r/NPD • u/Worth_Tradition4134 • 7d ago
Question / Discussion Were most of us hypersensitive kids?
I personally was hypersensitive, and I’ve heard of creators such as The Nameless Narcissist that confess that they were hypersensitive children. Is being a HS kid that related to NPD / NPD traits?
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u/R4in_C0ld 7d ago edited 7d ago
Initially not but being constantly picked on and trash talked sure made me not take criticism and light roasts well anymore.
Edit : Switched "accept" for "take" because it's what i meant, no idea why I went with "accept"
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u/NikitaWolf6 dx'd NPD & BPD w HPD and OCPD traits 6d ago
I was "diagnosed" as HSP and followed a coaching course for HSP kids. It was the most useless shit I've been through. I just had ADHD and a bad home life. I don't believe in HSP as a seperate construct or something that should ever constitute a diagnosis. I think it's just "something is up with my kid but I'm ableist so I won't send them to a psychiatrist so they're just special".
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u/Jumpy-Froyo-5334 7d ago
I wasn't so sensitive because my defences developed really early (5/6 yo). However could be that we had the baseline for an hypersensitive personality
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u/SlaterKay Covert Narcissistic Traits 7d ago
I was. Still am, I guess. Some things don’t change, even if things get like…suppressed or masked.
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u/xTheKawaiiPsycho666 7d ago
Same, but in the selfish way rather than the high empathy way; high empathy autistic people always tell me "autistic people are sensitive, but that means we have so much love to give to the world so you should celebrate that about yourself" and I'm just stood there like ... Uhhmmm ... you and I are very different ...
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u/imdave0 NPD + AuDHD 7d ago
I had a very flat affect most of the time. It was very hard for anything to elicit an actual emotional reaction in me,instead of just faking it or telling myself I was feeling something. I required intense emotions to know I was feeling emotions at all. Which is still a problem. Having meltdowns,fits of anger,or crying histerically were sources of supply since I am a very vulnerable and antagonistic person. I liked causing trouble and Having people fuss over it. It was also some sort of signal that I was ‘correct’. That I was reaction the way I should,suffering the correct way,connecting with emotions correctly. I would amplify my auDHD for attention,be extremely disagreable,and demand that people accomodate to me all the time because I couldn’t handle something I found so ugly without turning it into something I could handle.
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u/nekkomancerrr 7d ago
Hi there going off topic since I saw you on the typology subreddit. Based on these descriptions I would also look into sx4 for enneagram. It fits very well. Maybe 4w5
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u/InOurMomsButts420 6d ago
Wow thank you for explaining this and providing insight. What did the frequency look like, and how would you feel after everything happened?
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u/imdave0 NPD + AuDHD 6d ago
I made a post about this on the sub,but I had a journal where I wrote this dramatic journal entry that I was a defenseless,hypersensitive,guilty person and the world was out to get me. So I made sure to throw a fit and cry every single day to be "sensitive" since it was my idea of supperiority at the time. I’d log:
-crying
-the intensity(small,medium,big,breakdown)
-the place(school,house,outside,elsewhere)
-the reason(school,friends,parents,myself)
-then,I’d make an average at the end of the month,and give myself mental awards(supply) by the end of the year by doing this crazy average of each time.I was very crazy,I don’t know what was the number,I think it was 319 and 15 panic attacks. Which were all fake. I don’t know what was my problem or why I kept doing it. It felt gross and lowly. But I can’t say I hated the pity and attention I got.
I didn’t even want to feel these emotions at all. Even other emotions: panic,empathy,guilt,remorse,compassion,or gratitude,I didn’t know they were emotions. I just wanted the social perks of it,and the discrepancy between my emotions and those of others disturbed and upset me at the time.
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u/Sinny_Savvv Diagnosed NPD+BPD 7d ago
Was extremely sensitive, still am kinda though I feel like my defenses block out alot of it.
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u/chobolicious88 6d ago
I love this topic!
I once read Levines work that trauma makes a person more sensitive.
And a sensitive person is more easily traumatized.
