and the and the and the puke you and we get in there and it's dark and you know there's like there's lasers kind of flying around and i don't remember if there was music or not i don't i don't know but you know it like kind of like counted down and then you know like a buzzer went off and she she froze she was she was like almost shaking she even said to me because i was like are you okay you know i'm checking in on her i'm checking in on her like are you okay what are you experiencing i'm noticing this i'm like i'm noticing that you're frozen i'm noticing that you're kind of shaking and i'm asking her like trying to get some more information to to know if we just need to leave you know what do we need to do and she says she says i'm panicking and that was the first time she had ever used that word and that's exactly what was happening but you know so i was in that moment i honestly didn't know what to do so i'm like do we just need to leave like do we need to not play the game and walk back out that door you know into an environment that she is familiar with is that what we need to do but i like i stayed with her and was and i asked i said do you want to leave and she said no and i was like okay then i'm here with you like what i was like breathe you know let's let's take some breaths so she took a couple of deep breaths and and then you know and then like someone you know someone from the other team kind of poked around the corner and pupewed at us and i like i instinctively like kind of turn around and puke you back and then she starts to walk around with me and then she starts to get a feel for what's happening and then she starts to you know then like hide and be like oh there's someone over there and then like hide behind the thing and then reach out you know i don't know if she actually like reached out to pupe you anybody but she got into the game she got familiar with it it became familiar to her and our brain any of our brain's familiarity signals safety in unfamiliarity signals unsafety and but the the level of that the the intensity of that varies from from person to person and from situation to situation you know like put put me up in an airplane getting ready to jump out of it and i'm gonna be freaking that out right because that's super unfamiliar to me but if you're next to someone that's done it 50 times like there they may still get a thrill of course but it's going to be like now i've done this before i know it's i know it's cool i know it's cool right so it's it's kind of a similar thing but with something that you know we could judge as like it's just laser tag what like what's the big deal or it's just a roller coaster what's the big deal or you're just going to um a new playground and there happens to be a hundred kids there instead of two and what's the big deal you know or you're going to a new pool or a mall or a store or a class or a museum an aquarium like whatever someone else's house right it's you're walking into a new environment and that is just a more challenging experience for someone who is highly sensitive again and it's everything it's not just like oh they're not used to being around people it's not that like oh you know her mom hasn't made her try new foods or things like that like it's it's it's everything it's it's all of the senses it's all of the ways in which our body is our mind our brain our nervous system experiences life alright and you might be sitting there thinking like oh my gosh like that's so much to consider that's so much to think about that's so much to have to respond to and stuff and or be thinking like you know that's what a what a different way to like live right and it is but it's not it's not a bad thing you know think about it as because there's no good bad right or wrong it's just different it's just different and the difference is like being able a difference the difference is for a child to have someone that sees them that acknowledges what is happening and seeks to understand even if the understanding's not there it's kind of an acceptance like when she's in that and sometimes she doesn't feel the acceptance for me right away and she'll like repeat something again and i say i believe you i believe you i believe you and what like what do you need what how can i help you right now instead of being like oh it's not that bad oh it's not that hot oh it's not that cold oh it's not that loud you know you're overreacting like those things are not helpful those things are not helpful especially when you are with someone who literally depends on you for their life and that you are their foundation of love and respect and being seen and heard and nurtured and held and wanted and understood and that your relationship is the model for all of the relationships that they will have in life so another way that this shows up for my daughter is that she is really sensitive to what i've come to call or referred to as just human discord meaning arguments being mean or bullying or harsh words she's very sensitive to tones and words and the meaning behind things now several examples of this sarcasm she takes sarcasm personally which sarcasm is a is a thing you know and i don't use it that often honestly because because it's not it's not even help it's not helpful for anybody's brain honestly because you are you're sending your brain mixed signals because your brain your brain is very your brain is actually very simple but this is that's a topic for another day but if i say something sarcastically in reference to her she's like hey that didn't feel good and i'm i'm really grateful and thankful that i have also developed in her or nurtured in her i didn't you know i didn't give it to her but i didn't also i'd also didn't shut it down with the way that i have parented her in her seven years of life but that she feels comfortable saying those things to me and she knows that i'm not going to blow up and explode on her or react or yell or shame her or invalidate her or send her to her room or any any any of those things right she knows that like that's not the response that she is going to get from simply sharing her experience and her and her perspective and you know someone can be like oh she's so sensitive yeah she is and i care about her and i love her and i don't want to and do things that aren't necessary that make her uncomfortable if that makes sense so i try to it's not something that i even use anymore but how else does this show up because that's just one example another example is that we went to see the play annie a friend of mine her daughter was playing the lead role it was a school play and we went to see annie and as the story goes like the kind of the house mother of the orphanage is not the nicest person you know she's mean to the girls she talks mean about them she talks mean to them she's very manipulative she's very condescending and she's just she's not a nice person and that's how the play starts right to like set the scene of this orphanage and the experience that annie is experiencing to then contrast later with her you know with daddy warbucks and stuff like that right but in those first scenes my daughter was curled up next to me like hugging my arm very stressed by what she was she she knows she knows it's just a play she knows that's not really happening she knows that that it's not a real life situation she she knows that but even then the reaction that was happening inside of her was so intense that she was begging me to leave she was begging me to leave and i i just i held her i held her and i kind of talked her through it and was reminding her like this isn't real it's just a play those are kids up there they're acting they're just acting they're just acting and you know looking back on this now like i don't know you know was it beneficial for us to stay and stick out the whole play maybe because we did get to connect with my friend and her daughter and that kind of stuff you know it was a community connection type of situation as well or should we have just left but she also you know she was also got to experience that she can make it through something like that and that she can have resilience moving through something