Exploiting Empathy
You are an empathic individual. This is why we chose you. This is why we want people like you because you have certain traits which appeal considerably to us. You have traits which are ripe to be exploited by us and only someone like you can provide such an opportunity to our kind. You have certain traits which we need to exploit for our own purposes; these are eight of them
1. Trust
You cannot operate without trust. You trust us with your heart from the very outset. You readily give it to us and allow us to place our hands around it. You trust us to keep it safe and protect, unaware that our nefarious hands covet the provision of your heart. Your trust is absolute and unconditional and this enables us to exploit it repeatedly by doing as we please,acting behind your back and breaching your trust over and over again. Your reaction when you learn of our breach of this sacred trait is enormous and fuel-filled and the driver behind our need to take and shatter your trust. The concept of trust is so inviting that even though we will fracture it, we will endeavour to repair it and win it back just so we can breach it again.
2. Honesty
Your openness and honesty results in your signing your own fate by furnishing us with so much information about yourself. From your hopes and desires through to your weaknesses and vulnerabilities. You are content to detail it all to us as you live by a code of honesty, always wanting to tell the truth and for the truth to be provided to you. We know you operate by this trait and we will feign to be an honest person at the outset, free with our expressions of how we truly feel about you. How more honest can we be than to tell you that you are the person we have waited our whole lives for? Yet, honesty is for you and never for us because we operate in the shadows of dishonesty. Your honesty may be a strength in your eyes but to us it is a weakness as you have opened yourself up before us, exposing yourself to us, showing your neck to us as our forked tongue slides across our sharpest teeth.
3. Decency
You must always do the right thing. To do anything else is anathema to you and we know that this attribute of yours leaves you susceptible to our many machinations. You are polite and well-mannered. This means that you will accord with our initial overtures and listen attentively to whatever we say. You accept graciously our gifts, not realising that they are bribes to ensure you become chained to us. You always answer our calls, reply to our messages and open your door when we appear, not matter how often or how unannounced. This requirement to be civil and decent allows us to frequent you to such a degree that our charm is in and around you so often that you have no chance other than to succumb to it. You will not turn away, you will not slam the door in our faces but instead give us the toehold and time of day to weave our malign magic over you and seduce you.
4. Equality
You expect to be treated as you treat others and when the devaluation eventually commences and you find that such concepts as consideration, reciprocity and equality of treatment are missing, your alarmed and emotional response is the engine for the fuel we need. You operate by the maxim of do unto others as you would have them do unto you and thus you treat us with love, affection and kindness. Its absence by return causes you considerable consternation and upset, which enables us to draw the fuel from you in significant amounts.
5. Fidelity
To be faithful and receive fidelity in return is of significant importance to you. Your own dedication to the ideal of faithfulness means that we have little concern that you will have your head turned by others, no matter how badly we treat you. You will not transgress this ideal, even though you may suspect or even know of our own flagrant disregard for the concept of fidelity, you will remain true to it. It pains you, it hurts you but as a person of principle you will abide by it. You do not do this through any notion of pride or to seek some kind of accolade, but you do it because it is part of you. A constituent part of your moral fibre and full in the knowledge of this sterling attribute of yours, we shall do as we please with little concern that you will treat us in the same way.
6. Tenacity
You do not give up. You exhibit an indefatigable spirit which invades every element of who you are. You will not give up on the idea of you and me. You will do whatever it takes to please me, to win back my golden grace which you once delighted in. You will hang in there determined to ensure we get back on track. You will not walk away because to do so would be to admit failure and this is not something that you can countenance. No matter how bad the abuse, no matter how terrible your treatment, you will cling on as a consequence of this trait. We are well aware of this and welcome such a tenacious approach, for it provides with a guarantee of your attention and support.
7. Healing
You desire to heal and to fix is perhaps one of your most notable traits. The desire to nourish the good in people and bring it to the fore. You believe that everybody is capable of becoming better, including yourself which is why you are so selfless and giving. You strive to find the ways of making a situation better for somebody, you want to make the sad person become happy, the worried person calm and to ease the concerns of all you come across. Most of all you want to fix us because you believe we can be fixed. We will not disavow you of such a notion, not at all, it serves our purposes to keep you thinking that you can make a difference.
8. Loving
Your love is immense. Unconditional, vast and seemingly unending. Like the largest reservoir, your love is that which we must ensnare and once achieved we drink from it with an unending thirst. You are devoted to the idea of love and we will exploit this repeatedly. We exert control over you by suggesting to you that you must not love us if you will not do that what we want. We test your love for us by placing immense demands upon you knowing that you will always rise to the challenge. Your love for us is such that it is sweeter than that which might be obtain from others but it also remains intact for far, far longer. It endures the torrid devaluation and the heartless abandonment so that we know we can count on being able to come back once again and take hold of your love yet again for our own unsavoury and malicious purposes.
