Bound
One of our central aims when we have targeted you is to bind you to us. During our seduction we create this magical place and invite you and only you to inhabit it with us. We build a fantastic place and place you on a pedestal in the centre of this artifice. It is very difficult for you to realise this is a fallacy and even harder to do something about it. Every day, every hour that you remain close to our influence allows us to create more ties, more connections and increase the extent that you are bound to us. We make you feel fabulous, worshipped and loved. The dizzying, whirlwind nature of our passion is unlike anything else you have known and you readily accept it. It is of course not informed consent. You have no idea what we are, but nevertheless you accept all of this wonderful treatment. You allow us to permeate every aspect of your life. We draw you into ours and make you feel special and privileged for being allowed to do so. Consider how we penetrated your every network so everywhere you turned we were there.
We knew all your friends, we ingratiated ourselves with your family and got to meet your colleagues. We knew all the places you liked to go to and introduced you to some additional ones. We made sure we knew every favourite thing of yours, from books to plays to food. Your wine rack became stocked with the types of wine you preferred, your wear the jewellery that was bought for you after careful solicitation of what you deem pretty and I occasionally arrive bearing a new book from the stable of authors that you enjoy to read. Bit by bit I invade your life and as our relationship progresses at light speed, the gradual, creeping advance of my influence has actually gained more than a toehold. It has spread across your territory like some formidable weed that cannot be held back, covering and smothering. My clothes hang in the wardrobe, I have my favourite chair at your house, you now buy the cereal that I prefer to eat in the morning even though you think it is just a mouthful of sugar. You now wash my socks, my songs populate the iTunes playlist and the bathroom is testament to my occupation with the bottles, razors and accoutrements mingled amongst yours. You cannot fail to see my influence all around you, but you welcome this and from it you gain a great happiness. From dating, to staying over, to co-habiting and on to marriage, this inexorable march of sudden and frantic seduction, although this is only ever apparent with hindsight as at the time it was the right thing to do, results in our lives entwining as I wrap my tendrils around your life and drag you tight against me. So many links, connections, lines and ties between you and I.
These ties keep you in place despite the abuse that is to come. It is sudden and bewildering but you will not give up easily. Not only did you say those vows, you meant every word and we know this. You will not let what we have built up crumble to dust. Admirable as your fortitude may be, you may as well stand on a beach and command the tide to halt its own unceasing advance for all the good you will do. This will not stop you trying though. We know this. The ties are many and they are tight so you will not run for cover at the first administration of a silent treatment. You will not down tools and walk away when the shouting continues long into the night. You do not pack a bag and leave it in the hallway, sitting on the stairs as you wait for us to return, late at night, from whatever tryst we have been engaged in. You keep going, bound to the hope that everything will be good once more, that the golden period will return. You hang in there, you battle, you demonstrate misguided resolve as we lash out time and time again, drawing the negative fuel from your distress, dismay and disarray. You will not let go. The connections are too many. Our behaviour is reprehensible as we open up front after front after front against you, leaving you confused and crushed. We twist, blame, push and pull yet you will not waver. No matter how many times we knock you to the floor you keep coming back for more, dragged back onto your feet by the ties that bind you to us.
Then one day you remove yourself from our toxic influence or in some instances you are removed. Those ties remain but there is an elasticity which allow you to escape us. To be taken away from the acidic words and vicious schemes. The insults, the violent rages, the isolation and the denigration may have been halted. You may no longer be subjected to being spat at, your hair pulled, your money withheld, your social interactions curtailed and your self-esteem trampled underfoot. You may have escaped the daily devaluations which came at you in so many different and unedifying ways but your ordeal is far from over.
You may not have our furious face shouting into yours anymore. You may not be sat cowering behind a locked bathroom door as we pound on it demanding you come out. You may not lie crying in a bed made to feel empty by our absence. You may not stand outside the study seeing the glow of the monitor within, under the door and wonder who we are engaging with online, that knotted sensation in your stomach inducing sickness. You may have escaped many of these manipulations but the ties that bind remain.
The bond we have created with you is so strong, so deep and so far-reaching that every day you will feel a vast void at being parted from us. You will excuse the abuse as you hanker for those golden days. You will feel like something has been ripped from you by our absence. Even though you know how terrible we have acted towards you, you will still suffer that sense of illogical loss. Every day feels empty. You wonder what we are doing, who we are with and whether we are thinking about you. You see our presence all around you still, people still ask about us, you collapse on to your bed burying your face in that t-shirt we kept under our pillow and you still smell us on it. You drink deep of the scent, hoping the nagging pain will recede, that somehow you will be magically restored to where we once both were, when we were happy. Your run your fingers over the tub of hair wax which we left and you remember watching us as we carefully applied it. You cannot bring yourself to discard it, clinging on to these reminders of the joy that once abounded in these walls. You pass the bookcase, touching the spines of the volumes we bought for you, the words and letters all further reminders of our presence here in this house. You miss us you miss us so much, you shouldn’t do, not after what we have done. Not after the vile treatments you have suffered. It makes no sense that you should feel this way but you do. You ache for us, the ties that remain are still being pulled and yanked, even though we are not there with you. The searing pain rises as another reminder appears, the tie still strong. Unlike an umbilical cord which provides life, your cord to us continues to pain you. When will this end? When will this agony recede and be replaced by something else? Would it now not even be better to feel nothing? To be numbed and anaesthetised so you do not have to endure this ongoing pain.
