This was the first thing that came to my mind when I was going thru the recovery stage of Narcissist Abuse. What was it about me that drew the narcissist to prey on me? There had to be something about me that caught her attention and caused her to target me. All of this took place in an open forum on Bonanza selling site. It's where you can post different topics or ask question or just have fun with other members by chatting. The thought of her just sitting back and watching me for god knows how long before she targeted me. This is a question that I'm sure you will be asking yourself in your recovery from a toxic narcissist.
I started hitting the pavement and doing google searches asking the same question. The two words that kept popping out were HSP, (Highly Sensitive Person) and Empath. The narcissist is on the low end spectrum, which is, no empathy and HSP and Empaths are on the high spectrum, which is high empathy, and everyone else is more or less in the middle. So now my journey started in doing research on these two keywords and see what I can find out about it. I researched HSP which is Highly Sensitive Person, first.
Highly Sensitive Person was coined by Elaine N. Aron. She has many books on the topic and has been researching it for years. She also has a test on her site to see if you are a HSP, which I took and passed, which really explained a lot of things regarding my life. It was like wow, another aha moment. I started to absorb all of this information and was excited to keep researching more and more. Everything started to makes sense now.. I have had so many aha moments in my research.
I started doing research on the other keyword, Empath and this is someone who is more sensitive than a HSP. I believe an Empath is a subset of a HSP. I believe not all HSP's are Empaths, but all Empaths are also HSP's. There is a lot of misinformation on the web where they are saying that HSP and Empath are the same.. They are not the same at all and many HSP's go around thinking they're an Empath and they're not. When I started reading the traits of an Empath, I could resonate with what I was reading and then another aha moment. I just kept pounding away and read everything I could online regarding Empaths. On my journey in finding out more of who I am, I finally got confirmation from my psychic friend that I am a HSP and a Empath. The confirmation came as a huge relief to me and now I can see things more clearly. One thing that sets an Empath apart from a HSP is that an Empath is a natural born healer.
Both HSP and Empaths have high levels of empathy and the narcissist is attracted to these kinds of people, because they can feed off of your energy and get lots of narcissistic supply. People with high empathy are very caring and loving people and very moved by things. We are a moth to the narcissists flame. We are nurturing, loving and caring and will do anything for people.. we want to fix everyone's pain and we want to try and make everyone happy. Well that works for the narcissist who just keeps taking and taking and does nothing in return. They play with your emotions and your heart strings and love all the narcissistic supply they get from us. So, in a sense, we are just a food source to them. They will suck your life force from your body and that is not a joke.
They know what they are looking for and that is when the prey begins. They watch your every action online.. the number one give away is animal lovers. They look for people who post on other peoples posts who are asking for prayers or who need help.. These are the things they look at to find their prey.
So if this question came to your mind in your recovery, then chances are you may be an HSP or an Empath.
I will say this.. I had a Deja vu moment in my healing from narcissistic abuse. It was so strange, it was like I had a warning, I saw it all happening to me in a dream or something and I just didn't remember. I believe a narcissist is used to wake us up to who we really are. I think the pain we endure from the abuse is to shed our false self and to bloom like a butterfly into our authentic self.
Please, if my blog helps you in any way, comment and share your experience! <3