Sins of the Empath : Truth Seeker
Truth seeker. The pursuit of the truth. A noble ideal indeed is it not? It sounds as if you ought to be armed with your sword of justice and your shield of purity as you make your way through the badlands in order to find the truth. In fact, this is what you, as an empathic individual is unwittingly doing when you become engaged with our kind.
You are all truth seekers. The empath, the co-dependent and especially the super empath. You want the truth and you will apply your indefatigable spirit to acquiring it without understanding the toll that this misguided folly will have on you as whole. The need to be told the truth, to find it and to know it is a core empathic trait and as you would expect, it leads you into the trap of being ensnared by our kind and is heavily exploited.
Being a truth seeker is a further sin of the empath. Those who are empathic tell the truth, but that is because of that other empathic sin, honesty. The empath must always establish the truth of a situation, the truth at the heart of an individual and in so doing the allows them to reconcile their own truths.
The empath must know the truth. He or she must not only need to understand why somebody is as they are, but they have to be satisfied that this is the truth of the matter. This desire for the truth makes an empath extremely vulnerable to us since we trade in lies, deal in deceit and all our currency is counterfeit.
Take, for instance, at the outset of the narcissistic dynamic, when we begin our seduction of the empath. He or she wishes to know that this wonderful person is true in their intentions and whilst the empath might be pleased that others talk about how enamoured the narcissist is about them, or how the narcissist seems utterly smitten, the empath must establish the truth form the narcissist him or herself. This of course opens the empath up to the charm, magnetism and allure of the scintillating narcissist as we are only too happy to tell you what you want to hear, to show you what you want to see and to do what you would have us do.
Oblivious to who you are dealing with (until otherwise educated) the empath will, through his or trusting nature and propensity to deal honestly with others, accept what the narcissist says and does. That amounts to the truth. The narcissist is skilled through his mirroring to reflect back at you your own truths and thus as you seek the truth, you are shown it. What you do not realise is that you are looking at your own truth, but since it is your truth and not ours, it is so utterly convincing. The adoration that you exhibit towards us is mirrored and reflect back at you. You wish to seek the truth of that adoration and what do you see? An adoration that is on the same par as your own – how can that then not appear to be the truth. In seeking the truth but looking for it from one who lies so effectively and defrauds with ease, all you find is your own truth, but you fail to recognise it as such and thus you feel you have found the truth and you are convinced that what you see is genuine love, is genuine passion and is genuine adoration.
You might liken it to a person who carries with him or her one half of a precious gem and seeks the other half. This person encounters a mirror, but does not know that it is a mirror and thinks that they see the other half stood before them since it looks so convincing, yet try to touch or grasp or find any depth or substance to this supposed other half and it will not be there. This is what eventually happens when devaluation occurs as you see the reflection and it dawns on you that all you are looking at is what you already had, being made to appear like something more.
Thus in wanting to find the truth and being shown your truth and not ours, you are utterly convinced as to the legitimacy of our love, passion and desire for you. Your truth seeking has made you vulnerable to our deceitful manipulations from the very beginning.
Yet, the matter worsens. Your pursuit of the truth leaves you vulnerable to perhaps one of the most confusing and bewildering aspects of the narcissistic dynamic, the need to establish the truth during devaluation. Once the array of machinations are wheeled out against you, the gas lighting commences, the lies, the insults, the intimidation and so much more is used against you, your quest for the truth has you stuck in the quagmire of our manipulations for a considerable time.
Firstly, you do not accept that this monster which now prevents you from getting a good night’s sleep, erupts at the slightest criticism, becomes demanding over apparently nothing, is the person who you fell in love with or who loves you. This is not the truth that stands before you. The truth must surely have been the person who first seduced you. You know that to be the case because you sought the truth then during the seduction, you saw it and you established it. It is that magical, wonderful, adoring person who seems to have vanished and in its stead you now see some grotesque version of the person you love. That is not the truth that shouts at you and belittles you, that is not the truth that turns each time you want to go out with your friends into a battle and that is not the truth that turns its back on you every night in bed. You want to find the true us, the one you saw and established during seduction and that need, that desire and that pursuit of this truth means you remain in situ, not escaping and allowing our abuses to rain down on you again and again.
