Childhood led us down a winding road. There was so much beauty and also no small number of trials. Growing up as a highly sensitive child was your own hero's journey. Each twist and turn challenged you more than it would have challenged children without a more reactive brain. And each of those moments also showed us we could be resilient and strong. Sometimes, if the pressure was too great, we might not have learned that lesson until now, in our adult sensitive experience.

Each family has its own unique story and journey, and sometimes there are profound difficulties that the sensitive children experience as traumatic. But in this class, I'm particularly interested in diverse families and how they bring strengths and challenges into the life of a sensitive child. I married into an immigrant family and have first-hand experience as an adult, but this topic was suggested by a member of Are You Highly Sensitive who grew up in such a family.

I put the topic out to our community, and so many other family identities were added to our list. These are identities that can create in the family a strong cultural identity and can often create ingroup bonding. While the sensitive child can find themselves challenged with another way they are different in the world, the cohesiveness these families can experience is also a strength.

Immigrant families bring gifts and challenges to their new lives and to the children they raise. Likewise, families living with mental illness, substance abuse, loss and grief, poverty, racism, diversity (in so many forms), military service, multilingual members, medical issues, adoption, alternative family structures, or other pressures create unique environments for highly sensitive children who are both more helpful to and more impacted by them.

1. I know this might be a better question for the parenting session but how do you recommend talking to younger children about being different socioeconomically? That was a major difference for me growing up and while I’m striving to change this for my seven year old son, it is there. 
2. I’d love it if you can talk about discernment for HSPs in difficult relationships (focusing on families of origin since that’s the topic of this class, but I welcome your touching upon romantic or platonic relationships, too).  I know that I am sensitive, have a negativity bias - like most people!, and am a recovering people pleaser who has had a history of letting toxic people stay in my life because I was lonely and trying to secure my place in a “tribe.”  I am the only HSP in a family that criticizes sensitivity and softness. How do I tell the difference between whether the wise choice is to stay in a difficult relationship and just let go of certain things I can’t change versus cutting ties? I am practicing listening to my gut and trusting myself as one way to differentiate. I don’t want to go back to having porous boundaries and giving a lot to people who are abusive or neglectful - I also don’t want to wind up alone because I’ve cut out all “difficulty” from my life. 
3. Thanksgiving and Christmas will be here before I know it, and a part of me is already dreading family gatherings.  During my childhood, my parents were physically and emotionally neglectful.  I have empathy due to the fact that they were immigrants and probably had their own unspoken, unhealed trauma.  Nevertheless, their lack of connection to my reality has continued to my adulthood - the most recent example being denial that I have a life-altering chronic illness.  I've “luckily” had the excuse of "wanting to be cautious due to COVID" during the last few years, but that is less the truth for me now. The truth is is that I don't want to go to family gatherings because I've never felt like the full me is welcome and that my presence is non-essential (i.e., "come if you want, but we're not going to go out of our way to change what we’ve been doing to include you").  It drives me batty to know that they are just telling themselves and their friends that they generously invited me and that I'm not coming because I'm overly concerned with getting sick or it’s otherwise on me (I know I can only control my actions, not what they think, but I’m annoyed nonetheless).  How do I manage family gathering invitations, choosing whether to attend or not, and staying within my values in my decisions surrounding these things?  If I decline the gathering, I'd like to share my true reason (to stay aligned with my own values) and be respectful, but I can't think of a respectful way to say, "I'm not going because I don't feel valued and safe around you." 
4. I have a fairly "good" relationship with my parents who live an airplane ride away, but I have always been willing to accept a situation that was basically: you two can treat me however you want and I'll snap at Mom from time to time. My mom was controlling and highly critical until my children were born and now she is trying to bite her tongue to see my children. I always felt loved by my dad, who is depressed, but I think my dad might be a covert narcissist and always plays the victim. I've always felt bad for him and never held him accountable for his explosive and abandoning anger triggered by my behavior (that I would insist on my independence growing up or snapping at my mother for controlling me OR simply being a highly overaroused HSC in a bad home environment!). How do I best keep my distance emotionally while also maintaining a relationship with them? They have good qualities, and I can reframe their behavior as not being about me, but it is annoying and requires a lot of maturity from me. They are loving grandparents when they do see my children.