How Your Emotional Thinking Creates Excuses
THIS IS A KEY ARTICLE IN TERMS OF BOLSTERING YOUR UNDERSTANDING.
The fact for so long you had no idea what you were dealing with resulted in you engaging in an anticipated behaviour. This behaviour is one which we regularly rely on in order to keep you in the dark. I have made mention of the various traits which we look for in those who make the most useful victims to us. One of those traits concerns your ability to try to find the good in everyone and everything. This is a typical empathic trait and along with all of the others which you possess causes you to flare up on our radar when we are seeking an excellent primary source. Your desire to see good means that it obscures your ability to see the bad or perhaps more accurately, to accept the bad. This is how your emotional thinking once again cons you and causes you to fail to see what is really happening, how you make excuses for the behaviour. Your emotional thinking craves the interaction with us, it is selfish and wants to experience all of the ‘good’ which flows from us and to convince you to ignore the bad. Your emotional thinking does not want you to acknowledge what is really going on and exit the relationship. Your emotional thinking wants to gag logic so it cannot be heard and cause you to overlook the bad in the hope of recovering the good once again. Thus, your emotional thinking will make you issue excuse after excuse for what we do, so you remain invested in the relationship with us. Accordingly, your emotional thinking continues our control of you. It is those who are empathic who suffer from this effect from their emotional thinking. They are convinced to consider their action as selfless, a reflection of how they wish to see the ‘good’ in people, how they make allowances and are tolerant – but when you are ensnared with our kind, all that is happening is that you are being prevented, by your own emotional thinking, from seeing what is truly happening and this is to your detriment.
Of course, at the time it is happening, you cannot see it happening because your insight is impaired by the emotional thinking. Occasionally, logic might just make itself heard (only to be ignored) as you notice that a certain behaviour is not acceptable but your emotional thinking rises once again and swamps that logic before it can gain a foothold in your mind. Emotional thinking whispers that excuse for you and it is easier to accept that than go along the rocky road of logic. Thus, your emotional thinking keeps you blinded to the truth and it is only later when you have been punched in the face by the gauntlet of brutal honesty that you finally pay heed to logic and with hindsight realise how you have been conned. It happens over and over again and is all because of your emotional thinking gaining control of your thoughts.
This is something we desire because it prevents you from truly recognising what it is that is happening to you once your devaluation has begun. We of course love to operate from a position of plausible deniability, we court ambiguity since we enjoy and need to twist and turn in order to achieve what we want. If you saw everything as stark and clear as I now describe our machinations to you, you would be more inclined to escape us and bring about that unwelcome cessation of our primary source of fuel. It would also make it harder to apply those hoovers when we wish to return you to the fold and have you engage in our cyclical endeavours once again. We present you with the truth of what we are on a repeated basis but although we offer it up in front of you, we never let you see it clearly. We draw a veil across certain elements, apply a smoke screen, obscure some parts and distort others. The reality is there before you. It is evident and plain but because of the way in which we purposefully manipulate you, you are unable to see it. It is akin to us pointing out a ship on the horizon. It is obvious for us to see but when we hand you a telescope to gain a better look at this vessel, the lens has been smeared with something which distorts the view, or we place our finger over part of the lens blocking your view.
The consequence of this distortion is to prevent you from truly seeing what we are. This in turn means that you are unable to form a clear and coherent view of the person which has taken hold of you. This becomes infuriating for others who we have not been able to drag into our façade, but who recognise full well what we are. These observers tell you what you are dealing with. They may be circumspect to begin with, hoping not to offend your sensibilities but over time their increasing exasperation causes them to come out and say it straight. Yet, such candour rarely finds favour with you because you do not like to be told something about someone as wonderful as us (or at least someone who was wonderful). You do not like to think that the golden period has gone. You do not like to be deprived of the idea that what you once had will never come back or even that it did not exist to begin with. Most of the reasons why you think like this is as a consequence of our manipulative behaviour, which further foes to underline that it is not your fault. Even your desire to see the good in people is not your fault either. That is who you are. We know that and we exploit it. It is our fault again but of course in the midst of the battle that we engage in with you, we will never admit that anything is our fault. That will never do.
