Five Intangible Thefts
We are takers and not givers. We drain, bleed, leech and suck dry. Whether it is occupying your home, using your car, borrowing money which we do not repay or something as simple as drinking your last can of soda, our kind are recidivists in the art of stealing. We are entitled to anything and everything, nothing is exclusively yours. We suck what you own and possess down into the plughole of our emptiness in an attempt to fill our vast black hole.This not only applies to material items and those things which are tangible. Upsetting and frustrating as it is when we help ourselves to your money and your possessions there are five things which we always take which are far more precious. These are high priorities for us to take from you. These are five intangibles that we always steal and this is why we do it.
1. Self-esteem
At the beginning of our interaction you are self-assured without being cocky or boastful. You know what you like, you are proud of your accomplishments and achievements without feeling any need to crow about them. I am jealous of your self-esteem and I want it for myself. I wish I could have that sense of independence and knowing your place and role in the world and being content with it. I have to gain my self-esteem from the views and comments of others and I long to have it already in place just as you have. My bilious jealousy means that I want to shatter your self-esteem through my repeated put-downs, my reminders of your failings and the trumped-up elevation of my brilliance over you. I want to snatch it away from you, use some of it for myself and with the remainder I want to rip it apart leaving you unsure, uncertain and clinging to me. I want to reverse the roles so that you look at me and wish you had what I have.
2. Self-confidence
You may not me a demagogue. You may not stand before a sea of faces and hold them in your rapt attention but you knew that you did certain things well. You had confidence in your abilities, your likeable characteristics and you also knew where you had failings and weaknesses. You addressed those vulnerabilities and you never made them someone else’s problem. Once again my envy is such that I want this self-confidence. I know how to portray it with my boasting and bragging, always turning heads as I make a grand entrance, easily able to play to the crowd at a function as I am driven on by my knowing I am superior, I am entitled to this crowd’s attention and everyone should be praising me because I am worth praising. I suck the self-confidence from you, absorbing into me, powering my being with what you once had. My conjuring and manipulation is designed to drain you of your self-confidence to ensure that you rely on me all the more, turning to me for approval, seeking my permissions and always requiring my say so. You have to ask me first if you can see your friends, your conversations are never private as I am always listening in, you run every decision past me now for you are so fearful of making a mistake and incurring my wrath, be it a silent baleful glare or the blazing, spittle-flecked oral assault.You even ask if you may use the bathroom, such is the erosion of your self-confidence to make a decision for yourself.
3. Critical Thinking
You once were a pretty good judge of character, able to rationalise and evaluate but you did not reckon with the force that is my love-bombing. You should not be ashamed for few recognise it for what it really is and all too soon they become entangled in the seemingly wonderful golden period, unaware they have now been ensnared. We need to attack your critical thinking capability and damage it to the point of no function. If you are able to evaluate what we are doing, there is the possibility of you working us out and stopping the provision of the fuel that we need. There is a chance that you will escape us. We must not allow that to happen and through our gas lighting of you in particular, our repeated and sustained lying and the incessant barrage which exhausts you, we whittle away your ability to reason and think. The throbbing headache which never really goes away, the tiredness around your eyes and the sense of utter fatigue plays havoc with your ability to think straight and see what is really happening. It is far easier just to accept what we say as the truth. It is easier to go along with what we want. You can no longer distinguish reality from illusion as we hammer away until your critical thinking capability has been smashed.Now we can keep you in our grip without fear of you working things out.
4. Credibility
Once upon a time you were always believed. Your word was regarded as the truth and people accepted this. You were not questioned but rather when you explained something or recounted an incident you were believed. Not any more. We take your credibility and batter it into nothingness through the repeated application of character assassinations and smear campaigns. We put you down, we scold and chastise, we tell you how wrong you are, how worthless you are and that you are nothing without us until you start to doubt yourself. We do not stop there however. Your credibility is shattered with every one else. We need to smear your name to your friends, family, colleagues and neighbours so everyone realises that you are a habitual liar. You tell such terrible lies about me and them that nobody can believe you any longer. Add to this your exhaustion and generally histrionic presentation as a consequence of our other manipulations, when compared with our calm appearance then your credibility vanishes. We take it further so that you are not believed in situations dealing with your employer, the school, the authorities and so forth so that you find yourself in some Kafka-esque nightmare where you always feel like the accused and you are never believed. No we have free reign to spin our propaganda and maintain our superiority.
5. Trust
We finally take your ability to trust and we destroy it. You may think it odd that we might destroy your ability to trust us but that does not matter. If you no longer trust us we will still do as we please, we will still make out that it is your fault that we do what we do and because we have eroded your self-esteem, shattered your self-confidence, maligned your critical thinking and removed your credibility we will always triumph. It does not matter to us that we have removed any trust you once had for us because this removal is not going to stop us doing what we want to do. The trust that really matters, the trust that we have taken from you comes later. In the event that you escape us, whether it is through your own doing or staying free from us once we have discarded you, it is what comes next where the eradication of your ability to trust matters. We leave you always doubting those that you meet. We have you unable to trust someone who has taken an interest in you. Is this person like us? Are they showing signs similar to how we behaved? How can you tell whether they are genuine or not? You are no longer able to trust your own judgement and you are no longer able to trust those who might just happen to be genuine and make you happy. It is this final intangible theft that we commit which leaves the harshest and enduring legacy.
