Perchance To Sleep
When I am first with you, I like to sit and look at you as you sleep. I like to see you lying there content, your arm draped across me as if checking that I am still there next to you. Your eyes are closed and your face is in a relaxed repose as I feel your chest gently rising against me. You look content, safe and loved. I wonder what you are dreaming about as a small smile plays about your lips. I often believe that it is me. The wonderful, incessant and perfect love that I furnish for you throughout your waking hours must surely continue when you are asleep. It must bleed into your sleep, percolate into your dreams and such is its all-pervasive power it makes you feel loved even when you are asleep. It is during these moments that I consider how I can continue to give you this perfect love that you rightly deserve. I can see what a good and decent person that you are. I feel the admiring love that you pour over me and I know it is genuine, I can tell a fraud at a hundred paces and you are no such thing. It is entirely understandable that you flow with this love for me, who would not when faced with being the object of my perfect love? I look down at you, your delicate features framed in the low lamp light that I have kept on in the bedroom solely for this purpose. You seem so fragile and vulnerable as you lie there, unaware that I am watching over you. I want to protect you; I want to shield you from the darkness that is out there and keep you safe. You deserve nothing less because you give me such a wonderful love in return and I must protect you. I must ensure that my investment remains cherished and loved. It is during these moments as I sit and look at you that I know I must truly love you. How can I not when I feel such a sense of responsibility over your well-being. Look at you; still, perfect and oblivious. Who could not fail to love someone like you? Who could not fail to have such a care for your well-being? Who could ever cause that beautiful face to frown and crease in bewildered pain? Who could cause a solitary tear to trickle from your eyes and spill down those flawless cheeks? I cannot bear to think about you being hurt, feeling sad and in pain. I feel a deep-seated desire to look after you, to keep the darkness from your door and ensure that you are always only ever happy and loved. This sense of being your guardian is strong. I feel anger at the thought of anybody lashing out and wounding you, someone causing this perfect creature to feel anguish, pain and concern. I lay a hand on your shoulder and you shift slightly in your sleep acknowledging this gentle gesture of protection. You face nudges against me as if you know what I am thinking and you feel safe and wanted.
Yet for all these thoughts I know that this is purely the way I am expected to think about you. This is how I should act in order to maintain the façade of our relationship so that you continue to give me what I want. I sit and wrestle with these thoughts. Are they genuine? Are they what I truly feel about you yet I know I do not. I know that the apparent abhorrence that I manufacture at the thought of you being hurt is purely an artifice because it will be me that eventually causes your hurt. It will be me that will twist that beautiful smile into a gash of despair. It will be me that makes that light voice become wracked with anxiety and pain. It will be my words that wound and my actions that scar. For all the tenderness that I apparently exhibit as I sit here now looking over you, I know, as sure as the world keeps turning and that the sun rises in the east, that I will be the one that will bring you to your knees. I will have you feeling exhausted, crazed and desperate and as I sit and recognise that I am the architect of your downfall I feel nothing. I feel no guilt, no despair or remorse because those things have been stripped from me. I was never made to experience those sensations and that is why I know I will do as I do to you, as I have to all the others before me and I will only feel one thing; power. That raw and visceral power which I must have. I am blessed with sufficient insight and intellect to know that what I do is wrong. I can see the tears in your eyes, hear your begging and see your hunched broken frame which tells me that you are hurting and I caused this. Yet for all of this understanding I am unwilling and unable to do anything about it because I am not forged with the desire or the tools to do so. This is what I am and better you remain asleep, oblivious to what is really looking down on you.
20 thoughts on “Perchance To Sleep”
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NarcAngel
“Power doesnt wait for money or perfect timing. Fear does.”
Hear, hear.
This is still as frightening and heartbreaking to me now as the first time that I read it. It really truely is heartwrenching. if only there was something we could do about it is one of the first thoughts that comes to mind after reading it, like it was the first time I read it.. but learning and realising that there really isn’t anything that can be done about it so far is so disheartening.. I suppose using the words “so far” indicates that I still harbour some hope that nothing is impossible.. but then remembering your own words HG ” that imposter hope” makes it difficult to hang onto any hope.
Some days hope is dead but then we are all what we are… and my own nature is one that even when flattened to the ground one day Rises the next and hope lives again.
The never ending seesaw, the ever decreasing circle.
Each one of us is what we are though.
Our own nature is our nature.
On we go. Keeping on moving on and hopefully not forgetting who we are. And hopefully being the type of people that do not hurt each other intentionally if at all possible.
Well said DW.
What a waste, what utter gut wrenching sadness.
Have to say HG exquisitely written. these should go up on public billboards, under narc aware headings. Get the knowledge out there.
Can we use them as screen savers ?
By all means.
This is why I’ve come to hate my empathic self. Hoping one day to have enough love and respect for myself, to protect myself verbally and physically. I hate to admit that I don’t have much of this behavior mainly because I don’t really know how to do these things for myself. It’s easier to help others over myself. I’ve only been really loved and cared for briefly in my early childhood. Other than that, I was taught other’s come first and I don’t matter. This is partially why the narcissist picks me. And for my love and loyalty. Like a dog.
Working hard to change things for the better. Maybe ask the hard question, “What do I really want and need?”
T
Virtual hugs to you ❤️ There’s something about your posts that move me. You have been on my heart and mind.
Hugs back, MB.
Big hugs. please put yourself first lovely lady you deserve it. x
Lynn x
Thanks, Lynn.
All we can to is our best.
This makes for a fantastic monologue for an actor/ narc….the cold chilling truth that is veiled beneath the surface of apparent affection. The illusion is complete.
Of all the things you’ve written, things full of terror, malice and anger; things full of humor and wittiness, this is by far the most revealing and saddest I’ve ever read.
Perhaps your current IPPS is the cause of your reflection. Perhaps she’s the one who will provide you with the empathetic type of love that I ‘think’ you’re coming to understand.
What a beautiful tragedy HG. If only there was another way to get what you need…
So you subsume us. We become part of you. The part of you that you despise, that you see as weak, that was abused by your Mother and your Aunt and anyone who has ever wronged you, hurt you, disappointed and abandoned you? The part of you that you have contempt for and must be punished because you had no answer for them at that time? But you have pledged it will not go unnoticed now and someone will pay so that you can stay seated at your throne of superiority and banish that weakness yes? Yet for all of that power you feel you possess now while becoming them and that you bring down upon us (as we are now one) they go on unbothered and about their business, allowing them power over you even now. How long will you wait? When will you have accumulated enough power in the facade to be able to face the actual perpetrators instead of those who are only proxy for them? Power doesnt wait for money or perfect timing. Fear does.
Damn NA! I can see you were moved as well. This is certainly a thought provoking article. So effing sad. Love your comments, you’re a badass.
She most certainly is a badass.
very well articulated NA
I’m elaborating. Sorry. This is confusing to me. You stated that you feel anger at someone hurting her. A need to protect her from that. I thought you just felt more”frigid” emotion. Anger is more emotional.
I know that you are the master of illusion. I get it. No, that’s not true. I comprehend your words, but I don’t “understand “ it. Does that make sense?
What makes this writing difficult for me is that you seem to be haunted by it. Almost like you don’t want to do what you do. Are you changing? I’m being serious. I don’t mean like some miraculous overwhelming thing , but just small changes.
Wait, even during the G.P. you know you are going to end up doing this?
I do, Lesser and Mid Range do not.