The March of the LoveFrauds
You died the moment you met me.
My kind are engaged in wholesale slaughter. A daily massacre. Nobody is stopping us either.
These massacres are not literal deaths. No, they way I leave you I believe that you may actually prefer to be dead in order to end the pain. The unrelenting pain and misery that I will inflict on you. What I kill is your confidence, your self-esteem and your sense of worth. I annihilate your finances, obliterate your friendships, shred your sanity and drive an icy cold dagger through your very being. You see, people like you pride yourselves on being honest, decent and understanding. That’s what makes you so attractive to me. That’s what makes the killing all the more complete.
You may think that I am an awful human being and that I revel in the consequences of my behaviour. For some of my kind that is right and for others it is not. Some of my kind have no awareness of what they and believe that what they do just has to be done. Others of my kind know exactly what we do. I am not concerned about how you feel. I have no interest in your reaction to what I do. All I am focussed on is what your emotional reaction does for me.
People are stupid. They need everything to be labelled, to be categorised and pigeonholed. They need great big flashing neon signs telling them what people are as they are too idiotic or lazy to try and work it out for themselves. See the man in a dirty raincoat with unkempt hair that hangs around the children’s playground? He is a child molester. Look over there at the man with a striped shirt and a bag with the word ‘Swag’ on it. He is a burglar. What about the lady in dirty, piss-stained clothes, mumbling to herself and trying to feed the pigeons stones? Oh she is a madwoman. That is what people expect to see. Ask anybody to draw a picture of a murderer and ninety-nine times out of a hundred, they will draw a crazed looking man, dressed in black, carrying a knife or a gun. They won’t sketch their spouse or their relative. Ask a person where they will most find a rapist and they will answer that he will be lurking behind a bush near the subway ready to leap out on some stranger. What they won’t do is point at their boyfriend sat next to them watching television.
And that is where the problem lies. You expect to be able to recognise those that will cause you harm in such an obvious manner. It isn’t like that. There is a reason that those dangerous people are able to hurt in the way that they do. It is because they are all around you. They are sat next to you in your car. They stand with you at the water cooler or in the lift. They talk to you at the school gates or serve you your daily coffee. They permeate society. That is what makes them so effective. The ability to blend in and hide in plain sight. How many times have you heard the neighbour interviewed about the horrific murder of a family by the father, say,
“He always seemed so friendly and happy.”
Or.
“He kept himself to himself.”
Or.
“He was a quiet man. I never thought he had it in him.”
Or my favourite.
“You don’t expect these things to happen here do you? You always think it couldn’t happen here.”
These people appear as innocuous as they are so ordinary and fit with their surroundings. They have masked what lurks beneath. These people, the drug dealers, the killers and the abusers were ordinary. They were themselves and they made no attempt to hide or be different.
This is what makes me so dangerous. I make a conscious attempt to blend in with those around me. I am a shape shifter. I take on the characteristics of my victims, mirroring what they love and enjoy. I become what you want me to be. You have always wanted to meet the successful business owner. I am he. How about the well-read bookish fellow who enjoys the theatre and some amateur dramatics? I can be him as well. You just love people who have travelled extensively? Let me tell you all about my yearlong world tour. Rock nut? Done. Singer? Do re me fah so lah ti do. Family man? No problem. I will morph and twist into these ideal people and in so doing I will slide my tendrils around you with insidious ease and pull you into the full horror of my world.
You are not able to see me coming. I hide behind a thousand masks. The bad people I have described above make no real effort to inveigle their way into your world. They are already there. They are part of your day-to-day life and you are unlucky that you just happened to be near them when they struck. I am completely different. I have come after you. I have marked you out as my prey and circled you, preparing to strike. I engage in subterfuge to further my aims and to enable me to glide in and out of people’s lives with slippery ease. I suddenly appear. Oh, there may be some existing connection admittedly, but that is all part of the preparation. When I actually enter your life I do so in a blaze of deliciously disorientating glory that has you rooted to the spot and gagging for more, such is the addictive nature of my behaviour.
All my work is done before I engage you. That is why your execution takes place the moment we meet. All else that follows is merely your elongated death throes and believe me, do I like to drag them out for the maximum of effect. I even pretend to try and resuscitate you from time to time. That’s just a ruse to enable me to suck more of the life from you. You may regard that as twisted. I don’t care. So long as I am able to feed, that is all that I care about. I must feed. Each and every moment to try and satiate this insatiable hunger that rages inside me. I think that the hunger can be sated but somehow, it never seems to be the case.
