The Caretaker
I would like to tell you about one of my ex-girlfriends, Karen. Karen, this is directed to you out of recognition of how spectacular your supply of fuel was. It was one of, if not the best.
Using my legendary powers of empathy detection I was able to pick you out like a pig sniffing for truffles. Some might suggest that it quite an apt analogy. I identified that you are a caretaker. You are a passionate, caring and strong individual. How best might I harness the sweet, sweet fuel that you would be bound to supply to me? I decided that rather than love bomb you I would apply a different technique. Yes I was polite, complimentary and took an interest in you so you were drawn to me, but I did not bombard you in the way that I ordinarily might. No instead I decided that I needed to test you. I reasoned that you would see me as a challenge. Most of my victims apply their caretaking instincts when I start to devalue, demean and belittle them. They want to fix me in order to return to the golden period. I opted in your case to start testing you from near the beginning.
You were never allowed to contact me first. You had to wait until I made contact and then you had to respond within one minute. If you did not you clearly did not care about me. I would wait hours in the day before I made the approach to you. Was I denying myself fuel in this way? Yes and no. Of course I was not receiving the usual blitz of telephone calls and texts that I ordinarily would when I would love bomb. This way however I knew you were always thinking of me, wondering when I might call or send a text message. I knew you would be repeatedly checking your phone and be in a state of readiness to respond. Knowing that I was ever present gave me a different kind of fuel at a different stage of our relationship to how it usually would be. When that first reply came, the power that surged me from having you waiting and ready, was intense.
I would insist that you refrain from eating before me, even when we were apart, to ensure that your hunger pangs reminded you that you were doing this at my say so. You would agree because you wanted to prove to me how much you loved me, how passionate you felt about me and that you would not be beaten. You readily became a co-conspirator in this game. I devised knew and harder challenges, pushing you each time and always you rose to the challenge and indeed you would often surpass my expectations.
As ever, I was several steps ahead of you. When I grew tired of this and starting to demean you, the conditioning that I had subjected you to in our golden period was so strong that you went above and beyond to try and please me. No matter how fruitless this seemed you never gave in. You showed immense reserves of discipline and strength, your depth of character was startling and it was all being used up on me.
I may tell you how my relationship with Karen ended at some point.
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I am very glad, that I have a little more time to leisurely wander around the blog. That’s why I discovered this thread this morning.
All Lori’s words made a huge impression on me. This is the closest definition of CODEPENDENCY I’ve found so far. Closest to me.
When someone comes so close and “sees” so well, the effect is electrifying. Accumulation of emotions. I was trembling – just as N2 would would like me to tremble in contact with him.
I hope, that this mine of PRECIOUS STONES hides many more deposits and surprises, that I will discover here over time.
Thank you HG and thank you Girls (all of you, who have left your mark on this blog).
I would love to read more about Karen.
Caroline, I agree with what you have written. I felt sad and angered when reading that she would go so far as to refrain from eating before HG. Yet I do comprehend why she would, in this situation and from her point of view, obey this rule and thus demonstrate her affection.
I, too, associate her utter devotion she demonstrated by enduring those hunger pangs and by suppressing a most basic human need with having a ‘strong will’ and from what is written about her in the article, I conclude she showed ‘strength’ in that she was so eager to prove, at all costs, she would “not be beaten”. I feel sad for her.
I can’t help but wonder where on Earth you find these women who put up with this insane crap right at the beginning of a relationship. It’s one thing to be slowly manipulated and broken down into that, but to immediately accede to those ridiculous abuses? Or possibly she was just lying to you about following your “no-eating” rule, and not actually thinking about you much between your calls. Maybe she had someone else on the other line.
Were it not for the chaos in my brain from 18 ceaseless hours of the worst devaluation, I would have remembered to cock the hammer before I put my 9mm to my temple and pulled the trigger in the Master closet in front of his clothes.
The little click.
My demon was so beautiful. Handsome, strong, incredibly successful. A man that other men wanted to be and that other women wanted for themselves. Money and vacations and absolute HELL in between. Two years after the closet incident the very heavens crashed in on me while we were in Hawaii.
I knew for years there would be a book from this but I never knew how dramatic the final chapters would be. My healing causes only one problem – it’s getting hard to remember the feelings of destruction and rebirth now that he is a sniveling mess in prison.
Thank you Tudor. Reading the words of another – albeit lesser – demon is the perfect supply I need. I’m glad I found you.
May you one day meet your match as my demon did. While most of me is glad to be here still to raise and love my children, part of me wishes I had remembered to cock it first. I hated that closetful of his perfect clothes.
