The 7 Sins of the Empath’s Self Doubt
In the beginning you are resourceful, confident and independent. Those attributes are there with no need for brazen displays but rather they exist in an understated and quiet manner. Then we arrive. The imposition of our manipulations is designed to bring life to these seven sins in order to leave you susceptible to our further machinations and control. These doubts will enable us to hoover you, draw fuel from you and maintain that connection we rely on to further our own ambitions.
- Is it actually my fault?
We will have you asking yourself and pondering whether what has happened is your fault. Did you do something to attract someone like us? Did you miss some sign which you ought to have seen and therefore it is your own failing which has caused you to be exposed to our control and abuse? We will have you analyse your behaviours as you become burdened with guilt. We are the experts in shifting the blame and through the repeated application of denial, deflection and projection, we will avoid any and all culpability for our actions, leaving them to impact on you. It must be your fault if we are so adamant that it is not our fault. The conviction by which we pin the blame on you will have you questioning yourself. It is natural for you to always reflect on your own behaviour, that is central to who you are and we know this. Add to this our incessant blame-shifting and this steady drip drip drip of the accumulation of blame will eventually take its toll and you will start to accept the blame and regard yourself at fault.
- Did I love him enough?
How many times have you been told, “You would do it if you loved me,” or “You wouldn’t do that if you actually loved me like you say you do”. You face the ultimate in supposed love through our love bombing and it sheers scale of apparent passion, affection and love would cause anything else to pale by comparison. You will always have this thrown in your face as we tell you time and time again about how much love we have shown for you, how we have loved you beyond anything else and nobody could love you any more than we do. Is it any wonder when faced with such repeated assertions and the behemoth that we are of love that you will query whether you gave enough love towards us? Perhaps we behave the way we do because we feel that we love you more than you love us? We will certainly tell you that and because you are such a devotee of love you will feel obligated to try to match what you have received. You cannot do so because the love we exhibit is smoke and mirrors, easy to conjure up, easy to say and what you understand as love takes more effort, but this will not stop you always wondering whether you do enough and whether a little more love might just be the solution that is needed to make everything perfect again. Thus, we keep you hanging on and trying all the harder.
- Was I wrong to leave?
This nagging doubt has to be created by us on order to keep alive the prospect of hoovering you. We know that you possess a near indefatigable spirit that causes you to stay and try to make things rights. So often it us that brings about the cessation (albeit temporary) or our relationship and we discard you. On the rare occasion where you decide that you have had enough and make a break for the border, to free yourself of our poisonous influence, we know that you will have reservations about doing so. You do not like to give up on people. You like to succeed. You desire for success is not the same as our self-centred drive for achievement but rather your success if for other people and we know this. We know that you want to achieve resolution, that is why we lead you around the houses and up the garden path with our circular arguments. We know that you prefer to achieve an outcome, hence why we never fully answer questions, deflect and deny. This desire for a conclusion means that should you ever walk away from us we know you will be plagued by some guilt that you should not have done it. What if he could have been helped? What is could change? What if he needed your help? Such doubts will manifest and mean that when we loom large as we seek to hoover you, this desire to leave nothing hanging (along with a host of other manipulative methods designed to get you to return) will leave you susceptible to being hoovered back into our twisted world.
- Should I have given him another chance?
Maybe if you had given us another chance (to add to the dozen or so that you have already given us) then the outcome might have been different? You invested so much and you gave us so many chances, perhaps you have cut loose too soon? Maybe one more chance was all that was required and now you are left wondering if you have made a mistake and lost the opportunity to help us and resolve our problems. Perhaps you had better try again and give that further chance? It would be such a shame not to do so, especially after all the effort you have put in? This might have been the point at which everything clicked and we finally made the changes and gained the understanding and insight that is required to return to a permanent golden period. You want to see good happen, we know this and therefore we know that you have that nagging itch that if you just gave us another chance this might be the one that is required to get us past the post. It won’t be, but we like to engender this hope in your mind so that you succumb to this doubt and return to us to try again. And again. And again.
- What if someone else makes him happy?
Have I been too hasty in making my escape? What if he finds someone else and she makes him happy? It shows it can be done and I let him go and now someone else is going to get the benefit of that wonderful golden period and she might get it all the time. Why should she get this when you have endured both the black with the golden? You are entitled to receive the golden period again surely? Perhaps it was something you had done and now she knows what to avoid because he will tell her what you did in the relationship and she will avoid making your mistake and reap the reward. How is that fair? Why should she benefit from the pain you have endured? It is your golden period and you want it back because it felt so wonderful. In fact, having checked his Facebook page for the sixth time today there seems to be a lot of mutual liking of one another’s posts between him and some new lady, whoever she is. What’s going on there? Has he found someone new already? Could she be the one? You had better act and do so quickly to avoid someone else getting the golden period for good. Why not ring him and arrange to meet up? Head her off at the pass? Yes, we instil such doubts in your mind in order to have you come back to us once more.
