Death
It is fair to state somewhat euphemistically that death is an inconvenience for everyone. In respect of my kind and me, it causes all manner of problems and issues which are especially irksome. Death generally only affects people in two respects. Their own death and the death of other people. Our responses to those two aspects are far-removed from that of the reactions of ordinary people and especially those of an empathic nature.
First of all, how do we regard the death of someone else. The demise of a stranger causes to response from us unless we realise that in order to maintain the façade that it would be advantageous to say “the right things” and come out with those empty platitudes that people do so often when they read of a tragedy somewhere. When this happens and somebody makes mention of some loss of life, perhaps the drowning of a toddler who was not being properly supervised and fell into a bath or the consequence of an aeroplane crashing, I observe the reactions of the collective with interest. There are the expressions of shock, the declarations of horror and how this is such a terrible event. As I watch and listen I do wonder who the greater charlatans are in this event. Is it me who does not care and cannot care but pretends to do so in order to maintain my precious façade or is it those who claim to care about somebody they never knew and would never have known?
If the death of someone is closer to home, a friend or a family member then my reaction is no different save that it is laced with irritation and indeed often anger at the loss of someone who was a source of fuel for me. If that person forms a supplementary source, then there is irritation at this loss but this person can readily be replaced with a new member rising to form part of my coterie. If the person who has been lost to the hand of the grim reaper is a primary source of fuel, then I am consumed with fury. How could this person treat me in this fashion? I gave them everything and then they leave me in the most complete fashion, with no chance of that sweet, sweet restoration. This departure amounts to a criticism of me, a reminder that even someone as great and powerful as I was unable to prevent the removal of a potent source of fuel. Thus this criticism ignites my fury and I rage at the injustice of their death. Some who witness this might mistake this response for an outburst of grief at the taking of this person. It is not that. It is the explosion of wrath at someone who was so potent to me escaping me and thus denying me my rightful fuel and denying me the opportunity to put in place a replacement. I do not mourn their passing away. I rage at the passing of my fuel source.
Do not expect to see me attend the funerals of those that are regarded as supposedly close to me and where my attendance might otherwise be expected. I will not be there. I know there are those of our kind who revel in the drama and the high emotion that is attached to a funeral and regard it as a honey pot for the acquisition of fuel. There are those of our kind who will hijack the occasion and make it all about them, wailing and shedding those false tears in order to draw well-meant sympathy from the other attendees. There are those of our kind who will create a scene at the funeral, arriving late, arriving drunk, collapsing part way through the service, making a snide remark in a loud stage whisper in order to draw reactions from everyone else that is there. Yes, many of our kind will attend and exhibit their over-acted grief purely to draw attention to themselves and away from the person who is now lying in the cold, hard ground. Our kind will express their huge sense of loss, how the deceased was such a wonderful father, caring mother, beloved uncle or best friend. Such a shameless performance which is carefully choreographed in funereal black to maximise the opportunity to have the spotlight shine on them and thus drink up all the attendant fuel. A disagreement will be provoked with another family member and harsh words exchanged. Over the top blubbing will take place with cries of “Don’t leave me!” as the coffin is lowered. The occasion of death and the attended ceremony provides a wonderful stage to our kind to perform our sick routines to make it all about us, fashioned from the pretence of actually caring. We do not care. We cannot care. We resent the fact that this person has escaped us. We resent the fact that everybody is turning out to pay their respects to the deceased and not training their attention onto us which is where it should belong. Should you ever witness melodrama at a funeral do not mistake it for the exaggerating effects of grief and loss, you are observing one of our kind milking the moment for all it is worth.
That is the response of many of our kind to the loss of a “loved one” or a “close friend” who has passed away after a full life or taken too soon. It is not my response. I have only ever attended one funeral in my life and that was the funeral of my father. I only broke my own protocol to do this as a consequence of the diktat from my mother and also at the behest of my younger brother who begged me to accede to her request so that she would not erupt and undermine the occasion of our father’s death. I duly obliged, just the one, purely in order to satisfy my desires however. I wanted to rein in my mother’s theatrics and watch how she really responded to the death and subsequent committing to another place of my father. You may well have read elsewhere in my works of that particular day. That was the only time that I have attended a funeral and I did it to further my own understanding and in order to loathe in my own private way the way my mother was behaving. That gave me tremendous satisfaction.
