Highly Sensitive Boys and Men - An Interview with Dr. Ted Zeff

Interesting, i believe we in America have been following a path that is extremely difficult for male's,and that starts when we're born when we are taken away from our mother's to have our genitals mutilated, which i firmly believe has a lifelong emotional as well as physical effect on all male's that this happens too. What are your thoughts? I believe this practice not only effects the male but everyone he has interactions with.

His theory about non-HSP’s being a dominant group that came over on the mayflower is ridiculous. I’ve been diagnosed as an HSP and I tend to like violence in movies and in real life as a former martial artist and boxer. I miss the contact, hard hitting of football also. And I am very high on the HSP scale.

I'm a HSP. Always have been and grew up in an environment that didn't allow for it. I feel things deeply and can be ultra-sensitive in romantic relationships, and end up sabotaging them because I never made my needs clear in the beginning. I'm usually accused of love-bombing which I never would do on purpose. I was pushing myself to appear as the strongest, or special – the most capable person in the room when in reality I benefit from a lot of care, and from people with a gentle and encouraging demeanour. I would take on all the responsibility and the workload and book expensive trips, and I was also successful entrepreneur in my early 20s, so everyone thought I had it all together. My competency made it easy for people to relax and trust me. Then I would change and become chaotic and pull back. I never realized that I built a highly functional shell around myself. It made me a gifted salesperson too. I could take the words out of people's mouths who were two or three times my age, clearly articulating their life experience and struggle, and I had the energy and results to back it up too. Later I would crumble under the pressure and feel a ton of shame and guilt. Ironically I'm in PR and this is not a good image to portray, but I also believe in honesty. I'm learning to take care of my own needs and give myself room for self-care and to recharge. When I do that, I naturally gravitate towards doing visionary and traditionally non-HSP things, and setting the bar high and accomplishing. If I'm too hard on myself, I pull back and go into more of a "winter" or a period of underperformance, ruminating and non-action. I'm only unlocking the full picture now at 26.

Your video was great and I'm so impressed to see you so clearly and cohesively articulate what it means to be an HSP. You are a wonderful clinical psychologist. I've seen others who understand the components of sensitivity but only as various standalone facts or things they read in the DSM V. There are so many useless listicles online, and nobody explaining the experience from A to Z. The way you explained this is like various gears all interlocking together to form a full picture, and then you gave concrete advice. Please don't stop making videos. The world needs more people like you.

So basically american..western culture is trash...makes sense..

Im struggling

For all HSP people. You NEED to Learn to say NO, to create boundaries!

Dont a lot of these people have a form of Autism called aspergers. I know my son definitely does and I always thought he was just really emotional.

Autism

It's probably just a cover up anyway sensitive guys and sensitive boys will sensitive men in general they're like hiding something b*** about themselves because they've always been dicks to me

Environment has greater impact to HSP then non HSP

I'm so glad he mentions HSP gay men. This is a kind of 'double jeopardy' where you're mocked for your sensitivity growing up by being called 'gay'...and it turns out they were right. You search for role models or people to look up to or mirror you and most of them do reflect your sensitivity back to you, but they do not reflect another fundamental facet of who you are. Same amongst LGBT role models, tho perhaps in reverse. So you wonder where exactly you are in the world! This is a supreme sense of powerlessness to circumstance and self-acceptance, both for sexuality and sensitivity, can become a kind of existential nightmare from which there is no waking. There is much danger in this realm of existential depression for suicide. Much hurt and loss of people who matter to you in your life occurs due to some misunderstanding or misconception about your fundamental nature. Ultimately, hopefully, we find the ones who can come on the journey of life with us, but there is much wounding that has occurred by this point. Will healing the wounds be the undertaking of a lifetime? I think so, yes.

So much good information. I am learning to understand and accept myself and I thank David every day for having talked about this thing called HSP.

My dad was an HSP and my nmom spoiled his life. I wish this was know a lot earlier, things would have been easier for him and me.

A good hunter is teh dead one. The inbred cocksucker was sensitive about its own butt, that's all.

If you like being a slave be sensitive.

As a man you are done.
If you can't hide it you are done.

In some circles showing compassion for others is seen as weakness. I can handle it so they should be able to as well.