- Maybe I didn’t help him as much as I could have
There was something clearly wrong with him but maybe he could not help doing all those things. Perhaps something terrible once happened to him and this is why he behaves in such an abhorrent manner? Surely you should show some compassion and understanding in order to help him be free of whatever demons that plague him, after all, are you not a kind and considerate person. This is what you do isn’t it? Help people. You should not run out on him now, he needs you and you are the only one who can save him. Just be understanding, help him, give him what he needs and then together you can overcome whatever it is that has taken hold of him. You have seen him bleed, he is human just like you and it is help that he needs not condemnation. Yes, what he did to you was terrible but what if that could not be helped, what if he was trying to ask for your help and did not know how to ask for it? Now you have walked away from him, right when it is his hour of need. That’s not very empathic is it? That isn’t who you are. You are kind and caring, a healer. Go back and apologise and help him. Submit to his demands and help him walk through his personal hell, surely it is the least you can do, yes?
- Did I deserve it?
You spoke out of turn too many times so what did you expect him to do? He is a proud man and it was inevitable he would lash out. If you had not been so weak, you would have not annoyed him. Perhaps if you had done more of what he wanted, gone along with his demands just for the sake of quiet, things would have been drastically different? If you had not been so stubborn or had tried to change him? If you had not tried to mother him? If you had tried to mother him? If you had been someone else? If you had stayed true to yourself? If you had been more like his mother? Less like his mother? More like her? Less like her? You did try but somehow you always seemed to rile him and then the insults and assaults would fly. Maybe if you had kept a civil tongue in your mouth it would have turned out differently? Perhaps if you had tried to look at things from his perspective more often rather than thinking about yourself, then the outcome would have been better? You wish you were stronger and you needed to be stronger for both you and him, but you weren’t and that must the reason he treated you the way he did. Your weakness irritated him. Maybe if you had not been so pathetic then he would have continued to love you like he once did. Perhaps if you had not fought back when he was despondent he would not have felt the need to put you in your place. Maybe you just did not do enough of what he needed because you were too busy focussing on how you felt and that is why it all came tumbling down? Maybe you failed to understand him because you were too wrapped up in yourself? Maybe, just maybe, you got what you deserved?
39 thoughts on “The 7 Sins of the Empath’s Self Doubt”
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https://youtu.be/UULqjN_5DQU In The Green Mile, he feels other people’s pain. This is how I feel. And, I also feel other people’s pleasure, as well.
HG !
I just had to share this with you .
One narc spotted , and potentially another on the horizon., testing him at the moment with all the knowledge your blogs given me .. This is so liberating . I actually feel in control .. THANK YOU forever for getting me where I am now x
You are most welcome So Sad, thank you for letting me know.
OMG .., scored 100% 😱😱😱 I wonder if I instead of SMH its BMH
Excellent HG !!!!
Thank you Nikita.
I admire you and the things you are doing, taking this to a level only others have tried and not been able to. You bring change.
Thank you Rhonda, I appreciate that.
Right!? Rhonda. Powerful to say the least.
3. I did wonder, even after id worked out what he was, thankfully j never asked him.
I do recall though in some of his Hoover attempts, he would ask me why I just up and left. I went NC without any prior hint or warning. Nothing at all. And when I did see him again the first few timeS, I behaved as though nothing had ever happened. I was friendly and flirted with him as I always had but when he wanted me I meet him or he wanted my number again I always declined with some for form of joke.
So, yes we would like answers. But HG do you and your kind need answers or did he just use the questioning as a Hoover attempt or in pursuit of fuel – hoping he has caused my NC?
I gave him neither – told him it was nothing to do with him and I’d had a lot on my plate.
The questioning is engaged in for the purpose of hovering and fuel. It is the pretext for doing so. We are not interested. If you were not available to hoover, the questions would not gnaw away inside, we would just get on with finding a new source of fuel.
HG really helpful. Thank you. I see. This is really interesting, I want to be able to really get inside of Ns and you’re making this possible.
A lot of things I now understand how the N thinks but there is still the odd thing here and There which I don’t. Naturally. Because my brain is wired completely differently.
Fool me 1 time I am so glad you asked that sense I was wondering myself, I was given no choice in a meeting, yet I was able to do it on my terms (ya me!) I would give in 9 times out of 10 to his terms. So, surprise to me, yet HG I would ask any clue to why he went by my terms? I would not have even spoke to him yet the nature of the issue needed to be cleared up. One thing I found odd he brought his primary, why?
I found the love I had for him has changed, it didnt hurt when I saw him and I hold no anger any more. I underatand the why. He is still a person with different views and ways of surviving in this world, I may not agree with all of them and I dont have to, my love was unconditiinal then and still is. We walked together for a moment, he taught me many things, forced me to look where i was afraid to look.
In his mind he may still own me, and may come to stir some havoc in my life again, it is my choice to react or respond, I was reminded of this, privately I was reactimg in his presence I was responding.
