The Five Flaws of Desolation
Five reasons it cannot work
1. Nothing about the golden period is real
It feels like every day is summer doesn’t it? Warm and wonderful. No rain clouds anywhere, just a cornflower blue sky. Not a cloud to be had. Everything is fantastic. We do everything together. We match on every conceivable level. I like what you like. We laugh at the same things. We enjoy the same books and films. I know what you are about to say. We like to cook together, try new wines and explore interesting places. Whether it is forest or foam, city or village we both enjoy going to these places and do so together. We are soulmates. I do not want anyone but you. You have finally met the person that you have wanted all of your life. You still cannot believe how lucky you are to have found someone like me, someone who cares for you, holds you, loves you and showers you with attention, praise and affection. What would you do without me? You struggle to even remember what life was like before I appeared, shiny and exciting. You never want it to end and you allow this golden effect to permeate deep inside you, touching every part of you. Every fibre of your being is coated with my golden touch. None of it is real. You have spent all your time looking at a mirror whilst wrapped in an illusion. I was never any of those things. I just showed you wanted you wanted to see, said what you wanted to hear and did what you wanted to experience. I am a con-man, a charlatan and a fraudster who trades in fake love and steals your true love. I am not what you think I am, I never was and I never will be.
2. Nothing is ever good enough
How soon the golden and glistening empire rots and rusts, those gleaming towers of glass and chrome shatter and crumble. What once seemed like it would stand for a thousand millennia has come crashing down. You scurry left and right, attending and caring, working yourself into a frenzied confusion as you try to hold it together. You cannot accept that this is happening and you try your utmost to stop the cascading stone and the splintering timber but it is an impossible task. You can no more prevent this edifice from tumbling to the ground than you can hold back the tide. The manifestation of this crumbling empire and your frantic efforts to rebuild it comes in how you try and try to please me. You give more of yourself each day in your desire to salvage what you understand, wrongly, to be us. You steadily erode your integrity in a bid to please me, make me happy and do whatever it takes to make things good once again. Each time you think you have got there, the bar is raised higher and then higher still. You keep giving and I keep taking. What worked last week is now scorned. What made me tell you that I loved you a month ago annoys me instead. I no longer want to be with you or be touched by you. No matter how hard you work, cook, clean, tidy and care. No matter how much effort you put into maintaining your figure, dressing attractively and taking an interest in my day, you are only ever met with scowls, scorn and abuse. You do not give up, not yet, but you fail to realise that this is a hole which can never be filled.
3. Nothing stops the games being played
The tears in your eyes will not abate the cruelty. The soft glistening tears which roll down your cheeks only appear as blood to the cruising shark. A green light to continue with the denigration and vicious nastiness in order to provoke more emotion from you. Today is a day of silence. The shoulder cold and brutal as you try to fathom out what is wrong and what you have done. Tomorrow is all smiles again although you are none the wiser as to what has happened to change that but by sundown you will be traipsing to a cold and empty bed as I vanish once again. I sit in my chair seemingly staring into nothingness but I am mentally flicking through my Devil’s Toolkit as I consider my next move. I arrange the pieces, you, my friends, my family, your friends, the neighbours and the man in the sandwich shop. All of you pawns on my giant chessboard as I decide where you should go. You try to learn the rules, to stay onside and avoid transgression but these games are played with just one rule. There are no rules. I revel in my gamesmanship as each day I deploy a new machination against you. These games will tear you apart and you can never hope to win at them.
4. Nothing surpasses fuel
Everything revolves around obtaining fuel, from you, form him and from her. It is a ceaseless quest for my lifeblood which ensures that I am always on the hunt. Restless until I find sufficient fuel and then planning the next move, this need comes above all else. Events are disrupted, dates are delayed, birthdays are ruined and anniversaries forgotten all in order to acquire my fuel. Your needs are placed way below mine, for fuel is everything. I have no responsibilities save the acquisition of fuel so children, jobs, money, health and harmony are all left at the wayside, neglected and abandoned to enable me to pursue the only thing that truly matters to me. I will do anything, say anything and be anything to obtain this fuel. Fuel makes me hurt you, fuel makes me seduce your best friend, fuel makes me fire the nice guy in the office, fuel makes me take centre stage at get togethers. Fuel is all.
