The Narcissistic Truths – No 108
62 thoughts on “The Narcissistic Truths – No 108”
Vent Your Spleen! (Please see the Rules in Formal Info)
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
This is all true but in fairness, sometimes they seem so normal and real! My brain didn’t really go back to reality until I hadn’t see any of them I know for six months. Their displays of confidence, logic and entitlement go far in chaining those victims.
Jarwithaheavylid,
a) I don’t think i’m special that i’m the only one who knows about his feelings of inadequacy. In fact, it places me in a difficult position. I want him to get the proper help he needs, but he refuses to see a therapist because he says he is not ‘crazy.’ So i feel responsible to help him. Plus, his past abuse towards me in devaluation was not so bad or long as others have endured. It consisted mostly of silent treatments (with an apology 3-6 days later), and future faking. But it still upset me greatly because i am borderline and i cannot tolderate rejection.
b) I do not trust him. I know he lies. The problem is he believes the lies. For example, if he makes mistakes at work, he says his boss is firing him. I challenge him on many statements he makes, asking him to look at things with a different perspective. It does help.
Why should i not help him? Are we living in this world only to benefit ourselves? That would be selfish of me, in my opinion. I do care about myself, but i care about others too.
But the bottom line is … it is NOT your responsibility!!!
Your responsibility is to you and only you. We all have that right, each and every one of us. That includes the Narc in your life.
PANA, I’d like to offer you, what I hope, is some helpful advice. I did this for me and it helped more than I would’ve ever imagined. I think if you could quit calling him “my” Narc when you refer to him, it could actually start your process of detaching from him. Changing something as small as that, yet difficult to do, can lead you into making other small changes. 😊💕
Braveheart, i am grateful for your concern for me. 💗
Our union was secret. Pre-marital sexual relations is shunned in his family. But after 2.5 years i finally told two family members because we needed support, he felt bad that he was sinning (casual sex with other women, drugs), i knew that his family’s opinion holds great value for him, and anticipated that they could help him. After that, he cried for being discovered, altered his ways, but slipped into deep depression out of shame. Now he says he cannot face those family members, and thus he refuses to go to his parent’s home (he is in his twenties). He thus has no home to go to for comfort. Since he moved, he has not made many new friends yet, nor feels the desire to go out much due to depression. This is a man who has many friends (gets around 200 likes on each facebook picture he posts, which to me is alot), is driven, ambitious, dedicated, has a successful career, is fit, good looking, and athletic. He has no ipps, because he is determined to only engage in married sex in the future (if he gets married). Because I told the family members we needed help, which ultimately led to his shame and depression, i feel partly responsible for his condition. I did not know it would affect him like it has. But you are correct Braveheart, i should not feel responsible. I will try not to.
He texts me every few days, either asking how i am progressing, or to ask how he can get out of his depression. Since it doesn’t require alot of energy on my part, i reply, and offer suggestions. I have my boundaries and do not allow him to cross them. If he upsets me at all (which is very rare these days), i express my discontent, end the conversation, and do not contact him. He ends up contacting me after a few days and apologizing.
He always asks if i am happy, and doing well. He really is very sweet.
We are just friends, do not meet in person, and i am at peace.
Thank you for your suggestions. I appreciate it.
“Why should i not help him? Are we living in this world only to benefit ourselves? That would be selfish of me, in my opinion. I do care about myself, but i care about others too.”
1). Because he doesn’t want your help. The biggest lies are the ones we tell ourselves.
2). Because you’re in a relationship with someone else and it appears as if you are triangulating your partner, whether or not you agree you are. Your partner should run.
3), The entire narcissist lesson is self-care, self-respect, and self-love, and this means implementing strong boundaries.
4). Everything to do with a NPDd person is a lie – every time he opens his mouth it’s a lie. Even if not to fool you, but to fool himself.
I think you deeply need the attention this guy brings you. You have Wrong Focus (Exorcising the Narcissist). You’re wasting your life talking about this guy and every moment you focus on him, you should be focusing on yourself.
He doesn’t need to obviously abuse you for there to be no integrity about your relationship. He’s using your mental illness , and your integrity against you to gain fuel.
But we all get there in our own time.
Agree with every word, JWAHL!!! Love it!!!
Jwahl, is that your pic? I like your groovy hairstyle! Now back to the post.
Thank you for your comments.
1) he does want my help. He asks for it.