Thus, I only broke my protocol of non-attendance once and shall not do so again. Why is it that I will not attend funerals when there is such a prime opportunity to take centre stage and draw greedily on all the available fuel? It is a simple reason enough. I will not attend funerals because I do not wish to be reminded of my own mortality. Like a medieval monarch who stayed away from funerals, even of the preceding monarch and his own wives and offspring, because it would cause others to contemplate the death of the current monarch, something which was treasonable, I too will not attend. I have no desire to contemplate my demise. I do not want to recognise that one day all of this must end for this offends my notion of omnipotence. I do not wish to linger at the edge of the abyss that is life, staring into the nothingness of oblivion. Such is the finality of the mortal end to one’s existence, it engenders and raises the very prospect of that extinction that I fight against each and every day through the acquisition of fuel to maintain my construct and keep myself from being consigned into oblivion. To contemplate a mortal death is to invite the horrifying reality of the extinguishing of who I wish to be and that which I must not let happen.
I do not fear my mortal death for I will have my legacy in place and thus I shall live on through that. No, what I would rather not be reminded of, through the occurrence of the passing of others and the subsequent surrounding ceremony, is that I sometimes teeter on the brink on annihilation. The thought of that fills me with despair, only for myself and therefore I choose not to engage in that which will so forcefully and rudely remind me of it.
I know death embraces all eventually. I am not a foolish man and that is why I have worked to secure my legacy so that I may out stride death.
I care not, save for the loss of my fuel, when its cold hand snuffs out the life of others. Our type does not mourn the death of others. We are unable to do so. We are not equipped to achieve this. Never expect any sincere mourning to ever be evidenced by our kind.
I care not to contemplate what mortal death signifies for me in my ongoing struggle to keep such annihilation at bay.
33 thoughts on “Death”
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So having been discarded I have been diagnosed with cancer (linked to the stress he has placed on me). I predict that the narc will be preying on me hoping to speed my demise more quickly. But could this be wrong and he will want to torture me further? He has not yet been told and I refuse to allow him to be told until a mediation so I can be watching his reaction when he’s told. His reactions to the unexpected are generally the only time you get an honest reaction after that he massages it. I’m fully expecting him to blurt out “you’ve done that to cheat me out of [some asset]”. Because I’m sure that is what he will think.
Hello CJF, I daresay he will because he will not want you getting any sympathy because of your illness. He will not want to speed your demise. A dead appliance is a useless appliance.
CJF, i am sorry about your diagnosis. I am sending prayers your way to beat the cancer!
I mean, as long as you are not a preppy…
Yay…how old are you? You come off quite young. I mean that in the nicest way 🙂
Forget it, then. I cannot handle young, immature men.
I should’ve freakin’ known! This changes everything! I’m pretty much in tears, now. All the dynamics are changed, now. Oh, WOW. Oh, WOW.
I’m sorry you lost your father HG. How old were you?
It happened when I was an adult.
I’m very sorry for your loss. I know he was instrumental in saving you frm matrinarc at times.
I am sorry for your loss of your father, as well. My sons lost their dad when they were still in grade school, and I had to break it to them when they got home. My heart broke for them. I try to be mom and dad to them, but I do not know how to be a man. I cannot do that. Thanks to The Good Lord, they have a Father Figure who has helped them along the way. He is a friend of the family. I raised my children alone, but not alone, as The Good Lord was with us every step of the way, and He Always provided for us. But of course, the boys miss having a dad in their lives to do DAD things with. But, they have turned out well, again, 🙏 to The Lord.
Can I ask … What do you hope to leave as a legacy of yourself? Although this blog will be quite a legacy… x x
Hi Overthinker, my writing and more which I have planned in a similar vein and something else rather spectacular which is in development.
HG- What if you did receive a sentence of death; told that you had months to live? What would you do? How would you feel? What would you think?
Hello BJ,
1. Appeal;
2. Prison break;
those would be my immediate thoughts.
Do you mean suicide?
With regard to what BJ?
Maybe you are actually a saint of some kind. Sometimes I think so. You might just be pretending to be a NPD/Sociopath to get your point across, but are actually a saint! ❤️❤️❤️ I think you are!
I mean, if this was true…that you were a saint in disguise, then I’d marry you, HG. But, if you are truly a Sociopath, then I cannot marry a Sociopath. I’m just being REAL.