Thus my killing goes on and on and on. Victim after victim piling up and the beauty of it all is that I merely slip on another mask and melt away to find another unfortunate. I walk away leaving chaos and destruction in my wake but I never look over my shoulder.
Should you fear me? Absolutely. Sadly, for you, you don’t know what to look for because I do not come into your life bearing a warning. Once I have emotionally slain you, only then might you recognise the danger a second time but of course, by that point the damage is done. Amazingly, some of you come back for more. Incredible isn’t it? Sometimes it is with me or sometimes with another of my kind. The effect is the same however. Another excruciating death.
The beauty of all of this is that nobody can touch me. Those who might try to bring the sanction of criminal penalties against me usually fail. They either won’t do it because they still love me or that somehow they think they can save me and they would rather do that. There are others who are so broken they blame themselves and not me. Others again are so utterly destroyed they do not have the strength to take action. The very few that do not fall at these hurdles soon realise that my innate charm, my myriad of lies and irresistible powers of persuasion mean that actually getting the criminal law to apply to me is nigh on impossible. It is only right. The rules are not meant for me.
All of this means that next to nobody recognises my kind when we first choose you. Why would you? We bear no mark or label. We do not appear as some stereotype. We do not look like abusers but then what do abusers look like? They look like me. Him. Her. That man sat across from you on the train in his suit reading a quality broadsheet. The headmistress who crochets around the clock and is a committed Christian. The abuser looks like the construction worker downing his gallon of beer before weaving his way home. He looks like the quiet neighbour. The shy teenager. The earnest music teacher. The gregarious uncle. Him. Her. Them. You do not see us coming. You had no chance. Society repeatedly fails to identify what we are and how we operate. It downplays what we do with a host of euphemisms and woolly descriptions because people cannot accept that somebody who is so pleasant to them can then be so horrible too. Yet, that is precisely how we operate. Would you trust someone who punched you in the face when they first me you? Of course not. You’d trust him after three years of marriage before the first blow landed though wouldn’t you? You would not trust the fraudster if he stole ten thousand pounds on his first day at work, but after five years of solid and loyal service you would not think twice that he was forging signatures and diverting funds to his personal bank account. Society and people are too ready to apply labels which diminish the impact of what we do and what we are. You can attest to the horrendous damage that we do, you know better than anybody else of the impact that we have and yet you have to listen to people talking about how he is “misunderstood”, “under pressure”, “not normally like that”, “must have been provoked”. These well-intentioned people cause considerable damage as the ignorant apologists for the carnage we unleash.
Now you know what we are, you can identify us with ease. You can now think back to all the people you have interacted with and now you see us as if we have been daubed in bright red paint. Your colleague at work. The “difficult” customer. Your mother. Your brother. That friend who upset you one week and then fawned over you the next. The lovers. The celebrities. The politicians. More and more of us are identified by you and yet still we are able to do what we want and move on to the next unsuspecting victim. Society does not identify us. Society does not understand what we are. Society is utterly ineffective in tackling us. Our numbers are growing and our devastating impact on the lives of all those we entangle (and it is never just the one person is it) grows but what is being done? Do the politicians know us (save when they look in the mirror)? Do the police officers understand what we are? The nurses? The social workers? The judges? The court appointed psychiatrist? The jury? The neighbours? The teachers? The local government officials? All those who might be able to do something to address what we are rarely know what we are leading to greater frustration for you and the continued advancement of our agendas.
Nobody is stopping us.
What are you going to do about it?
35 thoughts on “The March of the LoveFrauds”
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HG. Once ensnared by a narc, gone thru the golden period and discarded are we easier for other narcs to pick out and glob on to?
Yes, you have been tenderised. No, if you are a student of my work and apply it.
People are not stupid and idiotic, as you say they are. We just have difficulty wanting to face that true evil, such as yourself, exists because it goes against everything that we stand for. Who wants to believe that normal, even kind-looking, people are actually soul-thieves of the dark? Those of whom have children especially don’t want to realize that such atrocities from your kind, are rampant in the world, hidden beneath disguises. But, you would not understand these thoughts because you have no humanity, empathy, or care for anyone in this world beside yourself. I think it is “stupid” to retreat deep with oneself, birth a false-self, and go about destroying other vulnerable individuals (who had the courage to not retreat within themselves, and conjure up a false-self, despite horrific childhood abuse), despite your childhood woes. We are the courageous ones. Narcissists, it would appear, are the weak ones. In the end, your kind will come to realize that your cowardice at hurting others was the least wisest decision that you could have ever made.