I hope Karen did not end her life ?
As a recovering empath on here I find myself simultaneously drawn in by HG and his words, even his voice and repulsed by it.
I have reached three and a half years post discard, the same length of time as I was inside the illusion.
Mostly, I am ok by now, there is just the odd weekend where I am back in the incredulity of the scam.
I was manipulated and talked out of a marriage to be tossed away immediately afterwards. I battled hard to resist the divorce but she had me and Obs I didn’t know it was a game , a scam. Classic dirty empath actually, it started out as extra curricular, with partner permission but she was having none of that.
For a period of about two years, listening to HG videos on my iPad as I fell asleep was the only thing that could soothe me.
How fucking sick does that sound?
I think I can quote some of them by now.
Her IQ is 150… my narc. I had no chance… and it was super easy for her since I approached her first.
There was no red flag when she ended her 22 year marriage to a man within a week and was back in my house saying ‘lets do this’ through floods of tears.
There was no red flag when she declared that my husband did not see her as a threat and that was a mistake. ( see the portentous remarks of the narcissist).
There was no red flag when her difficult dog that no-one else could handle mysteriously collapsed and had to be destroyed at the same time as my husband had me on a last chance to repair our marriage.
I saw nothing.
It was only because, being bisexual, she enrolled her ex husband as minion after the discard and he defected to support me…
that between us we managed to fit the jigsaw together.
Then, two years later, there was the subsequent source…
My life is a mini series I swear… but I am no writer.
Care to pen my story HG ?
We can talk terms.
This is how narcex and I were before we ever met. He called me, I never called him. Ever. In fact in our year together I can’t imagine that I called him a half dozen times. Also, he didn’t even have to figure out I was a caregiver. I told him in one of our earliest talks, before ever meeting, that I had been my husband’s nurse and caregiver the last 5 years of his life, and that I was through with caregiving, would never find myself in that position again. I couldn’t have made it any easier for him. (And yes, he thinks of himself as a Dom and tried to convince me I was submissive, that I just hadn’t been exposed to that yet. And I liked that assertive sexual part of him. But I am not a sub, not at all. So whatever.)
This is a tease.
I am looking forward to reading more about Karen.
Of course you are.
If it ended.. then either of you died… otherwise there is no end, isn’t it?
Dear Mr Tudor,
You write… “most of my victims apply their caretaking instincts when I start to devalue, demean and belittle them. They want to fix me in order to return to the golden period”
Does that apply when they’re actually “sick” and you start to “care” for them, because that’s when I got the “jugular” ( he obviously found a more “personal” carer)
I thought narcs wanted people running around after them when they’re sick, which is confusing (or is that a whole new scenario)
I feel for Karen…. she would’ve had a lot of “underlying issues” to be that codependent on you ….the ultimate pleaser (unless you were both mutually game playing) …. it wouldn’t have ended well for poor Karen
Interesting game play Mr Tudor, another red flag with a twist
Many thanks
Luv Bubbles xx
Ugh, my younger, Codependent sister plays these games with Narcs. She really gets messed up in the head when her narc takes off for the weekend and gives her the silent treatment. The sad thing is, she is really gorgeous and has a great job, but she is so conditioned to not think for herself. I couldn’t do it.
It always takes two to tango. Sounds alot like Master Slave dynamics and as you said…she was a willing and happy little co-conspirator. I’ve sen this work well over time in other relationships, it’s always sad because the s never really understands that they can just walk away and take the whole dynamic down….
I never received love bombing, rather narcissists always attempt to impress me with their special super powers, and predatory evilness.
I prefer that better.
I hope it didn’t end up like Dangerous Liaisons with John Malkovich and Michelle Pfeiffer. I really like that movie but it gives me a pain in my chest .. like a really tight feeling.. it’s like you can feel her pain because she loved him so much..
I cannot watch it unless I’m feeling strong in general and things are going fairly well otherwise I will end up in pieces.
But it is a very good film.💔
It is a GREAT film Debbie….
HOLY SHIT. This sounds a bit too familiar for comfort. ESPECIALLY since you identify Karen as being sexually voracious…
And my narc did it just the same way in the beginning too.
HG did you pity play her during seduction to take advantage of her caretaking abilities?
Look forward to hearing the end of the story…maybe lol
No Pity Play, she felt she saw tortured genius, a flawed diamond and thus this drew her in.
Whew! You had me thinking the MMRN was a greater in disguise for a second.
I can relate to this. That’s exactly what drew me in although I would have described him as a tortured soul not a genius.
That’s precisely how I interpreted my former, and I used those exact words.
