Just The Way It Is
By now you all know that I am driven by the hunger that rages within me as I must seek out fuel to feed the beast. To begin with, my fuel comes from the compliments and admiration you send my way during our golden period. Yes, that blissful, wonderful time when everything tastes better, smells more fragrant, looks brighter and sounds sharper. I was asked why can I not contain my need for fuel to receiving admiration and plaudits? Why must I embark on such a destructive course which brings mayhem to everyone around me. Why must it hurt so much? A fair question.
In my case, there are two reasons for this. The first brings forth that old adage of familiarity breeds contempt. Imagine that strawberry is your favourite flavour of ice-cream. I bring you a large strawberry ice cream in a sugar cone. You take a lick and it is delicious. So fresh tasting, so creamy and there are even little pieces of strawberry contained inside of it. It simply is the most sumptuous ice cream you have ever introduced to your taste buds. These strawberries have been grown in God’s garden, tended to by angels and grown with the purest water, the most fertile soil and vibrant sunshine. The milk has been taken from cows which graze on nothing but the most verdant grass, free from pollution and contamination. In fact, every ingredient that has been used in the creation of this magnificent iced confection is the best and perfect. Not only that, it has been crafted by the Supreme High Creator of Gelatos. I bring you a second one. Why not? This is an ice cream fit for champions. You eat this second one but by now you are feeling full. I bring a third, the taste is still great but not as good. Now I give you the good news that you are eating strawberry ice cream for breakfast, lunch and dinner and nothing else. Soon, the amazing taste of the ice cream no longer brings you pleasure. In fact, you start to dread the sight of the ice cream as it is brought to you and then it makes you angry that you have to eat it. You are sick of it now, it has lost its allure.
This is what happens to me. It always happens. Since I am wired to seek out instant gratification, even the most wonderful sensations soon pale to me. I am not built for the long-term, I have no desire for longevity. If it was me eating the ice cream, I need to go and seek out mint choc chip or even vanilla or perhaps a juicy steak instead. I need something different in order to give me that hit. Why not then just leave the strawberry ice cream along and seek out that new taste sensation, why do I have to subject the ice cream to a campaign of savage and nasty behaviour. One reason is that since I have invested so much energy in securing all that strawberry ice cream I am not going to let it go. I need to treat it differently and thus generate a break from its taste. With you, I need to have a break from the now stale praise and admiration you provide to me. It just does not do it for me. Similarly, I have invested energy in ensnaring you and I do not want to let you go. I have to treat you differently to change the dynamic. I need to keep you around so I embark on a confusing campaign that means you cling tighter to me. I will of course be seeking out new admiration from new sources. There are so many flavours for me to taste. You were once shiny and new. Not any longer. Someone else is shinier and newer.
I will return to you, like I will return to the strawberry ice cream. I have forgotten how it sickened me so I will eat it again and wow, it tastes good. Similarly, I will grant you a short return to the golden period. You lavish me with praise and love borne out of relief and I enjoy it. The law of diminishing returns applies however and soon I tire of your admiration as I tire of the strawberry ice cream and once again I must take a break from it, whilst never actually severing ties with you or giving away the ice cream. Back and forth I will go, occasionally being good to you to receive your admiration as I occasionally have a scoop of the strawberry ice cream. Thus this familiarity and unwillingness to let you go means that I have to treat you badly in order to resurrect the positive fuel on an infrequent basis whilst drawing on the negative fuel to provide the contrast.
I mentioned two reasons. The second reason arises from occasional glimpses of reality. For the most part we dwell in our false construct that we have dragged you into. You may achieve something or a colleague may secure a new contract or we notice a friend purchase a flash, new car. This provides us with a painful reminder of our own limitations and our hatred of the limelight being moved elsewhere, however temporary. In such a case we have to lash out. We must denigrate, despise and demean in order to create that contrast again, we make you look bad and we look good. By putting you down, or the friend or the colleague we feel powerful and in control again. The horrible sensation vanishes. On these occasions, envy and fear drives us to be horrible to you. We have to do it to make ourselves look superior in comparison.
In both instances we need to provide a contrast in order to maintain our fuel. Thus, all cannot be rosy in the garden, we need to spray the weed killer over the flowers you have grown to ensure we receive the fuel that is our primary aim in life.
24 thoughts on “Just The Way It Is”
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No offense taken, Narc Angel. It’s just the way it is. Everything is coming around full circle. My daughter’s father is pretty malignant. I noticed she is starting to pick up some of his narc habits, but she wants a puppy. Even though neither her dad nor I would want a puppy, the puppy would be in better hands with me. I think it would be good if she learned to have compassion and care for another being while she is young.
Smorgasbord has always been and still is, the ultimate!!
I was however, not missing cookies. I hadn’t tasted a cookie for 25 years. Didn’t miss them didn’t crave them, didn’t dream about them.Didn’t even really remember what they were like.
Had put cookies, their wonderful taste as well as their “not good for me” on a forgotten shelf.
That was however, until one of your kind decided I needed to have a cookie. Without asking for even one bite, one crossed my steadfast boundaries and sparked every taste bud and memory of the sweet sugar I had not even realized I was missing.
My convictions to moral fiber were the fuel, the challenge that set you in motion to win my baking contest.
Smorgasbord, BAH!
I want nothing but that cookie, that strawberry ice cream.
My awakened taste buds are addicted to the perfection of recipe I can no longer have.
I am doomed to imagine every spoonful of ice cream, every bite of cookie until I once again can tame the panther, and go back to a state of forgetfulness. To once again get to the point where I no longer even think of a cookie.
