Nagging Itch
One of the reasons I chose you is that I know you have this overwhelming, almost insatiable need to know. I am fully aware of this and I utilise it to my advantage. When I have cast you aside (or even on the rarest of occasions you decided to leave me) I always find someone else pretty quickly. I need to. I also make sure that you find out about this with one of my Relationship Bulletins (see separate post). I know you will find out about this relationship because you cannot help but keep an eye on what I am doing. You will check my Facebook page, you will follow me on Twitter (with an obscure handle of course). I know you talk to mutual friends and casually try and ascertain what I am doing, pretending that you don’t really care when inside it is eating away at you as you have to know.
Why do you do this? What is it that you desperately need to know? You need to know if I am happy with my new relationship. You are doubting yourself as you wonder why I am in love with her and not you. You cannot help but wonder at that. The thought manifests in your mind repeatedly. You see the pictures of me coiled around my new girlfriend, beaming smiles lighting up the page and you immediately query what has she got that I haven’t? Try and deny it, but I know this is precisely what you are thinking.
What makes it even worse is that my new-found love is posting updates about how happy she is and how wonderful I am. This makes you remember our golden period and I know you still hanker for a return to that. You still want to have that with me again and you wonder if it will be permanent with this new person. Perhaps she has some magic ingredient that will cause that intoxicating, spellbinding honeymoon period to continue forever. You try to convince yourself that she has not and that the wheel will come off eventually. Yet why do you still keep checking and foraging for more information about my new lady and me? What you need to realise is that the reason it did not succeed was down to you. You broke it. You spoilt it. Your obsessive questioning of me and your unbridled jealousy damaged that wonderful relationship we once had and look where it has left you? Alone and obsessing over my every move. It is a powerful, nagging itch and one you cannot scratch away.
31 thoughts on “Nagging Itch”
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Oh dear, I’m just as bad, even though it was a work narc situation. I find myself looking on Glassdoor and Indeed employee reviews to see if anyone has rage-quit lately, complained about the company, or specifically complained about GrinchLady. They have a pattern of very high turnover going back years, but I still want to reassure myself it was them, not me.
Not No Contact, is it, HG?
No, arenas 3 and 5, breaches of no contact. Must do better.
OTOH, I tracked down a former co-worker who was also having problems there. She left 2 weeks after I did–didn’t say if she jumped or was pushed–and said they were a bunch of hypocrites. Also said it was a lot easier when I was there–nice to be missed.
But yeah, I need to move on. I’m still fantasizing about what I’d do if I ran into any of them at the mall and didn’t notice soon enough to evade. Play deaf, dumb, and blind? Ask them if they have accepted Cthulhu, and curse them in R’lyehian if they haven’t? Begin the Roman Catholic rite of Exorcism? Start singing “Popular” fromWicked?
HG, I’m interested in what it looks like from your side.
The devalued predecessor was rejected (although not entirely, you still keep your foot in the door with a few things and still lure without disappearing on various levels).
You deal with a new tasty, innocent device.
The predecessor is silent. You despise him. It is not meant to disturb you. You have him under control. You’re convinced that he misses you pathetically … although, who knows, because she’s an ungrateful “bitch”, fuck it, now you’ve got a lovely new fuel spurting device.
(Sorry for the vocabulary, I reflect “my” narcissist)
Do you browse your predecessor’s social media (fb) to see what impression you left? If not, do you do it after a while? And, after what time? (statistical average)
FB is the only channel. The lieutenant receives bullshit.
Yes, that’s three questions.
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Please without judging. I know what I am doing and I know why I am doing this. And I know what the risks are for me.
I’m interested in your pace (I’ll take into account the smaller matrix of “my” narcissist myself and a few other factors).
Are you asking these questions of me or with regard to narcissists generally as it is not clear who you mean when you say “your side” as you know, I write from various perspectives of my kind.
My questions are specific to you, HG.
I will try to translate this information into “my N”, knowing the nuances of this acquaintance, his constant behavior and having some data from his life.
Sweet Joa go no contact. Take it from me, I thought I could handle it too. You will break eventually and it will catastrophic. Save yourself the humiliation and get out ahead of it while you still can with what self respect you have left. ❤
K Mac, the first time someone called me “sweet”. It doesn’t suit me at all 🙂
Thank you. Relax. I never ask him, I don’t beg him. I don’t speak first.