This is not meant for you, personally, HG, but for all Narcissists.
HG.. Normal people have claimed that narcs aren’t happy.. You seem pretty happy with yourself. Now I do believe you are a tortured being.. but is that simply pushed so far back (probably the very reason you wear a mask).. that you just don’t allow it to affect you? In your daily life.. are you happy or miserable?
I am tickety boo most of the time but then things might become not so pucker.
Good luck showing others what a narcissist is and how they operate.
Very, very difficult to spot narcissism unless you have experienced the abuse yourself AND you have been reading (A LOT).
You try and crack their facade and YOU will be accused of being negative, paranoid, jealous, melodramatic, whatever.
Anyone old enough to remember the TV Series “Visitors”?
Carnivorous reptilian humanoids hiding beneath a human-like facade?
The special mind control process called “conversion”, which turned humans into the Visitors’ pawns?
That series scared the sh-t out of me, and little did I know my mother was one of them.
J, I dont think you TRULY realize how dangerous and manipulative a Narcissist
Can Beee! 😷
HG- If an UMR says he isn’t picking up hitchikers anymore bcuz his neighbour got accused by one of sexual harassment , (and then further said there’s no way the guy did it, he’s married with kids for gods sake!) — it was the UMR himself who he’s actually speaking of, right?
Possibly. Ask the neighbour for a lift and see how he responds.
The abuser’s shame is so deeply buried under so many layers of their own internal self-denial and cognitive dissonance inducing bullshit behaviour, that the victim is too disoriented to spot its source and psychologically separate / remove themselves from target range before it’s too late.
The victim begins to be displaced by the projected shame via devaluation, rejection – which eventually becomes embedded in their own shame (which everyone has to varying degrees), because during each devaluation ‘battle’ they cannot gain equal ground and they only work harder to resolve the building relationship conflicts. The victim believes they are fighting for a relationship, they don’t know they’re fighting for survival. Eventually only the abuser holds the key to acceptance and the victim takes all the punishment of blame.
This manipulation perpetuates the impression of the “negative cycle of the abuser’s own self-sabotage” apon the victim’s self-image, the victim internalises the abuser’s unresolved and repressed aka fully toxic shame —which allows the abuser to then feel reflected in their idealised god-like form, cleansed (superficially) of their deep shame.
I mean, they try.
It’s possible to be very hurt by all of this and not be duped, but suffering breaks us down. That’s why it really matters how much support you get in the rest of your life.
*is aware of what is going on (sorry for the typo)
I really appreciate your honesty. Very validating. I wanted to answer the question you posed at the end; what am I going to do about it? Well, the answer, for me, is three-fold.
1. Go “No Contact” or otherwise ignore or detach or go “grey rock” around narcissist people. (Get support for this as needed.)
2. Write a list of RED FLAGS that I know now, looking back, and use that list to rate and judge anyone I want or need to in order to keep myself safe.
3. Take a look at my victim-behavior and see what I can do to either heal these issues or at least practice “fake it until you make it” behavior. For example. I realized when I am emotional/needy/lonely/vulnerable and being an introvert, shy and self-conscious… I need to stop moping around and looking like a needy-victim, if I’m going to be around unsafe people or environments. In other words, I need to be aware of the people-pleasing, needy signals I am putting out. Because when I do that – and for many years I was unaware I did that – that is just like cutting myself in the ocean and drawing sharks toward me.
I do have 2 questions for you, if you can answer.
1. I’m sure you’ve heard this one before, but I’d like to know if you think that you (and other narcissists) are born that way.
2. A psychiatrist recently told me that “sociopaths don’t know they’re lying”. This actually puzzled me. We know they can be manipulators in relationships and con men and worst, but I thought they knew or were aware of when they are lying. We were actually discussing one that brags, lies, twists things toward their version of reality, etc. and the good doctor was basically saying that person is not aware that those are all lies. What do you think?
Thank you for your time and for your brutally honest blog that I think is doing a great service. We got to have someone who tells it like it is and I find it very helpful.
