You're Not Broken (You're Just Here)
De-pathologizing sensitivity and overwhelm
In our first piece, we gave ourselves permission to be. Now, let’s extend that permission to how we feel about the world around us.
You’ve probably heard it before. Maybe you’ve even said it to yourself.
“I’m too sensitive.”
“I can’t handle things like other people can.”
“There’s something wrong with me.”
The world keeps spinning at its frantic pace. People around you seem to manage. They go to work, they scroll through the news, they juggle responsibilities, they keep up. And you? You’re drowning in a sea of input. The news feels like shards of glass. Social situations drain you for days. The sheer velocity of modern life feels like an assault.
So you conclude: The problem must be you.
You’re broken. You’re weak. You’re failing at being human.
Let me tell you something important, something you need to hear clearly:
You are not broken. You are just here.
The Myth of the “Broken” Sensitive Person
Our culture has a story about sensitivity. It goes like this:
“Normal” people can handle stress. They can process bad news and move on. They can work 40+ hours a week and still have energy for social lives. They don’t get overwhelmed by loud restaurants or bright lights. They don’t lie awake at night thinking about suffering on the other side of the world.
If you can’t do these things, the story says, you are malfunctioning. You need to be fixed. You need therapy, or medication, or better coping skills, or a thicker skin.
This story is everywhere. It’s in self-help books that promise to make you “resilient.” It’s in wellness culture that tells you to “manage your stress.” It’s in medical language that pathologizes sensitivity as “disorder”—Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Major Depressive Disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder.
Don’t misunderstand me—therapy is valuable. Medication can be life-saving. Support is essential. If you need these things, please seek them. They are tools, not failures.
But what if the fundamental assumption is wrong?
What if you’re not broken at all?
A Different Story: The Appropriate Response
Here’s another way to see it:
You are a sensitive nervous system living in an overwhelming world.
The world is overwhelming. This is not debatable. This is not your perception problem.
We are bombarded with more information in a day than our ancestors encountered in a lifetime. We carry devices that deliver an endless stream of global crisises—wars, climate disasters, injustice, suffering—directly into our palms.
We live in economic systems that demand we prove our worth through productivity. We’re told to be “always on,” to optimize ourselves, to hustle, to perform.
The natural world is unraveling. Species are disappearing. The climate is destabilizing. These aren’t distant, abstract problems. They’re happening now, to real beings, in real time.
And we’re supposed to just… be fine with this? We’re supposed to go about our daily routines as if nothing is happening?
Your overwhelm is not a malfunction. It’s an appropriate response.
You are a sensitive instrument in a chaotic environment. When you feel overwhelmed, you’re not broken. You’re reading the room correctly.
The Gift (and Burden) of Sensitivity
Let’s talk about what sensitivity actually is.
Some people call it being a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP). Some call it empathy. Some just know they feel things more deeply than others seem to.
Whatever you call it, here’s what it means:
You notice more. You feel more. You process more deeply. You’re affected by subtleties that others miss. The suffering of strangers isn’t abstract to you. The state of the world isn’t background noise. When something is wrong, you feel it in your body.
This is not a defect. This is a feature.
Throughout human history, sensitive people have been the poets, the healers, the artists, the conscience-keepers. They’re the ones who feel the tremors before the earthquake. They’re the canaries in the coal mine.
Your sensitivity is information. It’s your nervous system doing exactly what it’s designed to do—picking up signals, noticing patterns, responding to what is.
The problem isn’t your sensitivity. The problem is that we live in a world that has become hostile to sensitive beings.
When the World Tells You You’re Too Much
The dominant culture has no patience for sensitivity. It values:
- Toughness over tenderness
- Productivity over presence
- Speed over depth
- Certainty over nuance
- Loudness over listening
If you’re someone who needs quiet to think, who needs time to process, who can’t just “get over” things, who feels the weight of the world—the culture tells you there’s something wrong with you.
You’re told to:
- “Toughen up”
- “Don’t take things so personally”
- “Stop being so dramatic”
- “You’re overthinking it”
- “Just don’t watch the news if it bothers you”
These aren’t helpful suggestions. They’re dismissals. They’re ways of saying: “Your response is inconvenient to me. Please make yourself smaller.”