I only accept with gratitude what he “himself” gives. For the benefit of our child.
It’s a very complicated process that is hard to explain 🙂
The lack of contact (13 years) wasn’t that effective.
I got out. More aptly, I thought that I got out. You orbited me for years, suckling on the nectar of my misery. The poison was in my marrow. Then you sensed a shift, an ebb, the trickles waned and you must have known that I was cobbling myself back together out of the pieces you chiseled away, reshaped, and strewn across the sands. I found those shards just the way you’d left them, beneath the rubble, discarded and broken. I bloodied my fingers, picked up the pieces worth picking up, left the ones that weren’t, and then put them back how I thought they ought to be.
I was getting better, stronger, without you and because of you.
You reached out to remind me of your own blissful life, not without its crosses to bear. Work was a burden, but you have found a new job, a better job, and the hours are long but your shoulders are broad. The message here is that you work harder than me, I should never forget that I am too lazy to present a spotless home — “Did you even clean the baseboards?” You made certain to remind that you were ten steps ahead of me in the pursuit of happiness, you had things now that we never had because I was couldn’t XYZ, even though I gave you everything, more than I thought I had to give. It’s a favor you’re doing me, calling me, to remind me that my setbacks are faults of my own and you hope I have learned not to mistreat the next. What a shining example of inspiration you are for enduring the trials I inflicted upon you. I still believed your martyred gaslighting. I will for years to come, I will continue to doubt and over-analyze myself in every light and shadow. I will always do this, because of you.
Now, you don’t speak to me. It has been three years and it took me longer than that to figure out how to drive the stake back at you, wound you so deeply that you flew off into the night in the peak of fury and left my orbit forever.
I picked up new hobbies and, not just any hobbies, your hobbies. This was not to spite you, at first, or even emulate you, but it was because these things hurt me, I thought, “What better way to dull the blade than to use it? Again, again, and again,” til the scar tissue is so thick and the blade so dull that it cannot cut me anymore. After all, wasn’t it you who taught me that I can endure anything? Human resilience is amazing. I surpassed your skills, it wasn’t that hard; you only knew four chords on the guitar.
I took down barriers on social media a long time ago, allowing the public to see my feed. It’s not the public I was targeting, though. It was you. I don’t post anything about you, no mopey sulks for attention or inspirational platitudes, it’s like you’re a nightmare that I woke up from and the memory of you is being scoured away. You stopped existing, but I could feel you creeping over my media like hot breath on the back of my neck like I feel ghost of you now, back to haunt me. I shouldn’t have evoked you, but I have to evoke you to exorcise you. No one anywhere ever banished a demon without getting a good, hard look into its eyes and speaking its name.
When you reached out the last and, what I still believe to be, final time, you had a case against me. Your case was fabricated: half truth, a quarter of altered timelines, and a quarter complete fiction about things that happened years ago. Actually, they couldn’t have happened at all.
I laughed at you. When you got angry, I patronized you and expressed wry remorse, but it was a thin apology laced with barbs. You taught me how to use those.
Those pieces? That you left me in? They didn’t line up right when I tried to put them back together. I had to take some of yours. It was the only way to make you hate me enough to leave.
You will not be left alone forever. Your emotional thinking remains high as you continue to interact with the narcissist. You are being fooled into believing that your actions are logic, when they are not.
I left the country. Best of luck to her.
Cauldronofbats, beautiful, gorgeous description…
This is exactly how I feel. Exactly. Yes…
I just added fangs and claws, describing how I was fighting for myself and our baby after he disappeared. I told him all this and much more when he returned 13 years later…
Then I stopped talking.
Joa, you added fangs and claws? How feisty 🙂
Your profile pic is really good, it explains itself in many words 🙂
Yes. The disappearance of “my” narcissist had specific consequences.
1. His family rushed to tear me apart, then disappeared as well.
2. Narcissists at work, they have made great use of the fact that I am in a hopeless situation. Addicted to feed the baby and maintain the status quo.
3. My family – the struggle here was the greatest to maintain my own autonomy. I moved to another city. Nearby, but I’ve marked the border.
Hence the fangs and claws. This is how I feel it in retrospect. He threw me and my daughter into the lion’s mouth. The previous life was gone. I had to create a new one. Alone.