Secondly, you experience the downside of our pathological lies during the devaluation. You were lied to, naturally, during the seduction, but that does not matter. You thought it to be the truth and you established it as so and besides, those lies felt good didn’t they? Yet know, the lies wound and hurt, they scar and mark, as we tell you lies about what we have been doing, where we have been and who with. You are no fool, or so you think, for you have followed us, had others report to you and you know the truth of what has been happening. Now you must establish that truth with us. You must seek the truth from our lips without you realising that we will never do such a thing since to do so would be to cede control to you. You have not yet grasped who you are dealing with and thus you remain unaware that we use lies to achieve so much of our aims. Those lies are used to make you dizzy, make you cry, make you exhausted and we keep on going and will not concede to the truth.
How many times have you heard yourself say:-
“Just tell me the truth, that is all I want you to do.”
“Please, stop lying, just tell the truth.”
“If you would only tell the truth.”
“I want the truth.”
“Give me the truth. Please I am begging you.”
Are those phrases and those of a similar kind echoing about your mind now?
Your desire to get to the truth, to hold the truth in front of us and get us to acknowledge it means you become drawn into the circular arguments, the endless arguments, the denial, the switching and the deflections which leave you shattered, mystified and spent. Why can he not see the truth when I do? The Toxic Logic of course, but you are not privy to such information at that time and so you gird your loins, climb back on your steed and ride out once again in the pursuit of the truth. It is no surprise that you then gallop into the swamp and become bogged down by lies, untruths and mendacity.
Thirdly, during devaluation it is often the case that you will turn to others to seek confirmation that the truth you once witnessed is indeed the truth and you can find it once again. You seek the truth from our coterie, our minions and our lieutenants. You go to them and need to ascertain that we are surely a decent person, who is loving and caring are we not? You walk straight into the facade and its false truth. You hear the answers which you want to hear, we are lauded for our generosity, we are praised for our kindness, we are complimented on our good humour, easy charm and reliability. There it is, you have sought the truth once again and you have found it, yet you fail to recognise it as the false truth and the false hope which it engenders. Instead of trying to escape from this devaluation, you remain in place, taking comfort from that the facade has told you and redoubling your efforts to find the truth with us. Thus, you remain and exhaust yourself tilting against the windmill that is us when you think you are slaying the dragon.
Accordingly, your empathic trait of being a truth seeker makes you vulnerable to our seduction and extremely vulnerable to the effects of our mind games, manipulations and habitual lying. Were this where it ends, but your quest for the truth has a further blow to administer to you.
The empathic sin of being a truth seeker heightens your susceptibility to the post escape and post discard hoovers. When we open those shutters and allow the bright, shining light of the golden period to fall upon your face you instantly see that the truth has returned, that false truth which you were shown what feels like such a long time ago. Yet, all is not lost, the truth has returned, it is in your grasp and all you need to do seek it out and embrace it is to return to our fold. By seeking our the truth once again you fall prey to our hoovers and our control over you is increased again.
The desire to seek the truth is noble indeed but seeking it from one who scorns the truth and takes refuge amongst deceit, lies and fraudulent intent can only result in this character trait of yours gaining the epitaph of being a sin of the empath.
42 thoughts on “Sins of the Empath : Truth Seeker”
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I think I just figured sth out which has been bugging me. Or rather put 2 and 2 together from HG’s and my analyst’s info.
This article here shocked me (serial offender) into losing my blinkers when I first came to this website. I still think it’s one of the very best ones here, and generally, on narcissistic entanglements.
At the same time I think there is more to this “truth seeking” fault, something that isn’t mentioned in the article. Or perhaps it is and I didn’t see it clearly enough before.
“The desire to seek the truth is noble indeed but seeking it from one who scorns the truth and takes refuge amongst deceit, lies and fraudulent intent can only result in this character trait of yours gaining the epitaph of being a sin of the empath.”