The bond we create with you is so powerful, so deep and so long lasting that it is often the aftermath of the ties that bind that hurts more than the abuse itself. That is how dangerous we are.
33 thoughts on “Bound”
Vent Your Spleen! (Please see the Rules in Formal Info)
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The only way to get rid of the suffering of memory is to remove the skin and clothing that covered my personality and leave it there as an inanimate object attached to the narcissist. Do not fight to remove it and leave without clothes and with another new personality and brand new. For example, I’d like to know what you think, or would that be a compelling challenge ??
Do you mean jettison a part of yourself?
Hello WEB, not at all, I will be distinguished as I become old and my mind and tongue will still serve me well in the acquisition of fuel.
If your doctor’s hadn’t thought about it prior, now that they’ve been treating you for over 2 years and extensively know your condition and what you’re capable of, with your family’s knowledge of you being in treatment, you’re not in a position to have another IP be driven to that level of despair and hopelessness to take their own life.
Hello Web Development! You quoted a part of my April 5th comment regarding his treatment with the doctors. Are you agreeing with this?
Hello WEB, not at all, I will be distinguished as I become old and my mind and tongue will still serve me well in the acquisition of fuel.
If your doctor’s hadn’t thought about it prior, now that they’ve been treating you for over 2 years and extensively know your condition and what you’re capable of, with your family’s knowledge of you being in treatment, you’re not in a position to have another IP be driven to that level of despair and hopelessness to take their own life.
HG,
How will you get your fuel when you are old (not as attractive… the usual tactics like amazing sex no possible physically, etc). Do you worry about that?
oops…now I had a typo! 😉 It should say “…amazing sex no longer possible physically, etc…”
Hello WEB, not at all, I will be distinguished as I become old and my mind and tongue will still serve me well in the acquisition of fuel.
Tongue? Hmmm…must be pretty talented.
You’ve got that right.
Noted!
“WEB, unimpressed, rolls her eyes…”
🙂
Why are you quoting a feeling and an action?
I’m rolling my eyes again (wish I had an emoji for that ).
Be my guest, it is a touch of fuel.
Must admit, feeling a little fueled myself :). Maybe I’m turning into a narc, or I’m just overflowing with untapped fuel since I’ve been NC from ” your kind” for quite a while.
I’m fascinated with your blog content and appreciate your excellent writing style (even if there are typos).
Thank you.
Reblogged this on Loves Illusion…… and commented:
How Dangerous they are….
Hello HG,
I am becoming more enlightend as I read your blog and books. And the deep pain I’m feeling due to his discard has started to fade away little by little as I read your books and your blog. I’d like to thank you and all the ones who are contributing to your blog with their comments.
I’d realy appreciate if you help me clear something that is tickling my mind. It is about Narcissistic school categories.
I met my Narc 25 years ago when we were at our early twenties. In early stages (golden period) of our relationship we had to part because of familiy problems. And we lost all contact. (There was social media, proper internet and mobie phones at that time :)) After 25 years I happen to find him on internet and than just said Hİ!!! and after 6 months of living in heaven he put me into hell by his discard. I was casted away viciously.
Is it possible that his narcissism grew worse as time passed? I mean, Could it be that he used to be a lesser narc in his early twenties and than his rank moved to the “greater” as 25 years have past? Or was I so innocent and blind by the love I felt at that period that I failed to recognise the beast inside him? Looking back at that time he had some minor red flags but I can swear he used to be much more gentle person than the person he now is.
The nature of the behaviour may become more intense but one does not move between schools of narcissism over time.
So true HG!
What you feel afterwards is like nothing else. There isn’t anything that will prepare you for the aftermath. You are on an emotional roller coaster through the entire relationship and when it’s over it is worse.
When I thought about the bond that we had during the time I didn’t realize that it would turn into such a powerful one almost a year later. I repeated many times that what I felt was so special between us. I would have never guessed that it was something that I would have to be on guard about forever.
Mr. Tudor, i am afraid to say you are right. Because of this unbreakable bond i can’t maintain no contact. I am unable to let go of him despite threats and abuses from him.
Can a mid range narcissist initiate a legal action against his discarded primary source which may result in losing her job or other materalistic damages if she doesn’t let go of him?
Do you mean he does not want to have anything to do with you and your repeated attempts to remain with him is causing him to threaten legal action?
He hasn’t threaten me as i am on silent treatment owing to him being a mid ranger somatic but i was warned never try to contact him again by his lieutenant (mother). So i asked you, is it possible for narcissist to go for legal action if you are a dumped primary source? A legal action would cause me my job so i am so worried.
Yes. He may either use your attempts to contact him as the basis for a harassment action or even fabricate evidence to achieve the same outcome.