Sometimes HG I feel like I had a relationship with you, there are so many uncanny likenesses.
This is what draws me in too.
My diamond in the rough was my first real adult relationship.
On the plus side we had intense chemistry, from the moment we laid eyes on each other at a friend’s 21st.
On the minus side he had
1) an ex-N that he was always triangulating me with,
2) a cold, appraising N-mother he’d tell me doesn’t like me, (yes I can tell that already from her disdainful face and how she ignores me)
3) a possessive cat who would compete with me for his attention when I was at his flat, (the cat would try to sit on his chest under his chin, with its back to me, when David and I were kissing passionately)
4) he only ever did things for me so I’d be indebted to him (“the guys at the car workshop said ‘if you don’t get laid for this tonight, you should dump her!’ “)
5) he’d compare me with other women’s body parts whenever we were out (mostly after he’d seen another guy checking me out, the final straw was when he compared me unfavourably with a picture on a poster — I’m being trianguated with paper now?)
6) he had insatiable needs for praise and affirmation about his music (as though he was the only musician in the world).
All the minuses just made me more determined to prove my value.
I was a vulnerable, people-pleasing, self-love-deficient individual then, and became deeply depressed after I ended it.
I could barely get out of bed to get to work.
For the next 18 months afterward, we were still obsessed by each other. We had a few mutual friends, so the mind games and manipulation continued. Lots of hang-up phonecalls, or me answering but just silence on his side.
Twice we had a police tap put on the phone to uncover the culprit.
Then one day he had a new girlfriend.
She looked like my clone.
When I got to know her, she was a lovely person, kind, gentle, artistic and deep thinking. The main difference between us was that where I was co-dependant, she was a doormat, and while I heard him express great love for her to everyone within earshot, I also heard that she’d put up with much worse behaviour than he’d inflicted on me.
She even changed her first name for him because he’d criticised it!
Four months later, she is in a wheelchair, leg in plaster. She ran into traffic to get away from him because they were having an argument, and she was hit by a car.
HG, we’d like to hear what happened next with Karen.
Whenever you’re ready.
Just remembered, ex-David’s favourite song to play on the piano was ‘God Bless the Child’
Ha ha!
He loved the facade of tortured soul, and he thought it sounded spiritual, which would appeal to me.
I wouldn’t have been so impressed if top of his playlist was ‘Boom boom boom ( let’s go back to my room)’ or Salt’n’Pepa’s ‘Let’s talk about sex’ although I loved dance music.
Oh, and he worked for a big famine-relief organisation.
That sounds familiar, but I was 16 when it started so I forgive myself. He really was a genius, too. He was brilliant at nearly everything — but his poetry sucked.
After my recovery, I kept looking for guys with intelligence, but forget “tortured.” And kindness moved up to my #1 requirement. Not just apparent kindness, or random kindness to strangers, but true bone-deep caring for others, which takes a while to suss out.
SupernovaDE
Where did you see that Karen was sexually voracious?
NA,
Karen is mentioned as the example for “Sex Power Play” in terms of grand Hoover in the books black hole and escape.
Shoot I meant Black Hole and No Contact. Sorry.
SupernoveDE
Thank you.
Tease.
Is disappearing from her life suddenly and completely the way it ended?
(Sorry… That is meant to be rhetorical.. you did say you may tell us eventually.
I need to polish up my writing, as asking at the question that way defeat the end statement of the article. It wasn’t meant to.)
I think she’s the one who committed suicide.
I think she must be the one who killed herself too thinking about it.
It’s 3 years to this month in October that this was first aired
It says there back then that we “may”get to know the end of the story.
It feels unlikely that it would be revealed now after all this time?… especially if she did take her own life?
I could be wrong. I often am. But If I knew cetrain things already I wouldn’t have been here in the first place at all.
I guess there comes a time though when you know enough.
Me too ED.
Do you classify Karen as Codepebdent?
Yes.
It’s hard to imagine someone co-dependent enough to hold off EATING cause you say so doing very well after the discard….I feel for Karen already.
My friend and I were discussing this article at lunch. We decided we would send him a picture stuffing our face with a cheeseburger in rebellion rather than go without eating. I guess were not HGs type!
Haha MB! I don’t count snacks as a “meal” so I would have still tapped into my Ghirardelli chocolate stash in my desk drawer at work.
MB
Ha! No doubt!
It’s really Codepebdents that you prefer isn’t it ?
No.
Hi Lori
If memory serves, he responded elsewhere and recently that he prefers Super Empaths with the odd Codependent thrown in.
Are there Protectors who are not Co-dependents?
Yes.
Lori
This is HG’s preference.
