Some people could have unwittingly fallen into a narcissist regime from a young age, and/or they could be an emotionally sensitive person. Empaths, as they are referred to:

are intuitive and possess high emotional intelligence

experience their emotions with a very high intensity, which often debilitates and severely stunts the ability for rational thought

can sense and are very attuned to the emotions of others, even going as far as to take on these emotions, which can quickly drain the Empath’s energy if they are not careful

are good listeners and can sacrifice their attention for long periods of time

have a very strong craving to connect with others emotionally, which is often stronger than reason and common sense

have more difficulty than others in keeping up with daily life, and so are more prone to seeking out a higher power for guidance and support

can more easily be influenced than others

The emotional world of an Empath is very rich. They are artists and dreamers. They inspire others with their energy and zest for life. They are healers, and usually very creative and spiritual. They can brighten up a person’s day just by being themselves. Yet this richness comes with a cost:

Empaths crave love and connection more than most people, and they suffer when isolated. As a result of this deep need for emotional connection, their boundaries are usually weak.

The emotional buttons of an Empath are easier to push than those of Non-Empaths. Because they have a super sensitive emotional antenna, even the smallest attack can shake them up. When somebody else shows intense emotion, whether it be anger, sadness or outrage, the Empath feels like they are being engulfed and bombarded. With that, their immune system drops and their anxiety increases.

They often feel fatigued, just by being around people. They get sick more easily. They are often nervous and afraid. It has nothing to do with strength; inside their body and mind, they are simply overwhelmed with fear, shame and anxiety. This deafening, blinding emotional system makes it hard to see out into the world.

Empaths must have structure at all times. They need an environment which insulates them so that emotions don’t get out of hand.

For all of the above reasons, Empaths are perfect targets for narcissists. Their inner beauty, weak boundaries, compromised internal strength and strong need for connection make them a gold mine of narcissistic supply. To get the upper hand, the narcissist only has to bombard the emotional system of the Empath and then coerce the Empath into cooperating with their demands.

A high degree of skill and support is required to manage the often tumultuous inner world of the Empath properly. In many families, especially conservative, traditional or abusive ones, the need of the Empath to be deeply understood and supported can be neglected. Even worse, especially for men, they can be shamed for their 'softness'. These unmet needs and an inability to weather their emotional storm can leave the Empath with low self-esteem and an overwhelming craving for love, and not really be aware why. The narcissist will smell this like a shark smells blood and swoop in. The charm of the narcissist can be intoxicating and irresistible to the Empath. The narcissist can offer the Empath structure, even though that structure is oppressive and mostly benefits the narcissist.

“Limited research exists on sensory sensitivities specific to the gifted brain which show the actual process of stimulation and what is happening to cause the gifted brain to react, but the work that does appear to be related is intriguing. One study showed enhanced auditory response in exactly the way that we think the auditory superstimulability might look. Additional research shows that gifted children hear sound faster (earlier peak latency) and louder (amplitude) than non-gifted children. While this study concentrated solely on auditory processing, it is not a stretch to consider that this study might also pave the way to validate the experience of many gifted individuals (think: sock seams!). How else might this impact the daily experiences of a gifted child with those superstimulabilities? What seems “normal” to them may be different from the experiences of others. Skeptical adults may expect gifted children to go about the same activities as other children who do not have this obstacle to confront, leaving the gifted child in pain, discomfort, or exhaustion. They may learn to mistrust their own senses after being told repeatedly that what they feel is not real.

... Essentially, gifted kids are more likely to hear faster, louder, and longer than children who are not gifted. While the research doesn’t address this specifically, it seems likely that some of the need that many gifted adults have to isolate themselves stems less from introversion than from the fact that they may not outgrow these superstimulabilities. Instead, they simply learn to manage them.

Given this, it is not surprising that many gifted children have received diagnoses of Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD). Neuroscientist A. Jean Ayres, PhD, likened SPD to a neurological “traffic jam” that prevents certain parts of the brain from receiving the information needed to interpret sensory information correctly. The child responds to input in a hyper- or hypo-sensitive response. For example, the mechanics of their ears may work just fine but the message gets scrambled between that input and its receipt by the brain. While a variety of auditory processing disorder types exist, ultimately this may be due to an over-response or it can be a superstimulability. Many parents wonder whether SPD and Overexciteabilities or superstimulabilities are one and the same. Ultimately, they do appear to align. Beyond semantics, equally or even more important questions are how does it impact the child and how best to approach it? It may be discomfiting for the adults and inconvenient for the parents, but the actual experience of a life lived out of synchronicity with one’s peers—and the mismatch in expectations that results—will affect the day-to-day and long-term capabilities and even mental health of the child if it isn’t mitigated or accommodated. Ultimately, superstimulabilities are simply another of the many asynchronies with which gifted children and adults must cope.

Sensory perception is very much an individual experience. For some gifted people, their brain may perceive a noise as louder than other people do, while other gifted people’s brains may perceive a more typical volume but respond more intensely. In either case, the gifted person experiences a superstimulatory response which may interfere with other neurological processes or which may elicit a fight-or-flight reaction. Though the behaviors displayed may appear to be oppositional or pathological, they are not. Rather, they are reasonable reactions to real superstimulation—even if they are not the same reactions that the adults in the room are experiencing or expecting.