2) i have a significant other but i allow him to read the texts between me and my ex. This way, he will be assured that we are just friends
3) i have established boundaries now. I did not have so many before i knew he was a narc. I always thought i was too demanding perhaps. But now i know better. I no longer meet him, engage in intimacy, nor allow him to mistreat me. We text or talk on the phone only.
4) i don’t believe everything having to do with npd is a lie. He is sincere about many things.
Have you ever read the narcissistic personality forums? There are many covert narcs documenting their feelings of hopelessness, frustration in not being able to maintain a relationship, not wanting to hurt people, feelings of constant emptiness, boredom, and depression. They also feel offended that so many people label them as evil because they want to change, but don’t know how. My narc is covert, and tries his best not to hurt me anymore. He tells me i should let him know if and when i feel hurt, and he takes measures to correct himself.
Jwahl, i have high self esteem. I do not like to point it out like some other commenters do, but it is relevant here. There are 4 men that are seeking my attention right now, so i do not need my narc’s attention for this purpose. But he needs me, and i need him as a friend. It’s as simple as that. I am a person who cannot just stop loving someone. I still love every one of my exes (three in number), but now it is a plutonic love.
Also, i have borderline personality disorder. We alternate between extreme emotions very quickly, and cannot tolerate abandonment. I have suffered some childhood trauma that led to this. It is not a mental illness.
I do value your post, but everyone is different. What matters is that we attain peace and feel content with our situation. Thanks again.
Thanks, it’s a young Leo Sayer.
I mean he doesn’t want your help meaning – he’s posing as wanting it. He figures that’s the angle needed and he’s telling you what you need to hear to get his supply.
Narcissists don’t have friends for the reasons already mentioned. Why you would want to be in the company of someone who pretends to be something for the point of using you as supply? That’s not self-respectful at all. This guy does not care about you in the least, and HG’s writings about how your empathy as a love devotee and how ‘love conquers all’ is the bait he is using.
And I would never go to an online narcissist forum to read a bunch of sad sacks sitting around stroking themselves. HG might write this blog, but he still does what he does because a snake cannot be a bird. A fact is a fact. And I wouldn’t want to give myself false hope that the narcissist could be my lover, my husband, a father to his son, and most of all, my friend and someone I can trust. You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.
Earlier you said “you are the only person tells he inmost secrets and troubles to” (my words. not verbatim) What I hear is control and manipulation. YOU have to “help” him (bond/stick) whatever words HG would use. You are the flavor du jour he tells this to. Perhaps you are the only one NOW (doubtful – he has and needs other sources so there is a horn of plenty somewhere) either shelved (again, doubtful – probably in use. GOSO, NC. I am no expert and a newbie sponge. But your naevite scares me. For you. And reminds me – victory is a daily match of vigilance. Not one and done.
Tappan Zee, i think u r new here so welcome!!
You are correct. I am very naive, to my detriment. I believe the good in pple, until i get burnt. It has happened many times in my life and in many relationships – with friends, with my sister, with my relatives. Pple seem kind, so i am kind im return. But then they use me in more ways than one. Sometimes they ask for money (thousands) promising to pay me back. I see them in a difficult situation and my heart goes out to them, so i oblige. But one friend (who was my best friend at the time), disappeared and changed his phone number and email address so he wud not have to pay me back. A few yrs later, i searched and found his new email address (company email), and emailed him. He replied. I didn’t talk abt the money in that email. I emailed him again a few wks after that, but no reply. I kept trying every few wks, but again no reply. He knows my email address, cud easily email me, but chooses not to. He never returned my $4000. Pple take advantage of me. I am aware of that. I am working on it with my psychiatrist. Thx for ur concern.
As far as my ex mid-ranger is concerned, that has gradually weaned off to a 5 min text exchange once a month. This was far easier for me than to go no contact cold turkey as i was still attached to him, still loved him as a friend (yes, even when the mask slipped), and wanted to help him. I don’t help him anymore though. During the time i helped him (8 mos), he was very kind and appreciative and i enjoyed keeping in touch with him via text and phone. But on two occasions during that 8 mos period, i saw his uncaring side. After that, i decided to have very very minimum contact, in order to protect myself. I cannot do NC, being co-dependent. So now it’s small talk once a month for 5 min via text. Like i said earlier, everyone heals in different ways. I needed a gradual weaning frm him rather than cold turkey, else i suffer from panic attacks. Btw, he would often text me during those 8 mos asking ‘how can i get out of this depression?, this world is not for me’ etc. I could not just ignore his condition. His treatment of me was not so poor that i hated him. He is an empty soul and i feel badly that he has to live with npd. I feel i have progressed alot since i wrote these posts back in january (tho u may not think so). I thank HG and everyone here. 💗
Btw tappan zee, my name is now jenna, not ptsd, because i no longer suffer frm ptsd.
