The Crying Game – Pt 4
The production of tears and the emotion associated with such production has always been a source of fascination for me. I have shared with you my experiences and observations concerning pain, upset, pride and joy. The final part of this quartet concerns another occasion when the tears begin to flow. Just in the same way that I first witnessed and felt the power that I obtained from causing someone to shed tears of joy when I was at university, it was at this ancient seat of learning that I found another way of causing those tears to fall.
A later girlfriend who arose, after Trish (from Part Three) fell by the wayside, was Anita. A vivacious young lady, with long blonde hair, bright in outlook and intelligence and with an excellent sense of humour we had a rip-roaring time together for some seven months or so and then came the summer. We both returned to the places where we lived, about a hundred and fifty miles apart so not a huge journey even on this small island. Anita had taken a job and the hours varied considerably from week to week so that I did not hear from her as often as I wanted. This concerned me and coincided with an interest in a close friend who I had known from sixth form called Lucy who was also at university and had also returned to our home town for the summer. We began to spend quite a lot of time together and I found that her attention to me put into sharp focus the less attentive approach from Anita. I knew she was busy with the summer job that she had taken but despite this knowledge, I resented her failure to keep in touch with me as often as she had promised at the end of the academic year. When she did telephone I was monosyllabic with my answers and when I decided I did want to talk I began to tell her about all the things that Lucy and I were doing together. The walks through the countryside, the book we planned to write together, the discussions about our forthcoming careers, going swimming, going boating and so on. I knew that Anita was trying to hide any concerns about this sudden and seemingly intense friendship which had sprung up with Lucy, but she could not mask the disappointment that showed in her voice when I launched into a lengthy monologue about my day with Lucy. I found the sensation of power which arose when I talked about Lucy and when Anita tried to sound interested but the nervousness in her voice betrayed her and showed she was worried by this burgeoning friendship. Good. So she should be nervous. She should have been more attentive and been a good girlfriend. Nothing physical had happened between Lucy and I but that was just a question of time. In fact, I was pleased that nothing had happened in that regard because I could maintain that my relationship with Lucy was indeed one of friendship and it provided me with the moral high ground to cast aspersions and denigrate Anita if she tried to suggest there was anything untoward occurring.
This situation continued and each time we spoke I could tell Anita was concerned and was maintaining a brave front. In one telephone conversation she commented,
“I know you spend a lot of time with Lucy, HG, but that does not bother me at all.”
There was something new when she said this though. A defiance. I did not take kindly to that. I noticed that the usual powerful sensations that I felt during this telephone conversation were absent.
I decided that I would not take any calls from Anita after that. I would refuse to emerge from my room as my father shouted up to me that Anita was wanting to talk to me. I would hear him making excuses on my behalf, that I was asleep, or I had gone out and he had not realised. As this silent treatment extended into a second week, with Anita still telephoning on a daily basis, my father began to engage in conversations with her. I stood on the landing above listening to him in the hallway below trying to reassure her and assuage her concerns. I recall standing there, hands on the bannister, feeling the sensation of power washing over me as I thought of her anxious and worried, repeatedly calling and discussing this ongoing situation with my father. I know he liked Anita. He had met her in previous holidays. My father liked most people and saw the best in people. People liked him as well which often irritated my mother in the extreme, but this is not her tale. Not this time.
My father would argue Anita’s case for her, outlining that it was not very fair to not speak to her and that she was clearly worried that she had upset me in some way but did not know why. I thanked for father for his concerns and his attempt to broker a peace but this was between Anita and me. He pushed it no further with me, he knew by now better than to do so, but he continued to entertain Anita’s morning, afternoon or evening call (dependent on her shifts) in order to keep giving her hope that I would “snap out of it” or “come to my senses” as he put it.
We reached the third week of the silent treatment. I was enjoying myself. I was gaining daily attention from Lucy who called on me every day in order to ensure we did something together. I had no need to try to impress her any longer. She was hooked. I was also gaining the attention from Anita as her telephone calls and consultations with my father continued. Sometimes I was in and I listened, sometimes I was out and my father left me a note saying Anita had called. It was satisfying.