Thus, your view of us is obscured and because of this you will always issue excuses to explain away our behaviour, our words and our actions. You make these excuses time and time again, to others and to yourselves. You believe these excuses because this is how you think and you have been led towards this train of thought by the schooling you have received at our manipulative hands and mouths. You also utilise these excuses to continue to convince yourself that the unsavoury elements of our behaviour are just an aberration, on occasional blip in respect of an otherwise magnificent person. Your charity is amazing and naturally most welcome for through this blinkered approach you divest us of responsibility for the things we do, something which aligns with one of our many stated aims. You prevent yourself from examining further the reality of what has now ensnared you and the repeated application of these excuses keeps you in situ. We want you to utilise these excuses. We want to hear them. We want them said to us and to others. Your excuses frustrate and alienate those who are against us, your excuses support out manufactured façade and most of all they ensure you deny to yourself that which is directly before you. Here are twenty-five of those such excuses. You will have said them and probably more than once. Understand that each time you utter one you have issued a further death knell for your prospects of escaping us.
- He is just tired; it makes him snap.
- He doesn’t mean it, not really.
- You don’t have to pretend with me, I just want you to be yourself.
- He has a lot on his mind at the moment.
- Work is particularly stressful for him.
- He sometimes has a bit too much to drink, but hey, who hasn’t been there?
- I think perhaps I am too harsh on him at times, it is my fault really.
- He is in a bad place but he will come through it.
- He is a complex person; you don’t understand him like I do
- It is just the way he is; I have got used to it.
- I know it seems bad but he does so much that is lovely; this is only a small part of what he is like.
- Nobody knows him properly, that’s why you think bad of him.
- He is a popular guy so he is always going to have women hitting on him.
- He has a temper, I know, but that’s part of what he is and it’s not for us to change him.
- I need to be more supportive and then he will be better.
- He’s not well at the moment but I will help him get through it, you will see.
- You’ve only heard one side of the story; he is not like that at all.
- Yes, well, his family would say that about him to cover up what they did to him.
- All he needs is to be loved and I am the one who is going to do that for him.
- You don’t know what you are saying anymore, it is okay, I do understand.
- It was a one-off, it won’t happen again.
- I know it was wrong but this time he has promised that he won’t do it anymore.
- You don’t understand the way that me and him are together.
- You are just jealous of what we have. Why can’t you be please for us, for my sake?
- I’m sorry, it was my fault.
Sound familiar?
55 thoughts on “How Your Emotional Thinking Creates Excuses”
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Ugh! Should have been HG is very professional and probably has done so many of them that the last thing he has time for is remembering all of the answers to the questions we have answered. 🙃
Perhaps I do not belong in here. I am one of the most skeptical, cynical, doubtful, suspicious people I know when it comes to men.
I am sure he must have sensed this when he first targeted me. He played up the “nice guy” facade (right up until the end).
I bought the nice guy thing at first. I thought he was a cute, shy nerd.
When the red flags started to fly almost from the very beginning, I ignored them. I ignored my own natural skepticism!
Anyway, I believe I am not an empath. I’m not sure what I am.
Lisk, when you say you are not an empath, I’m not sure if I am, it’s never really added up to me that the people involved with narcissists are likely to be very empathic and that’s the whole answer . I identify with some of it but certainly not most of it.
Ditto Lisa.. I do have extreme emotional thinking and truth seeking stuff.. It’s intense and I have a horrible time lying. (Like pretending to be sick for work or even dumb things..) But you will never see me at a soup kitchen serving to the masses. (I’ve teased HG about the kitchen so it’s a fitting example.) Or if I’m walking into Macy’s I’ll easily pass a person with a sign and ignore them just to go spend money on expensive crap at the Clinique counter. I also never complained when one narcissist in particular spending a lot of money supporting me so I didn’t have to get my hands dirty at one point in life. I believe I’m not nice enough to be an empath but clearly not a narcissist. I would die before I did negative things to get upset behavior from others.. I know HG does an empath thing but I think it would make me uncomfortable to be picked apart.
I think we’re empathic human beings, not saints (I think we’re far from being saints actually). I have the three strains of empathy but my narcissistic traits keep them in balance to a certain degree. I can be empathic in some situations and narcissistic in other ones. That doesn’t mean I am not an empath.
