Will You Ever Recognise?
Will you ever recognise me as I walk towards you, rictus grin fixed across my face, eyes ablaze with love, passion and desire? Will you notice the way I keep you in my sights as my charm flows over you, seeping into your every pore and orifice? Will you take heed of the sugar-coated words as they spill from my mouth, telling you so remarkably all the things that you want to hear? Will you take note of the phrases which have been recycled again and again and possess the novelty of a cliché? Will you look deep into my eyes and see past your reflection or will you remain transfixed by what shines in these dulled, dark eyes? Will you question how is it that I know so much about you, where you live, where you work, your hobbies and your hates? Will you feel the chill down your spine as I appear once again without warning at a location you frequent or will you regard it as the tingling sensation of excitement and the thrill of my alluring personality? Will you question the platitudes that I issue, like confetti sprinkled on the breeze or will you smile and nod and savour the warmth that rises within you as I tell you how wonderful you are and that we belong together? Will you frown at my declaration of love within a day and a night and a day of meeting you or will you accept and swallow those carefully crafted words without a moment’s consideration? Will you wonder how my hands and mouth became so skilled or will you submit to their heady application and give breathless thanks that they are laid upon you? Will you query how this golden light continues to shine and wonder why you were chosen above all the others? Will you see through the veneer of scathing hatred for those who have gone before you or will you become co-conspirator and sneer at her or at him, disgusted by their lack of dignity in the way that they behave? Will you not ask yourself whether their words ring with truth and why they look as if their very essence has been sucked from them, leaving naught but a fractured shell? Will you wonder why the gifts keep on coming? Will you question the forbidden fruits that have been laid before you or will you gorge on them, delirious with desire and elated by the ecstasy of our largesse?
Will you recognise me when I turn my face from you when you try to kiss me? Will you know what is happening when you are left in a tearful heap on the floor for the third time in a week or will you flagellate yourself for your shortcomings? Will you notice as the triangles are weaved around you and your best friend becomes your supposed enemy, but by whose say so? Will you fight back against the control that is exerted on the way you look, what you choose to do and who you interact with or will you accept it and allow your sense of self to evaporate? Will you understand what is happening to you as you crawl alone into that ice-cold bed, this once haven of sexual congress that now lies like an empty tomb ? Will you realise what is going on as you blink back tears as the clock shows 3am and you have no idea where I am? Will you stand up for yourself when you are labelled whore, slattern, idiot and fool or will you bow your head and retreat, thankful that your injuries are only verbal. This time. Will you remember what you once were ? Will you remain bound by the chains of confusion or will you break them across your knee and free yourself from your cruel bondage?
Will you recognise me as my hand grips your throat and my bile-infused words rain down on you, spittle flecked hatred peppering your face? Will you dial my number for the fiftieth time in two hours as you desperately try to hear my voice and ask me, beg me, plead for me to come home? Will you wince as another dinner set falls prey to my savage fury ? Will you kneel and pick up the pieces, fingers shaking as you fumble for the broken shards that lie scattered across the floor? Will you know what is being systematically done to you each and every day or will you obscure the reality by praying for that golden light to come back and dispel the darkness? Will you recognise me for what I truly am or will you make yet another excuse, wondering what will happen when you run dry of the excuses and hastily constructed explanations for my reign of terror?
Will you recognise me as I cast you aside, shoved into the dirt and sneered at? Will you look up from the smouldering ruins of what we once had and see her (or is it you?) looking back at you with disdain writ large across her made-up features? She seems so familiar, do you know her, there is such a fog now and it clouds so much. Will you understand why you have been forgotten about as your numbed fingers compose another searching e-mail, asking for explanations that will not come, expressing tearful anger that will be smiled at, detailing your abject hurt which will only ever receive a dismissive shrug?
