Excerpt from Bill Allen’s Confessions of a Highly Sensitive Man, Chapter 3: Being Different Growing Up
Quiet and Alone
I was a shy child and introverted. One of my earliest recollections was around the age of four. My parents had switched churches, and I can clearly remember the first Sunday we attended the new church. I was taken to a rather large room divided into sections. My mother and father knew I wasn’t going to go lightly into this strange place. The minute I knew I was being sent off to be with complete strangers, the waterworks began. I can remember screaming and kicking. I felt abandoned as I watched my parents exit the room and disappear down the hall.
At some point, I calmed down. To be fair, the Sunday School teachers were nice people, but I didn’t feel right. I know I didn’t want to be there. Some might say it was a good lesson for me. I needed to allow my parents to go do adult things, like going to the Adult Sunday School class, but I was not used to being out of my element. It was a process I experienced over and over again in the first ten years of my life.
The Changing Outer World Solved by my Room and Books
We moved several times in my young life. Probably not as much as a military family, but it was enough for me. Moving was hard; essentially, it meant I had to start over again. Not just meet new friends, but rediscovering my new baseline, find the new comfort zone. This was not an easy process for me. I was very aware of my surroundings. To be comfortable, I had to know who were friends, who were enemies, or folks I had to watch out for. By the time I was nine-years-old I had moved four times, each as difficult as the previous one. I had changed schools four times before fourth grade, in some cases bouncing from one state to another. Of course, there seldom was continuity in the educational systems in the sixties. I was in the South, at one point going from a state last in education to one just a couple notches above. …
I never thought of myself as bookish. I didn’t care to read Hardy Boy mysteries or books for young fiction readers. I was a more practical information enthusiast. In 1964 my parents invested in a set of World Book Encyclopedias. To me this was a fabulous gift. It had pictures and tables, lists and articles, the likes I had never seen before. I devoured the set, cover to cover book to book, from A to Z. I spent hours with a single encyclopedia reading about everything, everyplace, learning things I’d never heard of in school. It was the Internet version 0.1. And I loved it. It was then, at that tender age, that I became an information freak….
My room was my castle, my refuge, my sanctuary. I spent many hours playing with toy soldiers, cheap little plastic K-Mart soldiers. I didn’t play with them like a normal boy, no; I created scenes from a movie with dialogue, action and in the end, no one got killed. I didn’t shoot my soldiers up with BBs or throw rocks at them to knock them down. No one ever was blown up, but within my head was a deep orchestration of these plastic actors on a stage of bunkbed mountains, battlefields made of carpet, bunkers behind tables or chairs, and lakes and rivers made of throw rugs. Sometimes it took hours to set up the scene, long convoys of troops, tanks, and jeeps. It all played out in my head. There was a rich world of possibilities between my ears.
How to Avoid Humiliation: Become an Imposter
As I got older, approaching fifth or sixth grade, I discovered how easily I became embarrassed. Unfortunately, for me, the kids in class found that out, too. They could make me turn beet red by simply directing some unwanted attention my way. Some kid would fart and then point at me, chastising me for the rude breach of etiquette. I knew it wasn’t me, but because I was embarrassed, I blushed. Blushing is the equivalent of an admission of guilt for eleven-year-olds.
…I developed a pattern of avoidance behaviors. As I got older I avoided social interactions, the coed birthday parties, the swim parties, the chances for serious embarrassment, or in my mind, humiliation. Any opportunity where I would be out in public around peers or adults or frankly, anyone, I found myself avoiding. I shied away from Little League, because every game was a venue for rabid, trash-talking parents and spectators who became invariably attached to a team. I wasn’t very good at baseball, so the opportunity for humiliation was great.
This sounds over the top, but to me, humiliation was something that needed to be avoided at all costs. My shaky young man’s ego was not framed to handle the onslaught of criticism or mockery that screwing something up provided. It was sad that my ideas about myself and self-image were so hinged on my inner world. There was never outward confirmation because the only place I could get that was in the outside world. And sadly no one was pushing me gently to test the waters. It formed a lifelong habit of avoidance that I am just learning to overcome.
…From Boy Scout scoutmasters to pastors or coaches or any adult male family members, I was socialized to accept the prevailing norm for male role behavior. Which in so many words, is to be a man in the nineteen sixties, World War II definition. Conform or be rejected. This binary choice did not make room for kids who didn’t fit that model.