This blog puts the empath-narcissist dynamic under a microscope. Zooming out gives a much broader view of who we are – we are so much more than our empathy! (and HG is more than his narcissism)
Like
Thanks Lou—I constantly beat myself up for a lot.
I cannot like via WP. So like.
Haha—I have serious attention deficit with Word Press or things of this nature..
He does not pick you apart. He simply takes the facts that you present to him in the questions you answer and works his magic. Sometimes not knowing is worse then knowing. We as empaths and victims already have enough unanswered questions going through our minds, if what type of empath you are is one of them and can be answered simply by honestly answering a few questions then why not do it? Yes some of the questions are very personal, but once again HG is very professional and probably has so many of them to do that the last thing he has time for is remembering all of the answers to the questions we have asked him, whether they seem evasive to us or not. Besides most of us have already been subjected to the pain, hurt, and embarrassment of being with a narcissist that we have told literally everything to,who eventually will try to use all that we have told them against us, why not tell someone who can help us in understanding ourselves better and add more empowerment so that the odds of ever ending up in this situation will never happen again.
Thanks for that.. I think it’s probably me picking me apart. I have things I feel entirely culpable for which include the emotional demise of my oldest child. My action of entanglement with what was her step father including my own shortcomings are nearly intolerable to think about. That said I can’t stay stuck there but it’s like leaving someone dead on the road because I ran over them and can’t fix it.
You can’t help or take care of anyone else, until you take care of yourself first my dear. 😘
Claire, I really admire you saying that, it’s very brave and honest and you should be proud that you recognise some accountability for that. Some parents just never do and even if they do they point blank refuse to accept it and spend their lives claiming to be the victim of the narcissist with no part to play in.
Sometimes it’s just enough to acknowledge it and be kind to yourself and when we know better we do better.
I personally think stopping with the excuses bullshit is the road to recovery.
Thank you Lisa. My own selfishness permitted a platter from which a lack of affirmation and misery was freely served. I stayed for far from saintly needs of my own—now certainly it became insurmountable to leave due to my decline, but not for some time.
Great point, FM1T
“This blog puts the empath-narcissist dynamic under a microscope. Zooming out gives a much broader view of who we are – we are so much more than our empathy! (and HG is more than his narcissism)”
So true. Great insight, shesaw.
HG is certainly more than narcissism. He’s quite funny among other obvious pleasantries.
Lisa, I agree. Call me a heretic but this concept or perhaps portrayal here of the “wonderful” ever so loving empath doesn’t convince me either. I certainly don’t identify with it. Other theorists call it “co-narcissist” (those who repeatedly get involved, like myself).”Co-dependent” is out there, others call it “female narcissism” (irrespective of gender). For me “relationship-addict” works best, better than the sugary “love-devotee”. I find what HG does with his terminology is clever in a sense that you will not reach addicts who don’t realise they are addicts by calling them that. You will drive them away and he is out to reach people and he does.
HG has co-dependency on the end of the co-dependency scale. But as with alcoholism there are degrees of dependency – and although I identify as co-dependent somewhat I don’t see myself drowning in my own narc vomit, figuratively speaking. And I am “dry” figuratively speaking and intend to stay that way.
HG has pages that discuss whether we are “victims” or not and he has settled for the idea. Fair enough, it’s his site. I think as addicts, relationship addicts, we are responsible for what happens to us to a huge extent.
If you are an alcoholic you think with the mind of an addict. You think you can handle it, as in it’s just beer, I could stop any time I wanted, I have it under control etc etc, you have your own brand of ET. Alcoholics are not called victims but addicts. I like to call a spade a spade.
If you want to become dry you must first admit that you are an addict. Then never touch drink again and the best prognosis is with a group like AA. At the same time you must address the issues that made you become an addict in the first place. Or the prognosis is bad and you’ll be soon drinking again. And you must face the demons that come with realising whom you have hurt yourself in pursuit of your addiction. Because addiction is always selfish. This doesn’t mean you can’t be empathic as an addict. Far from it. But if you are an addict addiction comes first. The demons come because you are empathic.
It took me a long time to accept / deal with the pain I have inflicted on my own children for having kept my blinkers on for so long as regards their father, my ex husband of 22 yrs.I am still struggling with that. And never did I “feel” the addiction to the relationship with him. Never would I have entertained the thought that I was addicted.