Will you recognise me for what I am when I reach out a hand and lift you from your broken existence? Will you know what truly is going to happen as I lead you once more towards the brilliant, burning golden light? Will you feel the prick of caution in your mind or will you gladly race towards the promised land once again, concern and hesitation thrown to one side? Will you notice the rictus grin once again as you race ahead of me? Will you pay attention to the darkened glint in my baleful gaze or will you charge headlong towards the paradise, addicted to its warmth and glorious sensations? Will you recognise me as I close the door behind us, bolt it and turn the heavy iron key in the lock as the thick drapes are pulled across the dirt-smeared windows? Will you notice the sharpened dagger that I have produced and hold behind my back?
Will you stop and glance in the shattered mirror that dominates this place and if you do, will you recognise yourself?
55 thoughts on “Will You Ever Recognise?”
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I will.
Thanks alot for your clear answer. I had this question now for 16 years, as I always thought the money constraints as students we had during the first years of marriage. He blamed me… And was furious.
“Will you recognise me as my hand grips your throat and my bile-infused words rain down on you, spittle flecked hatred peppering your face? “- I’ve been on the receiving end of this demonstration and it is unforgettable. Your colorful words describe it perfectly. How do you do it so well?😊
I had to look up “rictus” grin…had not heard the word before. But I have certainly seen a frozen, fake smile…open mouthed and resembling a birds agape beak.
The verbose metaphorical prose in this blog made the hair on my neck stand up.
Thanks Bethany. How do I do it so well? A combination of ability and recall.
You can recall your hand around someone’s throat? I hope not! That would be very saddening for me.
And, dare I say, research…fb and this blog must prove as invaluable to you, as it does to us.
HG I am new to your site and have been reading and trying to understand the N I was involved with. My N was what i refer to as a ” bottom feeder ” ( you know cant hold a job always victim) I thought you stated that you have either written or will be writing about these types. Do you have a book about these types of N’s or is it going to be in one of your upcoming blogs?
Hello Iseeu and welcome to the blog. The Victim Narcissist that you describe has a section in the book Sitting Target which you will find of interest. There will be, at an as yet unspecified point a book dedicated to the Victim Narcissist.
Thanks i will pick up that book. This has been an eye opener for me. One more question if you dont mind. Just trying to get my head around this. So EVERYTHING you do is calculated, and you are conscious of your actions?
It is and I am, but that is not always the case for all of our kind. There is a question on this very point in Ask the Narcissist which will be available shortly.
Hi HG: I still check in from time to time…. I can honestly say I have put the knowledge I’ve gained here to work- I’ve been on several dates from online profile and had a few ‘promising’ with someone but there were certain ‘red flags ‘ that didn’t add up…. THIS TIME I listened…. Feeling very strong tonight 🙂
Thx for the ammo …..
Hello GG, good to know you are still keeping an eye on me. Interesting to see you are putting the knowledge to work. Red Flag will be on interest to you since you are venturing out into a hunting ground with some online dating. You are welcome.
T,
It sounds like the ex boyfriend you speak about who was not a N does display quite a few traits. Because you say he does possess empathy, and I’m assuming a healthy range of other emotions, he doesn’t meet the diagnostic criteria of NPD. This would make him “not quite a narc” 😉
THANK GOD! I will admit he does posses some N traits…but he has a normal amount of empathy. He does have a big personality…but every Leo I know does…
I’m glad not all of my exes are Narcs…..lol!
HG, Narc’s aren’t the only one’s who love bomb, sociopaths also share that trait. You are very correct in saying that normal guys do not love bomb. There is a HUGE difference between a man showing excitement and a healthy interest in a new love prospect and a man who professes his undying love after one date! Nothing about love bombing feels natural or “right.”
Brilliantly written! I’d like to think that anyone who has experienced “love bombing” could recognize it again in a new paramour. The first time I experienced it I immediately knew that it was very strange and boundaries were crossed during the first text conversation. Red flags blew daily but I chose to ignore them and continue onward. It wasn’t until I experienced the name calling and irrational raging that I began to see things for what they were. Now I’m on high alert and anytime someone even begins referring to me as “baby” very early on I begin to have doubts.