Into this third week, on a warm summer’s evening when I had returned from a day out in the countryside with Lucy, there came the chime of the old doorbell being activated. I was alone in the house and made my way to the partition door and stepped into the porch. The large wooden door had a diamond pane of glass set in it which enabled me to see who the visitor was. It was Anita. She had turned to look behind her, no doubt enjoying the wonderful view across the fields as they were lit up still by the sun. I ducked back so she could not see me. The power began to surge through me again. She had travelled to see me, without warning and knowing that I was not speaking to her. I noticed she had even appeared with a small suitcase as well in the hope of staying. She clearly did not want to let go. I was delighted by this. She had learned hadn’t she that she had been failing in her attentiveness to me? By administering this silence, something I had learned from dearest mother, I had caused her to realise her error and up her efforts in respect of me, resulting in her disrupting her working schedule and travelling to me.
To have her do this showed just how much I mattered to her and also how effective giving her the silent treatment was. I punched the air in delight with the powerful sensation still rushing over me, but there was more. I let her ring again and then I opened the door. I stood looking down at her as she stood on the second step. She looked at me, eyes wide in expectation but a nervousness about her too. She said nothing as I look at her.
“Hello Anita,” I smiled, “you have no idea how happy I am to see you on this doorstep again, my goodness I have missed you like you wouldn’t believe.”
I expected her to laugh, to smile but instead she burst into tears, her attractive face scrunching up as the tears flowed.
“What is it?” I asked completely foxed by this response.
She stepped forward and placed her arms about me. I reciprocated as she squeezed me tight, great wracking sobs coursing through her.
“Oh HG, I thought you had had enough of me, that you didn’t want to see me anymore.”
“Of course not, I er, just needed to do some thinking about things and it made me realise that er, it’s you that I want.”
She lifted her head and looked straight at me.
“Really?”
“Of course.”
She started to cry again, a smile breaking through the continuing tears.
“HG, you have no idea what a relief it is to hear you say that to me.”
It was then that I understood. This tearful display was borne out of relief. Relief at having the silence broken. Relief at being held in my arms again. Relief that our relationship remained intact. The sensation was electrifying and I learned just how powerful the effect of seeing tears of relief was. I revelled in knowing that by my grace and decision I could grant her access to me once again and her relief poured from her, invigorating and edifying me. That moment, like so many other moments of realisation has stayed with me and I have used the power to cause those tears of relief to flow and the consequent fuel that arises to good effect on many occasions since.
22 thoughts on “The Crying Game – Pt 4”
Vent Your Spleen! (Please see the Rules in Formal Info)
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THE FANTASY WORLD OF THE NARC
Pseudologia Fanstastica ” A tendency to tell extravagant and fantastic falsehoods centered about the storyteller, who often comes to believe, or may act upon them”
One needs to always remember that a Narc attempts to live in its own fantasy world as much as possible. In order to do this, lies are made up, to make the Narc feel better about itself. For them, they feel the compulsive need to protect its Inferiority complex. To a Narc, the lies may not be lies at all. It is a creation of the fantasy- reality it can endure. Here is a good example of how a past personal story, written by HG, has been embellished and improved to ‘point out’ that he was in some way, in control of a relationship. When we in fact read this story, we can find obvious mention of both his Inferiority complex, his continual need for any attention, the childish thought pattern and behavior which is more of a 5 year old, than an adult attending University. He is unable to establish adult communication with his peers or parents. From his base line emotions of fear of rejection and abondonement, he tells us of his need to cut off his own nose, to spite his own face, which he calls “revenge”. In turn, this ultimately leads to his further pattern of rejection by others, and of himself
WHAT THIS STORY REALLY TELLS US
**** From his story, we see that HG holds Anita in high regard. He mentions her as being beautiful, having a positive outlook on life, intelligent, with a good sense of humor. He is obviously both emotionally attached and physically attracted to her. However he then mentions that she has taken a job away from HG, but did promise to contact him regularly. Notice how he mentions that ‘this concerns him’ as it is building on his base personalities of fear of rejection from Anita. He is not getting the attention he so desperately wants from her. So in order to compensate for Anitas attention, he then attempts to create a friendship with another woman, Lucy, whom he says he has known since childhood. Note how he mentions ‘…and I found that her attention to me put into sharp focus the less attentive approach from Anita…” He is now telling us, that although he is not as attracted to Lucy. Notice how he mentions that there was nothing physical between them. In other words Lucy saw HG as nothing more than a casual friendship. He finds that he feels better about himself, as she is giving him more attention. Now HG mentions “…, I resented her (Anitas) failure to keep in touch with me as often as she had promised…” In other words, he feels that the person he wishes he gets more attention from, would be Anita, and not Lucy. This causes him to feel resentful, as she has openly rejected him. In his attempt to come up with some type of plan, he resorts to childish behavior-he begins sulking. This gives him enough time to create more real or imaginary events with Lucy, such as boating, or the (possibly false flag fantasy of writing a book together). We can almost be sure this is either created by HG, or he may have mentioned this to Lucy, who probably has no desire or inclination to do any such book with HG.
