Ever So Shush
I think I have said enough. I wish you would think the same. You have never shut up asking me about my day at work as I try to watch the sport on television. On and on you have gone asking question after question. It makes me wonder why you are so bloody interested. Fishing for something are you? Trying to catch me out? You won’t do that. I am cleverer than you. Much cleverer. What I do at work is nothing to do with you and you won’t find out about my plans there until such time as I decide that you should know. And it isn’t time, so I wish you would just be quiet and let me watch this game. You keep on going, talking over my television viewing which tells me that you regard my viewing experience as unimportant and that tells me you obviously think I am not important and you really ought to know by now that I am important. I hate you doing this. I can feel the burning from your selfish and treacherous action and it is paining me, but I know what to do. I know how to stop this pain and believe me I am going to do it and do it now.
You never know when to shut up do you? I suppose you think you are being plessant asking me how my day has been, but you don’t care, you just do it for the sake of appearances, to make you look good, the caring and interested partner. I know your game. I have you worked out, you are a fraud. Yap, yap, yap,like some irritating puppy around my ankles, on and on you go. Just shut up will you? I cannot concentrate with your wasp like buzzing around me.
“How is the new recruit getting on?”
“How is the project developing?”
“Where did you go for that business lunch? Was it good? What did you have to eat? Who was it with?”
Just shut up. No, you are still chattering away. I don’t think you are even waiting for an answer are you? Just asking questions to seem like you are involving me in the conversation when all you are doing is engaging in another of your pointless and egotistical monologues. Do you know how boring you sound? If I wasn’t trying to concentrate on this match I think I would slip into a coma listening to you drone on with your worthless opinions and your anodyne observations.
Just shut up. No? Very well. I will. No, I am not saying anything. I am not even going to nod, shake my head or make an affirmative grunt. Nothing. A total silence.
My goodness me, you have stopped. Perhaps you have remembered that you need to breathe? Ah, excellent you have noticed that I no longer appear to be listening. Believe me, I am listening and I am doing so with considerable attentiveness, because I need to listen to what is coming my way. Let me guess, I think you will lead with “are you listening to me?” any second now and yes, there it is as predicted. I am not going to answer. Go on, repeat the question and true to form you do so. Now I have your attention haven’t I? I can see you from the corner of my eye as I stare at the screen pretending that the figures running around with the ball are more interesting than you. They are not because what you are starting to do is what I am interested in. I can see you leaning forward, trying to catch my eye. I know you are there but I am not going to acknowledge you. Sometimes you throw something towards me to get my attention, usually a cushion. It is not a nasty action,not like when I throw things at you. That reminds me, I must replace that coffee mug which I hurled at you. You were light on your toes that day as it sailed past and smashed against the wall. Anyway, that was last week and this is now and I can hear you asking the question a third time. Will it be the cushion? No, you have chosen to stand up instead. Gosh, you must be looking to assert some authority from the get go.
“I am talking to you.”
I know that you are but I am not answering you but already I can hear the mounting irritation in your voice and already I can feel the flames rising inside of me as they burn away the cold, harsh iciness of your criticism. That pain is already receding.
“Will you answer me please?”
No I will not. I have to turn my head so you do not see my smirk at your attempt to be commanding. It amuses me. I can see your hands move to your hips and I half expect you to stamp the ground with your foot.
“What’s the matter? Why won’t you answer me?”
The voice rises higher, signalling your anxiety and frustration and the flames continue to build inside of me. I maintain the stony faced expression, ink black eyes staring at the screen. I can see the movement on the television but it as if I am watching it from very far away as all that I am concentrating on now is your voice and the continuing delicious flaming sensation that is sweeping across me.
“Why are you not answering me?”
The questions have altered now haven’t they? A switch from your nosiness about my work to you now asking why I have fallen silent. You can keep asking and I know you will. You will go on for some time. You will storm out of the room trying to force a response from me, but your slammed door just keeps the flames burning. You will come back in. you always do. You will return contrite and apologising although you won’t know what you are trying to apologise for. Still, that won’t stop you going through a carousel of reasons in the hope of breaking my silence.
“Did I upset you?”
“Did I say something wrong?”
“Did I not listen to you?”
“Did I say something offensive?”
“Please, what did I do wrong?”
“Please will you just talk to me?”
“I hate this. I hate falling out. What is that I have done?”
