What happens when you finally stop whispering your worth
Quiet doesn’t mean invisible
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Chapter 15
Long before I knew the term ‘Highly Sensitive Person,’ I spoke the language of rooms. Not the conversations. Not the introductions. The invisible dialect. The weight of unsaid words, unexpressed tensions.
I entered every space as if stepping barefoot onto ice, instantly aware of each subtle crack, each hidden fracture beneath the surface. It's a strange thing, navigating life as someone who feels too much, too deeply, too immediately.
Psychologist Elaine Aron defines Highly Sensitive Persons (HSPs) as individuals with a heightened nervous system, deeply attuned to sensory input, emotional nuances, and environmental subtleties others easily overlook. It's not a flaw, nor a disorder, but an innate, finely-tuned sensitivity that operates as both gift and burden.
Being highly sensitive isn’t a choice, a disorder, or something you can switch off. It’s your innate capacity to notice what most miss.
Curious if you’re a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) or deeply empathic?
Psychologist Dr. Elaine Aron created a simple self-test to help you explore your sensitivity traits.
You can take the quiz online [here].
For years, I felt more burden than blessing.
Imagine this: You walk into a room full of people, and your senses instantly go into overdrive. You notice how Sarah by the window nervously taps her fingers, signaling unease. You feel the silent, simmering tension between two other colleagues who aren't speaking but clearly aren’t okay. You catch the barely perceptible sigh from someone who’s just been silenced. Their unspoken anxieties, irritations, sadness, they flow into you effortlessly, like water through porous rock, until you are saturated with emotions that aren't yours, but now live inside your body.
My body reacted like it was bracing for a wave I couldn’t see.
Tight shoulders. Shallow breath. That anxious electricity that made me feel like I was walking through a room filled with invisible wires I might trip over.
I didn’t have the language for it yet, but I knew this: my nervous system didn’t belong to just me. It belonged to the moment. To the room. To the emotion no one else had spoken yet.
Sometimes, it saved me. Sometimes, it shattered me.
It’s the aftertaste that breaks you
It doesn't end when you leave the room. You carry that heaviness home, replaying scenes, analyzing expressions, trying to decode feelings that aren't yours to hold. The residue of other people's emotions lingers, clings, refuses to be shaken off.
Social interactions, even brief, seemingly casual ones, can drain you for days. it’s never the fatigue; it’s a profound exhaustion born from feeling too much, too long.
My sensitivity always felt like a curse because while others moved on quickly from interactions, my mind lingered, haunted by what wasn't said, by what others didn't notice or didn't care enough to acknowledge.
Every time I passed a homeless person, my heart shattered into pieces. My chest physically ached seeing their worn, pleading faces, sensing their despair so acutely it felt personal.
And it didn’t stop there.
Just a flicker of pain in a stranger’s eyes would upset me. Certain expressions, grief, fatigue, quiet desperation, felt like sirens only I could hear.
Even kindness breaks you sometimes. Because when you’re wired to feel everything, the world doesn’t just move around you. It moves through you.
You carry strangers’ stories home, into your sleep, waking with sadness still pressed into your bones. Around you, the world moves on with casual ease, indifferent or unaware of the pain you absorb. The world’s quiet cruelties never stopped startling you. Every glance, every word, every unspoken ache etched itself into your emotional memory.
Yet despite the pain, there was a quiet power in feeling the world so vividly. It was this sensitivity that made me exceptional at reading between the lines, at anticipating needs, at knowing exactly when someone required quiet support rather than direct questions. My hyper-awareness allowed me to navigate crises with intuitive ease, to sense when something was off long before others noticed.
We HSPs are the canaries in the coal mine of human emotion. We feel the tremors others miss. We notice the subtle shifts that predict larger storms. It’s a weight, yes, but more than that, it’s a wisdom your body never forgets.
And it comes at a cost.
Over time, absorbing emotions without boundary or respite wears you down. I was forever adjusting myself to maintain peace, becoming whoever was needed to soothe the invisible tensions around me. I was so skilled at reading everyone else that I forgot how to hear my own voice, how to recognize my own needs.
Visibility terrified me. For an HSP, being seen is more than simply standing in the spotlight; it’s standing unshielded amidst a storm of overwhelming stimuli and potential misunderstanding.
Every harsh word is magnified, every critique becomes deeply internalized, each rejection feels catastrophic. Being visible meant risking a kind of overstimulation that could leave me emotionally immobilized for days.
The invisible armor we build
Here's what happens when you feel everything: You learn to disappear.
Not literally, but energetically. You become a master of camouflage, adapting your presence to match the room's needs rather than your own. You develop an uncanny ability to sense what others want and become that person, seamlessly, instinctively.
This is the first layer of armor: The Chameleon. We become so good at reading rooms that we lose ourselves in them.
The second layer: The Perfectionist. When every mistake feels magnified tenfold, when every critique cuts deeper than it should, perfectionism becomes a shield. If we can just do everything right, maybe we won't have to feel the sting of judgment or disappointment. Maybe we can control the emotional chaos by controlling our performance.
The third layer: The Invisible Person. If we're seen, we're vulnerable. If we're vulnerable, we're overwhelmed. So we learn to take up less space, speak softer, need less. We become experts at managing everyone else's comfort while sacrificing our own visibility.
Why we stay quiet, even when we’re ready to be heard
We often talk about visibility like it’s a choice. But for sensitive, introverted, high-achieving souls, it’s not that simple. It’s not just about “putting yourself out there.”
It’s like navigating a minefield of emotional memories, nervous system responses, and unspoken fears.
The world doesn't need another person pretending to be invulnerable. It needs your particular way of seeing, your specific flavor of caring, your unique capacity to feel deeply and translate that feeling into wisdom.
Your sensitivity is not something to overcome. It's something to come home to.
For sensitive people, visibility feels like peeling off your skin in public while the world watches. Not because you crave attention, but because showing up means revealing a part of you that’s usually held close.
You don’t need to turn up the volume, you just need to stop turning yourself down.
My journey didn’t begin on a stage. It began with a shaky voice note. A bold sentence whispered out loud while I was still trembling inside. A single honest caption. A quiet sentence posted at midnight.
One truth, then another, and another.
And with each step, I learned that visibility is all about building in alignment.
And alignment sets you free.
There is a point when the armor that once protected you starts to cost you. It keeps the pain out, yes, but it also keeps the softness out. The closeness. The serendipity. The breathtaking, bone-deep joy of being truly seen.
We built it to survive. But we can’t live behind it. What protects you from pain often ends up numbing your capacity for wonder.
There’s an exhale in taking it off, piece by piece. You are allowed to show up messy. To be both tender and powerful. To be quiet and still take up space. Even depth deserves a witness.
Visibility, for you, won’t be loud. It will not be performance.
It will be presence. Resonance.
And most of all, it will be yours, doing it in your own terms, in your own time, with your own unique power.
Until next time,
stay soft,
stay messy,
stay gloriously visible.
Eleni
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Interesting! Never knew there was a test to see if you're a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) or deeply empathic.... taking this now :)
I just learnt to get quieter.
And let consequences prove what I had decided not to say.