Thank you, at least you have learned from the experience and realise the danger signals.
It’s hard to tell the difference in the beginning….normal guys that are “smitten’ love bomb, too….
My last N love bombed me…but it all seemed so real and natural…we were both in our 40’s and never married…I genuinely thought I found the man I was to marry…every box ticked..he was tall, brilliant, well mannered, Christian (although I could never get him to church-RED FLAG), financially secure, no priors (wives/kids), Handsome, too……
We were EVERYTHING each other wanted in a spouse and the attraction was off the charts….I had lots of experience with N’s…TONS…I never saw it in him until the bitter end…..
I disagree T. Normal guys do not love-bomb. They may be keen and most interested but they don’t love bomb. Only our kind love bomb. Unless of course you thought someone was normal and in reality he was not……
Well, HG…the bf right before the N pursued me aggressively…. However, he is a Leo (and they do LOVE–BIG! .GRAND GESTURES BIG TIME). Perhaps it wasn’t love bombing…..he never made promises he couldn’t keep…and he was measured in his approach…..He is a popular conservative radio talk show host….and most people accuse him of being an N, but I know differently….he has empathy…..and he takes responsibility for his actions and apologizes for his mistakes…
however, he does have a big ego…but I think a man with 3 hours of airtime everyday to air his opinions would need an ego.
He was big on grand gestures..but not big on the day to day aspects of being in a relationship. I refused to be exclusive for a month….he over did the flowers, Bday gifts, trips to Las Vegas, fancy dinners, and an early marriage proposal…and he kept it up until I agreed to date him exclusively…..and then it wasn’t any fun to him anymore…..I wanted to spend time in some nights and watch movies….but him being a local celebrity….he had all kinds of invites places and we made the political and social party rounds.
I think he enjoyed having some arm candy for these events. He’s a lifelong bachelor aged 53. He couldn’t give me what I wanted and our breakup was amicable and it hurt him deeply. He has a 3 hour radio show 5 days a week…and he often spoke of being broken hearted for being too set in his ways to change at his age. He was there for my family when my father died…and spoke well of him on his show. He has never said anything bad about me on air…and he respects my privacy by only referring to me as “the girl”….because my name is so rare.
My last N took me out to dine and movies EVERY NIGHT, promised me exactly what I wanted in the future, INSISTED on locking down a relationship before date #4, he became everything I said I wanted in my dating profile…and didn’t like me spending too much time with my friends….
I guess there was a difference…?
Brilliantly written, HG. No, I didn’t notice, I had no understanding of what my ex-husband was for so many years. Even after the marriage was long over, I still had no understanding of just who I had lived with. I have stories that would chill an empath’s bones of desperate escape attempts. Fleeing across the province with my ex hours away, only to have him discover through his lieutenants and race to intercept me. Being tracked and watched by eyes I was unaware of and having phone calls asking me who it was I had talked to and why, with specific locations and times. Things he couldn’t have known while he was working far from home. My children ripped from my arms by the police with ex parte orders from a Judge that bought into his wild stories of mental instability – although some truth to it at the time after all the years of abuse, my children were not in danger from me. All because I had I had made a mis-step by leaving the women’s shelter to see a friend and not realizing even 300 kms away he had eyes searching for me. Had I stayed in the protection of the shelter for just 1 more week, the order would have expired. So many things I can see clearly now that it took me years after escaping that I questioned but had no answers to at the time. It took me many more years to recognize that I blindly fell into the same trap with other Ns, but no more. I see and recognize them for what they are now.
Thank you Sheila and some clear examples of the reach we can achieve through our coterie and Lieutenants.
Sheila I did not know you had to face that also 🙁
It was bad Nikita, very bad, I remember watching the movie ‘Sleeping With The Enemy’ and the light bulb going off thinking “That’s what I have to do!’ Not quite to the extent of creating a new identity and faking my death, but over a year of secret planning and orchestrating my final escape is what it took to get as far away from him as possible.
