Exaggerating Your Feelings to Be Taken Seriously
It’s Friday afternoon and all you can think about is getting into your comfy clothes and relaxing on the couch for the rest of the weekend. Then you get a text from a pushy family member asking if you’re available tonight to get together because they really need to talk to you about something.
You could respond openly, letting them know that you’re looking forward to some relaxation time and decline the invitation, knowing they may question or push back on your boundary. Another option would be to exaggerate how you’re feeling so they take your needs more seriously - saying you had a really stressful week and feel too exhausted to do anything this weekend. Or you could “abandon yourself” as boundaries expert, Terri Cole, would say and scrap your self-care plans to show up for this person last minute. Which do you choose?
Talking Yourself Out of a Boundary
Declining the invitation in any form may bring up feelings of guilt since technically you could connect since you don’t have any other plans outside of the house. This is a trap I often get stuck in and I’ve argued myself out of a boundary countless times. It’s not that I’m consciously thinking my needs are less important, but that’s essentially the message I send to myself when I’ve put myself aside again and again. Being part of a family with a lot of very social extroverts who don’t understand the need for solitude, I have received so much pushback over the years and have had to practice standing firm in my boundaries.
If being straight-forward risks stirring up conflict or hurting the other person’s feelings, there are times that you may feel safer saying no with an “excuse” - giving some compelling reason that justifies your need to the other person. This isn’t a practice I like to use often, but sometimes it’s necessary. When someone isn’t highly sensitive, they often don’t understand that deep need for solitude and quiet at the end of the week because they need so little processing time, especially if they’re a non-HSP extrovert.
Finding Ways to Be Understood
Saying “no” honestly or without reason becomes even more difficult if someone lacks empathy or tends to push back to get their way. How can you get your needs met without resistance or an argument when this is the case? A common strategy for HSPs is to amplify what you’re feeling or escalate the severity of your needs to be understood. Imagine that someone said something to you with a slightly critical tone, you notice the subtle change in their voice and may feel hurt for quite a while as you process the experience and make sense of what happened.
When someone asks you why you’re upset, instead of referencing the critical tone, you say that someone said something hurtful. This isn’t completely accurate, but it may be what allows them to understand and accept your mood. They can relate to being criticized, they probably can’t relate to feeling hurt by a subtle tone of voice.
Exaggerating as Self-Protection
Exaggerating a bit is a form of self-protection because it may save you from hearing “it’s no big deal” or “you’re too sensitive”. You know those dismissive, invalidating phrases you’ve probably heard all your life when someone didn’t understand your highly sensitive experience.
You may even be using this self-protective strategy without realizing it because it’s the only way you were able to be heard early in life and it stuck. Highly sensitive folks often have their experiences dismissed because others don’t feel the same way, don’t notice the little details they do, aren’t having the same strong intuitive gut feeling, and don’t need as much recharge or processing time.
So many parts of your experience as an HSP have probably been misunderstood at some point and it can be difficult to put your thoughts and feelings into words so that others understand. The practice of exaggerating or amplifying may feel deceptive, but what you’re really doing is translating your experience for folks who aren’t highly sensitive. You’re making the subtle more obvious for them in an attempt to be understood and accepted.
Your Needs Are Equally Valuable
Ideally you’ll get to a place where you can be respected at face value without needing to explain or justify your needs, where you say exactly what you need and feel with full acceptance and without question - at least most of the time. This is a longer process of accepting your sensitivity, believing that your needs are equally valuable, and surrounding yourself with people who are supportive. Even then you may still have family members, coworkers, or acquaintances who you need to translate for or emotionally protect yourself from.
As you go through this self-acceptance process, notice if there are people in your life who you feel comfortable being transparent with and practice not exaggerating when expressing your feelings and needs. To reference the examples I gave earlier, that could sound like:
“I was really looking forward to recharging by myself tonight after work. Would you be available to connect next week instead?”
“Someone at work used a critical tone with me today and now I’m really worried about what it might mean. Do you have any space to talk it through with me?”
What other ways could you be more open about your sensitive experiences? Is there anyone in your life you feel safe to practice having an open dialogue with?
