To the Extreme
We do not do things by halves. There is no magnolia adorning the walls where we live. Muzak does not play in the background and we never choose to eat vanilla ice cream. If it is neutral, if it is middle of the road and if it is sat on the fence we do not want to know. If it is bland you can forget about it, if something is inoffensive it is of no use to us and words such as unobjectionable, unprejudiced and unbiased are pointless.
We are not interested in fair or equitable and indifference is loathed by us. If you are uncommitted, open-minded, even-handed, detached and unaligned you are not performing as we want you to. Anything which smacks of being straight down the middle holds no interest for us because everything that we want has to be extreme. We want it ice cold or burning hot. Take our ignited fury for instance. When you pass comment on us or do something which is a criticism and you do so in an unemotional, detached and straightforward manner you may as well drive a spear into our hearts as this criticism wounds and burns. To counter it, our fury will ignite and then we retaliate by adopting the extreme. We may lash out at you, pouring scorn and labelling you with a medley of offensive and nasty words, designed to tear into you and cause you to sob. We may adopt the other extreme and provide you with our haughty and stand-offish cold fury, the icy glare and cold shoulder turned towards you. We live and flourish by extremes. There is never any settling for average. It is either feast or famine.
In the beginning, we must create a deluge of false affection as we lavish you with compliments and praise. The words come easily and these softly spoken or enthused exclamations (even our method of delivery adopts an extreme) are poured over you so you are drenched with our affection and love. You are drowning in desire, swamped by our seduction and buried beneath an avalanche of affection. You are given the expensive gifts, nothing cheap, nothing crass or tatty, only the finest and most delightful items are selected for you. You are regaled with tales of our achievements, our excellence and our brilliance. I was not player of the year once but four times. I am not just the highest biller in the department but the entire firm. My car is top of its range. I only ever eat organic, none of that fast processed food for me. My handkerchiefs are silk not cotton. I have three toothbrushes for morning, noon and night. I use four different skin products when I wash in the morning. You read War and Peace in a week? I did it in three days. I don’t just text message you once or twice each day, no, what would be the point of that? You receive a text tsunami. Impressed? You ought to be. That is how special you are and how sensational I am by being able to ping text after text your way and still be as hard-working as I am.
I don’t obey the speed limit, that is for ordinary people. When it is time to go out and party, you will always notice when my entourage and I have arrived. Just watch that bar bill escalate. Why have one partner when five can be juggled? Why gamble a hundred pounds when a thousand will win much more? Five star? I want five-star superior? I am the five-star combatant – the Admiral of the Fleet, Field Marshal and Marshal of the Air Force. Turn it up to eleven. Why a dozen guests? Make it two dozen. Let’s make a show, let’s make a splash, let’s push it further. I lead a life of excess. I engage in extreme behaviours. I never just talk, I either shout and rage or seductively whisper. I don’t get a cold, I have pneumonia and you had better look after me whilst I have it.
Not only do I cause you to soar to the heights, I also take you to the extreme depths. I freeze you out. I lambast you with acidic words. I take it away and send you tumbling towards rock bottom. Down, downwards I will cast you. I don’t just want you to cry, I want you to wail and scream. I don’t want you irritated by my behaviour, I want you to be angry, blowing a gasket, beside yourself with annoyance. I do not want you to be sad, I want you to be desolate. I do not want you to be unhappy, I want you to be mired in misery. High or low, it does not matter as long as it is not in the middle.
Why am I like this? Why does my kind and me never settle for okay or fine, but have to take it to outstanding or terrible? We do so because extreme means special. Extreme means superior. Extreme means you will take notice of me. I do not just fade into the background. I am not beige. I do not sink into a grey sea. I am impenetrable darkness and I am glorious light. I am not a steady monotone, for I am the heavy, resonant and sonorous bass and the tinkling angelic bells.
