Toadfish Monastery

Follow this link to the Highly Sensitive Person test (http://www.hsperson.com/pages/test.htm).

I don't know how accurate the test is, really, but I wondered if the results would show a general tendency toward high sensitivity here in the Toadfish Monastery. I wonder if people who are interested in finding more peace and tolerance in the world are extra sensitive.

Just curious!

This poll is open ended, you can change your vote, and you can only see the results after you have voted.

Eh, you mangled the link.

Sorry, Swato. I have tried to fix it. Try it again.

Yes! Which has been a significant influence in my desire to work *away* from the general public. It is completely overwhelming to me, and the cultural belief that an employee should be able to be all things to all people, simultaneously, with a smile on their lips and a song in their heart makes it worse.

Unfortunately I respond badly when people are horrid to me.

Me, too.  The test is interesting - I scored 17.  I always distrust these self-scoring tests, but this one seems sensible.

Well I got 7, so not sure what that says.

It says you are naturally better able to cope with carp than some of us.  :-*

10
I feel somewhere between "Nah" and "Kinda-sorta"
To me it has a lot to do with what shape I'm in that particularly day.

Some days I great troublesome customers with a wry smile and a silent "bring it on" other days I'd like to hide under the cover with ear-protection and a sleep-mask...

I think I was more sensitive when I was younger, and much more prone to flee (or at leas try to flee) an uncomfortable situation than I am to day.
Perhaps I  have grown numb over the years or I'm better aware of my own strength and limits (and I'm more confident) which result in me finding fewer situations really unpleasant. perhaps it's a bit of both.

Loud noises especially high pithed sounds drives me nuts but I chalk that up to my tinnitus. :-\

19

I stumbled on this test and some related literature by googling the phrase "life is too intense".  That's often how the world feels to me.

I've been reading two of the HSP books by Elaine Aron, and have found them very helpful in explaining why I've felt different than the majority of the people around me for most of my life. I was starting to worry that I had some sort of mental illness or personality disorder.  It's a relief to hear that what I'm dealing with is a more-or-less neutral trait, and also to have the language and concepts necessary to understand how and why I deal with the world the way I do. I've been dealing a bit with a sensitivity crisis over the last couple of years, which I think in part was triggered by workaholism.  I'm particularly sensitive to mechanical noise these days, and get overwhelmed fairly easily. I've found that some aspects of being HSP actually make it easier to navigate social situations by being able to quickly grasp social dynamics and work with them. Then again, I've been struggling to understand 'normal' people since I was a child and by this point have gotten fairly adept at playing normal to compensate. It's hard work, but I'm good at it kind of sums up my experience of living life HSP.


On a related note, here's the Sensation Seeker test (http://www.hsperson.com/pages/HSStest.pdf). It's a separate trait from being highly sensitive, but being high-sensation seeking (HSS) can create some interesting and conflicting needs for a HSP.  I score moderately high (14) on the SS test, which makes me a bit prone to both understimulation and overstimulation.

:daz:

I am very surprised to have scored a 13 on the Sensation-seeking test. I do not consider myself to be any sort of daredevil, but I do adore being startled by art of any kind and discovering things that are new to me. Interesting!

12 & 12 on the edge of both.

I wonder if the level of education may have some relationship with both profiles.

Well I'm not a thrill seeker that's obvious...
I got only 8 of 20 on this test, and I'm not surprised. On the other hand I'm much more curious than this test might show. I do love to find and investigate new things whether it be food, flowers, tiny things in the other end of a microscope or an abandoned building.  :)

I wish the tests had allowed a little more nuance than a straight yes or no, but I've tried them on different days and see 15-18 on the first and a consistent 7 on the second.

Gak! I am becoming a stick-in-the-Ocean o'Sand.

I scored a six the second time I went through the test . the first round was one . I wonder if I answered honestly on both tries .