HG then mentions that he tells Anita, at length, of the events that have taken place between himself and Lucy. This is his attempt to force Anita’s hand. He wants her to tell him that he does matter, and that this concerns her, and that she has not rejected him. Instead, what Anita does tell HG is “I know you spend a lot of time with Lucy, HG, but that does not bother me at all.” For HG, this is confirmation from Anita, that she has fully rejected him. He feels fear and pain together with her rejection. She does not share the feelings or bond that HG thought were there. This plays into his feelings of inferiority. He had assumed that she may have felt something more than she did. He was possibly nothing more than a friend, or causal fling to her. This realization infuriates him. And he does what most 5 year olds do-he begins sulking. He is unable to use basic communication skills to communicate with Anita, and tell her how rejected he feels. Instead, he sulks for weeks. He mentions he listens in to the calls she makes to the house, as Anita speaks to HGs father. He is more than likely very depressed, but the constant need for any form of attention, and the (strong) possibility that these two adults may in fact be talking about him, further leads to him feeling paranoid about this. As we read on, from HGs perspective, his father and Anita are creating more of a bond than he was able to. He mentions his father was ‘well liked” so it is more than likely that HG was very jealous of his father . From later comments by HG, we understand that he does not get along with his mother, possibly because she has rejected him, using the same silent sulking treatment that a Narc uses. HG sees in his mother, what he is, and he hates himself for it. This is indicated by his refusal in his story, of continuing to discuss his mother. This indicates that his mother is a trigger for him.
HG goes on the mention that one day, when he is alone, Anita turns up at the family home. We know that Narcs are pathological liars, and prefer to live in their own fantasy land of make-believe- so whether this event actually even happened, or if the wording of the event is in any way or form truthful, would need to be verified by Anita herself.
If part of this event did take place, we become aware of HGs happiness in discovering Anita had not in fact rejected him completely. Note how HG first mentions ”… I ducked back so she could not see me…” This is another presentation of the childish behavior of a 5 year old, that a Narc will display, even into old age. Then he mentions the feeling of “…. I was delighted…” Yet another display of childish behavior, from a man in his 20’s. He then goes on to describe how he opens the door, and attempts to appear casual in both his conversation and mannerisms towards her, when in fact he is extremely happy about it.
In his ending paragraphs, he mentions that he now understands that a technique his mother used on him as an early age (a learnt behavior of sulking), has elicited a response of receiving attention, although he understands that the attention he is now receiving from Anita, is leaned towards the negative. In his fantasy, he has manipulated a woman who would not have shown him any such response in the first place (by coming to his family home unannounced and crying). If it were not for HGs father, and the kindness he attempted to convey towards his son, by creating an informal relationship with Anita, Anita once again, would have had no reason to go to see HG. HG has in fact told us from the start of this story, that Anita did not feel in any way as emotionally or physically attracted to HG, as he was to her. Her main concern was to fulfill basic adult duties of an adult, by working and earning money for herself to survive in reality, whereas HG mentions he was still living at home with his parents.
Note that his blog makes no further mention of what continued on from this event. I am sure that Anita had by then realized that HG had manipulated her, but sensing his depression, she may have maintained the relationship with HG for a short period of time thereafter, in order to detach herself from him, in a way that HG did not fall into a deep depression and continual neediness and attention seeking behavior from her again
An interesting analysis Al, thank you for sharing it.
You are extremely intelligent dear G. being able to notice all this lil things in our behaviour! Thanks to You anyone knew in my life who I meet I can fast and easly scan for the narcissistic traits… I recently came across a person who is attracted to me and after few conversation despite me keeping my secrets I realised who he is. Just when I mentioned who I am and that I am a narcmagnet because ofvmy horrible nature I have seen a confirmation on his face. The words he spoke haven’t reflect his mimics tho.. he tried to sound understanding and sympathetic but hos eyes said “perfect catch” … he thinks he’ll play me…but he has no idea that firstly I have found my match already as You know and secondly he doesn’t know that I have the best teacher in the world thanks to who I understood the whole thing 🙂
My mother was capable of carrying on the silent for 26 years in some cases and over three decade and two continents. Her systematic inability to examine and become responsive and responsible to our needs growing up combined with the emotional abuse we suffered to make her feel better have no doubt caused us much emotional trauma now that we are adults. That fact shows up in our/my relationships with significant other. You know to a narcissist there are just people, animals and things. So could it bet true that Narcissists do not treat people, animals or things any different when it comes to getting their own needs met? We, like addicts, beg borrow and stal our psychic energy where we can? right?