I felt I lived the life of an imposter. There was much incongruity of who I was and what I presented to the world.
On the Other Hand
Around friends, the neighborhood kids, I was much more confident. These interactions were more one-on-one, and I selected my friends carefully. As my family settled in to the neighborhood in South Carolina, where I grew up, I gained a newfound sense of confidence in who I was. I found that I was a natural leader and organizer.
Our neighborhood was almost a frame right out of The Little Rascals. We organized baseball, football, and basketball games with other neighborhoods. I found myself being the one everyone came to find out what was going on. We built campgrounds in the woods, organized campouts with the neighbor kids, and generally had idyllic summers. I was the one doing the organizing, and I liked that role.
At one point, I decided to create a neighborhood newsletter and received a student style typewriter where I crafted stories. The next-door neighbor’s mother was a school teacher, who mimeographed the newsletter so we could distribute them.
Yes, in the right circumstances and with a certain comfort level, I could easily rise to the top. I was a likable, smart kid and believed in the team concept, yet appreciated my friends as individuals. I was well organized and great planner for the neighborhood. I never realized that these characteristics were natural talents. I just never received the right feedback.
In school plays, I was always chosen to be the play’s narrator, usually the first kid out in costume, reciting my lines nervously, but flawlessly. If the costumes were dorky, I got the first laugh, which, of course, was embarrassing for me. One year, we performed a play about George Washington and the founding fathers. I walked out in front of the curtain to start the show, with a quick narration about the subject matter, sporting a concocted wig made of cotton balls that, by the time the play had started was beginning to disintegrate. I was tall and skinny and must have looked ridiculous because the audience burst out in laughter when I walked to center stage. Yet, somehow, I managed to execute on my lines and exit red-faced but relieved. My good memory and my conscientiousness were showing. Perhaps that was why I landed the same part every year.
What I learned was what I didn’t learn. I didn’t learn how to be confident in myself or who I was becoming. I never learned to deal with my sharp emotions, how to let them flow over me, immerse and release them, and not hold on to them. I struggled internally with those feelings and never felt the guidance of an older, wiser man. There was no one to steer me through the difficult process of expressing my emotions, my fears, and my constant worries about the external world…
I can relate to this very well. I was very shy and introverted as a child. We had moved 5 times by the time I was 9 or 10. That was difficult. I changed schools many times which was also difficult. My room was also my fortress, my sanctuary. I don’t recall any fart jokes, but other children knew I was very sensitive and would definitely bully or make fun of that. People have always tried to make me feel there is something wrong with being extremely sensitive, but as an adult, I view it as a gift.
Like you, once I had carefully chosen good friends as a child I felt okay around those people. My mom felt I was way too sensitive. However, I think when you are born with innate characteristics that are as much a part of you as your spirit, your heart or anything else….one should not be bullied or coerced into changing who they are to make the world more “comfortable.”
Unfortunately we live in a society that is highly desensitized to things they ought to be sensitive about. I applaud you for being so brave and courageous in telling your story. I just want to say, I get it, I understand, and you are not alone.
Hello, Great Job Elaine, all my gratitude for you and also for a brave man that publishes about his sensitivity. I won’t do it.
I am I high sensitive man and I do recognize myself in many situations and feelings. I grew up in a small town and, in general, my parents and teachers were respectfully to me as I was a smart child.
Even though my parents, tried to make me a harder boy, my mother signed me up for the local Ice Hokey Team, full of bullies and aggressive guys. Or my father trying to make me hunter of deers, In a group of tough guys. In any case they didn’t push too much, but I always felt “something is wrong with me” as I do not match which such macho environments.
I was not good at sports at all, but I found Badminton, It was nice for a while, I also played with girls. For hunting, we went in a much smaller group and hunted birds, that was not so tough, even when there is something cruel in hunting. So, there are options for high sensitive men. Parents, community and teachers play a key role, If they respect some aspects like emotions, privacy and downtime, sensitive child thrive.
Me personally, I had problems when I got older. As teenager I felt love and other emotions so deeply… but I was too embarrassed to express them. In the university, far from my hometown there was some ambivalence between abandon and freedom. Then in the career I suffered the the “big misunderstanding “ of the high sensitive men. In the environment where harmony or solidarity are missing, conflicts, misunderstandings and deceptions rise, grounded in stress, anger and resentment.