Truth-seeking is a character trait of the serial offender, granted. The noble and often evil twin of truth-seeking is doubting. We doubt (refuse to accept) the evidence before our own eyes. We SEE and of course FEEL the havoc in our lives but we still doubt it – this is why we keep on looking for truths even though the truth is right there before our eyes.
Now the flipside is this.
We fall for narcissistic entanglements because narcissists ALLOW us to trust. In our truth and theirs. Serial offenders are rubbish at trusting, that is why we NEED someone who can give us the impression that we can. People who allow us to trust in what we want to trust because we cannot trust enough. We think we can. But not in what’s really there. Only the illusion – that for us, feels real. We can trust only because it feels real.
People who are trustworthy (e.g.honest normals) radiate a mix of pleasant and unpleasant traits as they have integrated and accepted what they don’t like about themselves. It’s there for all to see but we instinctively, not deliberately, find this unattractive because we want to protect ourselves against harm and negativity. We want and NEED perfect love (one that doesn’t exist) to be able to trust. Truth seeking is trying to seek that perfect love but it originates in self protection gone into overdrive. It does the opposite of what it is supposed to do.
Hence I stick with the thesis that serial offenders must address trust issues if they want to build healthy, loving relationships after having learnt to avoid narcissists. It is only logical that a person who ‘pathologically’ seeks the truth can’t trust their own eyes enough, and usually that means trust issues. Healthy relationships are built on trust.
Thanks again HG for putting in all this hard work in maintaining this blog and providing a platform for sharing!
You are welcome.
here’s my experience people… romantic references aside because they don’t apply in my case, but almost everything does, this article establishes further evidence in my mind that i am a naive fool who was destined to fall prey to a woman i thought, at first, embodied navy core values…..THEN….had a hard time telling myself she didn’t, and that she was really just a sociopathic monster….now I’m on disability and can’t work, because the establishment that i was working for after the navy, the goverment (which btw operates practically the same as the navy that swept my gaslighting experience under the rug bc of her power) now says i am borderline (when ironically i had 15 stable happy yrs in the navy before this monster decided i was her whipping boy). narcissicists can kill people with words. literally.
What is your point of view when you see videos that contradict what you say?
They are wrong. There are too many commentators who put out content which is incomplete, incorrect and sometimes even dangerous.
Hi HG, I would like to ask you if a narcissist can change, if possible the change after being left alone, without family, almost without friends and with an empty life?
And what can we do to stop thinking about him obsessively?
Why do we remember only good times?
I was with him for many years and it was me who ended the relationship. He did not want to.
Thank you very much
Lindy
No he cannot change.
I can assist you with the obsessive thinking and ‘rose tinted remembering’ and this is done through consultation.
Lindy – In addition to consulting with HG, I would recommend you read his book “Exorcism”. That will help you understand your obsession better.
Also – I can feel myself developing abuse amnesia now as my Midranger has been gone one month. I cannot feel the sting of the abuse anymore, and in turn, I can’t remember why things were so bad that we had to break up. That’s why I’m on here, and also why I began meditating last night to recall the abuse. It hurt, but it’s necessary. Today, I plan to write as many specific instances of abuse down as I can remember. I just need my coffee first. Lol. I should’ve written things down right away. I will be able to go back and read them every time I feel the amnesia kicking in. Things WERE that bad. They were actually worse than I ever even realized.
HG Thank You!!!
Should I tell the mid ranger that also has real sociopathic features,from whom I have escaped, what he is? He has cracked on rare occasion and has let me know that he knows he has something wrong with him that he does not understand. Will I make this very smart and evil mid ranger that much more formidable if he gains knowledge of what he is?
No, there is no point in doing so. He will not accept it and this is only you engaging him again when you have escaped and therefore should not be done.
And if it were done anonymously, the same?