To sustain the addiction (I thought I was trying to make things work) I allowed unspeakable stuff. Verbal violence mostly. I stood by, yes I complained and I did this and that to make it stop and I explained away the reasons why it never changed and made excuses and also looked away.
Children who have a narcissistic parent always suffer. Also at the hand of the parent who isn’t the narcissist.
But at least they have that parent, and that parent can become truly empathic once they realise what they have been doing. But that involves not looking at oneself as a victim.
LC
I agree with everything you said in your comment. I know that I possess empathy but I don’t think that’s enough to just say , Oh I have a bit too much empathy so this is the problem. I have tried to find information regarding this and have not really found it, of course there is a spectrum and codepency etc does have some answers but it’s usually tied up with some kind of substance addiction. Love addict , I do see good information there and it’s actually an avoidant type personality disorder although that’s at odds with the empathic Love Devottes!!
However I believe avoidance plays a bigger part , I also believe emotional neglect in childhood is very key, you learn to swallow your own feelings and this leads to a lot of problems in adult life.
I now try not to go along with things that make other people feel ok, and try to stay focused on what do I feel ok about . That’s actually quite a hard thing to do because it’s easier to just agree with things and look nice and pleasant and not rock the boat , it’s harder to have boundaries and just say NO, that’s not how I feel. I didn’t grow up developing boundaries I grew up keeping the peace for my mothers sake , while she made excuse after excuse for one asshole after another.
I’ve mentioned about Sam Vaknins inverted narcissist . I don’t think he has it quite right and labelling it a type of NPD is wrong I believe because , emotions , remorse , guilt , compassion, love, empathy are all there. However it’s a type of ingrained behaviour that battles for abusive people , even when the evidence is there in front of us, it’s irrelevant whether we know what a narcissist is , we know what a lying , useless asshole is, we don’t need a medical label for it. There also seems to be selective empathy , while supporting the abuser there is no empathy going to others caught up in the situation that are suffering . This is very unhealthy behaviour. This is also seen when empathic people champion the narcissist, the lieutenants and people that aid smear campaigns , very often by good well meaning empathetic people , but you also see this when people have evidence of abuse and will not give up on the hope for change and in this so called empathic crusade for the abuser , throw others under the bus. HG does touch on this with a lot of his articles , Victim or Volunteer and many others.
Lisa—absolutely brilliant. I can’t expand more as this is perfection. I may have to dumb down my day and go to my Facebook divorce group to see the endless selfies posted because I can’t take any more intelligent pursuits! I sincerely thank you.
Wow LC. Wonderful insights and extremely useful analogy. I’ll have to note this page certainly.
LC—I re-read this. I have to add.. I think you may have just knocked even HG’s insightful capacity out of the park! Yes—having empathic traits is far from the main issue for me. It would also be a convenient scape goat wouldn’t it? You just banged something substantial into my mind. This has little to do with those I entangle with.
Dear HG; lmao. This is so to the point! As your other articles are as well. You really help people out. TY. Maybe you can utilize positivity as a source of “good ” fuel.
Hey HG, can a mistress ever be primary supply? My narc gets very agitated and physically upset if I go more than an hour without contacting him. He also wants to be with me constantly.
If you are the mistress you will not be the current IPPS. If the Current IPPS is disengaged from, you might become the Current IPPS and of course you will no longer be the mistress.
If you description is accurate you may currently be the Candidate IPSS.
26. *When the realisation hits you*
He’s an evil c**t
For me it was mostly Excuse Nr. 22: “I know it was wrong but this time he has promised that he won’t do it anymore.”
Obviously he continued doing whatever he needed to do.
That he did not seem to change much I saw too but I found a great excuse. “I myself wasn’t born with great relationship skills and have had to work on this stuff, so I must give him time too. I give myself time so it would be unfair of me not to give him any.”
Analyst : “If somebody WANTS to change they do and you feel it. Yes, change needs time indeed. But this has gone on now for how long? If they SAY they want to change and you don’t FEEL a difference they don’t want to change. And you can usually feel that anytime.
Me : But perhaps he just doesn’t quite know how Needs time to work out how he does it.
Analyst : All very well. Many people do want to change their ways and they do. For many it takes time. But you can FEEL if they’re trying.
