Watching the events over the last week, and learning so much about Michael Jackson’s life has made me reflect a lot about myself and my own life, and I imagine the coverage may have had the same effect on you. Commentators frequently discussed how Jackson’s shy, reclusive personality (documented since he was a young child) contrasted with his outrageously impressive and even flamboyant ability to perform on and dominate the world stage.
This reminded me that I discovered about a year ago that I fit the personality characteristics of what’s offically called a “Highly Sensitive Person” – a person who is vulnerable to being overwhelmed by the chaos and overstimulation (noise, etc.) of normal life, and is frequently misunderstood or mislabeled as being shy or “weird”. A whopping 15-20% of the population share the characteristics of an “HSP”. To learn more about this common personality/physiologic phenomenon, read the blog I wrote on this topic for PsychologyToday.com here.
Awesome, It’s so informative and useful, thanks a good deal! If you post more of this great stuff, I’ll visit your blog again!
The only memory of my biological father from my childhood is when he took me to see the Firecracker 500 in Daytona. I must have been 5. I was ok watching him drink and smoke with everyone else in the baking sun, but when the cars started up I freaked. A few laps around the track, and I was a mess. I don’t remember much after that except being back home. Imagine being a father taking his namesake to a grand event like that and having to leave early to take the snot-nosed brat back to his mama. HSP. I’m with ya babe. Thanks for sharing this post.