HG, you have restored my sanity with your books, videos and blog. I’m sure I will conference with you soon as I am a truth seeker, an INFJ, and the more answers I find, the more questions that surface. Ensnared by an evil mid range narcissist, basketball playing savant and sexy poker playing hustler, that I thought foolishly I could fix with my love until I found your writings. Now recently escaped. And the daughter of a greater whom I will never fully escape but of whom I now have a much better understanding. A mother, physician and carrier super empath myself………That you have given me understanding of all this that has confused me for so long I am forever grateful!
If anonymously you are still engaging and it will not have any positive impact. I am pleased my work has been of use to you.
Wow. Get out of my head!! Lol. I have to say, though, the relentless pursuit of the truth is how I finally found the real truth. It is also how I immediately accepted the real truth when I saw it and cut that fuel line off with a battle axe. We know deep down that we haven’t really found the real truth until we really find it. There’s a constant feeling of unease and cognitive dissonance until the pieces finally come together. Then it’s game over.
So, HG, while it gives you an advantage for a potentially long, long time, it is also what causes a super empath to suddenly wake up and cut you off without warning. The truth hurts, but it feels good at the same time. There’s a feeling of relief. It gives us the stable ground we have been craving. You can’t talk us out of it once we’ve found it. All you can do at that point is appeal to our emotions, which I hate to say, still stands a chance if you do it in a way that doesn’t insult our intelligence. To Hoover a super empath, don’t tell her you miss her. Don’t tell her you’ll be different now. Don’t tell her that you just found out you have cancer. She’ll just laugh and ignore you. Just act the way you did in the golden period and casually invite her to go do something she’d like (Another reason No Contact is so important). I have had to admit to myself that if my ex “accidentally bumped into” me while I was skiing or snowboarding, I would be very very tempted to join him for the day. You probably already knew all that, though. Lol. Bastard.
Cognitive dissonance, what a perfect word to describe the state of mind I was in during ensnarement.
When this thing I had with the Narc. blew up in my face, I thought I was the other woman. I had my rights taken away, as I did not know I was with a man who had a relationship for years. SO I was a fucking mess. I was going to therapy to deal with this. BUT I was not healing. I contacted the other woman. I was still having contact with the Narc. as he said they had an open relationship, she did NOT. So I was a fucking mental mess. BUT that was not why I was not healing. He of what he was doing to me, was a misdiagnoses. I looked up WHY NO CLOSURE. It was a article Of Narcissist. The truth came to light…Thank you GOD. then WE as my Therapist and I had a different path of my healing. Anger saved my mind. I WAS RAPED MENTALLY FOR 3 YEARS. The Truth needs to be known so you can do the right healing. I wish I was naive and just let him go, but he kept after me, as I was smarter then most he was with. I knew what he was and he messed with the wrong girl. To sin as a sin is known as a mistake…I will NOT do the mistake again.. BUT I was conned as all of us were. WE were RAPED BRAINWASHED GROOMED MANIPULATED PUT AT RISK FOR STD AND SO MANY OTHER THINGS….WE ARE STILL STANDING. yaaaa
SW… good morning!
so glad you brought up the anger.. Are you still angry and if so how long has this been? Im stuck in anger mode and have been for years.
“ To sin as a sin is known as a mistake…”
A mistake repeated then becomes a choice.
Yes, being psychologically-emotionally raped is a real phenomenon. Psychology, art, philosophy and political movements can help us recognise these experiences, but the law is empirical and so it’s very limited – the law acknowledges its limitations more than most people who are embedded in (and addicted to) social hierarchies, do.
Not being able to heal is also a real thing – victim blamers don’t get it, they also assume their own victim experiences are the same as those of others.
Victims who become survivors, aren’t people who “just got over it” – and continue to blame themselves and others. They accept life more radically.
Iroll…
Great post. Brought to mind when I eacaped the narcship I really did look into if I could charge him with anything. I didnt find anything in my googles and when I asked my Sgt I was met with “theres no law against being an asshole”. There should be better laws against emotional abuse. Its REAL!
Julie, we are currently fighting for ‘Raised Standards’ !!!!
Preach that! Its like being the 3rd monkey trying to board Noahs ark.
I was so frustrated at the lack of being able to hold him accountable for the abuse. Just because you cant physically see a mark dosent mean its not there. Hopefully one day there will be laws to protect people.