like that and that that is now that can now be a benchmark of like this is like it's not real this isn't real those are just actors i can make it through that but also like if i were to put on a movie or something that started off something like that or if we started this actually happened i was reading a book we were reading bridges to terabithia and it kind of starts off like the little boy is not in the the nicest nurturingist of households and the parents are kind of mean to him and she didn't like that like she just didn't want to experience that and we talk through it you know like i talked we talk about how like not everybody has a family like she does and you know not that though that those are situations of other people and and you know to have a broader perspective on society and humanity and all of these things but also like if we're reading a book or watching a movie that's not a discomfort that she needs to power through you know when i long time ago in my first marriage my my first husband he liked to watch violent movies and i would watch him with him um but now like i wouldn't i wouldn't want to watch any of that i would never voluntarily watch that and honestly if if if someone even if i was like with someone that i love and they put on something like that like if i felt my nervous system kind of getting activated i would be like you know what like i i don't i don't need this i don't need this in my life i don't i don't need to watch this like my life this watch sitting here watching this movie is not enriching my life so i also am able to extend that to her in the situations you know just like yesterday if if i hadn't had ear earplugs to make it even in the door we would have just left we would have just left we would have just left and that would have been okay so i another point that i want to make is that i am able to see these things in her now you know she's not diagnosed with this i don't know that it actually is or even is a diagnosis that you can have i don't need to take her to a psychologist or psychiatrist or pediatrician or anything like that to get piece of paper saying that she has this i know she like i can i know my child i know her reactions i know the things i know i know so like i don't need some some external source confirming this for me i have done some research into it and i'm like yeah like all of that makes sense all of this lines up all of it makes sense you know and there's nothing there's no medications even if there was i wouldn't want this is just who she is this is how her body works and me being able to be the calm in all of this and also not take things personally you know not be like oh man like i was taking you out for a fun day with mommy we were gonna do all this fun stuff but you couldn't handle the noise and now we just have to go back home you know without like guilt tripping and shaming i'm a lot i'm allowed i'm able to do that i'm able to allow situations like that because like my nervous system is regulated my emotions are regulated i am the calm captain of the ship of our family she is a seven year old child who is learning and developing and growing and i am here for her and instead of the other way around or any type of mix up in between and i'm able to see these things now again because she is getting older and she can express it better she can communicate better what's happening inside of her but that's not the case when she was five or three or one even right like even even other types of things adhd or or being on the autism spectrum or anything else right like you don't you don't know it right away you know it presents differently in a in a 18 month old versus a three year old versus an eight year old it and it doesn't mean that just because you don't understand what's going on and you don't have a diagnosis of something that you that that stops you from being the stable environment to hold your child and help them through it but if you are in a constant state or near constant state of reactivity if your nervous system is in overload and overwhelm often if you are constantly stressed out if you are yelling a lot and all of that makes sense there's reasons there's underlying things that have brought you to that place and there is a way through that and there is a way to to calm all of that to take those raging seas and find the calm or to find the confident navigator of those raging seas if they're not yours to to tend to and all of that happens and starts in you mama it happens and starts in you you are the catalyst of this you are the mom you are the mom you are the mom and you get to choose to work through your own stuff and develop these skills for yourself so that you can be there in these aspects for your children whether they're a highly sensitive person or they're on the spectrum or they have food allergies or they anything literally anything or if they're completely quote you know norful and have nothing else going on they're still gonna have emotions and they're still gonna react and need co regulation and they're still gonna have hard days and they're still gonna have days where they didn't get enough sleep or whatever it may be and that they're going to be having a hard time and it's you so you can do it you're doing amazing and if you're listening to something like this it means that you are already looking for more information on how you can be the mom that you know that your kids need and if you're looking for more information on how to expand that i have a free mini course geared towards cycle breaking moms but really anybody that's just looking to parent differently with more emotional and nervous system regulation and co regulation and less shame and less control and all of that kind of stuff i have a free mini course of how to give your children the childhood that they deserve without years of therapy without being perfectly healed and without effing it up you can register for that at the link below i also have a transformative hypnosis based program called the joyous mom activator and it will transform your neural connections from the bottom up because you can fill your conscious mind with all types of information and it is valuable because it can open doors to paths you know like just simply knowing what hsp is and what a highly sensitive person means it gives you a broader perspective of like things to even be aware of but just having that knowledge does not make you capable or give you the ability of responding to those heightened situations with love and acceptance and calm especially if your childhood imprinted you with something very different so in the joyous mom activator we go through three modules the calm and the chaos the confident and the crazy and the consistent and the connection those are our three modules that is my roadmap to cycle breaking success and enjoying motherhood with joy love peace patience kindness goodness and self control so if you're interested in that i would love for you to apply there's a link to that below applying is free and it's non committal and it just opens the door to us having a conversation and you get a bonus training that dives into everything a little bit more i will also be having workshops coming up as well as kind of like micro courses or i don't know what words to put on they're just words but just the smaller bite sized type of things focused at how to enjoy motherhood without losing yourself and surviving the holidays with joy things like focusing on inner child healing or just how to feel more in control of your life when everything feels out of your control those type of micro bite sized type of offerings that will be lower cost and i'm so excited that you're here if you loved this please give us a rating on your wherever you're listening to this podcast if something really jumped out at you i would love to hear from you because they'll go ahead and send us a dm on instagram the link to my instagram is below but it is also ashley at inner sunshine that is my instagram i would love to hear from you and if you have a mama friend that you think would really benefit from this go ahead and share this episode with them as well and we will see you next time