5. Nothing will ever change.
There are those of my kind who know not what they are and any such attempts to pin them with the blame of awareness will be resisted with the speed and instinct of pulling your hand away from a flame. They do not know what they are but they know that you are the enemy, seeking to foist change when it is not needed, a part of your attempt to control them and punish them when they have done nothing wrong. Change is not needed and will never happen with them. Those of us who know what we do see no reason to change. We are conquerors, pioneers, leaders and ubermensch. We are supreme beings and we are always right. You make the changes to yourself and fit in with my new world order. I am mightier than you. This all works for me so why should I change? I am not required to change, I am the decider, I am not the one who is decided upon. I rule. I am not ruled. This is how it is and it shall always be the case. Deal with it. I will not change and I cannot change. I know what I am but I choose this, who would not do so when you are as triumphant and brilliant as I am? Nothing will ever change.
Besides, I am terrified of change.
55 thoughts on “The Five Flaws of Desolation”
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Nothing….nothing..nothing. ..:(
Hi HG. This article is absolutely terrifying. I continue to feed my narc fiancé with unconditional love. He inisists this he wants to change. But I know the truth. However I still havn’t went nc .
Hello Aleya, why haven’t you implemented NC?
So hard to do… we all know this is the answer. Total pull… addiction
HG…sometimes I so want to be like your kind…to not feel…to not agonise…it must be so freeing…
More than anything though HG, thank you for your posts. They hurt to read. Some of the things you write stab and twist that knife in my heart a little more…sometimes what you write helps me to feel stronger and I take a step forward…but other times I feel myself sink down again into the darkness…
Time to heal is slow HG…This experience has shattered all that I believed about who I am/was….I thought I was strong…clearly I’m not…I just wear my own mask well…
It is freeing and yet as I wrote in an earlier blog article I am a man in chains owing to my commitment to fuel although I must confess it does not feel like a hindrance. I am pleased you find my writing, no matter how painful at times, of assistance. I tell you how it is so you can best decide what to do with this information.
Would you like to be free of your chains?
I am used to them now. They are a necessary consequence of maintaining what I have to be, Castiel.
I understand HG…
The empath in me wants to respond with something that I think will end up just sounding crass and I don’t want to make your skin crawl as I have done in the past!
Do respond all the same Castiel, you have piqued my interest.
I’ve piqued your interest? Now I’m not sure whether I should stay or run!!
Stay.
Ha! Ok…I’ll stay while we are still in the golden period! 😉
What I was going to write…but deleted and rewrote and deleted and rewrote…you get the picture… and then decided to forget it…It was crass…was that when I read your response; “I am used to them now. They are a necessary consequence of maintaining what I have to be”… I wondered whether there was a sadness within you and a resignation that this is it when you wrote it! I was thinking…”HG…This is your life but it doesn’t have to stay this way…you are seeing therapists…work with them…you can be a different version of yourself…”…then the whole compassionate side of me started getting involved..and for a split second…I wanted to reach out to you…then I thought WTF!!!… STOP!!! CASTIEL….STOP BEING EMPATHIC!!!!
See…crass! I hope your skin has not crawled off your back 😨
Not crass. Why stop being empathic?
Why stop being empathic? HG…seriously? where is it getting me?
You’ve dodged my question about you tho…about feeling sadden or resigned…also I read your blog today about your fear that the creature may shove you over the edge…it’s this aspect of you that piques my interest; what lies beneath…how I would like to get to kniw that aspect of you! How about it?
This most awful of topics is being addressed through the ongoing work with the good doctors so expect further “bulletins” about this in the future.
HG, you have helped so many of us in so many ways !! My wish for you is to someday be able to face that creature and destroy it!!!! I hope your work with the Drs. Continues to help you accomplish that! Xxx😘
I wish you well HG and with your ongoing work with the good Doctors. I hope you are able to face the creature within you and are victorious. You don’t need to be afraid!
On that vein, I keep wondering what exactly you mean when you say “cease to exist”. You say this a lot: what does that mean to you? You alternately refer to refueling (or the inevitability of bouncing back), so this fear of exposure bringing about the cessation of your existence (and the ultimate goal you outline in your revenge book) is vague. Can you elaborate, please?