Me thinking there is something wrong with me that I can’t feel (what I want to be true). After all, something is wrong with my way of feeling things otherwise I wouldn’t seek treatment. I need time to learn to feel he’s trying.
Bit further into treatment.
Analyst: “He can’t attach. He might want to but he can’t.”
Me: “Hmmmmmm” thinking: she doesn’t know the guy. How can she be so sure, she hasn’t even met him! I’m sure she knows what she’s talking about but still… How does she know this.
Analyst : “you are the one to decide when you have had enough”.
Me thinking she is telling me to make a cut, this is blunt. I know she’s good for me, I can feel at least that. Do I have enough of this? Of course. More than.
I make an attempt to leave him. He lays it on big style (preventive hoover). I stay.
Me: “This time I really have the impression something is different. Something IS changing. He actually said he’d seek treatment. ”
Analyst :” well we will see. You still pay too much attention to what is being SAID . Do focus on what doesn’t feel right. You’re making excuses for him. He’s a narcissist. I have mentioned it before. You may remember that. ”
Me :” but if I only focus on the bad ” More ET Blabla (and she hasn’t met him, a narcisst surely…. Thinking ET Blabla)
In the meantime I find HG’s blog. And I think : oh my God, the dude I’m seeing IS a narcissist.
Honestly I feel really silly.
I have left him for good. There have been hoover attempts : a birthday card, 2 separate parcels with an item each that he hadn’t returned on the day we parted – and a weird bum dial type message from a lieutenant because I blocked him. I have not responded to any of these, and I won’t.
I still do not get why I could trust HGs narc voice rather than the analyst. The only explanation I have is that my narc addiction is so ingrained that it will always want to trust narcs and doubt normals.
I have however successfully overridden my natural inclination to doubt myself when seeing signs of narc behaviour.
Now I’m thinking the more doubtful I am towards my own wondering is or isn’t he, the narcier the person must be.
LC: It is not about blindly trusting anyone. Test. Test what you hear versus reality. What a person says they will do and their actions. Test everyone. Everyone has Narcissistic traits to a certain degree, and we can even bring them out in other people, and they can bring them out in us. I remember an example of an Empath acting narcissistically on HG Tudor`s post on Dirty Empath Marriage Breaker. Even we, ourselves, have narcissistic traits that can come out and can be good for us sometimes or bad for us sometimes. So test. When I encountered HG Tudor first on Youtube, I did not just say, Oh! I adore his voice! But I also said to myself, Wow. This man has it together. This is how it is happening in my life. Plus, I saw many other pieces of the puzzle put together, and I said wow. And I said to myself, this man knows the real deal. And this man knows both sides of the story. Even where I went wrong, and how, and why! His analysis and understanding matched what I was going through and also made me aware of what others played a part in the matter as well, such as a therapist telling me that I needed to see more of the Narcissist in order to get closer to him. That was 2 years ago. How wrong she was. I also learned from HG Tudor, that the Narcissist has 4 helpers in his Lieutenants that were constantly breaking me down with millions of exhausting questions and comments daily, out of their own envy of me, because I quickly rose up in the coterie too quickly for their comfort, while I had no idea that there was a competition for the Narcissist`s attention, and they knew, at least subconsciously, that he wanted info. on me, because he liked me, and he benefited with fuel from all of their overly malign hoovering and the triangulation. However, that other therapist sent me down many rungs on the ladder telling me to get even closer to all of that. She is a wonderful person. She gave me disastrous advice. HG Tudor is helping me to climb up from all of that. I am my own proof of who is telling me the truth, and who is not.
An excellent post PSE
Fierce and logical. I love it
Unfortunately there are many who have had similar therapist experiences. Myself included.
Tappi. You can just imagine the gold medal winning leap of joy my emotional thinking performed, when a Therapist told me that to feel better: I needed to see more of the Narcissist and get closer to him. Sometimes words can not describe the egregiousness of certain advice. And, even while suppressing the extreme joy I felt before the therapist with THIS advice at that time, (my intuition told me not to smile with too much happiness, or she may rethink what she just advised me) which intoxicated my emotional thinking, I still could barely believe what she was saying: Red Flag!!!! But, I was blinded by delight. And I am paying dearly for it.