Maybe you are secretly doing all of this [your books, and blogs, ETC, ] out of love ❤️ for others! God knows!
Thank you, HG Tudor, for an interesting article.Two questions: 1. What about fear of dying alone after all family and friends leave your side? Narcissists do not want to be alone. You seem to fear loneliness. 2. What about a religious aspect of dying and life after death? Some narcissists become religious at old age because of the fear of dying, but most live their lives as atheists or agnostics. I am aware of the phenomenon of greater narcissist being a cult, and religious leader- such power position allow them to exert control over others. My question is more about sudden “change of heart” and becoming ‘religious’ at old age. Some literature describes that behavior. I wonder what serves as the trigger.
Hello BAB1,
1. I will not die alone.
2. There is no life after death. When you die that is it. All you can hope for is that there is a legacy thereafter.
I agree with you that some of our kind do become religious at an old age. It is akin to the fact that there were no atheists in the trenches in the first world war. As for the trigger, it will be the sudden contemplation of one’s mortality and therefore in seeking to attain a form of immortality (through life after death) there is the turn to religion. I shall not do so. I have it in my gift to create immortality in a different way.
Thank you. As to #1, I wonder if all narcissists types have same strong belief that they “will not die alone.” Since you are the greater one, it makes sense. Not sure if lesser or mid-ranger would have the same opinion? Some narcissists seem to understand that destruction they cause has consequences. They submit to therapy (rare) or even warn their prospective victims (“I ruin all relationships”-I heard that at the beginning of relationship from my narc). All of this is a result of your magical thinking. Many of you are smart enough to see the pattern of your behaviors- that you destroy all relationships and majority of victims have enough at some point. Some victims develop the Stockholm syndrome and stay throughout all devaluations and discards, but many partners of narcissist leave them behind and never look back. I am trying to determine how much you can be objective when you look at yourself. Are you telling me what you really believe in and feel (can you even get in touch with your true-self), or this is your ego speaking (your false-self)? I hope I am not too intrusive.
I agree with you. I have seen externally that we all engage in the immortality belief but I know (Uncle Robert being an example) that when the fuel dips in advanced age, those encroaching concerns about mortality chew away at the Lesser and the mid-Ranger and it is because of their waning powers, something which is far less of a concern for we Greaters.
I cannot be truly objective when referring to myself because of course I am talking about myself, but what I do do is weave into my writing the observations of the good doctors who are objective (or at least are meant to be but that’s a topic for a different discussion) even though I my not attribute it to what they have said. I use the observations and feedback which they provide along with my own when I write. I do not get in touch with the true self, that must not be done.
Great answer. Thank you and I hope I do not bother you. I will have more questions. Not sure how you manage to write and answer all those inquiries. I am impressed.
You are welcome. By all means ask questions. There is a backlog but i will address them all in due course.
Interesting comment. There’s a hideous documentary on Netflix called ‘Holy Hell’ about people blindly following a ‘religious’ narc. It made me ‘lol’ until it took a dark turn.
There’s quite a lot of those on there. Quite liked Sour Grapes and Foxcatcher documentaries but I suppose I label all people I don’t understand as ‘narcs’.
Wondering about narcissists developing Alzheimer’s…
Great blog. Staggering content. Although I’d imagine it to be quite triggering for some, it’s a mine of information. Definitely a film to be made here, or a public service announcement!
Thanks SBJ, I shall have to check out Holy Hell.
Thank you Stringbean, will check that out, too. My father used to be a pastor and I’ve also had some different experiences with narcissists in spiritual groups. There is a post on here called “Holy Narcissist”.
Oh, I did not know you did not believe in Heaven, or Life After Death. I take back what I said about you being a saint. I thought you believed in God.
No One out-strides death by achieving any sort of lasting legacy, because eventually all will crumble and be forgotten save for the Words of Jesus Christ, and The Works of Love. Only Love is Eternal. ❤️💜💛💙💚
Thank you for this. I recently had a Greater cousin call me to inform me of the sudden death of his seventeen year old grandson. I found it odd that he would have a sudden need to call me when he had implemented a long silent treatment for my withdrawal of decades long profuse fuel. He refused to tell me the cause of death when I asked and did not answer a text after the call wherein I wanted funeral details to send flowers. Your article proves my instinct that he was probably using the death of his own grandson to do a malign Hoover. As an empath it sickens me but maybe this is just par for the course.
Indeed Laurie.