I always appreciate your writings and have learned a great deal from them. Thank you for helping to educate the broader community. What I miss, though, is insight into the deeper psychological underpinnings of the disorder. It became clear to me that my narc, and I assume most others, was repeatedly, maybe almost consistently, projecting his trauma with his mother onto me, first in the form of idealization the rescuing Madonna (still coupled with manipulation, lying, etc.) – and then with the switch to devaluation the evil stepmother. Many people say the narc projects their own self-hatred onto the victim, but it is far more the hatred of the abusive and/or neglectful mother, and I’m sure the rage often begins in infancy. There are also the remnants of child personas that pop up from time to time and run the show. The deeper psychology is quite complicated and no doubt differs from narc to narc, but it remains to be investigated and analyzed in detail. Perhaps you will explore this with your therapists and share your insights with us.
Thank you and you are welcome.
You don’t change, so you can’t notice that other people are constantly changing. You don’t share, so you can’t share new experiences with people. A relationship with a narc is like a relationship with a cardboard cutout. I wonder how much of your boredom is that you start to notice the other person getting bored with you, and you mirror that.
I don’t know if people really get bored with a narcissist if they’re involved with one, because a narcissist will keep the drama coming to throw you off balance. If you get bored with them I think they first deal some type of blow to knock you off balance, then move on to the next target. My father did this throughout his life, he was married seven times and had many more relationships than that. He was incredibly charming and just as vengeful and manipulative. He once brought the woman he was cheating on my mother with to our house. Of course this was after my mother had told him she was going to divorce him, which enraged him. He presented her to my mother and said “This is the woman I’m going to marry.” My poor mom.
I was so glad when he didn’t live with us anymore. Even though I was a little girl and loved him unreasonably, I knew even at that young age that he was bad for us.
HG,
This question may be silly, but I have been wondering…
Do narcissists feel empathy towards animals?
For example by the sight of an injured or dying dog/ cat ? How common is it for narcissists to have pets? And if they do have, is it possible that they develop an attachment?
Thank you.
No, they are devices to use for the purposes of triangulation in order to draw fuel and possibly maintain a façade.
HG,
As a follow up question. If an N owned a dog, for example, could the dog be a source of positive fuel on it’s own due to its unconditional love etc.?
No. It’s a dog.
HG, so an animal cannot provide fuel in and of itself only? (I’m not talking about triangulation.) Only HUMAN emotions caused by you can provide fuel?
MB
Maybe not HG, but I know my exhusband gets a sort of fuel from dogs. Maybe the narc had to grow up with dogs to develop the knack? I’ve known several narcs who could draw intense devotion from dogs and I could tell it fueled them. They draw both positive and negative fuel will and triangulate one dog against another.
Windstorm, thank you for sharing that about your ex husband. Dogs are so expressive with their admiration it seems they would fit quite nicely into many a narcissist’s fuel matrix. And triangulating one dog against another comes naturally to them. My two battle for the closest to mommy spot every time I sit down! They are like my little fuzz ball shadows and I wouldn’t take anything for them.
PH, I’ll take it as a yes, that it’s only human emotions that provide fuel. I don’t know about you, but I think dogs are a lot of company. If I had to be without people, I could live out my life with a canine companion just fine. 🐶
Ema, I’m not a narcissist, but I was raised by a borderline mother who handed me down the narcissistic trait of no empathy for animals. Occasionally I feel cold empathy, but not pure empathy or love. I have always known this about myself, and stopped talking about it when I was in college and someone said I must have had a disturbed childhood. I have owned pets on occasion before, and I did spoil them, but I spoiled them because they were mine, not because I loved them. If I couldn’t take care of them anymore, I did go through great effort to find them a good home, but that was that. No feelings of loss or sadness. If you showed me a video of someone torturing an animal, I would not feel upset for the animal, I would be more angry at the abuser for his violent and destructive actions. I have two codependent sisters who love there animals as much as their kids, and mourn when a pet dies. I can’t wrap my mind around what they are going through, but I do feel for my sisters and love them. So for me, no love, no attachments, and I sometimes, loathe being in the home that has animals. I would love to feel empathy for animals like I do for children or the elderly, and am still open to it, but I just never learned it.
Thats fascinating to me. I cant wrap my head around people who dont care for animals as caring for children. Thats not a judgement or a slight. It truly baffles me.
HG Tudor – Success of others triggers a huge amount of pain and suffering in your kind and in order to escape the suffering you project it on the successful person by bellittling the person and their success. This is a constant struggle always to be the best (which is just an illusion and impossible to reach) and at the same time absolute deep lack of self worth and self- value. Self worth comes only from feeling of control over others. I t is like constantly being not at peace – constant urge to control instead of adoring and loving and valuing yourself for who you are. Normally established personality takes the “supply” just from themselves and is independent and actually does not need anybody in order to survive- interactions with others serve different purposeses. Joanna
Humans are social animals. We cannot survive on our own. This is why solitary confinement is such an evil: It’s torture.
We absolutely need other people, but we need give and take. Narcissists don’t and can’t give. That might be the effect of their emptiness, but I suspect it’s more likely to be the cause.
I can understand the relationship becoming stale over time, it happens.
Why can’t you just have many many friends with benefits? Be upfront about your wants so you are not hurting anybody? You could have a different woman every day of the week giving you potent fuel BUT avoiding the abuse.
Because most narcissists cannot operate fuel matrices in that manner. Besides, what if they cannot iron?
I don’t know about you, but if it must be ironed, it stays on the rack, in the store. Funeral clothes go to the dry cleaners. I can iron, but I won’t. Don’t bothering counting on ironing as a residual benefit from MB!
I have just seen this!
How very dare you, off with your head!
The infamous strawberry ice cream!