I know some are worse then others, I was married to one that beat me and that was the kindest thing he did compared to other things he did, he died so yes no worries of a return. I didnt leave because I knew he would do as he said.
HG I believe your kind can bring a healing to very old wounds in some, you come in like a summer breeze and go out like a hurricaine, tearing up everything. Its in that distruction one can look at oneself and come out stronger, its being stuck I believe in the why did he/she that keeps the wound from just scabbing and not healing and You HG have brought the why in a way that is easy to understand, yet one must still look at the themselves to. It takes two to dance this dance.
Sorry I got caught up in my thoughts.
Hope your weekend has been wonderful HG, and everyone else!
Thank you Rhonda.
Going through this all right now between the ex and current boyfriend. Time to cut ties between both and live for myself and daughter …
I never had an issue with #5… I’d rather someone else make him happy.
SMH all the above. Left with lots to think about.
HG would you know if someone was pretending not to be an empath? Kinda like a self defense mechanisum for them.
I would work out if someone was trying to exhibit empathic traits even though they did not truly have them. I wouldn’t spot it immediately, it would take a little time to establish.
I like how you remind us how we started out in the relationship. We lose so much of ourselves. We become the complete opposite in the end.
I fought with 3. The nagging doubt was strong. I felt so much guilt.
Number 6 still bothers me. I don’t know how to get past this one. I now understand how her childhood made her who she is. I still want her to get help. I don’t want her to live the rest of her life feeling like she does. It still breaks my heart. But I won’t be the one to fix her. That is for someone else.
# 5 # 6 this is it. Both had to do with my own ego.
HG, I have a question it has nothing to do with this post though. If (hypothetically) of course someone wanted to get back at there ex narc and agreed to finally meet with them ( only to get back something that belongs to them) should that person agree to meet them or by agreeing would that give them the fuel they were looking for and they probably wouldn’t show up for the meeting anyhow? I believe he is a somatic mid and doesn’t know he is a narc which is why I’m not sure what he would do? I hope this makes some kind of sense to you? I know how busy you are so I knew asking on fb or e mail may take a few weeks and I thought this would be faster. Thank you for any help you can give me on this.
The agreement to meet would not provide fuel so long as said agreement was achieved in an unemotional way. Even if it did, it would be low. The N would more than likely show up because he would regard it as an opportunity to gain further fuel. Yes, asking a question here will always result in a quicker response than a private message because the question and answer will be viewed by far more many people, thus the blog comments are given priority as more people may benefit from the question you or anybody else has asked.
Thank you very much for your reply. I have one more question sir! The five rules that you write about, are they rules you made for yourself or were the Doctors involved in them also? Again thank you for your time and answers.
I cannot say.
I’m sorry, I didn’t know
No need to apologise.
What are the five rules you have for yourself?
I cannot say. it would alter the dynamic between us.
I assumed they were already divulged since they were asked about so I was curious.
Quite alright.
What post is this five rules?
It isn’t in a post. Occasionally i refer to the fact that I operate by five rules in my interaction with people here in this arena, but I am not at liberty to share what these rules are.
Lol
Might I ask, how would one knowing the ‘5 dynamics’ change the dynamics between you, and the said individual? If you told us, would you then have to kill us?
I cannot answer that because in so doing I would be revealing what the 5 rules relate to.
:-p Thank you, Mister HG :-p
I had always thought that way until I realized how my narcissists I had collected in my past. Reading several of your books; Fury, Departure Imminent, Revenge, Escape and Black Hole you leave no doubt whose fault this is.
I used to wonder does he know to use the techniques to trauma bond? Does he follow a set of carefully thought out rules? From reading your work you understand the answer is yes and yes! It was the final piece of the puzzle I have spent months working to understand! In the beginning I read this article by the leading psychotherapist and he said 80% of his patients after 3 months of no contact and intense psychotherapy go back! He said he would rather treat a heroin addict than a Codependent in a narcissistic relationship! I knew I had a ton of work to do because I knew he was coming back! He did and I ignored him but I still think he will try again! Reading your words is like hearing from him that he set out to destroy me and I have no doubt! I am beginning to spend time on other things but I have to admit I have been reading your content for
Days! Good stuff!
Hello Victoria, thank you for reading the books, you will find the material you have read and more besides invaluable in increasing your understanding and allowing you to defend yourself. We like to keep you in the dark and emotional, so if you understand what is happening and can apply that knowledge to your situation you have a much better chance to secure your freedom. Interesting comment from the psychotherapist and I can understand the sentiment behind that.
You are good, HG. Yes, yes, and yes. This is exactly what I went through while leaving. Almost everyone of these….no wait, just check…um, all of them Damn. And no contact in combination with support here, and by my friends and family….I left without going back.
Much gratitude to you,
Indy
He was just a big, cold mess.
Finally realized, *it’s not me, it’s him!*
Same ol pattern. Time to move on. Can’t help someone quit hating themselves, it’s a DIY project 😉