I think you need to be a little careful about mixing up the Enneagram types with FOO issues. IMO, FOO creates who you are and helps to make you into a particular Enneagram type. I do believe genetic influences have a lot to do with our personality and therefore cause us to inherently have a certain Enneagram type. But I also think FOO can override a lot of the Enneagram, or at least tilt it way over to one side of the category or the other.
My point is that the Enneagram may give a lot of explanation for why you are in a certain category, but your negative FOO should really be more the focus of your work.
(I know there are terms for this like "fused" or "enmeshed" or something like that.) It's just the result of having an insecure attachment style.
This is just a twist on the old codependency idea. Fused and enmeshed people are codependent. That insecurity is from experiencing a FOO that created insecure attachment, rather than being born with insecure attachment, a subtle but important difference. To me, the latter implies it is something you are born with and can’t do much about, whereas the former implies you were impacted by environment and therefore can do something about it.
It's a combination of being raised by a non-HSP mother who thought I was flawed because I was sensitive,
I’d say it was a consequence of being raised by a mother with her own issues who projected onto her child (unknowingly of course) because she could not understand that child. Furthermore, it could very well be that your insecure attachment helped to make you even more HSP, further exacerbating the cycle.
What you are describing from the HSP book is exactly the same concept put forth in “The Narcissistic Family” book. A caregiver responding to his/her own needs creates a narcissistic setting for the child, and can even go so far as to cause the child to also contribute to meeting the needs of that caregiver. The child’s needs never get met, so the child learns that the only way to his/her needs met is to focus on him/herself, just as the caregiver is doing. The narcissistic cycle becomes self perpetuating and self sustaining.
So I think there are some people who are particularly HSP, such as Asperger’s, but I lean toward the idea that the rest of the HSP’s are traumatized people. Being very sensitive to having feelings hurt can be a symptom of having a lot of unresolved issues and not having a secure base from which to deal with those issues. With this understanding by both parties, a sense of compassion may be found to help give one another the support needed to tackle those issues and overcome them. Thinking of HSP as a genetic thing that you cannot do much about seems to me to be fatalistic and could resign you to just accepting your fate and saying you cannot do much about it. That is victim thinking and I think you and CAC already have more than your fair share of that.
