Viral Infection

Our kind are like a virus. We attach to those where we know we can infect them. Those who might be immune to us are not selected. The risk is too great and therefore we seek out another host that is far easier to overrun and provides the ideal environment for us to flourish. Your kind are unable to defend yourselves against our viral methodology and it is far too late before you realise that not only has the infection taken a hold and spread, but you also lack the means by which to eradicate it. Yes, you may well be able to reduce its effect and fight back to some degree but just like a virus, we are never completely wiped out and instead we remain dormant, waiting to be activated once more and the nefarious effects of our presence begin to be felt once again. There are six ways in which we infest your life.

1. We fill up your inboxes

The joy of technology once again serves our kind well. We are able to bombard your inboxes with our words which come so easy to us. Whether it is your text inbox, messaging applications on social media or e-mail inbox, all of these soon become full of us. The inbox becomes burgeoned with our words. The beautiful seductive messages, the declarations of love and desire, the sexual temptations, the downright filthy yet tempting, the romantic and delicate, so many letters and words which have winged their way across the airwaves to nestle in your inbox. They sit there ready to be opened by you, thousands of little gifts awaiting opening as you thrill and delight as you open each one. We dominate your phone with insults, threats and demands, blitzing you with our hatred during devaluation, the incessant ping and buzz generating a sense of fear and dread in you as another malicious missive lands. You wince as you see another insult and swiftly delete it and then when the loving text finally comes, the relief you experience is overwhelming. Even when have vanished you still scroll through those wonderful and uplifting messages that you cannot bring yourself to delete. You read those beautiful words, yearning for the sender to return and issue them again, carefully crafted passionate announcements, tender statements of intent and romantic overtures. You do not want to eradicate these memories and you allow them to remain in those inboxes. They eventually may not be as full as they once were, but their presence remains.

2. We invade your relationships

It seems such a delightful way to be when we first arrive and we want to know everybody who is involved in your life. We go out of our way to be charming and accommodating to your friends, your family, your neighbours and colleagues. You are thrilled at their plaudits as we happily accompany you to dinner with friends, how wonderful to have such a delightful person on your arm at last. Family events become far more fun with us in attendance. Everybody loves us and you love us all the more for it. We touch each and every person who has some connection to you, making them delight in us. We push away those that do not dance to our tunes, like white blood cells eradicating the enemy, we sweep through your connections and remove those who stand in our way. Everyone else becomes a recruit to our cause as we bolster our coterie and our lieutenants. You will come to regret the access you gave us to everybody that you know.

3. We sequestrate your resources

Yours is ours. A simple mantra and one we wholeheartedly subscribe to as we avail ourselves of all your resources. We become a fixture in your home, we eat your food, consume your drinks and spend your money. Your utilities become used by us, we camp on to your Wi-Fi and revel in taking anything that belongs to you for our use. You want to go out but you cannot as we have taken the car. You are looking forward to that delicious ham for a sandwich but we have eaten it. The issue of domestic theft does not concern us as like an invading army we march across your territory slashing and burning as we voraciously consume until when we depart, like a departing plague of locusts you are left with nothing.

4. We pollute your emotions

Your emotions belong to us. They must always be for us to consume as our fuel. They must always be directed towards us. We establish a lien over them, our option is first to take hold of those emotions. At the outset we want your love, your praise, your passion and adoration. Nobody else is allowed to have these things. They must be poured over us. We commandeer them and ensure that we are the recipient of delight, joy, happiness and admiration. We take hold of your emotional construction and then we twist, stretch and warp your emotions so that you find all of the good feelings have been turned into darker emotions. We demand those too, not only have we polluted the way that you feel, we take hold and seize the anger, the fear and the upset which now pours from you. Our manipulations and machinations are designed to turn your joyful heart black with dread and anxiety. Our polluting madness sweeps across you, unchecked and unhindered.

5. We infect your heart and soul

Steadily, gradually and insidiously we plant ourselves deep inside your heart. We coil our toxic tendrils around your soul as we leech from it, both taking and infecting it with our presence. Through the creation of ever presence we ensure that when we call your heart thumps with excitement and your stomach becomes filed with butterflies. Seeing us walk towards you, smile plastered across our faces causes delight to soar as your soul is uplifted by our presence. Those once feelings of elation become dark and blackened but the totality of the effect remains indisputable. We are with you all the time. You see us in different places even when we are not there, you hear our voice when certain phrases are said by others. Music, oh the music, how it returns you to those tender and intimate moments in an instant, tugging on your heart and coursing through your soul. The smells, the sensations and the sounds all combine to pulsate through your heart and soul, a permanent reminder of us. These reminders bring the tears, they bring the joy, they bring hope, they bring anxiety but they always remain.

6. We tarnish your trust

The extent of our infection is such that even when you have might have sought to banish us, relegate us to the back of your mind and try to drive us from your life, we still linger, the effects of our tortuous torment of you still very much real and alive. Your ability to trust has become tainted. You dare not trust again for fear of lightning strike twice. You find yourself hypervigilant, second-guessing, assessing and scrutinising and through this heightened state of awareness we remain inside you. Each action or word of another, whether friend of someone potentially eve more special awakens the memory of what we once said and did to you. The eradication of your trust has succumbed to the disease of our presence and thus this works to hinder and prevent your recovery.

Want to shake the disease and learn how to eradicate the effect of the narcissist for good? Watch out for Exorcism: Purging the Narcissist from Your Heart and Soul coming soon.