JP
Hello JP,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on what you will do. As to your questions :-
1. It is a combination of genetic predisposition layered with environmental influences.
2. Lesser and Mid-Range Narcissists do not know they are lying – their lies are their truth because of the different narcissistic perspective. Greaters know we are lying but do not care.
My dad knew the ‘truth’ about being abusive aka ‘more POWERFUL than everyone else’—but it also wounded him to be faced with himself in an unfavourable light or be held accountable or lose control over anyone of his minions / self-extentions.
So sociopathic narcs might know and be very cynical about their means to their ends, but it’s rude and treacherous of you to point it out.
When i was a kid i told my dad to stop hurting ‘innocent creatures’ when he was kicking the dog, he went and cried. Our mother had to nurse his ego, my punishments happened later and were long drawn out. It was revolting.
So it’s not about knowing / not knowing, but their perspective: they have divine right to do what they want and you better agree.
“No, they way I leave you I believe that you may actually prefer to be dead in order to end the pain. The unrelenting pain and misery that I will inflict on you. What I kill is your confidence, your self-esteem and your sense of worth.”
Typical narcissist trying to steal others’
achievements. 🙂 We do it all to ourselves, you (generic N-you) are just an actor in our subconscious psychological drama and you do it perfectly! We couldn’t do it without you.
But you are absolutely right – I have often wished for death at the time of shelving/devaluation. But I take full responsibility in the part I played in this and I have full compassion and understanding for myself. It happened and it’s okay. It has taught me a lot, I learned what I needed and I choose not to repeat the experience.
Morning sun,
I agree; as adults, once we are aware it is our choice to continue engaging the drama.
However, children do not do it to themselves.
It is as adults only that we are able to see and act on our own behalf.
Yes, you are absolutely right – the reason adults reenact these dramas lies in childhood. The adult psyche attempts to deal with what had to be repressed in childhood and often attempts to ‘right a wrong’ – to heal the alcoholic parent through healing the alcoholic partner, for example, or to be loved and validated by the narcissist like they wanted to be loved and validated by the parent(s) or caretakers.
Most of this goes on subconsciously, so even if the person is awareness of what is going on, they may not be able to stop the drama from unfolding. But at least as adults we have the opportunity to do it without our existence being at stake (psychologically). It may necessitate the destruction and rebuilding of (part of) our identity, which is a little bit like death (no wonder a lot of us feel suicidal at some point). The thing is, once we accept that we are in control and there is method behind the madness, we can begin exploring our inner drives and redirecting them. We can stop the drama and rewrite the script. We couldn’t as children, but we are no longer little and powerless. We may only choose to be that way because it feels familiar and thus in a weird sense safe and comfortable.
I couldn’t agree more Morning Sun. Those words of yours are powerful and true. As children we couldn’t survive without our parents; the threat and the fear of abandonment was real and came down to survival. We’re grown up now. We may unconsciously repeat that original drama, but we survive, we face the fear of abandonment and we’re able to walk away from the experience stronger than ever. Like you point out this is the time to rewrite our scripts though. I don’t want to repeat my past ever again.
Yes, thanks for your reply Morning sun; I’m all for writing my own script; but as you say it sometimes it *feels* easier to stay with what is familiar but terrifying to face the unknown or the ‘lack of a script’, writing it as we go…
And Catherine – “I don’t want to repeat my past ever again” yes, a very determined statement that I agree with wholeheartdly – and *so* necessary in order to not perpetuate the cycle.
Your treatment becomes a ruse if you aren’t willing to.
The point of the article isn’t about me and my ongoing therapy, it is about how you regard your role with regard to disseminating information and awareness about our kind. Let me ask you this : would you rather hope that narcissists do something about themselves (knowing what I have written about this) or would you rather do something you can have control over instead?
I will respectfully provide information to those I think might need and accept it (by directing them to this site and a few other select sources that focus more on the victims), and I will make sure that the narcs in my life do not get under my skin. I will implement no contact where necessary and if one tries to get too close, I may strike back at them and thanks to HG I now have the tools to do so (sometimes I almost wish someone would give me the reason and opportunity to flex my sadistic muscles).
What I will not do is feel obligated to warn everybody and their dog about narcissists, to expose the ones I know to others, to interfere in other people’s relationships or make it my mission in life to help victims etc. Not my circus, not my monkeys.