There I am, but I will get rid of them.
Best wishes.
I feel so grateful of you work.
I had similar experiences growing up and it took me a long time to understand who I am and become comfortable with who I am without feeling an incredible amount of shame not only for “being so sensitive,” but for all the mistakes I made and things I didn’t do, because of my anxiety, but should have. The emotional trauma I experienced at home and school was absolutely punishing. It certainly is challenging to have an acutely sensitive nature and learn all the different ways it effects one. The good news is, I do love how creative, empathetic and astute I am. For the first time in my life (thanks in part to now knowing about HSP), I really know who I am, which has been quite settling.
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My young life was consumed with humiliation and shame, dreading everyday events which others took in their stride. My parents always said or almost accused me of choosing to be too sensitive, it became a ‘ family thing’ that I was the super sensitive one. To this day I still feel that anger and shame and process this word as an insult or as a negative connotation. It helps so much to read that others have experienced that same trauma as I, for just being a little different.
My heart breaks for that younger me who thought I would never make it as a successful adult. Although I suffered greatly through my life, its wonderful to come to the realization that my sensitivity was actually a positive. I can now see that the qualities of wisdom, creativity, empathy and intuition that were always there, I can now own as positives of my character and personality.
Thanks to a good therapist and discovering HSPs I have been on a very emotional but truly rewarding and informed journey that continues even though I am almost in my seventies.
Hello. I suspected that I may be a HSP when first viewing a YouTube video earlier this month. Minutes ago I took the HSP test and scored 13. My recollections of growing up are very positive. Very little bullying and great parents. I was very popular in grade school and have, to this day, friends that I met at that early age. Even though very shy at times, I was able to function well with children of my age in all school situations. When I was in 5th grade, I was enrolled in Little League Football. This experience greatly enhanced my confidence and willingness to try new experiences. My sensitive nature was stifled to a noticeable degree. I was not a team star, but was very popular, since I was small and full of energy. I earned the nick name “Killer”. This was a complement for a small kid within the context of a football team. The name remained for me with several of my teammates through High school.
As soon as puberty hit, my HSP personality became an inflection. Puberty is tough on all of us, but I believe even more of a struggle for the HSP. I remained ok with my friends and family, but began feeling a darker variety of shyness that was new to me. I was especially shy around girls. My feelings were changing to be attracted to the girls and with this feeling, the torment began. I never dated in high school, but feebly tried. The fear of speaking with girls that I was interested in put me in a very uncomfortable emotional state. Never before in my young life have I felt trapped in a psychological hell. This lasted into my college years. My comfort level with women did become more tolerable, but rarely did I date. The stress made the experience intolerable, even though I felt that I had to participate. I didn’t actually obtain a girl friend until I was in grad school. I was 27. For the first time I enjoyed the experience. But it was short. Long spans of time separated my attempts to date. Years after the first girlfriend, I tried again. Another good experience. Then the third girlfriend. This was not a good experience. It was years before I wanted to try dating again. 18 years and I still haven’t dated. I am 59 and have not been successful with managing my “sensitive” emotions around woman. I believe I am ready to try dating again, but find my sensitive emotions make getting to know a woman very difficult.
Reading this was like reliving parts of my own childhood. I also used to create scenes and stories with toys and inanimate objects that would take hours to set up. I had such a rich inner life as a child. And it took very little to get me to be embarrassed or humiliated which prompted me to seek conformity not to be included, but just so I wouldn’t be singled out. Thank you for sharing your experiences. I look forward to reading your novel.
World Book Encyclopedia all right. 1960. I was five years old. Reading it was one of my favorite things to do.
Thank you for sharing this article. I am a single mom of a very precious boy with sensitivity characteristics. I have naturally guided him in this process with Sensory Therapy to explore his world and expose himself gently to all sensory inputs. This article is so encouraging for me and the comments, due to knowing how there is a community of other men out there and I am heading in the right direction with parenting him. My own life was not easy and that spurred me in creating a comfortable but encouraging environment where we face our uncomfortable feelings. It is not suprising that I scored 24 on this test. With lots of CBT life is quite peaceful for me now…