51 thoughts on “Exploiting Empathy”
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You understand us empaths extraordinarily well. All these reasons are how I, as a non-codependent empath, ended up staying with one of your kind for three years over a decade ago. I easily see your brash, overt sub-species coming from miles away now… until recently, that is, when I got ensnared with a highly skilled ‘altruistic’ covert demon of your kind, who didn’t fit the previous mold. I got discarded during the golden period when I started to ‘see the man behind the curtain’ and revealed it to her. I became instantly dead to her via silent treatment. And thus, she officially outed herself to me with her behavior. Only your kind behave in such a way. Confirmation I had been right. NC right back at you, lady, ciao. Before the discard, she would appear nearly drunk off just observing my rich, highly emotional expressiveness and honesty about everything. As a SuperEmpath, I was her crack. Our mistake as empaths, as you well know, is that we assume our own default setting of traits exist as the default settings in everybody else. So we often buy your ‘simulations’ of them (as hackneyed as they come off – you have no idea) and ignore the odd quirks and cracks in the facade. We do notice those oddities and slip-ups, btw, you should know. You can only fake it so far with *our* kind. In the end tho, it’s just too hard for us to believe that people as dark as you even exist in this world… thereby allowing you to hide in plain sight with us. For a time.
Very well put HOF.
Do you think he realizes this and is trying to elicit sympathy? Or is it possible he had a moment of self awareness (unrelated to me) how he behaves in general? Hate after a while makes you numb but being an empath I’m in trouble if he changes tactics. It would prove you right, however, it was nothing personal and truly all about the (any) reaction…
I suspect it is mostly about trying to elicit the sympathy.
I accepted he hated me and finally stopped caring (thanks to your help, HG). If he actually showed humanity, coupled with direct contact it’d be hard to resist, honestly. It’s actually better he hates me. Luckily for me, he’s too much of a wimp to make direct contact (or, hopefully, too stupid to realize that is the only thing left that would provide fuel).
You are welcome TT. I have certainly noticed your tone towards him change over the passing weeks.
To whom HG? The song seems to be about a real verses idealized self? It almost seems like he is aware of the creature within. The person at the end still accepts her/him after he reveals his true self. Is this a genuine feeling or more emotional manipulation? I admit, I saw it and felt bad for him….
I remain of the view it is emotional manipulation. From your description of his other behaviours I doubt he has the awareness.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6q5Gwb82UFI
Posted one week after the eat shit and die video (ok I had a bad day and looked) Do you think he does realize what he is HG? Times like this I almost feel sorry for him.
I rather think he is projecting TT.
Projecting what?
The ugliness.
malicious.., manipulation and control 😢
Not sure if you have covered this in any of your blogs- Why are Narcs so stupid, that they always fall for the con-artist or trickster? Its like Narcs walk around with a big red sign on their heads, that says “If there is a con, I will fall for it” and before a Narc even realizes it, the con artist has done them in, taken what they want-and left the Narc in shock (kind of what Narcs do to normal people). Is it a case that a con artist recognizes your weak, broken personalities, your desire to be admired, and uses your own tricks against you, but in an improved, superior way?
Hello Al, that is an interesting perspective. I presume you are talking about a narcissist being conned in a financial sense or do you mean in some kind of wider way, perhaps you might clarify? I have never been conned in the financial sense, but then I am an expert at what i do and very clever. If you mean in just a financial sense, I know it is said that you cannot con an honest person, so perhaps our kind are susceptible to being conned because we are dishonest to begin with.
Hello HG. I did a bit of research on this topic- Con artists are known as Big Ts-they love the rush of stimulation that comes from conning. A number of them are the Psychopaths- which is on the higher scale of personality disorders-they are Narcs, but they have that added extra of seeing straight through a Narc. They know exactly which buttons to press- the “golden show’ of how ‘wonderful’ a Narc is, the whole ‘admire me, I am a Victim-Perpetrator routine” So they play you, just like you play, only better. Before a Narc knows it, they have signed away their house, have credit card debt, and the con artist is long gone. So not only has the Narc been emotionally manipulated, but financially too. I am sure you have been conned in your life- emotionally and or financially -but as a Narc you would never admit it. I have never met a ‘clever Narc’ A psychopath-yes- that ‘breed’ is far above a Narc-they have the Narc disorder, but can function on a higher basis-be that work or manipulation-a Psychopath can gets things done, a Narc cannot complete any long term goals- kind of the like the bit part actor that gets killed in the movie, and the lead actor is a Psychopath.