PSE, My therapist told me that I seemed happy. This was at the same time as I was highly anxious and demanding that MRN pay for my therapy. My therapist also was not bothered by the fact that it was an affair. She talked a lot about split selves, etc, and thought that he was so controlling because he had never been with a woman as independent as me (bit ridiculous really). She gave me this explanation even when I asked why, when I gave him what he said he wanted, he was contrary. No matter what I do, I would say, he does the opposite. When I try to leave, he’s all over me, when I want to see him, he pushes me away, etc. Well, that’s because you are not being passive, she said. In a way, she was right. It was all about control. But she had no clue as to the level of abuse or his disorder (though at the end last year post escape I did tell her about HG’s site and she did believe me). I still liked her a lot.
I think sometimes when we go to therapy, we don’t get to the core of what is really bothering us. I know I did not. I came up with all sorts of reasoning/excuses. As LC shows, we always have ways of convincing ourselves that what is happening is not actually happening so the therapist never has full information from us in addition to not knowing the other person. HG does show us that was is happening is what is actually happening. It fits and it is correct. But also because we are anonymous here, we don’t dissemble as much as we might with a real live therapist, and so we finally break through. The anonymity helps a lot and I also think many of us find this site when we are ready to – when we are ready to break free. Maybe HG is similar. He dissembles with his therapists and is totally honest here. He is anonymous here just like we are. I know he doesn’t get fuel here but maybe it is good therapy for him too (you can answer that if you want to, HG).
Anyway, great posts PSE and LC.
PSE , That is so awful to read. Glad you’re out now. Re trusting people : I do test! The point is that the testing is faulty when I meet (certain) narcs, narcs I like. My narcdar has become really good, it is currently tuned to maximum sensitivity. Meaning I’m probably unfairly “diagnosing” some people. I don’t think that’s a problem, it’ll be a phase and soon normalise itself.
The weird thing is that I override my judgement and I WANT to do this. Not with good people like my analyst though. I still test her (not deliberately, but she has proven to me time and time again that I still do this).
I don’t assume that I’m unique in this, which is why I keep banging on about trust issues – how it can’t be enough to just know the narcissist. You must also be able to trust the trustworthy.
I am with lisk here – I am skeptical of most things. But I still have secret hopes that narcs can change. Even the guy I left. I know he can’t and won’t but it just won’t compute.
PSE
Ha ha I like the visual of your ETs reaction.
I had to look up egregious to check its meaning. I knew it meant bad, horrible, something negative but can’t recall reading it or using it myself.
Egregious is an understatement for your therapists advice! Nuts really.
LC. I am learning so much about Narcissism in general, because I have taken some time off to give myself the freedom to practically totally immerse myself on this site, reading what HG Tudor is writing and what the readers are saying, walking back with how my entanglement started, I believe I have more knowledge already than some of the outside experts. That is not good. They have a lot of technical terms and many abbreviations, that they can put in a long impressive line that look like egyptian hieroglyphics, but at end, the results are failing people in reality, too much to not be alarming. And some of the experts are dabbling in mysticism here and there as well. That will not be helpful in the field, at all. And I have some criticism already of what these experts are saying and I have some criticism already about the desires of the experts and the desires of us that want people to change in certain ways, because we have our own problems as well, and this all starts merging in a messy manner. So, the problem is very large. Many things are becoming more clear to me, and I want to write about it little by little, to test them out, when we are commenting together as they become clear. But, like HG Tudor says, our main focus is to get out and stay out like in a State Of Emergency Warning Announcement, as step one, as much as possible, GET OUT, because the problem is so large and complex that most can not fight on both fronts of the issue, or on all fronts of the issue like HG Tudor is doing. And, he should know, yes? Yes!
LC, you have a terrific therapist.
She was right: “you are the one to decide when you have had enough.” It sounds like you finally decided.
You just needed that extra push of the Truth to get you to that decision. And that Truth could only have come from HG.
Yes, I think so… Somehow I think the double grip is what really made me lose my blinkers.
LC. What is the double grip, and what is your blinkers?/ I hate that I want you to break it down so I can understand, because that posts sounds so great, just as it is! 🙂
Misplaced empathy, so called understanding and But Look How Nice He is to …. fill in the gap.
Even when heard straight from the horses mouth !!!