This is good!! American society is BRUTAL for HSP boys and men

I am a gay man and I am a highly sensitive listening to you describe growing up was very accurate also the love of my love personally of music fine art nature. The Love of animals there's also a very intense emotion. growing up was very tough I felt the anger of society as well as my family that for me that I was gay I had to cover it up and it did not go well it involved shaving my head and just tattoos and lots of cigarettes it just was not fun I accept myself now and I love myself but I had to cut out a lot of toxic people in my life. I did go to many clubs and bars in my twenties mostly to get away from my toxic family and when I went I was still very introverted
I got along more with older men because I felt that they were more sponged in with the world meaning been there longer than just being a carefree spirit. Also there was a lot of toxic issues with working in a family business for 25 years which I'm no longer a part of for about 5 years. And that became a toxic nightmare my sister was very abusive had such hatred towards me and my father who was ashamed of me being gay was so fake and unloving and an omiter. I'm at a corporate company now ups and I'm very guarded as to keeping my personal life personal my name is Robert by the way and I just discovered your videos

This is the core wound of so many problems in the world today 😥🤗

They did not have to fight the real Americans
They chose too

Gay HSP here...it's a bitch!!! 😂😂😂

Had it beaten out of me, and punished into submission, it wasn’t successful. I’m a highly creative, intuitive man, living an artists life. No one would be my friend as a child, but that’s ok. I’ve found my own path. I had a highly abusive mother and absent father, layered in being gay and growing up in rural Canada. Wow, totally planned out some hard lessons to overcome.

But I love myself now, and it’s easier to be loving to others when it’s all sorted through. But I feel everything, see everything, and hear everything. I can barely function sometimes, unless in nature.

Yes this so sad! It is a cruel boy culture indeed! They internalize everything they feel and it becomes one of the many causes for disease, heart disease.

Sub.en italiano o en español 🙏

We are a luxury breed only catered for by civility and advancements in medication. HSP didnt exist 35, 000 yrs ago. We were all savages, any trace of sensitivity was weeded out darwinianingly so. Now that we are civil we can exist, but still badly. We look at humans impulsively trying to get their share, mindlessly ambitious to do whats expected of them - house, car, kids, holidays, netflix and retirement. I remember looking at the evolution of man chart, from ape to man and thinking in reality ppl are the man between the second last and the last, HSP being the most evolved. I say this not in terms of intellect, but in terms of the residual savage nature that still exists - dominance, adherence to cultural norms, lies, deceit for ones own gain, intolerance of what is different, all animalistic. We are a luxury breed that, perhaps 1/10,000 ppl produce something that can truly inspire humanity in some form, the rest of us have to learn to ride the tide of humanities lack of self-awareness and residual savagery and hunger for power.

Yeah, tell king crimson that men who play the flute are less masculine. I think sometimes people just say things to mess with one another and we often put too much stock in their expressions.

I'm a very hsp male. I don't like noises, crowds, mean people, loud people. People who say vicious things. I get frustrated and cry easily. I hate being around men.

Sensitive people wouldn't be the ones going off to the new world in search of adventure. America is only 245yrs old. An adolescent continent.

"There must be something wrong with me". Is how I felt for most of my life. I'm 28 and just learning about this. I've tried to repress so much of who I am because I felt like I didn't belong and even got bullied because I wanted to fit in. I don't say that for sympathy but simply because I'm so happy that my life and who I am has finally been validated. I'm overwhelmed with joy. ☺

do Asian cultures revere the sensitive?

any hsp ladies out there want to meet a 6 ft 145 lb 41 year old hsp man who just figured out what he is?

time machine??? is the only explanation for this guys viewpoint. from the my perspective of growing up in the New England area, the macho guy stuff went out in the early 80's and was eradicated by social studies teachers and feminists long ago. As far as sensitive boys being bullied..........they were never given the tools to feel the confidence and strength to stand up and fight back or at least have a strong posture.......a great tool to have when required....and would have paid of dividends if they learned the social dynamics of what bullying was all about, and how to beat it...(example - have the bully be ordered to be friends with his victim and protect him.....this will give both the education they really need as they learn about each other versus keeping both from maturing..............instead these bullied boys were told to that being weak was ok and went on to leas miserable lives.....what a waste....did I fail to mention that women get bored of sensitive guys after a while, and divorce them after having a few kids so that they can go shack up with the macho guy?.........contrast this to the message given to girls from the late 70's onward.....that they are to be strong and assertive and better than men and men are bad etc.........Also.............its obvious this guy has not traveled to China or Europe.....I have extensively.......there is no truth to his suggestions that guys in Europe paint etc etc and being a "man" is not as pronounce as in North America........its actually not much different. As far as China goes.......macho men are appreciated by women over there.......in fact...just google the topic of how China is now trying to get boys to be more macho........literally via training. I am a highly sensitive guy.....i wish i knew about this as a kid...then i could have been better at curbing my emotions and conserved my energy better.....i wish that i established the confidence i required as a kid......the best solution for that is hanging out with older kids who are much tougher than you.....it rubs off on you after a while. later in life i ended up doing things BECAUSE they were tough and required putting shyness aside.........now I am a different person totally, not perfect by any stretch.....but very outgoing. just some thoughts.......no looking for approval of any sort...thanks for reading.