Al, I would make the point that I am a narcissistic sociopath so nobody plays me. The lesser of our kind may well be conned. I have never been conned financially – not only is that an affront to my skill and my intelligence but also an area I know well. I agree a psychopath gets things done but I do not agree that a psychopath functions on a higher level. A sociopath does because we have greater control and also we know the difference between right and wrong but do not care, a psychopath does not know the difference and just forges ahead without due consideration that I would give to a situation to manipulate it to my bets advantage. I think the narcs you are referring to are the Lesser and Mid-Range, but not the Greater which is the narcissistic sociopath.
I agree Mr. Tudor. I’ve seen the lesser narcs get conned for their stupidity. However none of my mid to greater narcs ever were scammed to the point of ruin. Somehow they were always able to get back what they lost. Also, they never had a criminal record.
In regards to the psychopath. He was scary… yet not undefeated. He had 2 felonies under his belt.
Thank you Love.
8 things he hates about me because he’s incapable of. A testament to my integrity and character and the traction behind his unending and exhausting quest to appear better than us. The Fraud’s Facade. Poor unfortunate soul. I’m 3 years clean (no contact) after 22 of a nightmare camouflaged with his Razzle Dazzle.
Thank you for sharing this atrocious entanglement of our lives in your crystal clear and perfectly piercing way. So grateful I came across your site HG.
Godspeed.
Thank you Yenys, I liked your post.
I like this.
Love and fall in love are two different feelings.
Indeed J.
Oh, you fall in-love, but do not stay in-love?
You say you do not love and live to exploit love. But in your first posts you say you fell in love all the time. How can you fall in love but not love someone?
Because we fall in love by our definition but it does not accord with your understanding of the word and therefore when considered from your perspective we do not love.
If we define love (from the Bible, even if you’re not a believer I’d say this is a good definition of love regardless) as:
patient
kind
does not envy
does not boast
is not proud
does not dishonor others
not self-seeking
not easily angered
keeps no record of wrongs
does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth
always protects
always trusts
It would seem that none of those descriptions define love for a N because (and no offense HG) they are self serving, they do keep records of wrongs, they do not rejoice in truth, they are proud, envious and easily angered.
Dear H G Tudor,
I am quite new on this blog but I really enjoy reading your posts. Most of them seem so familiar and relevant that I often laugh reading them. Anyway, my unique (typical) story with a Narcissist (I will call him S) lasted for little less than a year. S is married which I am thankful for because I am not the primary source of so called fuel. Manifestly S described his marriage as unsuccessful because his wife left him (together with kids) to create a new life with another man. That man, as it turned out later, was violent, which might indicate that he has some kind of disorder as well. If any of this was true then I think S’s poor wife is also incorrigible empath and suffers his dirty games.
Anyway, this comment is not about the wife or how poor she is. It is more of a question how I could avoid him. I know there are plenty of sources here, but my situation is a bit complicated.
We used to work in the same place and that is the place where we started our “luscious” relationship. It is true that all S’s (and everyone’s of your kind) techniques were unbelievable but I fall for them all, even with many doubts on my mind, I let the emotions flow. Later on, when the devaluation process began, and that push and pull game was employed, I decided to finish it all. Yet, as you can imagine, not for long. I eventually became incorporated to an endlessly spinning roller coaster until I figured out what the problem is. I went no contact with strong determination. It was quite easy because he was transferred to another department permanently. And now I know that he will come back and will be working in my department once a week or so. I am afraid that he might expose photos he has. Or apply smear campaign against me. Are there any possible ways to avoid this?
Dear J,
Good to have you here.
Read Smeared to assist you with the issue that you have.
With regard to your fear that he will expose the photographs he has, you are correct to fear that happening. Do you think the catalyst for him using them will be on his return or if you refuse him when he returns? I ask in terms of determining what action you ought to take and how soon you ought to take it, with specific regard to this threat.
Dear H G Tudor,
Thank you for you reply. I assume the major catalyst for him to expose smear campaign against me in one way or another would be his rejection. I can try apply Grey Rock method and I believe I will be good at it. Would that be a good idea? To become uninteresting, boring and stay away further from his attention? Would that help from your point of view?