HG Tudor
OCTOBER 1, 2018 AT 19:21
Magnet cadre. As for school, super empaths with the odd co-dependent thrown in.
https://narcsite.com/2018/09/28/shoot-you-down-6/
Which do you prefer ? I have found most prefer Codepebdents
What you do not realize is that Karen was likely doing that in an attempt to control him and her situation. This is where the waters get muddy here. There is this notion here that Codepebdent would do this out of weakness and I suppose there are those that true for, but there is also the Codependent that does this for control. Both a narc and a codep have deep need for control one just goes about it from a dominant standpoint the other goes about from more of a what appears to be a submissive stance
Hi lori…i think anyone who stays with a narc and endures bad treatment is on some level codependant. Independant ppl can be codependant. Narcs prey on those that can be preyed on.
Super empath, magnet cadre… well. That explains why my Greater ex told me I was his greatest challenge and gave the greatest rewards. I wonder if that’s the preference of all Greaters, or particularly Greaters who lean heavily Cerebral.
Codepebdents can be extremely manipulative often behaving in a submissive because it suits their needs to
Very true lori!
A Codepebdent quickly and innately reads the needs of others then they make sure they meet those needs for 2 reasons :
1. It fuels ( yes I used the word fuel )
2. It enables them to control their environment.
So a narc innately sees himself as the supreme controller and he really is, but the Codepebdent is also exerting a fair amount of control in that they have learned how to meet certain needs of a narc that will elicit the desired behavior. The Narcs needs are always a moving target that is by design but no one can anticipate them like the Codepebdents.
And thanks everyone for your responses
I was wondering why I hadn’t experienced the love bombing as others seemed to have. Now I know. He stood me up, didn’t answer my texts for sometimes up to two weeks but I thought that he was just eccentric. Reading this post is quite an eye opener.
This is how my ex-husband wooed me.
Karen was a very codependant woman and id say a doormat. I wish she couldve been privvy to the information we have here. It may have not made a difference. I think she had deep issues to start with and was that ideal “truffle”. I can see where narcissists feel disgusted bc they scavenge for the weak or those with issues of their own not dealt with. Those that they can use.
Im enjoying these older writings. Ive not read this one or the tickety boo pucker one.
Perhaps Doormat perhaps not you’d have to know her to know. The Doormat could a have merely a mask so to speak used to control her situation. Codepebdents can be very different the same way you see the difference between a lesser and a greater. There are Codepebdents that are quite aware of their ability to manipulate and control
Is Karen one that would cause you to abandon your nomadic ways, HG? Hypothetically of course. If you could go back to that FR, would you?
No and no.
I have a question about Nomadics. If they are married, does that automatically mean they are not nomadic or can they be nomadic with respect to ipss. The reason I ask is the Narc was married and had been a long time, but he mentioned to me that he never “goes back” to anyone which he must have been referring to ipss or was he was just full of shit and trying to keep me inline with the old you better act right cause if I leave I won’t be back threat? He is a lesser I believe middle lesser but maybe lower or somewhere in between
A Nomadic who marries will divorce and may well marry someone else instead. With regard to your situation he may well be referring to IPSSs.
I see. So they can be nomadic with respect to IPSSs. This guy has been married more than 20 years but I believe at the time I was Candidate ipss even though it was long distance. You could just tell this guy had me in mind to be wife #2 in the beginning but it changed over time to where by the end I felt like he was shoving me into NISS category however when he found out one of his friended me blocked me everywhere. So strange. All I could think was you aren’t interested so why the fuck do you care ?
Lori,
I felt the exact same way with mine, that I was CIPSS initially even though long distance. I felt that I then went to S-IPSS, back to CIPSS, then S-IPSS. Then I seriously challenged him and went to NISS before getting blocked.
Mine even talked at times about how “crazy” it would be to try and blend our families from such a distance….yikes man I wasn’t even thinking that was a possibility in the next thousand years – back off!! LOL, obviously my reaction did not go over well.
How are you doing? Remind me how long you’ve been NC?
Cheeky, considering the archive buzz about Karen.
Wow, I hope she gave you the boot before you were able to rip her to pieces.
I’m thinking no on that… not eating for someone, ugh. That made me sick to my stomach.
His use of the word “strength”/”strong” to describe her is interesting. I get it, in terms of sacrifice and the way he ties it to character, but without boundaries or self-care/self-respect, I see her behavior as strictly addiction/seeking approval (maybe not from him though).
Something tells me she tired of the abuse, drawed on her internal ‘strength’ and walked away. I await the concluding part of this story to see if that was indeed the case.