All in the dark atmosphere of his lack, longing, disbelief, struggling with dozens of feelings and hundreds of thoughts. It was a crazy time. Thanks to this I am today who I am. In a way, he turned out to be the most important figure in my life. God… 🙂
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Profile picture. I love this painter. This is my favorite living contemporary artist. I put more in the gallery. I think that almost every empath who is romantically involved with a narcissist, should perfectly understand the message of his beautiful images. He painted hundreds of pictures and I like about 95%. It’s a very lot!!! I can watch for hours. Up close – great details. Subconscious emotions are streaming in.
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There is also another Polish painter. Seemingly similar, but shows things from the other side. Fascinating. However, I will not recommend. I avoid. Whenever I am tempted to watch and go “into him”, additionally knowing the nightmare biography of his family, I end up in a black pit. Sometimes I throw myself there to bounce faster, when I’m in mine dark hole, but it’s a drastic and painful method 😊
Joa, thank you for explaining further in relation to fangs & claws. I understand perfectly when you mention about lions – being thrown into a lions den (narcissists) and being left to be torn apart – that is what it was like.
Interesting what you say about artists. Yes, I know of one that muvver knew. His work went ‘dark / haunting’ after his wife died. Then he painted good ‘light’ pictures. I have one of his pieces that was left to me that he did for muvver. I suppose artists / writers have ways of showing how they think / feel in their work. Singers too (with their songs).
I’m sorry is this the reply to my last post regarding my missing post or reply to my one last night? In my last post last night I was explaining do you think he would be classed as a narc? It was quite a long message but who better to answer any concerns than the master himself.. 😉☺
I had replied to your comment re missing post, the longer one is in moderation.
I’ll b sure to have a look ty 🙂 ☺
Thank u…. 🙂
Hi tudor..recently coming out of a 3yr relationship with a suspected narcassist ticking everybox of the traits. For many months now being on my devaluation stage has been a living he’ll of ups and downs.. each time resulting in him saying “when I leave you and that time is coming believe me” then he would go through phases of saying “I’m not going anywhere” has had my emotions up and down. Finally after many months of these threats,vile abuse and violence I asked him to leave my house which he refused to leave and putting more fear in me.. I moved out for a couple of days then taking no more of it I asked once more to leave and that the police will be involved if he refused.. he eventually moved out a few days later and since then he has been in contact with me a couple of times playing mind games with me as he had stolen money from me.. I’m wondering if I was on my discard? Or was he biding his time to discard me brutally or do u think he will be back to discard me completely? I’m going no contact and haven’t heard for a few days now. Any advice on this situation will be greatly received. .
He will be looking to hoover you and probably on a malign basis given that you brought about the cessation of the relationship. you need to use this time to build your defences, ensure you minimise all methods by which he can contact you, to stay out of the spheres of influence and to make yourself an unattractive proposition concerning prospective fuel for a hoover, thus minimising the risk that it will happen.
Thank you.. however I love this man very much and can’t stop thinking about him all the time.
Understandable but you will eventually.
I promise you will. I’m 3 years out now. It took me longer because I was around him all the time. It took a solid year of no exposure/contact to really be ok again. That unimaginable ache will subsidie. Hang in there. ❤
I seem to be a little bit lost here.. I’m very addicted to reading your story’s but I seem to have lost my post to you which was sent on the 22.9.16. I can’t remember which category it came under. Any help in me finding your replys quicker?
it may well be in moderation still KitKat.
That’s exactly why I will never give the Narc, who was once in my life, the time of day. I know that no matter what I do, what I say, the way I think or the way I feel, it will all be considered as fuel for him. As much as I wouldn’t wish him on anyone, anyone can have him, but it will definitely never be me again.
Thank you so much for your responses, HG. They are so very helpful to my moving forward. 🙂
You are most welcome Sharon.
I realize this was posted last September 2015, but I’m new to your blog and I’ve starting from the beginning. This post got me thinking and I thought I’d comment …
First of all, I will 100% admit (did that make you smile) that in the beginning, for at least the first 3 months after being discarded, I was absolutely doubting myself and wondering what the hell happened. Thankfully though, I never once believed it was my fault. The only fault I had in my narcissist relationship, was being in it. I knew better, but I ignored every single one of my intuitions … NEVER AGAIN.
