A Hypersensitive Nervous System, Amplified Emotions, and a Life Out of Control

Lu Xun had a classic saying: "The joys and sorrows of humanity are not connected." His words had a specific context; read in context, I suspect he meant that because each person's present circumstances differ, one cannot empathize with others. But the saying can bear other meanings too—one of which is that everyone's nervous system is different, so that when they experience the same event, their emotional reactions differ.

There are many differences between people, but those at the level of consciousness may be the greatest. And the most important factor determining human consciousness is perhaps not education but the biological nervous system. In hospital infusion rooms, children react very differently to injections; we can see that some children are innately delicate—before the injection even begins, merely seeing the nurse with the syringe sends them wailing—while other children are far calmer, remaining composed even as the needle goes in. Such great differences in children's reactions force us to believe that some traits determined by the nervous system are inborn, shaped by innate genes rather than education.

The nervous system plays a vital role throughout our lives. Laypeople like to talk about "emotional intelligence," but for biologists and physicians such terms are pure pseudoscience. We know that human emotion is one of several reactions we make to environmental stimuli, determined by the human nervous system. Our nervous system plays a key role as we perceive the outside world: it helps us receive various signals from the environment and transmits them to our brain, which then assesses the information, judges whether the environment is safe or unsafe, and decides how to respond.

All this work is completed in an instant; we habitually call it an instinctive reaction. The great majority of our reactions and decisions in life are in fact only instinctive reactions, and this remains true even after we reach adulthood. Our instinctive reactions are carried out under the coordination of the nervous system. The difference between one person's nervous system and another's may even be greater than the difference between a person's nervous system and a cat's; cats dare to trust people, but many people do not. Precisely because human nervous systems differ so greatly, human behavioral habits and character traits differ so enormously, and these differences shape people's outlook on life and the world.

Of course, this statement overemphasizes differences in the human nervous system. In reality, most people in society have nervous systems that basically fall within the human average range, which allows our society to function largely normally. But a minority have nervous systems that differ greatly from the social average; these are either markedly more sensitive or markedly less sensitive, which gives their responses to external stimuli a distinctive character.

Those more sensitive tend to react more strongly to external stimuli than most people, while those less sensitive tend to react insufficiently. Both overreaction and underreaction cause obvious discomfort: the former creates more interpersonal conflict, while the latter, through dulled response, may expose people to more danger.

Those with an overly sensitive nervous system suffer emotional problems throughout their lives. They are like people fitted with an emotional amplifier: their love, hate, affection, enmity, joy, anger, grief, delight, sorrow, anxiety, and fear are all too intense, and their emotions change far faster than those of most people, which causes them great distress in social interactions. Their relationships often rupture through excessive emotionality, and their lives are consequently frequently out of control; they encounter more financial and emotional crises.

We habitually say such people have low "emotional intelligence" or are unsociable, but in truth they yearn enormously to fit into the group like normal people and to build stable, lasting emotional bonds with others. It is just that their oversensitive nervous system has, from the moment they became a fertilized egg, doomed them to perpetual friction with the outside world.

The latest medical research shows that their abnormality already exists in the fetal period: in the womb they cannot absorb the right nutrition the way a normal fetus does. This causes some such fetuses to be born prematurely, and when grown they are significantly more likely than ordinary fetuses to develop depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia.

The medical community names this relatively severe condition "mental illness," but the very term "mental illness" is now generating disputes among psychiatric experts. As Foucault observed, we cannot prove we are normal by treating our neighbors as mad. Our regarding the oversensitive as mentally ill may itself be a prejudice rooted in the minds of the social majority.

Since the moment life arose on Earth, it has continually evolved toward diversification; the divergence of human nervous systems is itself the result of this natural evolution and is not necessarily pathological. When we define a minority, we should act cautiously and not casually attach stigmatizing labels, because once society forms a stereotype, the survival of the minority becomes harder.

I myself now strongly doubt whether the current medical treatment of the oversensitive is appropriate, and I wonder whether we have better ways to improve the quality of life of these fellow human beings—so that they can better adapt to society and take control of their own lives, while also easing the economic and mental burdens facing their families.