I am like this because nobody remembers the middle man, the middle ranking and the go-between. Neutral is nothing. I must be noticed. I must be admired. I must shock and awe. I must stand out, turn heads and be the topic of conversation, good or bad, it matters not so long as I am recognised. I must provoke, stimulate and arouse so I am always noticed and paid attention to. I must always take it as far as possible and the further again. Extreme is the only option available to me. How else am I going to fill this emptiness?
38 thoughts on “To the Extreme”
Vent Your Spleen! (Please see the Rules in Formal Info)
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Don’t touch that mercury…or do…Yah…going the speed limit is boring. Sometimes it has to be done.
Going the speed limit is boring. I have five gears, I want to use them!
So that’s what went wrong. Vanilla is my favorite.
Not even raspberry sauce Lilly?
My mouth likes what it likes. Can’t be helped.
I understand where you are coming from.
How so? Raspberry is ok, blackberry is better.
Blackcurrant is even better.
I wouldn’t know, I’d have to taste it.
It can readily be arranged Lilly.
😋 undoubtedly.
I have found people are noticed more than they realize and for not being extreme, people who walk with a calm a peace who are not reactive, loud or overly charming catch a lot of attention, they stand out. The extremes blend in with everyone else these days, it’s all in your head.
Haha
HG have you read any of the 50 Shades books and if so what are your thoughts on the main characters?
No I haven’t, I’d rather be hugged instead.
And we know how much you enjoy hugs! Mr. Touch Me NOT
Indeed Indy
Oh my gosh. Funny.
*cough 🐃💩 cough*
Oh G. 🙁 you have such burden on Your shoulders xxx
“text tsunami”…yep. It is extreme black or extreme white. Thus the excitement and the torment, for both.
Well, I broke NC today as he texted today once (not the crazy amount of last week) that I still had something that was costing him money if I didn’t (his swipe card to his place). I kept it as he never returned my key, saying it was lost. I foolishly texted back without emotion, “I will arrange to get it back to you. I will call later to get details”. A forgotten detail on my part. Damn it. I prepared so well. Was I a fool to text back? Nodding. He then sent a ton of texts, saying he loves me, wants me back, he’s in recovery, etc. I did not reply to these. Suck, suck, suck….***shoves cloth into vacuum***. I am thinking of mailing it to him. I need to minimize contact. Now, I need to get that card back to him without being sucked in. I know what I need to do…..its just hard.
Any advise before I call? Angry with myself after all the hard work I put in to not respond to hundreds of hoovers last week.
Ideally you ought not to have replied by text, but it was a legitimate question (albeit a hoover) and you answered in the most appropriate fashion. Of course it resulted in giving him the encouragement he sought to keep texting you,but you did the right thing in not responding to those texts which will have eventually infuriated him.
Yes post the swipe card back to him (if you have not done so already).
Why do you need to call him?
I called him for several reasons. i wanted to show some compassion mixed with strength and integrity. I wanTed to tell him verbally, while he was sober that it was over, no chance to get back together. I wanted to let him know I didn’t hate him. I wanted to wish him well and heal. I wanted him to know he crossed my boundaries, that I would not stand for it and if he didn’t stop, I’d be prepared to call police. Im proud I did all this with little emotion in my voice, resisted his urges to meet up, said no many times in this call to him and stood firm. I felt I was consistent with my values by calling him, showing strong compassion without compromise. I haven’t heard from him since the call. I noted somewhere else that he was very tearful and inside it hurt me to hear his pain. …. and I completely see the wisdom of NC….I would not advise someone to do this without time spent prior to heal, get support, and have some level of safety first. Got a lot of this from knowledge gained here, support here and in my circle and inner work. Most grateful!
Never 50-50.. never fairly shared… I recall ..
Why are you like this? In addition to filling the emptiness, your subconscious is chemically addicted to the rush of serotonin and endorphins released depending on which extreme you are acting out. Positive or negative.
Scientifically I’m still highly intrigued by how the Narc and his/her supply can have such an “extreme” attraction.