37 thoughts on “Five Intangible Thefts”
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This came to my mind earlier, with the 5 headings (self esteem, self confidence, critical thinking, credibility & trust). In my view, there are some empaths that tend to ‘carry out’ similar manipulations as narcissists do and they may actually do this “application” towards other empaths that do not do these manipulations. Some empaths have more vulnerability than others yet this does not actually stop the narcissistic behaviours from being held in check ie implying not clever enough, not good enough etc towards the more vulnerable empaths. Some empaths do it because of their unresolved ET / LT without thinking of the repercussions they are impacting (projecting out). Other empath(ic)s do it because of their “need” to have character traits (sometimes stolen from other people) to make themselves look better for “their” narcissist, at times, to the detriment of other people and to do this in public, not acceptable.
Excellent summation and desrciption of “thefts” and Kafka-esque’s nightmare.
I had all of those attempts to steal my soul during my life with first narc-husband (his mother and he both were clinically diagnosed). He never succeded doing it though, but he tried hard. Really hard.
He reached his mastery apogee during divorce process. His “smear” and revenge campaigns were enormous. He was pretty famous and public person and I caused the social uproar divorcing “so good, so brilliant, so magnificent man”.
“His” people paraded and paraded to my home like an endless caravan. They told me that I have to realize WHAT I’m loosing and I have to come back to him immediately. “His” people “attacked” me everywhere. At home, at university, at work, at social events. He even sent the Archbishop to my home and he gave me very impressive lecture about sanctity of marriage and future hell I definitely deserve to live in after divorce with such awesome man!
His numerous mistresses were very glad to hear “great news”. They hoped to be his next wives. He always told them that he couldn’t divorce me because of my “heavy, but invisible from outside somatic pathology”. He just couldn’t be so heartless and cruel and leave the “damsel in distress”! I had always been his “shield” against them.
Also, people wanted to hear my version and the real cause of my decision to divorce him, but I was silent. No matter what they had assumed and vocalized, I just enigmatically smiled to them. I let them enjoy their own fantasies, contemplate, invent “scandalous” versions. I didn’t care. I remember I met one young lady at social event (I’ve never seen her before) and she asked me “I heard that you are lesbian. Really?”. I said “Do you want to check it personally?”…
I knew that my departure was painful for him. I did everything in my power to “soften” this process. He was a great man, but I needed to go.
I remember when our divorce process was finished and we were staying alone in the corridor of the court house with final papers in our hands, he said “No matter what I did to you (he meant the smear and revenge campaign), you don’t give a damn about it, right? You know, I’ve never felt so powerless in my life. Perhaps, I have to kill you to get some semblance of satisfaction…”. I said “What are you waiting for? Do it”. He smiled and said “I’m not sure I’ll be a winner even after that. Damn you…”.
Life with Narcissist isn’t easy. In many cases it is impossible. In many cases it is fatal. And this post perfectly shows why. Good job, Tudor.
Thank you.
The last paragraph of this post is so very true.
Don’t think I’ll ever trust again, you don’t need an intimate partner to be happy anyway.
Sorry, HG. My knowledge of Bond trivia is close to zero. No way I can pass your quiz without googling. Pocket square? Rolex? I give up.
PS DC just seems more thoughtful than the others. And sad as it is for D to go, TH will totally rock it.
Fair enough. His father was Scottish and his mother Swiss. SC always wore….a toupe! DC was thoughtful, in the same way that I am. Always scheming.
It indeed combined well the CH-GB offspring.
The thoughtfulness of DC makes him also more interesting than the others.
Thanks for the facts!
But I am dissapointed that next movie is not with DC…. ☹️
SC bald is hotter than most men with hair. 😉
Good job I can do both then eh Cody?
Maybe it is like that……. Im anyway waiting anxiously for the next movie. Im a fan of 007
Looking forward . Good nite 🌔💋
Research HG?
No, James Bond is calling me along with my bed.I like to watch one of our own in action before sleeping the sleep of the righteous.
So lovely ❤️❤️
Who was your favorite Bond?
Guessing NOT Daniel Craig. He appears to have something resembling empathy. Just a teeny bit. But it’s there.
Favorite Bond girl? (Okay to have a Top 3)
I thought Pierce Brosnan was very good. Timothy Dalton played Bond as Daniel Craig has done – darker, rugged and more action – but the audience was not ready for that after the suaveness of Connery and the wise-cracking of Moore. It may surprise you that Craig is my favourite actor who has played bond because I think he encompasses the narcissistic sociopathic side of him brilliantly. Bond is a killing machine and does so without remorse, he uses everyone around him in the furtherance of his aims and does as he pleases. He does not respect rules or convention and Craig has done this really well. It was a pity when he said he no longer wanted to play Bond and it seems that Tom Hiddleston is in the box seat to take over. When you say that Craig has shown some empathy, where have you seen that?
