A Piece Of Your Mind
Vent your spleen. Have your say. Give us both barrels. Let us know what you really think. Such sentiments towards my kind are entirely understandable and they invariably occur post discard and sometimes post escape. There are differing rationales associated with this almost overwhelming need to speak to us about your experience of being entangled with our kind.
1. Anger. You realise how you have been manipulated, abused and taken for a fool. Your anger is substantial and you feel a pressing need to unleash that anger against us with a litany of insults and some choice language.
2. Enlightenment. You have had your epiphany and realised precisely what ensnared you, how it happened and why. You have seized this knowledge and now feel elated that you have done so. There is a sense of superiority in finally having all the pieces of the puzzle click into place and you want to confront us. You may not actually tell us what we are but you will certainly want to use the words, “I know what you are now.”
3. Unfinished Business Part One. Nearly all discards occur without you being told that the Formal Relationship is over and if you are given such notice you are rarely given any proper or adequate explanation as to why this has happened. This results in the need to confront us at a later stage in order to try to find out why what has happened, has happened.
4. Unfinished Business Part Two. This is akin to the situation above but the basis of this confrontation is in order to demand of us how we could do what we did and address your need to have us explain ourselves for what we did during the relationship.
5. To Understand. You do not know what you were entangled with and you are unable to comprehend how somebody could behave in that manner towards you after everything that you did for us. This tirade details all of the help you gave us, the advantages that you conferred on us and each and every thing you did for us in the name of love.
6. Clear the Smear. Predictably enough, you will have been smeared following your entanglement with us. You have heard all about the lies that have been peddled about you and you want to set us straight about how those comments were wrong, that you did not behave in the manner which we have described to other people and ultimately how you need to clear your name.
7. The Right to Be Heard. You have a significant desire to want to be heard, especially as our manipulation of you will have caused you to feel that you have not been listened to during the Formal Relationship. You want your voice to be heard, you need to articulate your thoughts and feelings and an opportunity to avail yourself of discharging this need is too good to pass up.
8. Convey the Pain. You remain horrendously wounded by your experience of being entangled with us and you want to let us know how badly we hurt you, how much it pains you still and how upset you are to have been treated this way.
9. Sing the Praises. Sometimes you exhibit a capacity for nobility which manages to transcend the hurt, the pain and the anger. You remain bewitched by the golden period and all those magnificent attributes that you believe we still possess and therefore rather than attack us, expound bitterness or lash out, you declare all the reasons why you still love us, why you find us mesmerising despite what has happened and you wish us well for the future.
10. Justice. It is only right that are given the right of reply to the treatment that has been meted out against you.
11. Medicine. You put up with the tantrums, the lengthy invectives, the oral onslaughts and you were pummelled by our words. Now it is the time to give us a taste of our own medicine.
Whatever the motivation may be, your need and desire to have that final confrontation with us, to purge yourself of all those thoughts and considerations is huge and is very difficult for you to resist. Indeed, most of the time you do not resist it at all, instead you look to engineer situations whereby you are able to speak to us and deliver this tirade, this riposte, this howitzer. You will seek us out in order to provide us with a piece of your mind. Is this a good thing? Well, there are two potential upsides when this is looked at from your perspective. The first is that you are able to get things off your chest. All those thoughts which have whirled around your mind for weeks on end, the ifs and buts which prevented you from sleeping, the imponderables and the unanswered have been released as you allow your words to explode from you in an outburst of emotion applicable to whichever rationale which has driven you to this point. The second is that you may well feel that you have achieved some kind of closure by engaging in this step of giving us a piece of your mind.
But what about our perspective on all of this? What does this blast, this sounding off and this diatribe mean to us? This is where giving a piece of your mind in such a manner is actually not a good thing for you to do. Why is this?
1. Sounding off in such an emotional manner, whether it is insulting us with angry words, crying with pain, savagely mauling us with a sneering and twisted face or even expressing how you still love us, just provides us with fuel and it is plentiful. You may have collared us on the telephone to vent at us. Anybody normal would end the call as they are repeatedly harangued and insulted, but not us, we will listen as we soak up all that fuel. Yes, we will be argumentative, defensive and belligerent but that is just to keep your tirade going owing to the plentiful fuel you are providing to us.