Every time you ask these questions, the pain and concern in your voice keeps adding to the sense of power that I am feeling. The wound you created has long since closed and now I am savouring the growing power that courses through me. You have no idea what you are doing as you try, as you always do, to make things right. I will stay seated here, not even looking at you. You won’t try and stand in front of me whilst I am watching the television. You will not dare do that or switch it off. You remember what happened last time when you did that don’t you and I know you won’t be in a hurry to experience that again. I can sit and revel in my power over you and you just keep adding to it with your pitiful and plaintive questions. You will try to find out what is wrong, you will blame yourself next and start to apologise as you scramble to guess what it is that you have done wrong in the hope that you stumble on the right subject matter and make things rights. But you will fail. Then you move on to trying to bribe me into speaking to you, suggesting we go out, or my friends come round for drinks tomorrow night or that you will cook me something special. Keep at it, I won’t respond. I will not even look at you. You are completely invisible to me as far as you are concerned.
I wonder how long I will maintain this silence with you? You haven’t worked out what to do yet, I am pleased to say. You keep on asking, pestering and questioning, driven by your own anxiety that causes you to want to ascertain what has happened and make things right. This means you might break off for half an hour but then you resume, trying a different tack. If all you knew you had to so was do exactly what I am doing and it would stop. Go silent and get on with what you want to do and I will start speaking to you and acknowledging you once again as I consider a different manipulation to use against you to gather my precious fuel. Fortunately, your empathic nature which means you want to understand and you want to fix and heal, will make you hang in there and all the while you provide me with fuel and power me. So long as you do so, so long the silence will continue.
69 thoughts on “Ever So Shush”
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Is it problematic for the narc when you leave and take their things also?
Absolutely, everything belongs to us in our minds and you taking our possessions challenges our superiority, causes a wound as it is a huge criticism and it will ignore our fury.
HG. Please don’t hoover her. Is she close in physical proximity to you and your other 5 spheres? The fact that I typed those words has nothing to do with her…whomever she is. I’m going to use the lessons you gave me. I can’t take it back and I’m not gonna feel guilty that I wrote it. I do wish I were Wonder Woman and that I could warn her, but I can’t. I can only hope she is able to recognize the hoover for what it is.
Now…this could he the perfect opportunity to use your experience from the doctors. You can even tell them at your next session that you didn’t hoover. It would be the truth…if you didn’t hoover her.
I can’t control what you do, though.
It was a benign FUH 1jaded, a good dollop of positive fuel. I could not not hoover, all is as the fuel wills it.
can a narc ever change?
There might be some lessening of the manipulations, there may be some reduction in the venom with some of our kind, but not all, but ultimately there is no change for we either do not know what we are and see no reason to therefore change, or we know what we are and see that effectiveness is also a reason not to change.
“lessening of the manipulations”, yes, I can understand that. Would it be fair to suggest that those with Alzheimers / dementia may have had a “lessening” of such manipulations (during their younger adult years) but they would have increased again as the disease progressed?
It depends on whether a threat to control is being experienced, whether problems with regard to the attainment of fuel are being experienced.
Thank you for your explanation, HG. A threat to control could derive from the environment change, including the change of fuel sources ie from the narcissist’s usual home, the ‘space’ they are ‘used’ to with surrounding (family / spousal carers to a residential care home, a ‘space’ they may find more difficult to ‘control’ with the additional difficulty of new people ie carers that they do not know as well as family members – which are seemingly easy to control when they visit (if they do!).
HG. Could I please get your comment on this blog, had the same scenario been reversed. As in the narc asking all the questions while she ( yes, ok then, I ), stayed silent. What would have been happening to him…injury wise. Very curious. Thanks. 🤔
Your silence would equate to criticism because you are failing to acknowledge his questions and his right to ask them. The criticism would wound. His fury would be ignited in order to draw fuel to heal the wound and the questioning would have stopped and most likely you would have been subjected to heated fury. Or if this was to no avail he would have withdrawn and sought fuel elsewhere.
Thanks HG. I pretty much did this for 7 looonngg months. Refused to engage him at all, exect when I absolutely had to!! Come the weekend, and ohhhh boy!! Rage rage rage!! Even then i did not respond. I reckon I did a damn fine job by refusing him his fuel. Hence, my escape. And yes, it dis give me some sort of ‘one up’ on him. Thanks again.
You are welcome Lisa.
HG, have you heard the song Talk Too Much? It is bubble gum poppy and ubiquitous now. It’s an earworm. Not a huge fan but it comes to mind when I read this post.
That said, it is impolite to talk to someone in the middle of a match. That’s what commercials are for.
Is that the song by Coin?
Yes it is hugely impolite, I am pleased you realised that.
It is by Coin. My favoriite line is silence is golden…That song not being one of them, some songs make me feel like hmm. Steady and slowly pulsating beats. Then the people start singing and the mood is ruined.
Ugh. I hate when people talk during a game. N2 used to and it sometimes took everthing I had not to scream STFU. I know now he was doing it for fuel. Turnabout is not fair play.
