Watching You Crumble
We don’t provide support. We are too concerned with ourselves and our daily hunt for the fuel that we need to be concerned about you. We are engrossed in our own world and have no interest in yours. The only time we pay attention to you is when you are providing us with fuel or you stop providing us with fuel. Everything we do is focussed around us. This is because we have to obtain fuel, as without we will disintegrate. The hunger for this fuel is never ending and accordingly all of our energy must be applied towards obtaining it. This leaves us with nothing left over for anyone else.
Being a caregiver yourself, you would like to think that the person who you share your life with, or who you work closely with, would be amenable to providing you with support. That may mean giving you emotional support when you are experiencing a difficult time or taking the strain allowing you to lessen the burden on yourself. You give and you are happy to do so, therefore why should they not do so as well? That is the outlook of someone normal operating by the norms and rules of your world. Those do not apply to us. We cannot provide you with support since we have nothing available to do so.
Added to that we do not know how to provide emotional support. Yes we can see how chores can be done and the like. We also have observed the ways that you provide emotional support to other people and we know the phrases that are used, the expressions that are formed on people’s faces and the gestures that are made. We have seen all that and we could trot all that out. In fact we have done in the past. We did this when we were seducing you. When we wanted you to divulge about your weaknesses and vulnerabilities this will have invariably saddened you and upset you. It may even have caused an episode where you need emotional support. We were happy to go through the motions then because we were at the stage of investing in your in order to get our fuel. We were content to make the right noises, give you a hug and make the panacea that is the cup of tea. All of this was learned from others. We did not feel anything for you. We could not put ourselves in your shoes (heaven forbid that would ever happen) and we could not empathise with what you were experiencing and nor can we ever do that. Yet again, we conned you into thinking that we are a caring and selfless person. We demonstrated such an approach when we were first together and that attracted you to us. This raised expectations that you could rely on us and turn to us when the need arose. It is all false.
Furthermore, when you need support and expect it from us, you are showing to us how you are weak. We despise weakness. You will find that our kind is rarely found near children, the infirm and ill and the elderly. This is because they are all weak and want support regularly. We do not want to be reminded of that fact. We cannot be bothered with you cluttering up our route to fuel. An exhibition of weakness infuriates us. A normal person would see someone in a position of weakness and deign to help and assist. We have seen how this is a natural reaction in normal people. It will not happen with us.
If you are fortunate, we will absent ourselves from the situation in an instant. We will generate some urgent reason; find a pressing engagement we had forgotten about in order to ensure we can get away from you and your ailment, woe or injury. You probably will never see us move as quick when it comes to getting away from somebody who needs help. If we are unable to exit the situation then we may just stand and look at you. You could be reaching out to us, eyes filled with tears of pain, asking for help and we will just give you a blank stare. We know we ought to be helping you, convention and observation has told us this, but we cannot do so. We are unable to leave but we are also unable to help you. This requires compassion and we do not have any. It requires us to us our energies to help you out and we are forbidden from doing so.
Our ultimate reaction where you need support from us is to go on the offensive. The uncomfortable feeling that you have generated inside of us makes us feel less powerful and smacks of inferiority. We know of only one way to banish such a sensation. We need to reassert our power and that means we must lash out at you. It becomes necessary to subject you to further insults and denigrating comments, at a time when you are feeling hurt and vulnerable.
“What are you crying for? I have had worse happen to me.”
“I am sick and tired of you being pathetic. Deal with it.”
“I bet (insert name of triangulated individual) would not make such a song and dance about it like you do.”
“It’s only a dog, you can get another one. Seriously, what a display over a dumb animal.”
“You are hysterical, you need to get help.”
“Stop crying or I will give you something to cry about.”
“That’s right; make it about you on my special day.”
We will lash out at you with these words in order to make you feel worse and ourselves feel better because that is all we care about. We fooled you into thinking that we care about you. That is a fallacy. Do not expect us to support you.
Demonstrating our legendary hypocrisy we will expect you to always be there for us. When we have a need you must attend to it straight away, even if you are experiencing difficulties yourself. When we have a scratch we expect you to make it better even though you might be bleeding to death before us. As with so much of our behaviour we do not regard the way we act towards you as meaning you should behave the same way towards us. If you chopped us in half you would most likely find this stencilled through us like lettering on a stick of rock
“Do as I say, not do as I do.”