An overly sensitive nervous system does indeed cause maladjustment. Many oversensitive people eventually develop social withdrawal: they fear contact with others, cannot work normally, and only by living apart can they feel somewhat relaxed and comfortable. Once they enter social or work situations, they become highly tense and may even end up self-harming or committing suicide.

The public holds a stereotype: we may instinctively assume that such oversensitive people are prone to harm others. In reality, they more often turn their aggression inward rather than outward; only about 5% harm others. They live long-term in depression, fear, anxiety, and self-reproach; over 90% of oversensitive people are aware that their perception differs from others', and are puzzled by it, yet cannot escape the distress.

We hold another stereotype: we may think these people's cognition is mistaken. Having had much contact with such people in recent years, I have found, when I quiet down to verify and analyze their cognition, that their perceptions are not entirely groundless. Some have hearing far sharper than most; they can detect faint sounds that most of us cannot, and if we verify carefully we find the sounds genuinely exist. Others have an extraordinarily developed sense of smell and detect odors no one else can. Their powers of observation are also very strong, and their insight into environmental details can reach the level of spies in the movies.

These people may seem to have superhuman gifts, but this too is an illusion. Because over-sensitivity often makes them react to external stimuli in ways disproportionate to the actual danger, their nervous system is constantly blowing warning whistles, leaving them very tense. Most typically, in social interactions they easily over-interpret others' words and deeds, making themselves seem overly fastidious in others' eyes. Or in daily life they overfocus on bodily discomforts, sinking into hypochondriacal distress.

They readily spot gaps in others' speech—if ordinary people quietly listened to their own hearts, we would indeed notice these gaps in our own speech; it is just that most of these lapses are unintentional. But to the oversensitive, such speech can produce intense, even lethal, stimulation. This stimulus triggers very strong emotional reactions—grief, despair, or fear—and they respond with intense words and deeds, usually expressing their fear and despair through anger and avoidance.

But afterward they fall into ruminative thinking, reanalyzing and reappraising others' words and deeds, and reassessing their own. When they realize they have misread another's meaning, that their reaction was too intense, and that they have hurt others (especially those close to them), they sink back into self-reproach, depression, and shame.

This cycle is like an endless samsara. Most oversensitive people by no means like their own over-sensitivity and do not regard it as a gift to boast about; their repeated collisions with the world torment them. Usually they do not think of themselves as unusually gifted but rather treat their sensitivity as a defect, seeing themselves as flawed people; this cognition gives them deep-seated inferiority and lingering shame.

The great majority of people (even professional counselors and psychiatrists) cannot converse with these people down to the depths of the soul, because they have developed a unique, instinctive defense mechanism and find it hard to believe that anyone can fully understand, tolerate, and accept them. Usually they crave a soul mate beyond the ordinary, and their deep inner loneliness makes them desperately hope someone can become a light to save them. But regrettably, all emotion rests on trust; an emotional bond without trust is fragile, and they are constitutionally unable to trust others. Thus they are caught in a vicious cycle, unable to build lasting, deep emotional connections with others, and their relationships are often brief and easily broken.

I pin my hope for improving these people's quality of life on social progress. Only when humanitarianism becomes one of the universal core values, and society's stereotyped view of these minorities changes, can their living conditions possibly improve. We should accept that each of us comes into this world by inheriting a distinctive set of genes as randomly as buying a lottery ticket. Some of us inherited genes that make our nervous systems oversensitive, which makes us more emotional than others, our lives easily out of control, and our inner lives painful; we ought to help them rather than discriminate against and exclude them. Only when such belief becomes a social consensus will human tragedies be greatly reduced.

Regrettably, at present we have not reached this ideal state. Online I see a flood of videos and articles denouncing and lashing out at these fellow citizens who ought to receive our sympathy and help; many, unable to understand that this is a natural phenomenon, turn to moral condemnation of others.

In my humble view, being able to accept those who walk the same path does not show great cultivation; only the person who can accept those who differ from oneself is truly broad-minded and morally noble. The greatest hallmark of a civilized, developed society should be tolerance and compassion; the public should deeply reflect on and discuss abnormal social phenomena rather than flying into rage at every turn. We cannot go on treating ignorance as nobility and folly as amusing.