My old thread has locked up at the perfect time because I've decided to move in a different direction in my attempts to improve my R/M.
I picked up "The Highly Sensitive Person in Love" and I've read about half of it. I am finding it enlightening because I think the keys to understanding the difficulties between H and me lie in the truths in the HSP books.
I see now that my personality (there may be a better word than this) is really a combination of three things: 1) personality type (Enneagram type 4), 2) attachment style (preoccupied), and 3) temperament (highly sensitive person AND non-high sensation seeker).
This probably isn't news to many of you. It wasn't news to me, really. I understood the importance of knowing all this about myself. But, what I didn't "get" was that even if two people have the same Enneagram type, they might see things quite differently, especially if one was HSP, and the other was not. Unless we know our standing in all three "areas," we are missing pieces of the pie. Without all the pieces, we may find ourselves in lots of cheeseless tunnels.
This may be why fearless says she "gets" cac4. Lil believes that fearless is a type 5 as is cac4, AND I believe fearless has stated that she is an HSP, as is cac4. I don't know fearless' attachment style, but cac4's is dismissive avoidant. This also explains why Lil "gets" me. We are both type 4s and HSPs. Lil, what is your attachment style?
I've come to the conclusion that cac4 and I won't be able to make any real progress with our R until we explore and understand our HSP-ness (both alone and in relation to the other two components) and how it has affected ourselves and our R.
The other very important reason to try to understand all of this is because I suspect that S3 will be both a type 5 and an HSP.
I suspect that our mutual HSP-ness drew cac4 and me together. In many ways we are alike. When we met we were music students spending our days immersed in music. This is an HSP's dream. For us, music is an incredibly emotional experience. Of course it can be for non-HSPs as well, but for HSPs it is spiritual, it speaks to us at deep, core levels. (I'm not sure that I'm explaining this well. Maybe Lil can help me out. ) cac4 and I talked about how we each felt like we belonged at music school, no doubt because we were around other HSPs like ourselves. At music school it was safe to be a highly sensitive person, and as HSPs, we thrived in that environment.
) cac4 and I talked about how we each felt like we belonged at music school, no doubt because we were around other HSPs like ourselves. At music school it was safe to be a highly sensitive person, and as HSPs, we thrived in that environment.