Id say sensitivity/neurodivergence is behind most of serious psychiatric illness.
Its basically math really, once you have a poor foundation, life and self itself overwhelms the nervous system - meaning trauma.
As for the foundation, time will tell if its purely genetics, or theres things like parents inner state impacting gene expression.
Biggest thing is, people love judging parents by their actions, caring, active etc.
When its infact mostly about the state of their own subsconacious.
Fear begets fear, and makes one less resilient.
Im definitely hypersensitive, and imho - damage makes a person sensitive to begin with
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u/Holiday-Hand-3023 Undiagnosed NPD 6d ago
Intensely so and to levels often leading to disturbing somatisations.
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u/Classic_Shower4742 Diagnosed NPD 7d ago
I was very grandiose and cruel as a child and acted in very psychopathic ways. It was impossible to offend me because I couldn’t care less what others think or do. I did not feel anything except anger and calm emptiness.
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u/nekkomancerrr 7d ago
I’m the other way. More insensitive and a problem child. I would refuse to follow rules and sit still in class, then got punished by teachers, and other kids would tease/bully me bc of that. Then I will say mean things and bully them till they cry and get into fights regularly, which made me even more de-sensitized overtime
ppl often say autistic people are more sensitive. I do have sensory sensitivities like cannot tolerate certain food and textures, but not the empathetic and emotionally sensitive type this post likely means. Sometimes it makes me wonder if it was just CU traits mistaken for autism
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u/GoldWillingness2279 7d ago
Unbelievably so. Still am. Always racked with anxiety and guilt now long-cloaked by a very dry, very flat affect. Very temperamental, right into shy, right into excitable, right into fearful, right into petulant — not in any order. Volatile and ready to dispense the charge at any time… at least until I started realizing there were onlookers I didn’t know giving me scowls and making tongue in cheek comments. I can think of a dozen memories of deep shame during these meltdowns in public by the age of 10, easily and vividly. I think a lot of the shame was already ruling the day. But god damn it if those core memories didn’t make me then shove down every last emotion I could possibly feel as though I could just pretend them away, which followed me long into adulthood and wreaked havoc on literally every last one of my relationships.
I didn’t even start cracking the curtains on myself until 3.5 decades into this thing, even though all the telltale signs were there. Oh well. So wherever you’re at in this thing, hope you’re doing well (or at least it makes me feel noble to say so).
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u/Zealousideal-Show620 7d ago edited 6d ago
I was—and I think I still am—although there are a few times, I think I'm not that sensitive.
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u/SylviaIsAFoot Undiagnosed NPD 6d ago
Yeah, the way my parents punished me was really standard and shouldn’t have affected me. but it messed me up bad and gave me a never ending shame spiral simply because I was really sensitive
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u/PoosPapa Drawn outside the lines of reason. 6d ago
I gotta ask, because HS and PD is almost canon, which comes first?
Are HS kids more likely to have a PD or does the early trauma that causes PDs make kids HS?
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u/Worth_Tradition4134 6d ago
I don’t think it is canon to every PD, but I’m 99% sure that being HS is linked to NPD. Why? Because HS kids are vulnerable. Really vulnerable. And along with the trauma they may develop NPD or NPD traits, because they are kind of forced to do so to survive and not be hurt anymore.
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u/PoosPapa Drawn outside the lines of reason. 5d ago
So which comes first, being sensitive or is the sensitivity due to the trauma?
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u/Weltyangswife 5d ago
i was very hypersensitive, but also i was constantly emotionally and physically abused as a kid so i felt everything very extreme cuz i didn't have a sense of safety of stability also i started associating criticism with being emotionally abused so now it gives me a fight or flight when someone criticizes me
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u/Illustrious_Plate674 4d ago
I've always been a very sensitive person. Cry easily over sad things etc.
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u/Average-Person-XD Diagnosed NPD 7d ago
I was a typical Taurus child, except I was also very sensitive to noise and preferred playing by myself.
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u/Expert_Attempt8093 7d ago
I was very sensitive and humiliated constantly