When I moved to Florida, I saw a vine with huge and beautiful heart-shaped emerald green leaves. There were seeds on it so I took one home and planted it. It started growing even without soil so I buried it. I have spent the last eight years trying to get rid of the rampant suffocator it became. That’s what your post reminds me of today. Had I looked closer I would have noticed how the original vine was smothering a tree. It makes totally useless fruits that nothing wants to eat and each one becomes a giant.
HG, thanks for the heads up
Pleasure.
Yes the bond is just a faded memory, yet still there. I can visit it now and not feel the pain.
“Do I like to destroy – I prefer to erode, diminish, wear down and grind down so that you come within a whisker of being obliterated but you remain.”
I read this and it still deeply saddens me. You do this besides for the rush of power it gives you but to avoid feeling as though the Creature will surface and do that to you. That is the biggest projection you convey.
After 2+ years in therapy, Dr. E and Dr. O (and maybe they will read this if they peek occasionally) do have a moral and ethical responsibility to protect not only you, their patient, from harmful acts but also that you will not do harm to other people. The mental / emotional abuse you speak of above has to be tempered. What happens if another current or past IP with strong ties to you commits suicide?
It’s a frustrating thing with the constant difference in mindsets or the world view and I understand that concept much better now after reading your work for so long.
What you see as maintaining power and control, I see someone who does not know and cannot be genuinely fulfilled because your true self has been locked away. So many years ago, Little HG (around 9) split off and has been neglected and never outwardly protected by anyone. What emerged was a very strong and brave person who stepped up and thrived by building up your mother’s distorted and demented vision while being on a rescue mission for Little HG. It also relieved your Father of responsibility towards you, while he was already walking around on eggshells. What a tremendous burden. You are like a hamster on a wheel because the “void” you constantly have to fill is you think you will be of no value unless you keep forging through this. Get rewarded (win) or get left in the shadows.
In all of these new relationships, your subconscious gets a chance to keep messaging your mind and body to stop. At some point, it’s all going to catch up to you.
As you indirectly have helped so many people, I would just still like you to keep an open mind that there could be something else for you in a different season of your life.
Thank you Clarece for your thoughtful input (and also your patience). Dealing with your question. If an IP of mine commits suicide then they will obviously die and I will lose a source of fuel. In terms of culpability, since it is suicide then that individual is the one who has made that decision to end their life. I am interested by your comment that you regard the good doctors as having an obligation to protect others from being harmed by me.
I understand your further observations in your comment and acknowledge the position from which you advance these observations. I did what was necessary to protect myself and ensure that I existed and this is what I continue to do today. I can understand why you may regard me as a hamster on the wheel. There is of course the repeated quest for fuel, but whilst that does correspond with the hamster wheel, my wheel also moves forward (like that on a car) as I accomplish many things.
I do indeed keep an open mind on what may come about as a consequence of the ongoing work, that is why I continue to engage. Thanks again for your observations.
You’re interested by my view the doctors have an obligation? The doctors, if they are as good as you say they are, do have an obligation to protect. Generally speaking, if they were treating someone, especially after a period of time with a diagnosed disorder that could rape, harm, assault or murder another human, they would be mandated to report that. Why would it be different for pernicious abuse that is covert, slow, torturous and delivered in a passive aggressive way under the disguise of love, while stripping the victim of their support network, smearing them, dehumanizing them, possibly leaving them with no resources (money) to leave? You may not commit the actual act however there is being an accessory.
In this lawsuit hungry world of ours and malpractice suits skyrocketing, a grieving parent / relative of a suicide victim could no doubt spend all their time pursuing a lawsuit against a therapist that did not act to try and notify or remove a person in harm’s way after knowing to the extent of what their patient’s actions could yield. Obviously, speaking if the suicide victim acted out in response solely on what had transpired in the relationship.
If your doctor’s hadn’t thought about it prior, now that they’ve been treating you for over 2 years and extensively know your condition and what you’re capable of, with your family’s knowledge of you being in treatment, you’re not in a position to have another IP be driven to that level of despair and hopelessness to take their own life. I do regard the doctors as morally and ethically bound to protect you their patient and another human that could be in that situation.
Hi H.G.
Per usual Wonderful article-perfectly said!
In one of the many books I have read from you it stated that the cycle of love bombing, devaluation, discard, hoover goes on and on forever-that is when my pain started to dissipate, the anguish recede and my logic start to function again! My therapy right now are your books (13 and counting) which I have read in 5 weeks and this daily blog! I cannot recommend it enough if you are experiencing what H.G. describes in the article above. I felt that for 6-8 weeks July 2015 and I literally wanted to die. As stated, “The bond we create with you is so powerful, so deep and so long lasting that it is often the aftermath of the ties that bind that hurts more than the abuse itself.” OMG so true! Every day I would wake up at 3 in the morning with an empty pit in my stomach and dread the upcoming day. I finally contacted him after 3 months for another 8 month round. Not this time! I know that the knowledge I have gained has made me feel disgust and right now nothing at all. For me knowing that I have been fooled and used and it was all an illusion and he knew it the entire time not to mention lies and cheating while living in my house. Well I will continue to read and read and read H.G.’s books, and blogs until the poison is completely gone!
Thanks again!.