Dylan is a wonderful guy from Canada who engaged me on Facebook regarding something I had posted promoting a workshop at Arlington Street Church on highly sensitive persons (HSP). He gave me permission to share his words with my blog readers.
He had written: Once I realized the pattern with narcissistic men and their attraction to HSP, that is when I realized I was a H.S. Person.
This got my attention and so I asked him to elaborate on what he meant, hoping that others could benefit.
Dylan: I was very young at the time of the 5 year relationship so it is hard to recall on all the details. Long story short, highly sensitive people are very attuned to other people’s emotions and feelings making them very good friends. I had a vast network of friends with whom I had one on one relationships. For the narcissist a highly sensitive person is a quick and easy connection to getting attention and being liked… I was worked over and used in order to fulfill an agenda for a narcissist…. This experience has led to me being able to identify when I am being used a lot better!
Me:Thank you Dylan. I appreciate the details. I’ve had a very similar experience except I was bullied by my older brother and by peers. This led me in a direction opposite to yours. I had a very small number of friends and an experience of loneliness and isolation most of my life. I too attracted narcissists, but many HSP’s don’t have good boundaries and can get sucked in by them in a harmful way. While I was not harmed, I was certainly disappointed when I discovered that friends turned out to have only one friend…themselves…and I was totally dispensable. I think it took till I was in my 40’s to smarten up and begin taking better care of myself.
Dylan: I came out at age 12 and I experienced a lot of different forms of bullying (from my older brother and family and friends) — from physical to verbal and even to being neglected and ignored… I too turned towards the path of isolation and alienation but it was certain individuals that restored my faith in people… I started building one on one relationships with people who I deemed worthy of trust… These people were from completely different situations as mine but we all had important things in common… Love for ourselves… despite what people said to us. We never accepted there was anything wrong with us. We knew that the people who pushed the ideal that we were flawed in some way were only doing so because they had been brain washed by the media in today’s society….. I also grew up in a Christian family and school and when I first felt rejected by my faith I realized that religions were pushing corrupted ideals into people’s heads. I turned down a path of spirituality and spent the rest of my life practicing religion in a broad spectrum of spiritual beliefs and faiths….It was my new trust in a few CLOSE friends and the love I felt from the Divine plane that pushed me into growing myself in anyways the world would let me!
Me: Beautiful, Dylan. I am grateful for the wonderful work you’ve done in your life!
I am grateful that Dylan revealed so much of his life to me. I thought it was important to share his words more widely first, to show that young people are seeking after a deeper spiritual life and second, and to illustrate how Dylan learned to reconcile his internal emotional wiring as an HSP with his life experience. Hopefully his words will ring true to many who are seekers and will enable them to find their own truth.
Contact the Man’s Coach at michael@parisecoaching.com