Maybe that’s the reason I still feel exhausted and content to sit in quiet for a change. I always wondered why we couldn’t just have a normal day. You described the extremes perfectly. I went to bed every night confused as to what happened that day. Every hour changed. Hysterically laughing vs fury, non stop talking vs silence, and marrying me to breaking up with me. I still miss my ex but I don’t miss any of that!
BTW, Greater Elite, I am not mirroring you; I am merely pointing out how I can relate to this post 🙂 xxoo
Me, too! I do everything to the extreeeemes. Everybody says I’m “quirky” and “strange” because I do things so differently…but, I do everything to the extremes. No middle ground! I will write poetry, one after the other, for months on end, (barely eating or communicating with the outside world), and then I simply quit and might not write again for another couple of years. There is not anything in which I do not do to the extreeeemes! Nothing. I would rather eat no ice cream, than to have to eat Vanilla ice cream, unless I add many of my own various items to it.
HG during my “punishment” I shut down, stop interacting with people, didn’t sleep, didn’t eat, drove my self to the extreme, he knew it. Did this have any effect on him? He knew that is my reaction to extreme pain
It will have provided him with fuel as he saw the effects of your misery on you. It would only not provide fuel if you effectively ceased functioning and became robotic.
At first I admired his outgoing and extreme personality but when he started raining down on me and I became the punching bag it wasn’t quite as admirable any longer.
Now in saying that, there would be times he would tell me that because of me he has calmed down some of his ways and it would be true except when he was angry at me. Is it possible that your intimate fuel source can actually soothe some of your extreme actions? I saw him really try some times, even the times I wouldn’t blame him for being angry (regardless of who it was that made him angry) but he would stay calm and brush it off…almost like he had thought about his consequences prior to just reacting, other times I would talk him down or pull him gently from the situation.
I noticed a change in him and it was great but not great enough because when it came down to it he couldn’t control the Hulk. 🙁
I noticed similar “shifts” what seemed like positive change. It would seem to me he was starting to trust me, to relax into the relationship. I told myself he was feeling safe…recognizing g at last he was truly koved. That I was not going to hurt him or abandon him…if he would just stay within the boundRies of decent behavoir.
I think I deluded myself into believing this is what I was seeing. In addition, because my fuel was over the top positive toward him, I believe he had periods of time where he believed he was shifting into that “better guy”-
In the end days, when I sW him at his ugliest- indeed I see that he revealed his ugliest self purposely- he said that he had thought he “buried that guy long ago”.
When he unearthed that monster, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt what he was.
By reading HG’s books with a Mai Tai before getting into the ‘spot light’.
Extremely Exhausting. Extremely Boring. Extremely Insecure. Extremely Unnoticeable. Extremely Dull. Extreme Liar. Extreme Loneliness. Extremely Disputed. Extremely Fragile. Extremely Transparent. Extremely Discounted. Extremely Needy. Extremely Shallow. Extreme Fuel. Extremely Empty. Extremely Broken. Extremely Sad. Extreme Frustration. Extremely Numb. Extreme Loser. Extremely Busy. Extremely Textbook. Extreme Cure. Extreme Hate. Extreme Forgiveness. Extremely Self. Extremely Liked. Extremely Loved. Extremely Genuine. Extremely Honest. Extremely Funny. Extreme Happiness. Extremely Cared For. Extremely Sexy. Extremely Alive. Extreme Smile. Extreme Friendships. Extreme Reality. Extreme Goodness. Extreme Kindness. Extreme Trust. Extremely Open. Extremely Fearless. Extreme Winner.
Extremely You…..Extremely Me.
Extremely Us.
Wow!!
You
It’s true…nobody remembers the “also-ran”.
I sort of feel empathy reading this because it must be some kind of hellish existence in your head (plural narcissists). But then I remember that you are unable to receive love it take it in, so what’s to be done? Nothing. I’m relieved I am not in your head.