And so you learn to apologize for your existence. You learn to hide your overwhelm. You learn to pretend you’re fine when you’re drowning.
You learn to treat your sensitivity as a shameful secret.
The Violence of “Just Be Positive”
Let’s talk about a particular form of this dismissal: toxic positivity.
“Just be grateful!”
“Focus on the good!”
“Everything happens for a reason!”
“Good vibes only!”
This kind of thinking is everywhere in modern spirituality and wellness culture. It sounds nice. It sounds healing. But for sensitive people, it’s violence.
Here’s why:
When you tell someone who is genuinely overwhelmed to “just be positive,” you’re not helping them. You’re telling them that their accurate perception of reality is wrong. You’re adding shame to their suffering.
You’re saying: “The problem isn’t the world—it’s your failure to think happy thoughts about it.”
This is gaslighting dressed up as wisdom.
The world has real problems. People are really suffering. Ecosystems are really collapsing. If you feel grief, anxiety, or overwhelm about this, you’re not failing at spirituality. You’re paying attention.
Real healing doesn’t come from pretending everything is fine. It comes from allowing yourself to feel what is real, without adding a second layer of shame about feeling it.
Permission to Be Exactly As You Are
So here’s what I want to offer you: permission.
Permission to be sensitive.
Permission to be overwhelmed.
Permission to not be okay.
Permission to need rest.
Permission to feel too much.
Permission to not “get over” things quickly.
Permission to be affected by the world.
Permission to be exactly as you are.
You don’t need to fix yourself. You don’t need to become less sensitive. You don’t need to develop a “thicker skin.”
You need space. You need rest. You need a world that honors sensitivity instead of punishing it.
But until the world changes, you can start by changing how you see yourself.
What You Actually Need (Instead of Fixing)
If you’re not broken, then you don’t need fixing. What do you need instead?
1. Permission to Feel
Stop fighting your feelings. Stop treating your overwhelm as an enemy.
When the wave of anxiety comes, when the weight of the world presses down, don’t immediately reach for distraction or solutions or spiritual bypassing.
Just let it be there. Say to it: “You’re allowed to be here. You’re not wrong. You’re not a problem.”
This doesn’t mean wallowing. It means holding your experience with compassion instead of judgment.
2. Boundaries That Honor Your Nature
You’re not weak for needing quiet. You’re not antisocial for needing solitude. You’re not lazy for needing rest.
These are not character flaws. These are requirements of your particular nervous system.
Give yourself permission to:
- Say no to things that deplete you
- Limit your news consumption
- Leave social situations when you’re drained
- Rest without justifying it
- Protect your energy like the precious resource it is
3. Smaller, Slower, Quieter
The dominant culture glorifies “more”—more productivity, more socializing, more stimulation, more, more, more.
You might need less. Less input. Less speed. Less noise. Less obligation.
This isn’t failure. This is knowing yourself.
A plant doesn’t apologize for needing a certain amount of light and water. It just needs what it needs. You’re the same.
4. Connection With Others Who Feel Deeply
Isolation makes everything worse. When you’re convinced you’re the only one who feels this way, the shame multiplies.
You need to know: You are not alone. There are others like you. There are others who feel the world’s pain. There are others who can’t just “move on.” There are others who are too tired to pretend.
Finding even one person who gets it—who doesn’t need you to be different, who doesn’t try to fix you, who can sit with you in the overwhelm—is medicine.
This is why we’re here. This is why this space exists. You are not alone.
Being Is Always Enough
Here’s the deepest truth I can offer you:
Your worth is not conditional on your ability to function in an overwhelming world.
You don’t have to earn your right to exist by being “productive” or “positive” or “resilient.”
You are allowed to be a person who gets overwhelmed.
You are allowed to be a person who needs rest.
You are allowed to be a person who feels deeply.
You are allowed to be sensitive in a harsh world.
Your being is enough. Always.
Even when you’re overwhelmed.
Even when you’re exhausted.
Even when you can’t keep up.
Even when you’re not okay.
You’re not broken. You’re just here.
And “here” is exactly where you’re supposed to be.
If you take nothing else from this, take this:
Stop trying to fix yourself. You are not the problem.
The world is overwhelming. Your response to it is appropriate. Your sensitivity is not a flaw.
You are exactly as you should be.
And that is enough.