28 thoughts on “Watching You Crumble”
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Another wow. I have been waking up to the fact that my mother is a narc. I am puzzled by a memory I have of being a child. I was hurt and hospitalized with a life changing accident. I was very young. A few years later, I had surgery. I remember my mother leaving the room. I was about ready to fall apart but I could not. I bit down on all my feelings. I said I will show her I am tough… and I killed a part of myself. I used to think that I was proud and afraid and just did that on my own. But as I look back on who my mother was and things she did to me later, I am thinking that I was reacting to her complete inability to be there for me. I did not initiate that response and shut her out. She was not available and I was reacting to HER. I am waking up to all the awful things she did to me and it was always the ‘you are too sensitive’ and more. I still was blaming myself for what I did to survive the hospital and now I think I know why overall I did that. She was utterly incapable of empathizing with me.
Ah H was not like this. Although he is prob a narc…..in this regard he is different. He will pick up a stray, injured bird and take it to the vet. And he would help an old lady out, spend time talking to an old gent about the world war.
When my dad was in hospital H did sometimes act uncaring and stressed me out when really I needed support.
but, H is actually quite kind to animals. He wasn’t good when the children were young. He wouldn’t take them out for instance and a lot of the burden fell on me.
HG, it amazes me that a total stranger is able to describe my ex-husbands behavior almost verbatim! Your blog is definitely the best therapy I have found in 25 years of dealing with one of your kind. The hardest part of my 22 year marriage to a narc, was trying to get him to care about our children’s emotional needs. His 2 favorite quotes were: “Not my problem ” and ” I don’t do drama.” I tried to make up for his lack of affection, but a mom can’t replace a dad’s hug for a teenage girl. I wish I had known all of this earlier, I would have saved myself a lot of stress trying to get him to care about their emotional needs. I hope that your blog can keep a lot of other victims from the agony I went through.
Thank you Becky for your kind words, spread the word and you shall play a part in doing what you hope will happen.
I made a comment, he gave me the silent treatment, I found out I was pregnant and needed time to process this as to things were to close to my past and I became afraid.
He didn’t know these details, so there was no way he could calculate my reactions.
His actions thou caused stress that was to much for me and our child died.
Thank you HG for given me the peace I needed in keeping this secret
He didn’t and the details as to how I know I won’t make public, the evidence I have been watching shows he is monitoring my movements.
As far as who discarded who, I escape in a sense.
You are pushing everyone who loves and cares about you away . Why can’t you see that in the long run this behavior may cause you to be alone and God forbid you became handicapped say in a car accident or if you break your leg then the way you have treated people may come back to you and no one will want to help you after you have hurt them so badly .
There is always a fresh crop Starr.
HG you said discard happens when a new primary is secured, this didn’t happen like this with my situation. I don’t believe I reacted the way he expected.
You have discribe to accurate as to what happened to him and it took a year and half before he secured another. Time thou spent with others that have always served there purpose.
I have sense cut all ties, someone very dear to me yet not knowing what he was would vent to me about him. It made things worse for me yet the fact is he had her isolated completely and this was done in secret. She feared what he would do and he did once he found out.
This killed me thou knowing what he was going through and now that I understand the why, doesn’t make things better.
Thank you thou for all you do!
Did he discard you? How do you know for sure there was no primary source in place DFA?
A thousand thanks for a very important post.
Memories of how he behaved when i was at the hospital for concussion, when i was pregnant; how he behaved when i found out my father was terminally ill, how he did nothing watching my mom bully me very hard, etc etc.
Extremely important as the lastest charming narcissist hoovers (He probably thinks about the dark season and the holidays coming up, winter nest). To keep decline.
Inevitably, as life happens, we will look and sound vulnerable.
Ns will despise us for it.
You are welcome CB.
Good morning,
as usual very good article but also raw … basically it is the reality. My narc, if I was sad for something different from him (eg. the death of my parrot), could give me just a bit of extra attention, but only if it was at the stage when he wanted to win me back, then he called me at mobile or wrote me more messages at different times of the day. Nothing more than this and still he could not express real emotional closeness (but I did enough to me what he gave).
But also in my family I have another narc: my father. As long as there is to fix something material or pratical then he helps (and remarked that he did this or that for you, and without him you would be lost), but if something happens (eg. the death of someone) that requires emotional support, he just disappears.