Though he is very attractive, successful and charming man…
Once he told me he feels ugly, when, to be honest, he is far, far, far from that! His father used to call him like that when he was little. And not so little. And that is only a daisy flower comparing to what other things his father made him go through.
Now he is OK (or I wish to think he is). Others suffer.
Hello J,
You are welcome. The smear is because of the need to maintain control, make you out to be the villain and also to provoke you into giving us further fuel, to maintain the facade and so forth. Do read Smeared and you will find plenty to expand on this topic.
Your suggested approach would be appropriate, yes.
That picture…oh HELL no
1. No.
2-6 yes.
7. Possibly.
8. No.
Oh yes, another one for your consideration, in your opinion, are Empath’s too giving with these traits or how should they be more discerning towards it? I know for me I don’t think about this ever really happening and I think a lot of people don’t see it coming, but in your opinion, should they have had better defenses or were too giving or is it like you are trying to help them get their defenses up in a weird way?
I dont think an empath can be discerning in this regard because it is what they are, to behave this way. I think the key is to know who you are dealing with first and despite how you may feel, applying logic and understanding to ensure you stay aware from the toxicity.
Such a true post…you are like the Empath Expert! Does a Narcissist ever trust anyone ever?
The wariness of everyone is an ever present.
Well said.
Thank you.
https://youtu.be/1A-hqZf7xQs
Thanks, SA…
You always have perfect timing HG. All the above, it was the abandonment that still gets me, it was the abandonment that he hurt me the most, I must face him tomorrow after two years, not looking forward to this, even thou at one time i would have done anything just to see him. If i hadnt come across your books or this blog i wouldnt have been prepared for this moment.
Thank you HG, i am very grateful.
Boo….. 😭😭😭
HG did you write this for me?! Lol
I know I’m the newcomer here trying to escape yet not. Knowing what my husband is yet holding out hope for different. Wanting to heal but not putting to work the skill set I’ve learned from you.
I hope to get stronger. He twisted his words by the way. Said he never meant that he’ll choose to be single to work it out (which you told me he wouldn’t ). He just meant that you never know what the future holds so it could happen. But that’s not how he worded it. But it’s not going to happen. Not in the way I want it to. Not in a sincere, open, loving, selfless and truthful way.
Also keeps jabbing at me that his gf will meet my son when he finally gets visits in his home two hours away. Let the “using my son to hurt me” begin. My only hope is to get strong enough to put your advice to work and maybe he’ll lose interest in me and our son.
Overcomingbyfaith,
Hi, I am not an expert and I am not a narc but of the many years of being with narcs I have learned one thing….they will ALWAYS keep reading your actions to their words and they play off of that. They choose their wording accordingly. If they get angry and spew idiocy at you they may retract and play the “victim card” so you feel bad. Whatever HG is telling you YOU MUST apply it. I can assure you it is a never ending story.
I just left my last narc of 8 years and prior to him I was married to another narc (not as bad) for almost 12 years. The ex husband and I have a daughter together, she will be 18 soon. Let me tell you, I had to cut him off as much as possible because he played the cat and mouse game with me, and now that he knows I am single again he has tried to initiate as much contact as possible. Do yourself a favor, do not talk to him about ANYTHING other than your child. No if and or buts, do not feel guilty, do not allow him to manipulate you. I did, I went through it all AND I did NOT know what he was, I learned what a narc was only last year…
AND PS, do not be sad about being the empath. We embody love… there is nothing wrong with who we are, you just have to learn how to block having your life force sucked out of you. (Yes we sound so magical don’t we:) ) ((((hugs)))) you will get through this! <3
I hear your kind saying in this article “We are the Borg. Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. Resistance is futile.”
Fm
So when you do something that is out of what’s expected like going no contact does it shock them?? I gave my everything and it was a lot but when I realized what he was I blocked him from contacting me. He splashed her all over Facebook going to all kinds of events all over the country. I still didn’t react. He knew me, he knew I was watching … From reading several of your books I know that now! He wrote a blog he knew I was reading talking about how much he loves her I still didn’t react. I just want to know did that bother him that I didn’t react. In fact I posted my own updates having fun all Summer at beaches and parties. I got in the best shape of my life. Did that bother him that I rose from the ashes?? The blog has stopped and the Facebook updates have now stopped. She is now on the same floor I was on last February!
Yes. If we do not get a reaction, we get no fuel and this infuriates us. You may also like to read the articles about what happens when you instigate no contact with a Lesser, Mid-Range and a Greater Narcissist.
What helped me was to block him and never read anything he puts out. I have him blocked on every social media account, and never look at his blog, in fact, I’m not sure he even still has one.
Touche…