Psychologists suggest that people who feel “too much” often developed heightened perception as a form of emotional protection

The first time I noticed it, I was standing on a Perth train platform at dusk, waiting for the 5:42 home. A southerly wind was pushing the heat off the city, rattling the gum leaves along the tracks. Most people were slouched over their phones, earbuds plugged in, faces lit blue. But one woman – maybe late twenties, office lanyard still around her neck – stood completely still, shoulders tight, scanning the platform with the kind of alertness you’d expect from a kangaroo on a highway at night. When the train screeched in, she flinched, eyes glassy, then forced a soft smile at the older man beside her as if to apologise for… existing too intensely. I watched her and thought: she looks like she feels everything, all at once.

The Quiet Skill Behind “Too Much”

If you’ve ever been told you’re “too sensitive”, “too emotional”, or that you “think too much”, you might recognise something of yourself in that woman on the platform. Maybe you’re the one who notices the tiny shift in a mate’s tone before anyone else does. Or who walks into a Melbourne café and, before you’ve even sat down, you can sense which table is thick with tension and which one is glowing with laughter.

Psychologists are starting to reframe this kind of intensity. Many now suggest that people who feel “too much” often aren’t broken, dramatic, or fragile at all. Instead, they’ve developed a kind of heightened perception – a finely tuned radar for emotional currents – as a way of keeping themselves safe. It’s less a flaw and more a survival strategy, shaped slowly over years of needing to read a room before the room could hurt them.

This idea lands with particular force in an Australian culture that still quietly worships the “she’ll be right” attitude. We celebrate resilience, grit, not making a fuss. Yet beneath that, there’s a whole current of quiet feelers: people who notice the magpie’s warning calls before the storm, who flinch at raised voices at the pub, who leave family gatherings with a peculiar exhaustion that has nothing to do with the drive home.

How Emotional Protection Becomes a Super-Sense

Psychologists sometimes call this “hypervigilance”, but that word can sound harsh, almost military. In real life, it often begins in much smaller, softer moments – particularly in childhood. Imagine growing up in a house where moods shifted like summer storms over Darwin: one minute bright, the next crackling with electricity. Maybe a parent’s anger arrived with no warning, or love felt conditional on perfect behaviour.

In that kind of environment, a child’s brain quietly goes to work. It learns that safety isn’t a given; it has to be predicted. The child starts paying exquisite attention to micro-signals:

• The sigh before Dad slams a door.
• The way Mum’s jaw sets before she goes silent.
• The creak of footsteps in the hallway that means: tonight might not be safe.

Over time, that vigilance becomes a way of life. The brain sharpens its ability to detect threat in tiny details – tone, posture, the briefest flicker behind someone’s eyes. What looks like “overreacting” to others is, inside, a well-honed early warning system. It evolved to protect, not to annoy.

Even if your childhood wasn’t chaotic, emotional protection can still bloom from quieter experiences: bullying at school, a relationship where your feelings were constantly minimised, a workplace where speaking up brought punishment. Each time, your nervous system learns: I have to pay closer attention; it’s on me to see things coming.

The Sensory World of the Big Feeler

For many Australians who feel “too much”, the whole world comes through a little louder, brighter, closer. It’s not just emotions; it’s the sound of traffic on Parramatta Road that somehow claws at your bones, the fluorescent lights at Woolies that feel like they’re humming inside your skull, the crowded tram in Melbourne that leaves you buzzing with everyone else’s leftover day.

From the outside, this can look like simple sensitivity. But on the inside, it’s often the nervous system staying on high alert. The body has learned that the smallest shift could mean danger, so it doesn’t just scan emotions – it scans everything. A slammed car door might spike your heart rate. A raised voice on TV might make you want to leave the room. A mate’s offhand joke might sit like a stone in your gut for days.

What complicates this is that people with this heightened perception are often incredibly capable. You might be the go-to person at work because you “just get” what the team needs. You might be the one in your share house who feels the vibe change and starts stacking the dishwasher a bit more quietly. You track people’s needs before they can even articulate them. You rarely get explicit credit for this skill, but the social fabric around you relies on it.

And yet, when you eventually reach your limit – when the noise, the feelings, the constant scanning catch up – you might be told you’re “overreacting”. So you learn to swallow it. To say “no worries” even when there are, in fact, many worries.

Reframing: From “Too Much” to Deeply Tuned

One of the quiet revolutions in modern psychology is the move from pathologising this sensitivity to respecting it. No, it’s not always comfortable to live with. And in some cases, underlying anxiety or trauma does need healing. But the skill itself – that deep perceptiveness – is not the enemy. It’s part of your story.

Think about what this heightened perception allows:

• You sense when a friend in Brisbane is “off” before they’ve admitted it to themselves, and you check in.
• You notice when a colleague is about to burn out and gently cover a shift or lighten a load.
• You feel the first hint of resentment in your relationship and ask for a walk and a real talk before it calcifies.

That’s emotional intelligence, grown from necessity. It may have been forged in hard times, but it can become a deeply humane gift.

The challenge is that many Australians who carry this super-sense also carry a heavy dose of self-criticism. They internalise the message that they’re “too dramatic”, “too soft”, “too needy”. The truth is, you might simply be more tuned-in than the people around you – and you learned to be that way because at some point, it kept you safe.

Common Signs You May Have Developed Heightened Perception

Not every big feeler will experience this the same way, but some common threads show up again and again:

• You often sense tension in a room long before anyone speaks about it.
• Conflict – even mild – leaves you rattled for hours or days.
• Harsh voices, criticism, or sudden loud noises feel physically painful.
• You replay conversations for days, analysing every detail.
• Being in crowds (footy games, festivals, shopping centres) leaves you strangely drained.
• You can quickly guess what someone is feeling from tiny cues others miss.