Hi HG. There is a person I know (Mid range Im thinking). Ive just discovered he isnt all I thought he was in the beginning. However…he has recently proved to many people that he has been chasing the ladies, unbeknown to most people. He’s been caught out shall we say. Suddenly, the new love of his life is a Cancer (functioning) patient. Only after a couple of months they are talking about moving in together. I fear problems for her. I worry she will be abused. How long do you think he can maintain his facade with her? (If indeed he is what I suspect). And…should she be warned? I think there is money involved also, (hers) which seems to be another red flag. Thanks HG.
Hello Lisa, yes you ought to warn her but you cannot tell her what to think because she will naturally back away from that and she is also being brainwashed by the narcissist. You therefore need to plant the seeds of suggestion so she realises herself what is going on and has a lightbulb moment. It does not always work because of the brainwashing but that is not to say that you should not try.
Thanks HG. Fingers crossed she will at least consider. 🙂
Again, so true, so accurate, so sad… and although youe article made me cry, the comment about your kind having a scratch while our kind is bleeding to death was really funny…
HG, you discard an intimate partner because her fuel becomes less potent in quality and quantity. You know this because you are self aware, due to your treatment I understand. However, before you became self aware, what would be your reasoning for discarding an intimate partner? Thank you.
Hello PTSD, the discard occurs usually when a new primary source has become embedded and they were seduced because the existing primary source’s fuel became less potent, less fulsome and/or less frequent (there are other reasons for discard – see the article 5 Reasons We Discard You). Why did it happen before I gained awareness? Good question. I got rid of the person if the new person I had been courting made me feel better and that I felt they were tied to me and because the existing one was not doing was I wanted, challenged me and such like.
Thank you HG. By the way, is your name John Fletcher? I was watching a math tutorial by him on youtube, under ‘johnfletchervideo.’ He sounds alot like you, but i presume he is a little young. It gave me goosebumps to possibly put a face to your name. However, I can understand that you must remain anonymous and I pray that it remains that way so that you can continue helping us.
Ha ha no that is not me.
When I read this, I feel sad. Some of the most amazing moments I’ve had is in the tenderness of people being vulnerable with each other. It’s uncomfortable for me to be vulnerable & share my weaknesses, but when I do (with a safe person) the result is of life, closeness (intimacy) it is so beautiful – I feel alive & purposeful. To think you, HG & your kind, do not & what I hear you say, will never … well, I feel sad & confused because I really don’t get it – why there wouldn’t be cure for narcissism. I believe that I have walked through my narcissistic tendencies & think & care about others more then I used to & there’s great joy in that. It seems very strange to me that the narcissist is all about him, but in his self-centered state will never experience true intimacy that produces aliveness that I can’t even begin to contain in words.
It scares me how on point you are with everything you’ve written here. I’m such a fool expecting him to show kindness, love and support for anything I’ve gone through. As a matter of fact, when I accuse him of not supporting me he says “Of course I’m supporting you I pay all the bills don’t I?” I look at him and think to myself, “You miss the point of everything I say what, are you retarded or something!”
You’re right about not showing weakness. I’ve often held my pain and tears in for months and then out of the blue, just as he leaves for work, tears start streaming down my face. Why can’t he “see” me? Why can’t he understand that I need support in more ways than one.
🙁
It’s been a heartbreaking few weeks watching my father go through recovery from major surgery and my mother have this glow about her, almost giddy, while not attending to his needs for physical and emotional support. HG, was she getting fuel this whole time through his suffering? And through hearing about and watching us (the kids and grandkids) being concerned? My heart breaks at how the world is a tough place. I remember saying that my mother is no Florence Nightingale. And now it all finally makes sense. Whenever I had a procedure I did not want her there because I had to take care of myself and her too. Not worth it.
Hello HollDoll your analysis is completely accurate. She has no need to provide support but milks the drama for fuel
Hi hg you really are educating so many people about narcissism!! I have learned so much from you. People can save lots of money by reading your blog and books instead of going to therapy. You are doing a wonderful service to all people affected by narcissism!! Thank you hg!!
I literally cannot believe how accurate your words are, it’s as if my ex himself has written it! I used to call my ex an emotional retard due to his inability to show love, concern, compassion or understanding. I used to call his heart a swinging brick and he took great delight in that. He’d say I was jealous of his ability to switch off like a light switch and that he thought I wished I could be the same as him! Nothing could be further from the truth!