Gifted people are global and sophisticated thinkers, who have a unique psychological structure. They possess a greater capacity and thirst for knowledge and discovery, experience enhanced sensual stimuli, and feel a full range of emotions to an immensely deep level.

People high in emotional OE are sometimes accused of ‘overreacting’, and their intensity is often misunderstood as a sign of emotional immaturity. Their compassion and concern for others, their focus on relationships, and the intensity of their feelings may also interfere with everyday tasks and hold them back from achieving in life (Piechowski and

Some research found that ongoing negative feedback towards the young person’s intuitive perception is the most damaging (Park et al., 1992). If the parents explicitly or implicitly reject the child’s idiosyncrasies, the child will internalize the shame of rejection and experience themselves as being profoundly bad (toxic shame), and their natural

As an empath, you possess a natural gift for making instant connections with the emotions of others – and this all happens automatically and unconsciously. If you fail to realize this – and to distinguish your feelings from those of others – you can become overwhelmed with undue stress and pain from those around you. Mental symptoms like mood

As an adult, you may have trouble feeling safe in relationships, due to the early betrayal of trust in your family. You may intellectually understand that you are not the cause of problems in your family, but to shift the internalized shame requires deeper emotional healing.

If as a child you were unable to internalize a deep sense of love and security, you might now carry a persistent feeling of being not good enough – that you are somehow disgusting, ugly, stupid or flawed. This may involve internal thoughts such as, ‘Nothing I do is good enough’, ‘There is something fundamentally wrong with me’, or even ‘I am bad

Though history cannot be changed, you can rewrite the story that you tell yourself. You are in no way ‘bad’ or ‘too much’. You are a sensitive, intuitive, gifted individual who might have been deprived of the right kind of nourishment during childhood. Your high level of awareness and acuity to subtleties is both rare and incredibly precious. If

In other words, severe difficulty in emotional regulation is not a direct result of being born intense, but a result of two combining factors: 1 Being born with heightened sensitivity and a gift in perceptivity. 2 Living in a deficient childhood environment that fails to meet emotional needs.

You may feel unable to reclaim your identity as a gifted person because of the social stereotype that the gifted are somehow above everyone. That is not the case; owning your giftedness is not about arrogance, but rather the need to be congruent with your capabilities, values, and place in this world.