I watched that movie! How terrifying.
But all that is in the past so you have gone a long way. Still some challenges like all of us, but life is all about that. Enjoy the ride with what we have. Hugs Sheila. ☀️
Yes I have come a long way, but that took many years of therapy to accomplish. I still have C-PTSD that rears it’s ugly head at the slightest provocation. It’s not easy to get past years of degradation, being tied up, raped, gas-lighted to the extreme, ripped out of bed to be scolded and castigated for accidentally leaving something in the house a millimeter out of place, verbally abused, psychologically abused. I lived through a hell only similar survivors can even comprehend. I came close to wanting to end my life, so extremely close on several occasions. It was the only escape I could think of that he would be unable to stop. I passed though the bottom levels of hell and came out, by the Grace of God, a stronger person on the other side.
True Sheila. Difficult to imagine to the whole extent if you have not gone through that. Its very sad very sad all what you relate. Nevertheless if you still have PTSD its much better now.
May I just ask you why did you allow it to come to that extent? What hindered you from leaving before it got to that terrible level?
I was extremely young (17) and already damaged when I met my ex-husband. I fell for the love-bombing and seduction very easily and was pregnant within a short time with our first child, before I was even finished high school. It didn’t take long for him to isolate me and move us from the eyes of my family to the west coast. I was not allowed to work, my social interactions were always with him present and by my side to prevent me saying anything he didn’t approve of. The abuse was gradual and didn’t start off as much more then small things I could write off as insignificant. It grew over time in such a way as that it became ‘normal’. I was eventually brainwashed into believing I had no worth, I couldn’t support myself, I was ‘crazy’ and no one would believe me if I’d said anything against him because his friends thought he was the perfect husband and father. He demonstrated that whenever I needed to ‘learn a lesson’ by making me act out in crazy ways infront of his friends just so he could point it out, roll his eyes and complain to his friends that he was a saint for putting up with me. It never started out as insane as it ended, but just like putting a frog in a pot of water and gradually heating it to boil without them ever knowing the difference until too late, it was the same with the trap my ex closed on me.
A catalogue of narcissistic manipulations there Sheila,from love-bombing, isolation, making you out to be the crazy one, governing social interactions and the steady salami-slicing technique akin to the frog boiling you mention.
That would be the short list HG. There are enough past events I could write about to fill several novels. I would rate him to be as malign in nature as you, no offense.
None taken, Sheila.
HG I have a question here apropo Sheilas comment. Can the malignity of a narcissist depend on the interactions they have and the environemnt they are in? Like for example money stress or other similar stressors? Given the fact if course that there are no other comorbid PD.
We prefer our environments to be a product of us, rather than us being a product of our current environment but yes, such stressors in the environment will affect us. They will feel like criticisms (not earning enough, job not going well and so on) and we will react to that. Of course it will not be our fault. It will be someone else’s fault and usually yours, so you will bear the brunt of our ignited fury.
Thanks alot for your clear answer. I had this question now for 16 years, as I always thought the money constraints as students we had during the first years of marriage. He blamed me… And was furious.
Thanks Sheila for sharing. I see how it developped. Well now with all the lessons learned its peaceful to know that such a lifetime is over for ever.
😃. The light at the end of the tunnel.
I also want to clarify that being aware that I have C-PTSD doesn’t mean I’ve healed. It means that I understand that I have triggers that most likely I will always have in situations that may seem normal to most people, but will shut me down completely and regress back to feeling the way I did while suffering the trauma I went through. There’s no magic cure for people with C-PTSD and PTSD, we just learn to live with it and function as best as possible during trigger events.
We all learn the hard way with N’s, Sheila! Thank you for the honest example on why we can NEVER give an N or “his people” the benefit of the doubt…*hugs*…
Wow .. Very powerful HG . You been spying into my history , read the police records lol , because that’s my story there .