Seen through a blaming lens, these can look like flaws. Seen through a compassionate lens, they look like traces of a nervous system that learned to protect you.

Living in Australia With a Nervous System on High Alert

Australia sells itself, rightly, as laid-back: bare feet on hot sand, arvo naps under a fan, the slow drift of smoke from a backyard barbie. But that surface ease can make it extra tricky if you don’t feel laid-back at all. If your inner world is intense, you might feel like you’re somehow failing at being properly “Aussie”.

It shows up in subtle ways:

• You say yes to social plans – the pub, the beach, the Sunday family lunch – then spend the whole time in a shallow panic, scanning every interaction for danger.
• You watch others knock back comments like “toughen up” or “just get over it”, while those same words linger inside you like a bruise.
• You leave group gatherings at Bondi or Glenelg exhausted, even if you love the people you were with.

Underneath, there’s often a quiet fear: If people knew how intensely I experience things, they’d think I was weak, or broken, or just hard work. So you hide it. You over-function. You become the dependable one who never seems to crack.

Here’s where the psychological shift matters. When you understand that your big feelings and hyper-awareness began as forms of emotional protection, something softens. You stop asking, “What’s wrong with me?” and start asking, “What happened to me – and how did my body try to keep me safe?”

Everyday Ways to Support a Sensitive Nervous System

None of this is about “fixing” yourself. It’s about befriending a nervous system that’s been working overtime. Some practices can make a quiet but real difference:

• Micro-boundaries: Leaving the party 30 minutes earlier than others. Driving your own car so you can exit when you need to. Saying, “I’m going to sit outside for a bit.”
• Quiet pockets: Regular small escapes – a walk along the Yarra, watching the waves at Scarborough, sitting in your local park with your phone on silent – to let your senses reset.
• Nervous system “downshifts”: Slow breathing, grounding with bare feet on grass, feeling the weight of your body in a chair instead of only in your head.
• Truth-telling with safe people: Letting a trusted friend or partner know that you experience the world intensely – not as a weakness, but as part of who you are.
• Gentle professional support: If big feelings regularly overwhelm you, talking with a psychologist who understands trauma, sensitivity, or neurodiversity can help you build tools without shaming your depth.

From Protection to Choice

When emotional protection first forms, it’s not a choice. A younger version of you did what they needed to do to stay safe, read the room, anticipate the storm. That kid – or teen, or younger adult – was clever. They gave you the skillset that keeps you alive in subtle ways to this day.

But living with your radar permanently turned to full volume is exhausting. The work of adulthood, especially for those who feel deeply, is to learn how to keep the gift while loosening the grip. To realise: I don’t have to scan every silence. I don’t have to hold every emotion in the room. I can notice without absorbing. I can feel deeply without drowning.

On another summer evening, maybe you’re again standing at a train station – this time in Brisbane, or Adelaide, or the outer suburbs of Sydney. You still notice everything: the crackle of gravel under a stranger’s boots, the smell of rain moving in, the tension between two teenagers arguing softly by the fence. But instead of tensing, you take one slow breath and plant your feet on the ground. You say, quietly inside: I’m allowed to be here, without fixing anything. I’m allowed to feel this much, and still be safe.

And maybe, as the train pulls in, you catch the eye of someone whose shoulders are hunched the way yours used to be. You offer a tiny nod – nothing dramatic, just a human-sized acknowledgement across the noise. A way of saying: there is nothing wrong with the way you feel the world. You’re just tuned in. You learned to be. And now, you get to decide what you do with that gift.

A Gentle Comparison: Numbed, “Normal”, and Hyper-Aware

To see your own experience more clearly, it can help to compare different ways people relate to emotions and the world around them.

Experience	How the World Feels	Common Inner Story
Emotionally Numbed	Muted, distant, sometimes flat or foggy.	“Nothing really touches me; maybe I don’t care enough.”
“Average” Sensitivity	Manageable ups and downs; emotions match the moment.	“I feel things, but I usually move on pretty quickly.”
Heightened Perception	Intense, layered, full of subtle signals others miss.	“I notice everything; sometimes it feels like too much.”

If you see yourself in that last column, it doesn’t mean you’re doomed to overwhelm forever. It means you developed a powerful way of noticing, and now your work is to bring in balance, boundaries, and kindness for the part of you that’s always been on watch.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is feeling “too much” the same as having anxiety?

Not always. Heightened perception can overlap with anxiety, but they’re not identical. You might be deeply tuned in to emotional and sensory details without constant worry or panic. Anxiety adds a strong fear or dread component; sensitivity alone is more about intensity of experience and awareness.

Does this mean something bad definitely happened in my past?

Not necessarily. Many people with heightened perception did experience some form of emotional inconsistency, stress, or subtle invalidation growing up, but it doesn’t have to be a single dramatic event. Sometimes it’s a long series of small moments where you felt like you had to be alert to stay emotionally safe.

Can heightened perception be a strength at work?

Yes. It can make you excellent at reading clients, diffusing tension in teams, leading with empathy, and noticing issues before they blow up. The key is learning not to take on everyone else’s stress as your own, and setting realistic boundaries so you don’t burn out.

How do I explain this to friends or family who think I’m overreacting?

You might try language like: “I tend to pick up on emotions and tension really quickly; it’s just how my brain works. I’m not trying to be dramatic – I just experience things strongly, and I’m learning how to handle that better.” Keeping it simple and grounded usually lands better than long labels or diagnoses.

Will I always feel this intensely, or can it change?

You’ll probably always be on the more perceptive end of the spectrum – that’s part of who you are. But with self-understanding, nervous system support, and healthy boundaries, the intensity usually becomes more manageable. Over time, many people find their sensitivity shifts from something that controls them into something they can consciously use and gently protect.