That made me laugh when you referred to “then the people start singing and the mood is ruined.” That reminded me of someone. Thanks for that 1jaded, someone has just entered my sixth sphere. Now, must look up the HEC for this appliance and make my move.
My short encounter with the Narc created a lifetime of knowledge as it sent me on this journey. I look at him now and he looks like the Crypt Keeper. Ugh! I was blinded by something. I think I was sleeping.
Hey Ah Oh, I found your exN on Youtube, you might want to keep him in the crypt… ha ha ha ha ha
He is long gone Sister DC. Yep! he is dead to me.
Good ridden to the Crypt Keeper!!! <3
I can understand wanting me time after work… I enjoy that myself, unfortunately ME time after work consists of cooking, cleaning up and my me time doesn’t happen until I am about ready to knock out…
I am not going to put anyone down or say anything other than it seems that there is a lack of understanding and lack of use of “free time” here. You watch your show and I do what I want… the discussion of ones day can commence later… or you are right, who needs to discuss another mundane day, there are more interesting and fun things to do!
The whole thing is exactly how it plays out. What you wrote is amazing. I did all of that from start to finish. She often made remarks that I talked too much and no one was listening. Just like you have said she was tuning me out after ten seconds because nothing that I was saying was important. When I think about our conversations and 5 hour phone calls I can see it was always about her.
And then comes the silence. She programmed me just like an appliance to react to hers every time it happened. I said all of those word for word.
SNOW, what’s the average length of appliance conditioning just to gauge? Like, two weeks…five months or longer?
Towards the end HG the night before he discarded me , is when the mask fully fell off , and it scared the shit outta me , and yet he said to me ” I deserve better” , ” Trust me , I’m doing you a favor” , sounded as though he was speaking truth to some extent … what also boggles my mind is that he searched for me after 20 something years , we were 15 when we met ! Was I the ultimate fuel for him???? I’m still trying to wrap my mind around this . And should I expect a Hoover even though I live 60 mikes away from him but work closer because I commute ? I also Found out he has been using my address still for a cheaper car insurance rate ! Yes I reported it … But how can I get passed this nightmare ?
Ensure you stay out of the spheres of influence. Reduce the risk of the hoover execution criteria being met by raising the bar. See the articles Spheres of Influence and Hoover Time! Sphere One. Read Fuel, Black Hole and No Contact.
I sure will , almost done with Evil ! Great writing ! Eating it up and absorbing … Thank you HG!
Thank you for reading JDS.
The ink black eyes. Exactly right. There is nothing there.
It’s so bizarre and fascinating how a person can look so much like an angel and a creature at the same time . I will never forget his shark eyes that seems to widen an bulge as he smiled . I still get chills .
The smirk… Their trademark.
It is important to be able to be silent when needed.. and to communicate this and this should work within a partnership. Its basics.
I would give one of two reactions;
1) Exit right, go for some retail therapy or seek out my secret crush.
2) Charge from across the room and tackle. Depends on my mood.
I have been here before with my ex-husband who was not very talkative. He wasn’t a narc so to speak. Needless to say, I did a lot of retail therapy during my marriage and had a budget of 10k + a month for 12 years for this. I call it “hush” money. I will hush and let you watch your sports if I can shop. AND SHOP I DID. Oh wait, I still do! I am not as bad and I have to remove an item before I can add anything new to my closet. The problem is I most always buy classic so nothing goes out of style. Everyone loves my closet. In the marital house that I built, my closet was 23 by14 and I still had three other closets in the house. Yes, I gave my emotional health for financial wealth. I wouldn’t have it any other way. We all know that fairytale love is just that, a fairytale.
I didn’t think our marriage would end up like this but it did. I have over 300 pairs of shoes and boots and designer outfits to prove it.
I did love him when I married him. He really didn’t love me, only what I represented. He does not love himself at all so how can he have this for anyone else.
Some thought of me as lucky for the lifestyle. As I said it was a trade off. In looking back, I would do it all again. I like to shop!
Ha ha ha, charge and tackle… YOU WILL LISTEN TO ME…. but shopping sounds less stressful! 😀
Sounds to me you received a sweet deal from that marriage! Sometimes money makes a great band-aid.
Yes, it does. It was a great investment of my time. But nonetheless, I also worked at it and worked to build my future. Everything I have I have earned as far as I am concerned.
So what then do you do if the person you are abusing says screw this I’m out and tries to walk out the door with their stuff ?
Apply a Preventative Hoover.
Have you ever had someone leave you the first time you ever abused them and never return ?
No.
Can you elaborate on what a Preventative Hoover is? Would that be “checking in” now and again to make sure they are still a viable source of fuel?
