A Letter To The Narcissist – No. 84

Dear H,

Did my empathy betray me? I knew you weren’t exactly cooperative or thoughtful but I was content to play alongside you in the sandbox without fear that you were conspiring against me from the start.

It was me who was the liar, you say! The hope was the lie, you say!

Yes, dearly departed narc, the hope was the lie, but it was your lie. It was your hope that you could be something, anything besides the miserable creature that you are. That you always will be. I despise those who lie. Murderously despise, which is why I had to kill it. I killed the hope when I saw it lingering near me and I will kill it again should you ever try to resurrect it in my presence.

You have lost most everything now. You have lost the most succulent fuel you will ever taste. The fuel of one who can truly understand your plight. The fuel of the one person who never recoiled at the first glance of you, nor hoisted you up and labeled you a hero. Perhaps, other visibly disabled people would understand what it is like, but you regard them as loathsome–whiners and hysterics. Or perhaps you’re just afraid of them stealing a slice of your limelight? But you never saw my disability nor did you see the superpowers that came with it. You regarded my empathic ability as some sort of parlor trick, meant to fool and mystify you, but not one that would command your professional respect; since, you aren’t in the profession of making any sort of magic. No, your skill lies in the field of “managing” anyone you meet, through manipulations and outright falsehoods. You “command respect”. You, alone, “command respect”. And you believe all people, the world over, don’t “give respect, it has to be earned”. And so you believe that you have honestly earned the world’s respect and that not one soul in it has earned yours?

You? Who couldn’t so much as earn a diploma? Who couldn’t buy a car or even learn to drive one? Who couldn’t file his taxes or manage the bureaucrats who are breathing down your neck and reaching into your pockets? And the last person in the room to put two and two together, if you can ever figure the punchline at all?! See, I could have helped you with those things but you were at once too proud and too pathetic to accept my help. You don’t need my help. You’ve made that perfectly clear. That’s why I knew that when you asked me about some obstacle I had been facing (back when we still spoke) I instantly knew that your grandmother had just died. It couldn’t have been genuine concern for me that lead you to reach out, since you have none. Nor were you heartbroken over the old woman, since you never cared a wink about her in life. Since you “just wanted to ask” me about some challenge I faced, I knew that you must have thought you had me beat: thus, your grandma had died. As if by magic, I know this.  But you wouldn’t want the help of someone who knows you this well and this effortlessly, someone introverted and intuitive, reasonable and perceptive. No. We are in competition. (I didn’t know we were at first, so you gave yourself quite the head start didn’t you?) Well now let’s tally up the score. You have lost much by not giving respect freely and I have lost one long drain on my spirit by doing just that. I respect everyone, you see, I respect a man as a man should be respected and I respect a narc as just a narc.

Sincerely,

Super Empath Shely