2. This is a prime opportunity for us to hoover you. If we see you are angry, we may express false contrition, if you are hurt and upset we may declare how we will make changes so everything is right, if you reminisce about our wonderful times we will offer that golden period again to you. You are giving us a glorious opportunity to hoover you and in your heightened emotional state there is a good chance this will succeed.
3. If we do not hoover at this point, you have just given us several reasons to execute a hoover at a later juncture by confirming to us that you remain adrift in the emotional state, you are fountaining with fuel and still beholden to us. The signs are good and it all points to a successful hoover in the near future.
4. You confirm to us that you have failed to grasp the logic and reason of the situation and therefore your defences are weak. This means that further manipulations can be used and they will prove effective in terms of fuel and control.
5. We take no notice of what you are actually saying. You may think that your speech is devastating, that you are landing telling blows on us, that you are assassinating our character and making us look terrible. You are not. You are playing into our hands. We are laughing at you inside.
6. You are confirming that we continue to have considerable control over you. We may be busy with a new primary source but this confirmation acts as a green light to further unleashing of manipulations against you because you are not able to let go.
The temptation to give us a piece of your mind is vast and overwhelming but if done in the usual emotional fashion of the typical empathic individual you are just giving us more of what we want, failing to hurt us and extending your own entanglement with us.
39 thoughts on “A Piece Of Your Mind”
Vent Your Spleen! (Please see the Rules in Formal Info)
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Words from your article “I know what you are now.” These are the words I used to my Ex a few months ago in my driveway when I would not let him in the house. I said, “I know who you are now”. It was a turning point in my life. How eerie that the patterns of abuse are so similar and that my reaction mirrored your writing. When I said that to him, he laughed at me and drove away. After 28 years, I don’t expect he ever thought I’d figure it out.
Question,
If you narc blocks your phone number and also tells you your emails go to his trash because he doesn’t want to be “Harrassed”, is he lying? From what you say it seems they would want the attention.
Do they eventually “unblock” you just in case?
I noticed this with an old friend whom I realize after my “Narc enlightening” was a narcissist too…a Lesser. He raged a lot and was mad that I gave my lying narc ex a second chance and blocked me via phone and social media. A year later…he has friend requested me on fb and even sent me a picture of us together and my birthday and said happy birthday, has liked a few posts, but still has my phone number blocked and has not communicated to me in any other way. Control? Sniffing for fuel? So interesting.
Not necessarily. If you have been disengaged this is likely to happen. There will be unblocking when you are painted white.
Thank you for your reply HG. That makes sense! My best friend used to say to me that I shouldn’t concentrate on what he was doing, and stop thinking why he acted the way he did, why and who he is but instead concentrate on my own issues. I used to trust people and believed them but now it appears I must trust my self more, my 6th sense. Now I start trusted my guts and keep carrying on and now I know you, HG! Thanks God I’m getting somewhere!! Thank you HG.
You are welcome Katerina.
Hi HG. I am devastated. I thought I’m mowing forward but something happened today and I feel I’m back k to square one. I had an appointment with my bank today and I was driving in a hired vihicle as my company van was in a garage for service. Then suddenly I’ve spotted my ex-narc. He was driving towards me but he didn’t see me as I was in a hired vihicle. My heart instantly jumped up to the roof! My hands and legs start shaking g, my heart start racing g a 100 miles per hour! And what have I done? Immidiately turned around a day start chasing him but he disappeared around the corner. Then my senses came back to me and Ive stopped my self. I am devastated as I thought I will be able to keep music cool once I see him. What the hell happened to me today? After all those years my body a dead mind reaction g that way? After today I have lost my hope that I ever will be free from him. I think somethi g is terribly wrong with me. HELP!!!!!
You know where I am as per previous discussion.