I did suffer it, mainly due to his future faking – I am extremelyyyy sensitive. But after i told him that the broken plans hurt me, he never did it again.
When i look back at the relationship, i actually smile because he was really very sweet 95% of the time which is a greater percentage i could achieve with some normals.
In Buddhism emptiness is not nothingness. Nagarjuana said “Emptiness wrongly grasped is like picking up a poisonous snake by the wrong end” … in other words You can grasp it but You will need to know how to do it correctly. Not saying that as a instruction to harm one… but rather for You to know that You ARE NOT empty … that things do not exist the way our grasping self assume they do….
be still and know that i am God.
says God.
similar, but different.
He fills you with life.
Frankly the fact that you’re the only one who knows
a) doesn’t make you special except in your own mind, and
b) is only more reason to really fuck you over. Maybe even kill you. The fact that you trust this guy is testament to your mental illness.
PTSD,
Please listen to HG on this.
Your phone calls with him keep him addicted to you and you addicted to him. People, in order to seek help on their own often have to hit rock bottom when it comes to addiction. That comes when you cut him off, and yourself off too. Abstinence, no contact.
Also please consider your own feelings when you are not in a relationship with anyone romanticly. Explore with your therapist as self love is the only cure.
I’m glad you are getting longer periods of time away from calls. This is good. However, you are dating someone else, right? Consider the health of that relationship too as it could be your filler of emptiness. When we learn to fill ourselves, we stop seeking to rescue others in this manner. Read Codependent No More, Read Chained by HG. I say this again with caring, not judgement. When you are ready, please consider exploring the role that these relationships have in your life. Often when we have one relationship that is unhealthy, it is a good opportunity to look at patterns in our own lives in general.
Although I was very aware of my pattern of live with those with addictions, it took someone with narcissism to teach me that I had been searching for myself, no one else. They mirror ourselves back to us and we fall in love. We have to learn to love ourselves without that mirror.
Blessed be the narcissists, for they teach us this lesson deeply.
~From a healing codependent and empath~
Indy, yes i am in a relationship (not my narc). My significant other knows i keep contact with my narc.
My narc is being kind. Since we are just friends, i think it will be an extended golden period with no need to devalue again (inner circle friend). But i remain guarded. Text and phone calls is the extent of what i will allow. Not seeing him was difficult at first, but it is getting easier. I am borderline and co-dependent. I am in therapy, though it helps very little. This blog helps more. Right now, i am at peace though. Thank you for your sincere concern. I am grateful for it.
Very well said, Indy! For myself, I have chosen to begin this new year with a new program called “Daily Om”. The course I signed up for is called “Break the Grip of Past Lovers, but it also offers so much more. It basically teaches women how to truly love and respect themselves from deep within.
PANA, it would be amazing if you could find a way to release the grasp you have on the Narc you’re tending to and find a way to truly care for yourself. What you’re doing is not making you a healer, it’s making you remain sick with him and, as we all are aware now, it will destroy your life. PLEASE, listen to those who care about you and your life! PLEASE, listen to HG!!!
🙏💕😌
HG, I recently mentioned in another post that my son is involved with a girl (pregnant with my grand daughter) who I believe is a Narc. This exact thought process is what I shared with my son, my daughter and my ex-husband today. I told them that no matter how pissed off they are at this girl, the worst thing they can do is tell her how they feel because it will mean absolutely nothing to her except what she can gain from it, which is the fuel. I think my family is in awe of what they’re hearing from me, but I’ve attributed all of my knowledge to you. My ex-husband and I are making an appointment with an attorney, so my son (who owns his own home) can get a head start on being in front of the ball when this girl tries throwing out all her weapons. I’ve basically told everyone to have absolutely no contact with her, especially if they feel the need to give her what she’s looking for. Now the question is, trying to find out what level of narcissist she is. I know she plays the victim and she calls my son names. She demeans him and, without her knowledge, my ex-husband has caught her glaring at our son in such a way that was very concerning to him. So far I don’t think she’s been violent with him, but she has tried accusing him of being somewhat violent with her. Something I know for a fact is not true because he knows what I went through with his Lesser Narc biological dad (physical abuse) and he would never put his hands on a female, period. Again, another piece of great advice from you, HG! Thank you!!! 🙂
Do you have an awareness between your disorders operating? I’m sifting through matrinarc’s behaviour and those around me who also have comorbidity. I’m wondering if you are aware what triggers different disorders. It would seem the straight sociopaths I know hate narcissists because their ego and falseness conflicts with the sociopath’s preference for “real.”