When my grandfather died, my father and I were the first people at the viewing. We stood stoically by the coffin. Suddenly, my father's shoulders shook and his voice quivered. "Is it okay if I feel like crying". I opened my arms to him, and his 6'4" frame bowed down, his face buried in my shoulder as he wept. He would never have displayed his feelings, had my mother not been delayed.

Thank you for the good video.can you distinguish between being an HSP, having Aspergers (as a woman)and having unresolved childhood trauma as well?
I have been searching for help for 40 years, needing also physical health care. Massive new harms. And co-dependently "helping# my family,who don't want my help and heal.
Can a sensitive man be HSP despite being also an energetic Aries with initiative and with warm,firey Leo rising (astrologically), and able to stand /want to hear and make music much of the time? I am sure he is, but - not totally.
He got Paranoid psychosis from Marihuana and Amphetamine as a teenager 35 years ago, and got caught in "Schizophrenia" from the very meds. I got Anchylosing Spondylitis 35 years ago. My hypothesis is, he also is an HSP with food intolerances, as well as biochemical imbalance and heavy metal toxicity, which affect sensitive people more, since we get more stressed! The med drugs also make it possible to go on using some, it SEEMS like to him. The addiction of unresolved sympathetic dominance of CPTSD. His inj. Psych Centre don't do anything to heal traumas and provide assistence for his life and are hostile to me for wanting to help and check nutrition. I should be so grateful and glad if you kindly advise, please. We are both in burn-out since decades, I am losing teeth prematurely and have an extra aggressive Anchylosing Spondylitis. I was diagnosed only after 24 years, but still got no real help. Only 1 thing at the time,which cannot work then. Just as only 1 vitamin doesn't either.

A sensitive man is attractive if he is emotionally mature, not too selfishly-absorbed, and has worked at learning and adjusting to his functions and needs, so he doesn't behave too femininely `= Yin. And has contact with his masculinity =Yang.
Interesting hypothesis about the early immigrants!

For HSP guys, undoubtedly one of the most afflicted groups in society - there is no end nor any escape from constant harassment. Especially the 'fair' sex are evolutionarily predisposed to aggressive shaming of sensitive guys. And completely shamelessly so. Infinitesimally few or no 'therapists' ever come close to realizing the pure h@t3 and cruelty on display, nor grasping the social dynamics behind it - but vehemently deny this reality. Even displaying a higher than average morality will trigger these attacks from the 'fair' sex, not to mention being vulnerable. Result - victimblaming and further shaming onto the already heavily burdened ostracized and victimized, eventually loosing all hope. Welcome to the everyday hell of the HSP guy. Plot twist irony - most 'alpha' guys wouldn't last a day under such onslaught.

Thank you :)

beautiful intro song - does anyone know what it is?

HSP and Anxiety here. Lol tough combo 😭

Someones intonation in a greeting can ruin me for hours

Highly sensitive men are average men who don't hide their irrational feelings towards inactivities they've experienced... This world is truly atrocious to men 😞

Too all you sensitive men, did you ever feel gay because of how you felt? Like ever in a sense that you didn’t feel like you related to other guys so you started confusing yourself feeling gay? Just curious, hope this doesn’t offend or press the wrong buttons. Going through things in my personal life & just want insight on the subject.

Great stuff. I am like this, a HSP 😁

I have HSP discovered that a few years ago, I hate to much noise around and stupid people, also I have not the inclination to cry seeing misery, but love animals, love being quiet in nature. I am a perfectionist and very demanding, I think I am not hate sloppy jobs and people.Not easy, being HSP and I hate stress and being pushed around, cannot stand people above me .

Being a highly sensitive male is the equivalent to being born with a serious disability in this society, it's awful! It makes you mad too cause it's like "I'm not gay!" this is just how I am.

I am an HSP and INFJ. I usually get lots of attention but I hate it. I need alone time as well. I enjoy reading and looking at views and listening to soft music.

Most of the time I feel like I don’t belong to the society because most people are too loud and vile. They can be insensitive as well. I also feel like most people will not understand us HSPs because they will usually say we are too sensitive, emotional or dramatic.they can’t relate because they lack compassion and comprehension. So we have to be the ones to adjust for them. I also cry easily even for sad commercials. I can feel deeply. Whenever I meet someone, I can feel their energy that it is a bad energy and I am usually right with my gut feelings. I never wanted to assume before, even if I feel something is off because I always think it is not good to judge others fast but I always regret not trusting my gut feelings because in the end I was right about those bad people.

I am so glad I found videos about HSPs. I even took the quiz. I have a bf who is amazing. He is also an HSP. We both understand each other. We also share the same sentiments and concerns.

I want to be just be happy, I am 16 and have depression 😢 because of my sensitivity and my father yells at me because he has anger issues.

Hi, Any thoughts about HSP and sleep?

Brothers, we are all united under a common titles