Iroll,
I am not sure I understand your last two sentences. I do consider myself a survivor. I don’t blame myself at all. I did realize that I had some issues within myself that I needed to work on so that this didn’t happen to me again. I don’t think that is blaming myself. I think that is personal growth. If anything, I am “softer”, not radical. I just have proper boundaries and self awareness. As always, I am a work in progress.
Everyone is different. I would never presume to know or judge how any person deals with their own experience. There are different stages of healing,or however you would like to phrase it. I am not sure one is ever really “ healed” from this type of experience. There will always be triggers, etc.
NNH – radical doesn’t have one meaning, ‘language is ambiguous’ so i’m trying to give the meaning from the context, without getting too deep (because i have a life going on too!)
: not supporting tyrannical power imbalances, raising general social standards – pro-culture. So there you have the context, yes?
After that, the same words were said.
I’m soft too, but i can get surgically sharp when necessary. Truth cuts through all the constructs of meaning, but love lets us know what really matters.
—not trying to contain the whole subject just say a few words that represent my position.
Though real, emotional abuse is still something we allow others to do to us and I for one believe in personal responsibility.
When it’s emotional abuse of a child or other dependent person who cannot legally act on their own, I’m all for state regulation and punishment. In other instances… it would be a lovely world in which we all were entitled to the best and there were clear and uniform standards of right and wrong, but fact is that we can only fix the mess we are in and learn to accept and work with that which we cannot fix.
Yes SW its all crazy making stuff but we can be free from it they cant so ultimately we find peace they don’t, I’m sure despite they are the makers of the crazy making stuff that sometimes they long for that unobtainable peace and contentment. We can find it if we can heal and put them out of our heads. x
Here is the truth:You will NEVER know everything. Most of it will be recycled with slight variances anyway. People are going to believe what they want to believe. You have absolutely no control over that. It sucks, but that is just the reality of the situation. The best revenge I have is to live my best life and be a total badass without him. Peacefully, ethically, TRUTHFULLY. Is that enough? Most of the time. Some days , not so much. On those days, I try to go on some sort of random adventure, even if it is something stupid. Try something I haven’t tried before. Anything. I just don’t wallow in it. I have worked too hard. If I don’t do that, he still has power. Do I always succeed? No, I have occasional crap days just like everyone else. I just get my fanny up the next day and try again. I wasted enough time. I’m not wasting anymore.
NNH
Good for you. Its your life to live and its bad enough they used up some of your time. We never know how much of it we will get, so dont give them any more of yours.
Narc Angel,
Thanks! I am not even remotely saying I have my mess together all the time. Some days I think I can conquer the world, other days I am screaming WTF am I doing inside my head. Lol. But no one else knows that. It didn’t happen overnight. This letting go stuff. It was so damn difficult. It was just destroying me. I had to make a choice. So I made one. I am still a work in progress. I think the minute you think you have everything figured out , you are totally screwed. Lol. The only thing I can control is my reaction to things I cannot control. That is what I say to myself. A LOT.
NNH
No one has their shit together all of the time despite how some people make it look so youre in good company there. For those who say to me: but its hard and you dont understand, I say this: i know that, and it wont happen overnight. All Im proposing is that you hang onto the seeds of: It happened and I cannot change what happened. I will reflect back on it from time to time as the lesson that it was, but I will not allow it to consume any more of my time going forward or I have taken up the mantle from them and am abusing myself. Feed that. Let that grow. Live your life. Do not water the dead plant of: This happened to me and now my life is ruined and over. The only one who really has that kind of control over your life is you. Dont give it away and you will conquer.