HG. My apologies for misspell….doing on my phone and autocorrection is really annoying.
I kept a journal the entire time we were going through a divorce. Once I identified his patterns and lies I was so much better. He would try to rewrite history and I would look up his former behaviour and say “On Tuesday, December 12, 2013, You promised we could sell our home and then… In my next journal entry I, note the fact that you refused to paint the living room and instead played video games for 20 hours never taking a shower, brushing your teeth or coming to bed”.
He couldn’t wait to get rid of me after that. However, he still tries to contact me from time to time. I don’t believe a single word he says EVER. Then I walk away for months with absolutely no contact.
When people want to tell me what he is doing or who he is dating, my answer is, ” I could care less”.
I enjoy ignoring him because he still fusses about the things I have said to him and the fact that I refused to acknowledge how I made him feel. If I have anything to say about his “supposed” unfair treatment it is only this… Tell me how bad it hurt I wish to enjoy it. He then launches another smear campaign designed to shake my confidence. The funny thing is he has no idea what I truly value so he focuses on things I don’t really care about. He can’t seem to get the punishment right and I know it, his frustration please me to no end.
I shocked him by moving away and living out my dreams while feeling absolutely no guilt for leaving him behind. I view his sporadic communications as fuel for myself. I don’t ignore him, I remind him that he needs me, I don’t need him.Then i insult him until he has had enough and walks away again. The funny thing is I keep my Facebook page unlocked so he can see that I am just fine without him and I know it drives him crazy to see me having a nice life. The trick for me was to move on and not allow him to suck me back in with fighting or promises. I am divorced what he does now is none of my concern.
Remember… Narc’s hate to be ignored…enjoy the silence and know it pisses them off.
I prefer to not do that at this stage of my life for a variety of reasons. The most important one is he doesn’t get the luxury or feeling like he has had some huge impact on my life – or that he even matters – because he doesn’t.
Giving them a piece of your mind is pointless for so many reasons – they usually can’t even see what you are saying anyway and they lie, deny, deflect, and frustrate you more. They don’t care what you have to say; however they do love that emotional reaction.
Never give them the pleasure of giving them a piece of your mind. Silence speaks so much more than any words in these kind of situations lol.
Feeling anger would come as a relief- I just don’t feel it. I feel sadness, and I feel grief, still after a whole year has passed.
Anyway, venting anger towards him is useless, it would pass right over him. He would look blankly at me, without acknowledgment and justify why HE feels anger, rage and hurt due to what I did to him. I’ve been there so many times…..
My feeling were and are nil and void, to him
I wish I could move on and feel some anger, I know it’s healthy.
My last ‘confrontation’ after trying to call him, was a voicemail and message telling him to never contact me again, amongst other things, but to get himself checked out after he passed on some STD from sleeping around. I ended the message with telling him I will always love him, and he read them all, then blocked me. Sometimes I think there were better ways to end this abusive relationship, but my emotions got the better of me. This blog has validated what I thought all along just how disordered he was, and it brings me one step further to healing.
To add he recently ‘hoovered’ me and fell for his bullshit sweet talk, even though I called him out, he knows my weakness which is sleeping with him. HG Tudor even though he constantly tries to triangulate me, and others with each other, and I just laugh at him, will he now just fuck off and leave me alone?
Hello HG, I would need to know more about the type of narcissist he is and the nature of your dynamic to provide you with an accurate answer to your question. The best option is to organise an e-mail consultation.
i also don’t believe in the psychopathic-narcissist (distinct conditions) vs empath good/evil divide. bad people are bad people. a narcissist who is a bad person will be challenging in particular ways. but most narcissists are just emotionally flat, self-centered, very driven and need fuel for their arid inner desserts. only when they become ‘sociopaths’ do they need to abuse others.
there are some ‘good’ (chaotic neutral?) people with NPD who are on the psychopathy spectrum and ‘sychophant’ empaths who let others be the monster for them, whose goodness is as deep as selective moral conventions.