No, it is a measure to stop you escaping. See Black Hole for full details.
Why do you need fuel, when normal people don’t? What happened to you to make you so grossly broken?
hi Rob, why do I need fuel? Read Fuel for the detail. It is needed to power the construct. Normal people do not have one. What happened to me? Plenty and you can read the full horror in Little Boy Lost : The Creation of Evil, which is a work in progress.
I’m void of feeling power and hate . I have never felt power and I do not have a desire for it . There is no point to me . How do you feel when you imagine a life without control and power ?
Uncomfortable.
But I don’t feel uncomfortable so maybe I’m living proof to you that it is possible to love and be content without trying to control everything and everyone around you .
Indeed Starr and I do not doubt you, but you and I are different entities. You are an empathic love devotee. I am a highly effective fuel-gathering machine (with additional benefits).
It’s ironic you say the word machine . I wrote a poem titled Spell of the machine . You are flesh and you bleed just like me and anyone else . You are human
I can’t wait for that book. ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
Thank you Forgotten.
My ex fiancé did this to me all the time , silent treatments … but then I would do as you said HG and go into my room and keep myself busy since I knew I did nothing to deserve it and he would come in saying let’s talk … but I remember his still cold green eyes , I remember towards the last 2 months out of the year he was with me , how he switched out of no where , I remember though at times him explaining how we originally met at 15 years old at first and how he found me after 20 something years on Facebook and how happy he was ( during the love bombing) how he never forgot me as I really never did either . I was overjoyed when he found me and came back into my life !! It’s been a little over a year since he discarded me …. I started to see things were off about him , feeling like I was walking on eggshells all of a sudden , I started to see behind his mask … but I am still not the same since … HG I even heard your radio interview on that station and you described my ex to the point ! I often wonder will he try to Hoover me , as it is his sister text me the thanksgiving after he left me telling me happy holiday and she misses me …. I did t respond until an HR layer thinking what if this was him because I knew they would be together that holiday … anyway I’m sorry for the ramble , I’ve been reading you’re blog and must say how helpful they are ! And thank you for the insight because I was truely baffled … because I was and still am in love with his pretend persona
Hello JDS, thank you for reading and for your post. Your experience is typical in a nutshell but you thinking that his sister might have been him or doing it on his behalf shows you have made progress in dealing with what has happened to you. You can also at least recognise that you are in love with the pretend personae, so you know what you are dealing with. Time, reading and understanding will see you cross that emotional sea.
HG thanks for your reply , question , do you have periods of telling some truth in the mix of your responses ; the night before he left , he told me things like ” you deserve better” , ” believe me I’m doing you a favor”. It’s me , not you . This is before the mask cracked open and I saw behind it , but he was already picking up on that . I knew something was off . Would a sociopath actually go that far of an extreme to find one of his first gf’s from when we were 15 and now at the time last year both 44?!
Should I still be on guard for a Hoover even though I live 60 miles from him but work closer in miles ? I’m still somewhat in shock that he turned out to be this way . Even his family were a bit off but they loved me .. and I loved them . Would one of your kind Hoover someone that is aware of whom they are HG?
Hello JDS, yes there will be truths in amongst the lies. Whilst we tell a lot of lies, there are truths spoken as well. Of course, discerning them is the hard part. I would say that certain things often seem like truths but they are not, they are just further manipulations. Yes we will go to certain lengths to gain fuel if the Hoover Execution Criteria is met. Thus, if I knew somebody would respond to me appearing and they would give me lots of fuel, I would travel many miles to achieve this. You should remain on guard.
We would still hoover one who knows what we are, subject to how that impacts on the HEC. It of course raises the bar, but other factors may lower it thus the aggregate effect is one where the hoover takes place.
Cara, when have you been in love?
HG, how is Rachel doing?
Do you mean Rachael?
Yes, apologies.
No need to apologise. She seems irritatingly content at present. Probably because she knows I have to see the good doctors.
Damn!! That was the perfect description of how things played out. I will remember this.
Will never play this game again. Thank you.
Hello Patricia and you are welcome.
No you don’t ever shut up…you’re always there, wanting to know about the minutiae of my day. It couldn’t have been that exciting if I came home to you, now could it? That’s all you really need to know, now shut up, this is my “me” time.
Hi Cara are you a sociopath ?
I’m definitely a narcissist
So have you ever loved ? Ever met someone you felt like you couldn’t live without ?
I have always loved, but in the way you understand and use the word.
Every primary source has been somebody i felt like I could not live without and it is true. I cannot.
Once.
Cara, you made me laugh – I had to read what you said twice – it was so mean but at least you direct and honest!
If one actually listens to understand, instead of responding things become easy.