Is as dangerous as the narcissist, possibly more dangerous.
Hi HG, what if you come back to the narcissist (mid range) after a few months of separation (heavy fights and arguments so you escaped and found a new boyfriend but after a few months it doesn’t work out with someone new and you come back to the narcissist after one of his hoovers)?
Is it a respite golden period or is it “new and clean” golden period? Is there a chance this golden period will last longer than the first one? Does the fact you were dating someone new during separation makes any difference?
1. It is a ‘new and clean’ golden period.
2. No.
3. Not at the point of starting again but understand it will be used against you during devaluation.
Why do we even have this emotional thinking in the first place?? 🤷🏼♀️
Claire. What are you doing? That question just might light the blue touch paper in here!! 🙂
Haha Princess! I swear it’s a curse.
Claire. hahahaha. Of course, the Emotional thinking is to balance and temper our Logical thinking, or we would be no better than rocks. Everything in moderation. Sigh… But, you had perfect timing with that question when you posted it. It took my breath away for a moment. lol
We are seeing the narcissist through our own reasoning. If you feel guilt and remorse you assume that everyone else does too and that they can get better with the right support.
If you are made aware of the narcissist’s disturbed childhood, you assume the narcissist needs therapy and healing.
You recall times in your life when you were going through a difficult time, acted out and needed forgiveness and you think this applies to the narcissist.
Another excellent and logical post.
Thanks Witch
Good point. You know.. I was approached last night by someone I work with that is truly the kindest woman I’ve met–she literally has butterflies flying out of her pockets. She is a saint and we all think she should have specialized in geriatric/family medicine but somehow she manages as an emergency physician which is quite remarkable because she seems so sheltered and altruistic and naïve.. Anyway, she is wanting to spearhead a component to an existing program that would target male survivors of trauma because we have an (emotional) trauma program that is actually catching JCAHO attention in our hospital system. I won’t name it for sake of anonymity but the gist is to prevent PTSD for crime/trauma victims. (I promise that this relates to your point and I’m getting there.) They have apparently recognized and have concerns that most recipients seeking help after assaults or whatever it may be are women. They wish to help male victims. Now this is admirable, it is certainly an “intellectual” and publishable pursuit. It will gain attention and accolades will be given–absolutely. I’m no dummy, I can smell the roses in rewards and see the smiles of the recipients on stage while giving short speeches, etc. I was engaged in this discussion due to my work history—to see if I have an interest because of the extreme violence I work with. My immediate thought was this.. She and other like-minded altruistics (some pretending to care certainly) are applying their assumption of people needing therapy and healing to situations it would seem reasonable to require it from. I work in a gang environment. Nearly all of my “trauma” cases that are men are engaging in what they engage in for fuel. They are not (currently) traumatized! They do it to meet their gains. Now–when they were traumatized at age 5, age 6, age 7.. That is WHEN the help was needed to restore their sense of control. We are sorely late to the game on this for most of the targeted population she is referring to that reside in the specific area where I am. No thanks–I’ll spend my time on another committee and not waste my efforts. Now certainly there will be cases of someone being robbed in the wrong place at the wrong time that could benefit from certain elements of the program—I don’t see it in all black and white. It is just that HG’s work and the understanding of the different emotional spectrum narcissists have changes my world view considerably. This is an example of why “research” is generally a half truth in mental health when you consider how prevalent narcissism is. These providers have great intentions, think they are the cat’s meow and they are standing next to the park but they are not quite in it. HG–I appreciate the influence on my thoughts that you compel me to have. Thank you. I’ll abide my time on something else of substantive value. In fact, I’d love to hear your thoughts on how therapists should be handling the quivering mid-ranger who presents for a pity play in their office. Now of course it is okay they need help of some sort–but what are more effective scenarios?
Claire, nite your tongue!! 🤣🙃
OMG! My fingers again! Bite your tongue! 🤣🙃
Thank you for the answear. It is not about me, I would never get back with my N. Just trying to understand their logic.
the difference is that an empath does not cause any trauma to be like that, rather on the contrary, even if it is counterproductive for him. it is not so for the narcissist, who on the contrary feels good with his actions, but if he causes a trauma inside him, two sides of the same coin
The only one was that ever warned me about him was another one of your kind.
Who else could really know, right?