Favourite bond girl? I will take the top three, actually no a top five, but in no particular order – Honor Blackman (her character’s name gets her in the top three alone), Lois Chilles (again the character’s name merits inclusion), Fiona Fullerton, Eva Green and Gemma Arterton but it is difficult to whittle it down to five to be honest.
Quick quiz for you (no googling)
1. What nationalities were Bond’s parents?
2. What item did Sean Connery always wear in all his Bond films? It was the same thing every time, i.e. he always wore underwear but not the same pair of briefs so it is something else.
The music of specter shows alot of empathy, with the writings on the wall and other songs talking about love. In fact these are the impressive lyrics when the movie ends. Also in the movie when he tries to save the bond girl from the soon to explode building.. Making the viewer get the impression about love!!! Yes love!! I had to listen to the song maybe 20 times to convince myself thats what the script wanted to show.
Craig is by far the best 😉.
Lovely song ❤️
I’ve been here before
But always hit the floor
I’ve spent a lifetime running
And I always get away
But with you I’m feeling something
That makes me want to stay
I’m prepared for this
I never shoot to miss
But I feel like a storm is coming
If I’m gonna make it through the day
Then there’s no more use in running
This is something I gotta face
If I risk it all
Could you break my fall?
How do I live? How do I breathe?
When you’re not here I’m suffocating
I want to feel love, run through my blood
Tell me is this where I give it all up?
For you I have to risk it all
Cause the writing’s on the wall
A million shards of glass
That haunt me from my past
As the stars begin to gather
And the light begins to fade
When all hope begins to shatter
Know that I won’t be afraid
If I risk it all
Could you break my fall?
How do I live? How do I breathe?
When you’re not here I’m suffocating
I want to feel love, run through my blood
Tell me is this where I give it all up?
For you I have to risk it all
Cause the writing’s on the wall
The writing’s on the wall
How do I live? How do I breathe?
When you’re not here I’m suffocating
I want to feel love, run through my blood
Tell me is this where I give it all up?
How do I live? How do I breathe?
When you’re not here I’m suffocating
I want to feel love, run through my blood
Tell me is this where I give it all up?
For you I have to risk it all
Cause the writing’s on the wall
Hollywood knows the public wants a “love” story and Hollywood wants to sell movie tickets.
Bingo.
https://youtu.be/8jzDnsjYv9A
The Austrian alps ❤️
The questions are for you HG
What is healthy esteem? Being proud of what you are and what you achieve and do.
What are the differences between a non productive and productive empath? In what context? Producing or not producing what?
Where do these traits manifest on spectrum of empathy? They are all on the spectrum, where I would place them would no doubt be different to how someone who is empathic would place them or someone who is “neutral” would place them if I can put it like that.
Thanks 💝
Before expounding on esteem and empathy, of which I feel is important, I would like to answer your questions as well as ask a clarifying question in relation to your response.
Your question of context around producing:
“Damaged individuals attract us, indeed it often the case that the most productive empaths are those who are damaged in some way – martyrs and co-dependents being key examples”
The question arises through your context of “most productive empaths are those who are damaged in some way.”
Can you define a productive and non-productive Empath?
Can you clarify and expand on your use of “ someone who is “ neutral” “
It isn’t a question of productive and non-productive, but in the context of productive and more productive in respect of the provision of fuel.
I am at one end of the scale in terms of lack of empathy, an empath is at the other end, flowing with empathy, a person who has some empathy but not on an empathic person’s scale sits around the middle, in a neutral zone.
Did not understand have empathy on an empathic person scale … Can you please rephrase…
Thanks 😃
What is healthy esteem? What are the differences between a non productive and productive empath? Where do these traits manifest on spectrum of empathy?
Very good questions!!! You give so much expansion and insights! 🌷
Hello Nikita. Hope this finds you well. Thank you. I am awaiting HGs answers.
They shall be answered tomorrow.
😞 yes that was it…all of the above Except for No. 4. nobody has succeeded yet to tAke that one. Thanks God.
Take my ability to trust and destroy it, that’s what you do. And not just my ability to trust other people, you destroy my ability to trust myself.
Interesting on No. 1. So right from the get-go the attraction to us for self-esteem and self-confidence is out of coveting and jealousy? Not being drawn to us from a source of being likable and interesting to you? It’s more or less our energy sucking you in unknowingly?
It is lots of different things MLA, but the article was about those things we take from you and draining you of your likeability is not really something that happens.
What about attraction to the LACK of self-esteem and confidence? Does sensing hurt, vulnerability and desperation attract or repel you?
Damaged individuals attract us, indeed it often the case that the most productive empaths are those who are damaged in some way – martyrs and co-dependents being key examples. In certain instances a lack of esteem and a lack of confidence will pave the way for us so long as other traits that we require are present, as described in Sitting Target.
Wow