And who in their right mind would expect narcissists to want to do anything about themselves?! The greater ones who are aware of their nature and actually have the ability to make modifications will do so if they wish and if they see something to be gained by it. Expectations would be entirely misplaced in regard to them. Hopes, perhaps. 🙂 It would be awesome to have greater narcissists direct their incredible powers for the mutual benefit of them AND others. Just like it is awesome to have HG teach us about both narcissists and ourselves.
I got the article. My biggest step forward is not internalizing their drama/put downs, etc. I don’t spend hours wondering, ‘What could I have done better?’ anymore. It’s their problem, not mine.
It’s ok if some don’t like me. Meh. Whatever. I also listen to my intuition more and if someone makes me feel an unwanted way, continually over and over, I just disengage. They’re just one person. Who cares? I concern myself with those who really do care.
I also agree with your observation re: society’s simpleton approach in type casting people. Ted Bundy was the sort of guy you’d want to bring home to mom.
Way to deflect. It’s not about me remember, it’s all about You. Just checking in to see if there is any signs of recovery in you, as that is my primary interest.
HG, what am I going to do about it you ask? To answer, I’m a therapist and the next Narc husband or wife who darkens my office door will not get past me.
Fighting talk! Good for you.
The more important question to ask to yourself is, what are YOU going to do about it? When will YOU, stop you……The first part of any problem is accepting you have one. Perhaps, it becomes reflexive and easier probably, to blame others than to look at oneself.
But I don’t need to.
“Our numbers are growing and our devastating impact on the lives of all those we entangle (and it is never just the one person is it) grows but what is being done?”
– Is this as close as we get to a narc accepting responsibility? 😉
Hg, what do you think should be done about it?
As for my response, I’ve talked about you so much, I’ve influenced my friends, my family, and just yesterday, my husband told me he persuaded a colleague to avoid a man we’ve decided is prob a narc. He apparently purposefully stoked an argument over some unimportant details in a conversation & seemed to relish the person becoming upset. He attempted the same thing w my cool-headed hubby, who went along playfully, and then abandoned the conversation. Ever since, he regularly recounts things that indicate he’s likely one of your kind… and he’s a family man…
Meanwhile, my personal narc sent another hoover, & I’ve been getting annoyed, so I sent him a wounding question. Bam, haven’t heard from him for awhile (needed a bit of a break).
Thank you for teaching us, oh Handsome Greater..
HG – have you ever written a piece on how our entertainment culture tends to normalize disordered relationships? Think of all of the movie plots that are based on the lover who lies to his or her target in order to get what they want, said lie causing the action that moves the story forward. The lie is revealed, the target accepts the apology, and they live happily ever after. Of course we never actually see the happily ever after because movies always conveniently end during the Golden Period, don’t they? It is never, ever that case that the target says, “no thanks, but anybody who lies to me once is going to lie to me again.” I understand that movies need drama, and disordered behavior creates drama. Jack and Jill meet, become friends, gradually get to know one another, and create a relationship based upon mutual respect, just doesn’t have box office smash written all over it.
Popular music is just as bad, although some country songs are more likely to address abuse issues. Little Big Town’s “Better Man” is a good example of a break up with a narc, although the word is never mentioned:
“And I see the permanent damage you did to me
Never again, I just wish I could forget when it was magic
I wish it wasn’t four am, standing in the mirror
Saying to myself, you know you had to do it I know
The bravest thing I ever did was run” …
“I know I’m probably better off all alone
Than needing a man who could change his mind at any given minute
And it’s always on your terms
I’m hanging on every careless word
Hoping it might turn sweet again
Like it was in the beginning
But your jealousy, I can hear it now
You’re talking down to me like I’ll always be around
You push my love away like it’s some kind of loaded gun
Boy, you never thought I’d run”
If these lyrics don’t perfectly describe the manipulation of the Narc I don’t know what does.
My point is that I think that to some extent our popular culture mirrors what is actually going on with narcissism in our relationships, but to another extent it promotes it. Our kids are on social media all day long, looking for drama and excitement in theirs and others’ personal lives.
I don’t believe in the nanny state, but I think our schools need to take more responsibility to teach kids about emotional abuse, and how to spot it. They taught my kids about physical abuse, but the emotional abuse always comes first, doesn’t it?
This sounds very provocative, what would you like done about it? More press = more sales?! How narcissistic!! If only I could know for sure about mine – is he or isn’t he?
Well J, consult with me and I will give you the answer you seek.
LOL…