It means that which I am as shown to the world is no longer. Everything I have built up in order to exist as I want to exist is eradicated and wiped away.
Mixed in with that, is everyone therefore ignoring you too and treating you as being an irrelevant waste of space.
“It means that which I am as shown to the world is no longer. Everything I have built up in order to exist as I want to exist is eradicated and wiped away.”
When you build a house or buy one…you do that for all life? I ask you because, usually, as they earn money (insight in your situation) people are willing to build/buy a bigger/more beautiful/enduring one. I don’t know in your professional life, so I can’t speak of that but in your personal life you’ve only built “sand castles”. Yet…”Besides, I am terrified of change”. Don’t you need some stability, at least a long term IPPS? Some narcs (usually Greaters, people aware of their needs and wants) managed to find partners matching them in some ways, if not securing all their fuel, at least understanding their need to have many tertiary sources so that they receive the attention they crave.
Didn’t you find so far someone understanding your emotional needs? Understanding without you telling them about narcissism as that’s something hard to achieve…
That way you could keep the façade but have a more fulfilling personal life. My thoughts, hope you don’t mind…
Hello HG…I take it as a compliment that you have recognised my absence…
It’s horrible knowing everything was meaningless…I’ve struggle with this…I’ve heeded your advice but just keep slipping back…It’s like a never ending abyss of misery and confusion…my emotions feel shot to pieces…
Feeling desperate is an understatement…
It was indeed intended in a complimentary sense. It will take you time to process the enormity of how meaningless it actually was. You naturally fight against accepting that to be the case as that is your nature as an empathic person. That is why we choose you, so it is so hard for you to let go and move on.
we all choose each other. eventually the empath becomes conscious and is still choosing right back, the stakes are raised to a glorious unknown.
HG, your books and blog have helped me come to terms with the fact that none of the relationship was ever real to begin with. Interestingly, the N in my life told me as much four years ago, but nonetheless I held fast to the belief that the beginning must have been true/real, and that circumstances along the way had “hijacked” him causing him to get swept up and “lost.” I spent an absurd amount of time trying to “help” him “find his way” back. It hurts enormously to realize that it was a manipulation from the very beginning (14 years ago), but your writings have convinced me that that was the case. All of the signs were there. As brutal as it has been for me to learn the truth, it has also been remarkably liberating. I am a grown up. I will recover from the betrayal.
I’m not so sure my children will. They were 4 and 6 when he came into our lives, 13 and 15 when I moved us out. He made himself and his kids such an enormous part of our lives. He is woven into my children’s formative childhood memories, therefore into their very identities. At first he was a model of strength, stability, warmth, fairness, and acceptance. Then came the progressive tranformation into chaos, cruelty, and confusion. And then, poof! he and their step siblings were gone. A family destroyed.
On one hand, my children were relieved to be out of the maelstrom when I moved us out. On the other hand, they have been so deeply, so profoundly wounded by his devaluation and repeated discards of them (yes, he has hoovered them as well as me). My youngest has been particularly devastated, and in fact attempted suicide at the age of 14. They both have had to work hard to recover from the damage he inflicted. The good news is that they ARE healing, and at 18 and 20 are beginning to experience themselves as inherently valuable and worthy human beings again, which is something he seemed hell bent on destroying in them (and me, of course). But I’m not sure they will ever fully heal from his betrayal of them.
And I’m not sure I will ever fully heal from the guilt I feel for having brought him into their lives.
Hello FM thank you for sharing your experience and I am pleased you have found my writing to be of use to you. It has far-reaching consequences when somebody is there and then they vanish, although in your instance it is something of a mixed blessing as you describe. The guilt you describe is but one of the forms of manipulation we rely on and it is evident that your ex relied on this heavily. If my calculations are correct it is 5 years since you escaped him and it is clear hoovers followed. What is the current situation? How long is it since you have heard from him? Have you put you and your family out of reach?
This is an amazing post…I love you…I hate you…A whirlwind I’m my life…here one moment…gone the next leaving devastation and confusion in your wake…
Hello Castiel, been a little while since we have heard from you. Thank you for your comment.
“Terrified” of change? You exact change and feed off the aftermath! Excellent hook, as always. Will patiently wait for the rest of that thought.