Narc Angel,
Exactly!!! You totally get it. Everyone handles things differently, I understand that. My thing is accepting personal responsibility for some of it. I am not saying I beat myself up over it, I don’t. I had to understand what was going on with me and my own bs that allowed it to happen to begin with. That was where the real work began. It has been the most difficult and empowering thing I have ever done. I finally feel like myself again. Actually, I feel like a better version of myself. I was in my car yesterday with the top down. It was beautiful outside. That song “ The Dog Days Are Over” , by Florence + the Machine came on the radio. That was random as hell because it is an old song, but this radio station is awesome. Anyway, I just turned it up , busted out laughing, and started singing. Gotta appreciate the little stuff. 🙂
NNH and NarcAngel,
I want to “like” all your posts on this, but can’t, so here is a verbal like! It’s so true that we only have control over our own actions and reactions, and like, Narc Angel said, we do have to water the good seeds and not give a drop to the thought patterns that hurt us.
NNH – LOVE Florence! Anything Florence, but “Dog Days” is such a hopeful song, also “Shake it Out.” “Various Storms and Saints” is prob a current fave with it’s message of self-forgiveness and acceptance. It’s impossible for me to hear her without singing along.
Mary,
I will take a verbal like anytime! I love Florence. She is so freaking cool. I can’t wait for her new album. End of June , I think? I love both of those songs. I made a board of quotes that I keep in my reading room. Lines from Various Storms and Saints are on there. Music, books, and nature. Those things were a big part of what saved me. Oh, and shifting gears, turning curves a tad too fast while giggling. That is always pretty fun too.😉
NNH,
Yes, end of June. I’m super excited about her new album too! And can relate to what you said about music and nature saving you. Those two things and my dog. He loves without condition, and no matter how lost or confused I have felt, his sweet face makes it bearable. LOL at giggling and turning curves. Those things are excellent therapy as well!
Mary,
Agreed!. I love dogs. I don’t have one right now, and it totally sucks. They are the best!
is the site borked ATM?
Oh, does this post hit home. Though I’m guilty of several sins of the empathy, I realize that being a Truth Seeker is likely foremost. Reading this was as if HG was reading my mind. The quotes were so close to what I have said or thought as to be indistinguishable to my mind. I appreciate having the knowledge and perspective; it offers some protection. Presently I am just within the Hall of Mirrors, that is to say either having just entered the first hoover and restored golden period or being in a place where she is sincerely attempting, with therapy, to get “better.” (For the moment I will use “better” in the conventional sense, though after reading many of HG’s posts, in fairness I must say that the proposition assumed in all this, namely that a “normal” personality is demonstrably “better” than a narcissistic personality, is far from self-evident. If one is honest, one must admit that the narcissist’s life experience, as experienced by the narcissist, is arguably superior in some respects to the “normal” experience. The absence of the burden of guilt is but one example. For another day.) Armed with knowledge of my own sins, and of my mid-level narcissist’s likely behavior, call it expected “X,” I now have a crude tool with which to infer her true motivations. If she behaves as X, the presumption of narcissism can reasonably be confirmed. If she behaves as not-X … well, narcissism cannot conclusively be excluded, but at least there will be reason to keep the question open. I hope that the foreknowledge of what to expect from the mid-level will enable me to escape the Hall of Mirrors with minimal damage … I hope to skim the event horizon (to mix metaphors), but not to be drawn in to the blackness and be unable to escape.
HG, apologies as you doubtless have posted on this question before (I’m new here), but I presume it is your view that your kind cannot be modified, through therapy or otherwise, to become our kind? Although it occurs to me you may be unable to offer that opinion lest it interfere with the terms of your understanding with Dr. E.
No, we cannot become your kind.
Nice article.. thank you HG
I can relate to this one very much.
You have just described me 💯% I felt like you are talking to me about me this is me …… Empath
On target / if the narcissist is unaware of their games… then how do they flip between devaluation and the rebewed golden period? It feels they have to sense they need to somehow- but ? What’s the trigger?
Either the victim does something to cause the shift and/or there is a shift in the fuel matrix.
King James Bible “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free”
When trying to find “truth” it becomes an obsession and the quest to find the truth actually becomes the jailer.
YES,H. I HAVE SEARCHED WHY THIS WHY THAT, NOWI KNOW (THE TRUTH WILL SET YOU FREE)😇😇! THANK YOU SO MUCH H.G.SINCERELY. SHARON