Member-only story

One Thing Everyone Gets Wrong About Being a Sensitive Striver

Melody Wilding, LMSW
5 min readJun 21, 2021

--

Photo by Nataliya Vaitkevich via Pexels

Do you ever feel like a chameleon?

Like you spend your life trying to blend in, hiding your needs, your feelings, and your true personality?

By the time I finished college and grad school, I was the Queen Chameleon.

Growing up it became clear that I didn’t approach the world in the same way as everyone else. I was more deeply affected by everything happening both within and around me.

As a result, I thought there was something wrong with me, that my sensitive nature made me defective somehow. Negative comments from others (“stop taking everything so personally,” “grow a thicker skin,” etc.) only amplified my insecurities.

I always felt out of place and so I learned to let people see only the parts of me that I thought were acceptable. The rest I camouflaged the best I could.

That’s my story. But it isn’t unique to me.

I’ve coached countless high-achievers over the years that have felt compelled to take the chameleon approach because they felt they were “too much”. They, too, have hid parts of themselves in a desperate attempt to fit in and be liked.

But here’s the thing:

--

--

Melody Wilding, LMSW
Melody Wilding, LMSW

Written by Melody Wilding, LMSW

Author of MANAGING UP & TRUST YOURSELF. Executive coach. Human behavior professor. Featured in NYT, WSJ, CNN. https://melodywilding.com/book

Responses (4)