Love your brutal honesty HG. Just love it. The emotion provoking confessions are so validating.
Thanks again for being the voice of truth, HG.
Ladies, it NEVER stops…..:(. They don’t leave you alone…
That “hot” date I had lined up for tonight……seemed “too good to be true”. I got suspicious….he works in big oil…so did N3. I figured out his full name and did a mini background check. This guy worked with N3 at the same oil company a few years back. This shouldn’t be alarming….many men work in the oil business in this town….but they have many things in common. I think N3 set me up. I’m not sure why he would care…..but I can’t shake this feeling. The last 2 days my cell phone has been inundated with “No caller ID” phone calls that NEVER leave a message….I thought perhaps it could by my ex sociopath friend….today marks the 10 year anniversary of the accident when she killed my friend…but I don’t think it’s her….I think it’s N3…..I’m sure of it.
I broke the “hot” date for tonight…..this time I am listening to my intuition. When I sent the message to break the date…there was no reply. He seemed very eager to meet me….
HG, your thoughts?
Every possibility that was a hoover by proxy from N3 and his failure to respond supports that view. He will be seeking instructions from N3. Let us know what happens next.
Thanks, HG!❤️
Keep listening to your gut T! Spare yourself the bad time on these useless dates that you will never get back!
Thanks, M.! The whole thing just seemed shady! Along with ALL OF THE HANGUPS this week, too. He is making me feel very nervous…..
It blows my mind how they keep circling like sharks!
I just believe there are certains things the N can do to set a more sustainable matrix and this starts with the people he sourrounds himself with.
According to what I saw and talked about with N3
Its a great post and very true. So exact on what we all lived.
Nothing that starts with fake can work.
Its sad to read how much pain can be inflicted for fuel 😢 And yes the N can never change, he can just learn to avoid the triggers of the “bad ” behaviors and avoid them and at the same time learn to modify them. I somehow believe this influences the fuel matrix but I am not sure.
My ex N told me in the beginning that he was going to “get his shine on” with me and my whole family. Especially with my mom because he knew she was leery of him. Hahahaha…I think my mom saw right through him the whole time.
Wow, would I love to send this to the Narc in my life. I’m aware though that it would be a waste of my energy. Great post…thanks for sharing it.
You are welcome.
So you are terrified of change! And you are terrified of the beast! Is there anything else that terrifies you HG?? Did not see that ending coming!! Xx
Or maybe I just wrote that so you will feel sorry for me?
Shocked maybe! Feel sorry for you never!! Xo
No, it’s good when you do this. Much of what you write is along the same lines as I’m sure you know; a brief faked golden period, the impossibility of a reciprocal relationship, fuel, the grandiosity, fuel, the crash and let’s not forget about fuel. Most of us are very familiar with all this. Many of your posts are simply reiterations of this cycle but presented in a slightly different way. But when you divulge this kind of information, this is where the value of this blog really lies, in my opinion at least. This is where the insights are. I certainly knew that my N disliked change most of the time. But finding out that this is symptomatic of the condition is very helpful stuff. More of this please.
And intimacy…don’t forget he’s terrified of that too!
How can I forget that Clarece! That is the most frightening of all!! Lol. X
Apparently there are different kinds of narcs… The covert narcs apparently are the ones who become very self aware that it’s a mental illness and have a deep seeded will to heal and some do and I talked to one who came out on the other end and became an advocate for unconditional love and spoke out about not the behavior of the narc but of everyone feeding their hatred off of narcs which is also mental illness.. Narcs serve a purpose while they are busy fueling themselves..Then there are ones so deep in the trenches like this guy it’s like going too deep into the dark side.. I mean Darth Vader had his final understanding in his last breath but not a minute sooner. This guy has a soul but maybe not this life he gets to use it. Maybe that’s his one and only truth.
Thanks for the post, Seva. Darth Vader had a lightsabre too, let’s not forget that either.
I love Star Wars 😃😃 but not the dark side of the force in real life.
My youngest brother breathes Star Wars and because of him I learned to like it.
Which is your favourite character?
Yes, and the light saber was not always red.
Why do I picture you with a red light sabre?
Oh the golden period is gorgeous, but it’s a fool’s gold, and I’ve been your fool so many times…distracted by all that glitters.