I have a question for the E’s on the site.
I feel guilty. By being on this site, wether it be reading or participating, I feel like there’s fuel of Mr. Tudors victims on my hands. Am I alone in this?
A fascinating insight when read dispassionately. Thanks for explaining so succinctly.
You are welcome.
My soon to be ex-wife did use silent treatment with me and it caused me insomnia, loss of appetite and general anxiety. I tried to talk her so many times asking what is wrong, but basically she just said I’m a nice guy and kept on treating me like a piece of shit: she went movies etc. with our son and her new male friend. Of course she denied it being a relationship. I thought she was going through a mid-life crisis, but earlier this year I realized there is no such thing. She is a covert narcissist and still causing me stress even though I know exactly what is going on. HG, if you don’t mind I’d like to write you an email and ask your advice on some issues. Perhaps you could also get some new ideas for your blog. Good job with this blog by the way – very helpful at least for me.
Hello Bandit, thank you for your post. You of course did what anybody did and that was to keep trying to work out what was wrong (because as an empathic individual you wanted to get to the truth and you wanted to help) which only meant you remain committed to her, giving her fuel and she continued to subject you to the abuse. I am pleased you find the blog helpful. If you require e-mail advice, given the volume of communications at present, you are best utilising the private e-mail consultation option which you will find on the blog’s main page in the left hand side bar. You will be able to explain your situation and ask up to 4 questions and then promptly receive detailed and confidential advice.
That was a great end to the series. I would have never guessed tears from relief. I understand how it all played out. My silent treatments never went beyond one week. My reactions were the same as hers. So relieved that she still wanted me and loved me. Both our kinds learn a lot about each other.
What I keep forgetting is the POWER. It is the answer to soo many questions.
I hate you…. I’ve not gotten to this point yet . I’m still reading your book .you are a piece of shitt..oxoxkeep writing😺
Thanks Mother.
Was that really your mother?
No, but it would be the type of thing she would write.
I imagined your mother’s words to be more polished. Though the cut would be just as deep.
Absolutely right Love.
Reblogged this on MARSHALL W THOMPSON, SR.
That poor girl. Her future, career, success, thrown to the wind, all in the hopes of keeping your love. I felt the agony of those 3 weeks for her. She probably did not sleep or eat much, so consumed by your withdraw. I’ve been there. Its pure hell. Thank God for your father’s kindness. The funny part is I cannot hate you or your kind for your actions – now that I understand you are void of compassion and consideration. For you, it was probably as basic as a lab experiment. You watch us like we are rats in a maze, dispassionately monitoring our responses, simply to further your scientific knowledge.
You are understanding and thus you are seizing the power.
Thank you. But you already know I will keep seeking that torment.
My therapist had used the rats in a maze analogy for me in the respect of scientists experimenting with some who would get cheese for always completing a maze and then those rats who only got cheese sometimes when completing the maze. The ones who got it consistently eventually didn’t always complete the maze. They didn’t care to. The ones who only got cheese sometimes, would become frenzied to get through the maze and then show signs of withdrawal if there was no cheese given as the reward. With my dynamic of constant push pull, silent treatments, etc, JN made me completely frenzied and addicted to be rewarded with his presence. He’s still “experimenting” too. And I’ve likened it now to Bill Murray in Ground Hog’s Day. I get to try different reactions each time to see what response I get, because I know when I “fail” he’ll return with a new angle. Happened yesterday. Out of the blue he messages me that he wants to see me and invited me to his house this weekend. Then not even 10 minutes later cancels because he “mixed” up a family function going on and can we take a raincheck. I acted like the mouse who always gets cheese and I didn’t care if I got to the end of the maze. He was testing me to see if I’d bite or start a fight calling him out in his bs games. But I let it go, because now I want to see what “Bill Murray” will come up with next for his next plot when he tries. He specifically threw out a tentative date in mid-November. I know he wants me to start messaging him about if it will really happen. But I’m sure he’ll Hoover if I don’t. I must be one big experiment for him in some way.