(This post is the most viewed post on this blog with over 18,000 views and 146 comments at the present time–2019.)

As a life coach and now as a spiritual counselor,  I have experience helping HSPs with emotional wounds from childhood often stemming from one or both parents being a malignant narcissist.  Emotional abuse is an especially horrible experience for a highly sensitive child.  It may be that you felt there was no caring about your feelings whatsoever.  You may have felt invisible and as if you don’t matter. …As if your feelings don’t matter!   If you were emotionally abused or continually diminished as a child by your parent it’s not healthy to hold that in! Let it out–voice it or write out the truth, acknowledge what happened and then continue to practice letting it go–releasing it–sending it out away from you to be replaced by comfort, compassion, and love for yourself.  It’s not healthy to hold onto blame–but admitting it is important and the start to healing repressed and denied emotions.

At under age 2, when we can’t express ourselves with words, we can only cry to get our needs met.  A sensitive child becomes obedient out of mortal fear but you can’t tell–they don’t look afraid because they have repressed it. As an obedient highly sensitive child, you put your own needs away and focus on pleasing others–but lying under the surface those unmet needs are still there!  Begging for attention!  Longing for love!  There is nothing wrong with you!  You are just afraid to speak up and ask for what you deserve.

And in some families there is no genuine love to be given.  And even as a tiny child you know it.  As the sensitive child in the family you felt it’s absence and it hurt like hell!  And you cried and complained and may have had tantrums of despair in the grocery store!  But then at some point it was too much and you stopped crying or complaining and you stopped being …YOU.  The fear of being hit or just the mean look from their eyes would feel like a spear of pain through your heart and it would shut you up over and over again until you gave up and became obedient.  And that is the trauma!  The pain so unbearable to a child that you cannot survive it and so the repression happens. (See Alice Millers’ book, The Drama of the Gifted Child.)

If you experienced this too, the fear you had to repress also held down your true self and all the feelings that went with it.  You became obedient and fearful from the trauma but instead of expressing your rage at the injustice of it all, you pushed your feelings down so deep you hid them even from yourself.  You didn’t know ’til now that you have such a rich and deep inner life, and a wonderful, loving personality.  It was all hiding in fear.  Until now.

Now it is safe to come out.  For whatever reason, your beginning years were spent in an environment of fear and no love, but there is love out there to be found! Get some support and start a life with stronger boundaries so that you can fully heal.  You may need to cut the strings so you can feel safe and free.  You deserve to live a life of peace that is free from guilt-inducing manipulations, negative comments undermining your confidence, fear-inducing threats, comments about the rewards others will get for being “good”.

It’s wrong to take care of the feelings of anyone who continually diminishes you in any way at the expense of yourself. It’s difficult but very necessary to set boundaries with malignant narcissists.  It’s especially hard being blamed and turned into the bad guy more than anything. It’s excruciating!   But you are worth the fight and you must be strong. You have to take care of yourself and your health.  You will also feel a sense of exhilaration and freedom and pride in yourself for being honest and no longer pretending like you approve of how they treat you.   With support from your new loved ones in your life you can move forward and go for your dreams!  You can learn to comfort yourself through the hard times.  Know the truth and be strong and hang on ”til the good times–“the sweet tasting good life”…   I love that song…”Way Over Yonder.  …the sun shinin’ golden, shinin’ right down on me.”

For more on the subjects I have written about today please click on “Recommended Books”.  Thank you so much for reading.  Please leave a comment about your story.  It will help others to know they are not alone.

With love,

Roxanne

Way Over Yonder lyrics
Songwriter: King, Carole

Way over yonder is a place that I know
Where I can find shelter from the hunger and cold
And the sweet tasting good life is so easily found
Way over yonder, that’s where I’m bound, that’s where I’m bound

I know when I get there, the first thing I’ll see
Is the sun shinin’ golden, shinin’ right down on me
Then trouble’s gonna lose me, worry, leave me behind
And I’ll stand up proudly in true peace of mind

Talkin’ about a, talkin’ about a
Way over yonder is the place I have seen
In the garden of wisdom from some long ago dream

And maybe tomorrow, I’ll find my way
To the land where the honey runs in the rivers each day
And the sweet tasting good life is so easily found, yes it is

Way over yonder, that’s where I’m
That’s where I’m bound, talkin’ about, talkin’ about
Way over yonder, that’s where I’m bound