I never picked up the broken things he smashed though, I could always rely on him to do that , he couldn’t face the destruction he’d caused as if it were evidence, so he’d get up, clean it up , never say sorry & just carried on as if nothing happened .
The exception was the window he smashed my head through , he couldn’t hide that so gave me the silent treatment until it was replaced … Only a narc would do such terrible things to someone who loved them .
I’m still here though , getting happier & more confident as the weeks go by .. Aint no stoppin me now as the song goes If he dares try a hoover I’m armed & extremely dangerous 🙂
*hugs* to you, So Sad….
Thank you T xx
Bloody brilliant HG !! And this is exactly what I always need to be reminded of. It matters not how aware you are on a cognitive level of what they are and what they do. The pull is still there – but with education and understanding you can rationalise it and push it away.
It almost makes no sense why we keep going back for more pain ? Why would anyone want this ? But unless you’ve experienced it, it is impossible for outsiders tk understand.
I found a great little book which is based on chemical reactions in the brain. It’s more of a booklet really and explained in simple terms so you don’t need a science degree to understand.
It’s called, ‘your brain on love, sex and the narcissist’ by Shaida Aribi.
Don’t worry HG, this is no competition for your wonderful books.
Thanks Alexis. I should not think it is competition, we cannot have that!
Right, Alexis….NOBODY but another survivor will ever understand our pain…..even those who love us…
Totally T. It’s impossible for them to understand so I always keep it simple.
I recall a friend from a while back this was pre-N for me.
Anyway, she had a relationship with someone and it turned out badly for her and sent her a little crazy, it was all she could think about and talk about and she ended up with a police caution. I was there for her and still am (she’s fine now) but I did not understand and even I thought she was a little crazy.
I look back at it now and totally understand what happened to her, I realise it must have been an N she was involved with.
I never spoke about my situation with anyone other than very close family and other survivors even though I desperately wanted to at the time.
Yep H.G., I will recognize it. I baited the Narc and spent yesterday fighting. And oh did the insults come flying, along with gas lighting and projection. So this time as I caused his fury to ignite, which hasn’t happened in quite some time, I could label each insult as they came and choose my answers differently to mock him back, rather than show pure emotion and trying to reason or plea for him to reconsider. Fury was met with fury. And the finale was I got quite the final discard. An emotional, exhausting experiment but I knew the outcome. I could never imagine a human ever thinking about hoovering back around after the things he said. But seeing the tactics rolled out, it flipped a switch of pure repulsion. It’s going to get a lot easier to move on now. I don’t doubt what’s in store for the next person.
Thank you H.G.
Most interesting. I would have blagged a ticket to Clarece v JN, sounds like a fascinating battle. Indulge me with some of the exchanges.
I can PM those to you. There’s also a couple questions from yesterday at your convenience. Would be interesting to see if your reaction is “oh yes, I’ve said things along those lines” or “Clarece you clearly are delusional. What are you putting that chap thru?” Haha
Please do so. I have a backlog on FB at present owing to a deluge of messages so thank you for your patience.
OMG! One of his female minions who he knows I don’t have a high opinion of is tweeting about me. I had made a reference to her yesterday while things were getting heated. He had to have texted her while we were still going at it. Unreal!!! #thestruggleisreal
Why are you checking on what she is tweeting?
I thought to check this morning. He has used her twice to me in triangulation scenarios. She doesn’t even realize he’s playing her to do his dirty work. I have absolutely no intention of engaging or responding to any kind of social media smear or crusade. But it sure is fascinating having a label to his actions now, straight from an H.G. playbook.
Absolutely.
Be careful, MLA! You’re playing with fire….*hugs*
Oh, this is my going out with a bang. No more fires. Uneventful and boring will be just fine ahead for me! Hugs back!
What an excellent writen story!!! Its the perfect morning read but I have to tell you that it sounds very very scary.. 😖😖😖.
I thank God this minute that I never such a story with any of my Ns 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻.
Is this story true?