The Highly-Sensitive Person (HSP) and Narcissistic Abuse. 7 Tips to Self-Protect.

If you’re here reading this, my first thought is that you identify as a highly sensitive person (HSP), or are considering this may be a real possibility.   Possibly you faced criticism in childhood for your emotional sensitivity, making futile attempts to “toughen-up” and numb yourself, all the while learning to become an expert at hiding from criticism and misunderstanding.  We may have learned from well-meaning parents, who feared that their emotionally sensitive children may be taken advantage of, or worse - bullied by others, and that our way of being in the world was wrong.  We learned that we needed to nurse our wounds in private. Wounds that were inflicted by parents and others, while living in a state of semi-exhaustion in the never-ending cycle of engagement with others followed by retreat.