What I wondered as I was reading this blog is, do you ever stop and think, even for just a millisecond, that maybe we just don’t care to know anything about you anymore; or that we just might not really give a shit whether you’re happy or not? In fact, do you ever, at all, think to yourself that maybe we might really be thinking, “I hope you burn in hell”? Do you think maybe what we might be feeling is that you deserve to live a miserable life?
You (the Narc) may think you stole my soul, but the truth is, you were a teacher for my soul. Because of you, I am a stronger, more wise, and even more of a loving woman because you taught me to love myself. Because of you I learned the importance of setting rules and boundaries for myself and knowing that never again, in my life, will anyone ever break them or cross them.
Believe it or not, the end of the dream you fabricated for me, as well as yourself, does not end with you consuming the entirety of my thoughts or my soul. No, the way it ends is you teaching me an extremely valuable life lesson. A life lesson that has come and gone from my life; and a life lesson which will stay with me FOREVER!!! That is TRULY the only thought I think of you.
I know now I was clearly targeted by you because you were too f**king good. You were perfect. You are a master at your game. But in the end, you aren’t the winner … we are!
Ultimately, we DO scratch the annoyingly, toxic itch away 🙂
Hello Sharon thank you for your post, it is always interesting to hear additional perspective on posts from previous (hence why I repeat some of them as well for people to reflect on again from a different standpoint and for those who are newer to the blog – welcome by the way).
I expect you to be thinking about me at all times. I bring that state of being to life. If you are thinking that you would rather see me burn in hell, so long as you are conveying that in some way (through an expression or gesture even if you are silent) then that is fuel and is therefore welcome.
If you state we deserve a miserable life then again this may appear as fuel and even if it does not and it wounds us as criticism, we will seek fuel elsewhere and then complain about how horrible you are to somebody else to gain more fuel.
Is it really true that it was our actions that broke the relationship ?
Was it not the mask slipping, your control not quite working its magic, hence our flurry of questions.
Is it not that you just needed to leave before we uncovered the total truth and your supply was terminated. Is it not the narc had to leave to have the last say of control leaving us behind without the closure of a normal relationship ending.
My ex left after me just asking for reassurance he was 7 mths Into a 3 yr posting to India. He wouldn’t accept my FB request but had obviously left my request pending as two new women FB friends of his appeared on my suggested friends list. All I asked was if you don’t use FB why are these there accused me of not trusting him it was just a question. I had been left to arrange a night away on his home leave. I made the arrangements was very excited to spend time together tried to call him was greeted with no answer but did get a text ( rather angry text) saying he knew what I was up to and it was to stop right now stop checking up on me. I replied with if you have a guilty conscience that’s your problem not mine. early hours of the morn he sends another text like nothing is wrong saying he misses me. We had the night away but another dilemma emerged Over some property he owns so no romantic break 😔
A couple of weeks later he returns to India at the airport it’s all how he loves me won’t be long till we are together again, how we will get married, asks me to leave my job gk to india with him i couldnt but daid id try to go there for a few months more i love you I will miss you etc etc. That was April 2015. I was due to go to India in December 2015 for my birthday. April early May all is well, then more probs He then delivers the silent treatment, he asks to be left alone. I oblige, 2 weeks go by, I message early June … No reply ask what’s wrong then bang it’s not working blah blah lets be friends there’s no one else ( what a joke). 5 weeks later July he’s engaged September he’s married her. She’s rich and very successful, not stunningly beautiful quite plain really. In the 4 yrs we were together he never posted a pic of me and him on his whatsapp or FB, but his whatsapp pic is a wedding pic now ( so to stab me )
Will he really change and stay with her I doubt it, just a matter of time,
If you don’t like commitment why get married ????
Why not except me as a FB friend while we were together ?
He never introduced me to friends said he was a private person.
Since our breakup I’ve found out he was into some kinky sex stuff previously to me.
He always insisted he would never be with a coloured person and if I had it was over but he’s married an Indian lady. Nothing makes any sense.
Is he a narcissist a sober the 4 yrs he’s finished it a couple of times but always come back crying saying he was sorry and wanted to be with me, he just thought I deserved a better BF.
I am fairly intelligent, have a good job and my own home. I doted on him would do anything for him lived him warts and all, what was the problem ?
Sorry for the long post.