I theorise with a colleague her narcissism arose when she had to be in the socialised world, that is she became narcissistic at work and in social circles but away from that world behind closed doors she was her sociopathic self.
The child is hers, not yours. Walk away.
Also, why is your son dating a narc? Clean up your own backyard before meddling in your son’s affairs. He’s a grown man and can take care of himself.
Keep listening to your intuition and gut. It sounds like you have a close bond with your son and it this relationship is as toxic as what you view, he will need your support. You are also fighting for your unborn grandbaby who most definitely deserves a shot to be surrounded by loving, supportive family and caretakers. Not an instant pawn to be manipulated with from the second it pops its head out.
I am so thankful and indebted to my parents for their support when I went through my divorce 5 years ago. There is no cutoff ever, for being there for your kids. Until my dying breath I plan to be involved in my daughter’s life out of love and support.
I agree with you completely, Clarece! Thank you so much for your thoughtful words.
As far as, JWAHL’s words go, they were absolutely meaningless to me. I will forever support my kids and grandkids; and anyone who doesn’t, regardless of the age, is no better than HG’s Matrinarc, in my estimation.
Thanks, again! 💞
Ditto those sentiments. Don’t even get me started on the urgency and importance of bonding and being in sync with an infant that starts at birth. You will be a fierce Grandmomma!
Awe, thank you for your compliment, Clarece! You make me smile! 😁👍
Sure, you can be involved – but the child is hers not yours – whatever her reality. The fact that you are preparing for a fight shows that you’re the one who is about to involve this child In ugliness. You are, in reality, setting the child up as a pawn.
Your son is involved with someone with poor boundaries and you should ask yourself why. Sure, you can support him, but FFS, it’s his life – let him get his own lawyer. It’s sickening the way some people muck around in their kids’ lives and then cry that their kids are victims. Sure they’re victims – of their parents’ meddling.
I feel sorry for the child all round. You’re all dysfunctional.
JWAHL, you have no clue what I plan to do, and trust me, fighting is not one of them, protecting my son with knowledge is. If you must know, I’ve already privately consulted with HG, since this post, and we’re in agreement with what needs to happen. Hopefully, this helps you to put your focus back on you and what you’re needing to learn.
This is so sad. My narc just texted me. He asked ‘why does my brain never wake up?’, ‘why is my heart always burning?’ I told him if he’s alone for too many days he may find himself in such a situation. About his heart, i said narcs have a constant underlying fury. Regardless, it did not offer him a solution. 😢
Here is a solution. Don’t engage with him and it will force him to go elsewhere PANA.
HG, i don’t mind helping him, offering suggestions (he won’t see a therapist because he says he’s not ‘crazy’), and providing him with fuel. Anyways, it is just over text or over the phone. I want him to feel better. I still love him dearly.
Indeed you do and that is understood but what will make him feel better will ultimately be to your detriment.
‘To my detriment’, meaning he will leech me dry of energy etc? I am staying guarded HG, thanks to the information i am gaining here. If i start feeling uneasy, i tell him i love him, that i will get off the phone now, and then i hang up. I wish there was some way i could reduce his emptiness. Do you think my supportive phone calls help him?
They will give him fuel and give him the reassurance that he can get more from you.
Indeed he can get more from me, over text or phone only though. I don’t mind in that context.
Since i am the only one who knows about his condition (he does not share these feelings of inadequacy with anyone else), i feel strongly responsible towards helping him, and i myself feel uneasy if too much time has passed between contact because of my love and addiction towards him(1wk). However, i’m happy to say my addiction is gradually decreasing. I can now go 1 week without contact. Before, it was only 2 days. It may not sound like alot of progress, but to me it is significant.
Plus i start feeling uneasy myself if i don’t interact with him eg. if it’s been more than one wk since contact.
Indeed, that is the effect of his emotional infection of you which you are capable of purging.
