Don’t box me in!

The older I get, the less I like the idea of “labels” - they make me feel “boxed” in, as if everyone knows what someone labelled, for example, an introvert, is like. Being put in a box makes it hard to recognise that we are all individuals and although we may have some high-level commonality with a certain group of people, our individual expression of that trait will be unique to us. It may also change over time, so the walls of the box can act to constrain change and growth. For example, I’ve never been someone who has always voted for a particular party in an election – I want to have the freedom to assess party policies or individual candidates according to my currently held beliefs. Even though over the last several elections I have voted Green, I don’t want to be labelled a Green voter as over time both their position and my opinions may change.

Having said that, if you want a “snapshot” of who I am at this moment in time, viewing me through the lenses of “introvert” and “Green voter” will give you useful information to help understand some aspects of my behaviour. Those lenses also help me understand myself and provide me with a shorthand way of introducing myself to other people – it seems likely that if you want to spend your life partying and think we should dig up and burn all the coal regardless, then you and I may not become best buddies. But please don’t constrain me to the boxes with those labels – for example, even though I am an introvert who prefers time with only a few people, I will happily endure large, noisy crowds for the chance to listen to live music or interesting speakers.

This week, I have found myself investigating the concept of a Highly Sensitive Person, a term first coined by Elaine Aron in her 1996 book. I’ve come across the idea before and shied away from yet another label, but have realised as I read more about HSPs that there are some concepts which are useful for understanding some of my behaviour. Although described as a personality trait, it seems like HSPs actually have a more sensitive nervous system, so there is an underlying physiological difference which explains behavioural differences. It has also been suggested that HSPs may be more susceptible to developing chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia, which makes sense particularly in light of the hypothesis that the underlying cause of CFS/FM is a dysfunctional autonomic nervous system. 

Out of curiosity, I joined an online group for HSPs and was quickly struck by a couple of things. First, there were way more long posts and comments than are generally found on the Internet which immediately felt familiar as I simply cannot fit in to this world of shorter and shorter communications with SMS’s, tweets and brief FB status updates – give me length and depth over speed and shallowness any day (from necessity, I have learnt the art of “small talk” over the years and recognise that it does have its place but I’d much rather talk about climate change than the weather!). Then, I kept reading people emphasising that not every HSP is the same - the majority may be introverts, but some are extroverts, some prefer cats, some dogs, others like both – so maybe they (or at least some of them) dislike the boxes as much as I do!