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🇫🇮 Finland /Health & Science

Hypersensitivity is no longer dismissed as nonsense, and it could transform lives like mine

From Helsingin Sanomat · () Finnish

Translated from Finnish and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

In-depth Named sources Context piece
  • Heini Maksimainen describes living with heightened sensitivity to environmental stimuli, including loud music, cold air conditioning and poor ventilation.
  • She says hypersensitivity was once dismissed as an unscientific trend diagnosis, but scientific recognition is changing how people like her may understand their lives.

More than a decade ago, heightened sensitivity was dismissed as an unscientific fad diagnosis. Now science recognizes sensitivity, and that shift could transform the lives of people who become easily overwhelmed, writes Heini Maksimainen.

Some people react more strongly than others to stimuli in their surroundings. To outsiders, that can make a sensitive person seem as if they always have a pea under their mattress, like the princess in the familiar fairy tale.

“I have always been that princess,” Maksimainen writes. She is the person who finds music too loud and air conditioning too cold. She complains to the property management company about poor ventilation and sits in an open-plan office wearing hearing protection.

I have always been that princess.

· Heini MaksimainenShe uses the fairy-tale princess who detects a pea beneath many mattresses to describe her own sensitivity.
About this summary

Originally published by Helsingin Sanomat in Finnish. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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