You play/played Dungeons and Dragons.
i only played D&D once with a guy “with autism”. it was fun, but not my thing. i like sci fi, speculative fiction and David Lynch! i also study Lacan, i have reasons for liking fantasy that go beyond game playing. dating a narc is kind of like immersive D&D because they believe they are dragons and demonic demigods, etc.. but they also want you to believe they’re very rational. Monsterboy sent me a photo of his new place that he was decorating with dragonscale wallpaper.
there’s a difference, i’m saying, in clinical and moral definitions of these terms. a person with low affect is on the psychopathy spectrum, they aren’t all addicted abusers and serial killers, they don’t all have NPD. someone with NPD doesn’t always need to abuse others, that’s an effect of their self involvement if they can’t mediate it. NPD does involve low-affect as well. i’m honestly not fully aware of the differences, but there are differences.
i think the combination of narcissism and psychopathy / antisocial traits leads to abusive behaviour. but low-affect in and of itself, doesn’t automatically result in addiction to power. that’s also how someone developed with their social environment and if they ever got help or managed to learn anything.
the issue i have with biological essentialism, is that many ‘normal’ people can also be abusers and empathy is a cultural construct, that can be switched on and off selectively. some ’empaths’ are following a conservative moral order and some aren’t.
i think whole cultural systems are pretty psychopathic. but if i use psychopathy in that purely negative way, then someone who has been diagnosed with it, like one of my friends, would tell me to fuck off. it’s not their fault they were born with this condition, which also coincides with trauma.
at some points, HG, you say – don’t blame my condition. at other moments you yourself, through fantasy, mythologise and blame-essentialise your condition.
for me it’s easy, you have a condition *and* you’re a bad person. those two aspects have meshed together.
I never got an opportunity to vent my spleen…….probably due to the fact that I escaped and I didn’t want to tip them off in advance. So I kept it zipped and quietly made my exit. In any case no matter how annoyed I am, I don’t know if I would vent my spleen……there is more than one way of making yourself heard……the quiet ones are the worst!!!!…. Diva
HG Tudor.
I have noticed some people make comments that they have moved on and happily married, etc. I just wondering….if I would move on and leave my Narc and my past behind, would be there any needs for me of visiting your site, as reading your post brings me back in my past? Means I still thinking of him , which means I am making contact with him in my mind?
Thank you.
It is an inevitable consequence of reading my work that you will think about your narcissist. However, when you first come here, you will be thinking about him or her anyway but not moving forward. Reading here means you get to move forward. Reading here may seem to prolong thinking about the narcissist but it does not – you would be doing that anyway. What you achieve here is to understand and therefore whilst at first, it is unpleasant to be reminded of the narcissist, what will happen is that you will equip yourself so that when you do think of the narcissist in the future you are not affected in the same way you once were. Re-visiting the site is a useful way of obtaining a timely reminder to remain vigilant and keep building your logic vessel. Furthermore, you can also measure your progress. You might read an article one time and find it triggers you in some way ; return to it later and the fact it does not impact on you in the same way shows you that you have made progress. It is important for you to know you have made progress.
Hi ES……I feel as if I am one of those types of people mentioned in your comments….. although I am not happily married…..(if such a thing exists I have not witnessed it)…….but I have moved on from my narc mentally since my initial visit to this blog. What I have found to be the case is that although this blog may often remind you of your narc, you think of them in a different way than you previously did. I now think of mine in a way that does not cause me to want to seek them out, or maintain any form of contact. This blog is a constant reminder of what is at stake if I ever default…….Diva
Ekaterina
HGs reply to you is most accurate. If one has moved on it is very likely due to the information and support here, and a lot of them being Empaths will want to assist others acheive that also by contributing. Time also has a way of softening or lessening the severity of some situations in your mind, so visiting to read the articles and experience of others can serve to keep you guarded or in check if you find yourself giving away too much of yourself again, or finding yourself in situations where you may be interacting with a Narc (at work for example). When you have truly moved on dont worry-being here should not cause you to be triggered but instead validate your experiences as being in the past and allow you to appreciate your strength in surviving the abuse and in moving forward. You wont be thinking of him in the same way as you previously did but rather with the laser focused clarity that zero impact provides and serves to prevent it from happening again.