🙂
wow HG. yeah. by the end….i was starting to be like him in this regard…the nothing…..(bc he was stripping/robbing me of me)
i remember looking in the mirror….and seeing nothing. am emptiness that was never there before. my eyes. they were not mine.
i did not like that feeling.
it has been a long journey back to putting the something back in me. the life in my eyes.
dreadful experience. he is dreadful and sooo empty. hollow candy man. 😉
i wish it was that easy….to just bite his head off and he was gone. 🙂
i would eat the whole chocolate bunny if it were. poof! gone. make my life a ton easier. 🙂
thanks for that visual mla clarece. ill never look at those bunnies the same. i might have to knock 1 off the shelf in passing next time i see one. 🙂
Aww, Findlinglife, take care.
Haha, I really liked “Hollow Candy Man”. (Don’t be one HG).
Instead of a bunny, maybe you can find some Nutcracker ones on clearance and have at it? Lol
I was always “biting” JN’s head off. Hence why he would call me too emotional and batsh*t crazy.
Hi Clarence! Just out of curiosity, each time I read your comments, and you mention “JN”, it makes me wonder what the “J” stands for. Would you mind enlightening me. I just want to understand more thoroughly who it is you’re talking about because I like what you have to say. Thank you in advance! 😊
Shit! I don’t know how Clarece turned into Clarence … 😂😂😂, but hopefully it made you laugh! 😂❣️
Absolutely! JN stands for Junior Narc. HG came up with it when he found out my relationship was with someone much younger than me following my divorce after being married for 17 years. And the age gap was a major factor in me rationalizing his behavior away to someone just immature or afraid of his feelings because no matter what, there was always an expiration date stamped on us.
PTSD, I understand you. There will come a time when the intensity will lessen. We cannot burn forever. One day, you will no longer feel the need to nurture his void. But till then, telling you to remain no contact is like asking you not to breathe.
Love, I hope i can get there one day. I do feel like i am making slow and steady progress. Thank you.
Hmmm, being hollow. Reminds me of chocolate figures that are hollow inside. All you can do with that is chew them up and make them disappear then. You’re momentarily thought of for coming in a shiny foil wrapper and tasting good but quickly forgotten then for bringing no other value. Is that the irrelevance you hate to be associated with.?
Ouch! That is why we need to fill up our centre with your lovely sweet chocco fuel!
Typos galore, not “our”. I meant keeping “out” other things too. Thus, the emptiness experienced by those with NPD and BPD and those with PTSD and trauma history is a result of that dissociation. It was created automatically by the brain as a tool to protect yourself during those traumatic moments.
So true, dissociation works when comes to keeping out the pain of the horrors. It keeps our more than horrors, though.
It also shuts down our “fight” due to overstimulation which in turns shuts down your identity and life.
Yep, that is right, AVS! You freeze or dissociate during a trauma to survive, protecting self. However, when that dissociation is triggered over and over, by things that are not life threatening you loose yourself in the process.
Then why write a book about how to harm emptiness? (The revenge book).
That is harming the false construct, not the emptiness.
Thank you for that clarification.
HG, when I was with him I felt nothingness and as if nothing we did had value. This also happened with colleagues, who would make comments like “what are we doing here? Where is this all going?” This led to depression and bleakness inside of me. Is this something that you feel about the world and what you do – that it means nothing? Or do you think these are machinations to weaken me and make me lose motivation?
I do not think in such terms about the world AVS, I am too busy forging my path through it. I would suggest that either those people who made those comments were unable to keep their sense of emptiness under control when they spoke in such terms in front of you or if they could, it was designed to manipulate you by playing on your sense of mortality.
Thank you for this. It is probably had the biggest impact, the sense of mortality and also isolation caused a feeling of rotting inside of me. It was also the lack of ability to connect with them that caused me to see them as also rotting and why I felt the urge to run, run and run forever.
I think it might be both, because I’ve seen it in all cases of working with narcissists and often they do leave the work from being unable to maintain connection.
Yes, we can not harm nothingness. there is nothing to harm. That is why the best reaction is to nothing your kind HG
Who would want to harm anything so broken as to be hollow with emptiness? This meme, these words, can bring sadness out in me. Bastard!
I spent NYE at a gala hosted by a girlfriend of mine. She reminds me of you Ah Oh. Fierce yet loving.
Does she look like me too.
I’ve only seen a tiny icon pic of you. I don’t think it is a physical resemblance. It is your personalities that are similar.
I look like me. Some say I look as if I am part American Indian as I have very high cheekbones. I sent in my DNA and it did come back American Indian or Mongolian. 0.02%. Enough to give me the look.