Another example of a superstimulability is smell, which can be overpowering and may even have physical ramifications. Also known as hyperosmia, it could explain the child who refuses to use a particular cleaning product or clean up after a pet for fear of vomiting. The parent may get very frustrated with the child who is then deemed irresponsible or defiant, not understanding that the child may want to do what they have been told to do, yet be unable at that time to follow through. The child with superstimulabilities is more likely to melt down from frustration resulting from conflicting messages in their brain (“cooperate” versus “don’t do it or you’ll puke”). They may develop anxiety because they never know when they will feel attacked either by the sensory input (which can hurt!) or by the misunderstanding of an adult who gets angry at them for what they cannot control.

Other sensory obstacles reported by parents include children whose heightened sense of smell makes it difficult to eat in the cafeteria at school, auditory superstimulabilities that make movies too loud, and vestibular responses [having to do with the inner ear; balance, dizziness, vertigo, motion sickness] that interfere with the ability to enjoy amusement parks, boat rides, and zip lines. These gifted children—and adults—may develop avoidance behaviors to protect themselves, but which undermine their own goals and desires. For example, a child with asynchronous vestibular perception may decline to attend a party for fear of being asked to dance, or a child with a strong creativity streak may decline to participate in an art class on the off-chance that the project may involve textiles with textures they find intolerable to touch. These may seem minor, but result in a sense of isolation and ostracism by others who read into it anything—that perhaps the child is a snob, “overdramatic,” or simply won’t behave appropriately (i.e., as expected)—but a sense of self-preservation. Unfortunately, while adulthood allows for more control over situations where these are concerns, it doesn’t remove the sense of being an outsider that the college student or young professional feels who is unable to join their colleagues in the kind of bonding and networking experiences that may be critical to their aspects of their adult lives.

Yes, physical sensation is one of the “overexcitabilities” that gifted people often experience! The five categories of overexcitabilities are Psychomotor, Sensual, Intellectual, Imaginational, and Emotional. Having sensual overexcitability mean that you might have a heightened awareness of all five senses: sight, smell, taste, touch, and hearing. You might get sick from the smell of certain foods or go nuts from the feeling of scratchy tags in your clothing. You can also get a lot of pleasure  from the tastes and textures of some foods or physical sensations. This overexcitability can also come with appreciation of beauty, whether in writing, music, art or nature, including the love of objects like jewelry; sensitivity to smells, tastes, or textures of foods; sensitivity to pollution; Tactile sensitivity (bothered by the feel of some materials on the skin or clothing tags); craving for pleasure; and a need or desire for comfort.

Googling around about giftedness and sensory overload, I’ve discovered it’s also possible for gifted people to have a Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD), and it’s possible that giftedness and SPD may be correlated. Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD) exists when sensory signals are either not detected or don't get organized into appropriate responses. SPD may affect as many as one in ten or one in 6 of children, and appears on a broad spectrum of severity. (Here’s a blog I saw from a parent of a kid with SPD, for more examples.)

“In fact, gifted people generally do not have significantly bigger brains than average. What they do appear to have is comparatively larger regional volume within specific areas of their brains. This increased grey matter volume is used to compute information at a pace that suggests significant qualitative differences in the regions...

These larger brain regions correlate to areas associated with higher intelligence and with sensory processing experiences. Specifically, language, sensory processing, visual, and emotional areas are impacted, all of which are, incidentally, associated with superstimulabilities, often known as overexcitabilities (OEs). The OEs were identified by the Polish psychologist Kazimierz Dabrowski, who “believed that some people have more ‘developmental potential’ than others, and that high intelligence (giftedness) and overexcitability were predisposing factors.”

... The brain does not grow at a consistent rate across all areas. The resulting asynchrony—particularly when these specific regions develop asymmetrically—can lead the gifted child to great strengths in some areas but also to a level of relative difficulty in others. The sections of the brain that have to work together on a particular task may not be in sync, thereby undermining efforts towards a skill or accomplishment. For example, a child who has a vibrant imagination or strong visual perception may desire to write down their ideas or turn them into works of art but be stymied by less well-developed fine motor skills or difficulty expressing language at a comparable ability level. In many gifted children, this asynchrony is not so extreme that it cannot be mitigated or accommodated in some way. For the gifted child whose asynchrony rises to the level of pathology—leading to a dual diagnosis, or twice-exceptionality—this can be a more serious concern requiring intervention to alleviate frustration and allow them to pursue their interests and accomplish their goals.

Some parents prefer to think of these asynchronies as merely “typical giftedness” and sometimes that is a valid description. Other times, they prefer either to avoid labels or not explain them to the child in order to protect their child’s feelings or how others may see the child.

Even when they are not especially quirky, their giftedness may be visible in behaviors and accomplishments, resulting in less than ideal social responses from others. Children know when they are different, often suspecting they are “broken” long before anyone else acknowledges their uniqueness. They also may engage in activities and learning opportunities using skills where they have strengths, but avoid those where they feel inadequate or for fear of being “found out” as a broken child. They are better off understanding themselves than being allowed to default to negative assumptions and poor self-concept. Parents and other influencing adults should seek to give these children experiences that allow those areas of their brain to develop at an appropriate pace and manner. These children may need scaffolding so that they can use their strengths to move ahead while continuing to provide opportunities for development both intellectually and emotionally.