Thank you NaarcAngel.
Hi HG,
I don’t really know where to post my question relating to hoarding. Are all hoarders narcissist? If yes, then can they be categorized?
Do you mean are all people who hoard, narcissists? If so, the answer is no.
Sarah,
No not all hoarders are narcissists. Hoarding is often comorbid with a major depressive disorder, social anxiety disorder and general anxiety disorder. I read something that said about 75% have a comorbid mood or anxiety disorder.
Sarah,
Also – its more common to see older adults who hoard even though it starts in adolescence.
Thank you HG!
😙
It was very important for me to read it.
I hope it will help me to keep No Contact.
*the ones that do hoover after that, are stalkers. hoovering is a kind of stalking where the narc pretends to have the upper-hand. they can’t hoover if you take that illusion away from them. then they just look like regular stalkers.
Stalking is hoovering.
I guess I’m also a stalker and a hooverer too
this actually works for me, on my own territory to kick them out, which is a healthy animal instinct. i know how to deliver narcissistic-injuries (aka saying the harsh truth) and it has to be delivered when you have made the final and total decision to separate, so it’s not an emotional struggle.
there’s a process leading up to that, i use that time to let myself feel hurt, explore what the nature of my involvement was, and find out as much as i can about them, maybe even letting them believe i’m still theirs and they’ll drop their guard at times exposing themselves to your new perspective. it’s like pretending to be friends with your captor so you can find the escape moment, except on a psychic level.
their issues aren’t my problem, the damage they cause is, so what i feel about them and the effects of their abuse, is my decision alone. it’s not a discussion or a negotiation, their response doesn’t matter, you do it for yourself not them, as they no longer matter.
separation is an inalienable right. they won’t hoover if you yourself come to represent an injury to their illusion of omnipotence. if you are separate then their ability to hoover you is weakened, because you just think “creep” instead of feeling anxious (situations vary).
This is such a valuable post. Everyone who’s ever been the plaything of a narcissist needs to read this, and when they’re done, read it again.
I’ve had no final confrontation with my narcissist. I’ve certainly had the desire to rage, to utter the “I know what you are”, to fling barbed words in hopes of wounding… but I never will. Instead of being silently laughed at while I cry and rage, I’m the one smiling. I am serene as a Buddha statue, immune to the games and manipulations now.
She can feed off others, as she can, but not me; that well has run dry.
I learned a good lesson when I did this even though I knew what HG said about it. I, of course, knew better. It was a complete waste and did not give me even 10% of the 100% satisfaction I thought I would get. I could almost feel the gush of fuel flowing through my phone to his with the force of a fire hose. I”m a little bit better at listening to HG’s advice now. Baptism by fire…I always have to learn the hard way.
Me too. Although I did receive some of the money back that he owed me, the total drain wasn’t worth the 4 extra months of obstruction and manipulation and as is always the case we can’t change people or give them a reason to be a better person so really just was a delayed ending except that he took the opportunity to swing power and control balance back in his favour. Of course I basically handed it to him on a platter in hindsight, which just makes the total loss even worse lol
I didn’t give him a piece of my mind I did something far more humiliating I know there’s a facebook dating group he frequents with his fake account I made a dummy account with a fake name but my real pics and posted in the group we both have each other blocked on our real account anyway I posted my pic in the group and got hundreds of likes friend requests and messages in the first twenty minutes it’s up to seven hundred miles. I did for two reasons to show him these woman are all fake either nigerian men posing as woman or Webcam girls the second reason was to show him just cuz he thinks in ugly other men do not I know he saw my post cuz he liked the picture of the woman directly above me and the one directly below me in the group and has now not been active for two days I know this was grossly immature on my part what do u think his reaction was he’s been silently hoovering my hangout account several times a day since I did this and yes I know it was childish of me
Seven hundred likes