A Letter to the Narcissist – No. 82
My Dear Narcy guys,
I had and I have a lot of you in my life, so if I decided to write a letter to each of you, it would take a lot of my time and I have none. Moreover, my letters to all of you would be pretty similar, because you all have a lot in common. Yes, you all look different, you all behave differently, but I see the same type of a person, living inside of you. I want to talk about that person.
1. Emotional pain and Loneliness.
You all know what the Internal Loneliness means exactly. You are acutely aware of it. You desperately want to get rid of it, because it is unbearable. Like anyone else, you have a deep wish to be loved, accepted and cared for. You want to belong somewhere.
Moreover, considering your childhood traumas, you, more than anyone else, want all of those things, but you can’t get them, because you are afraid of intimacy, which is a key point to get them. You are afraid to give your all and be rejected after that. You know precisely, how badly you are susceptible to the Emotional pain and you know that you won’t survive it.
Having a lot of you, my dear Narcy guys, in my family history, I bear some of your genes and, because of it, I know how that Emotional pain feels also. It isn’t easy to describe it, but it definitely feels like a hell.
So, no wonder why you all have to protect yourselves from that pain, and the single possible way to do it is to live in a “shut up” manner. You don’t permit a single soul to get close to you. You don’t trust anyone. You don’t permit yourselves to be open and vulnerable. I understand it. I don’t judge you. It is your natural protective mechanism.
But.
We have a vicious cycle. Your deep desire to be loved, accepted and cared for conflicts with your protective mechanism.
My dear Narcy guys, do you realize how it is hard to love or to live with a constantly “guarded, suspicious, and hostile” person?! No? So, I tell you. It is totally exhaustive. In the end, people leave you alone because of it. I understand them. I don’t judge them. It is their natural protective mechanism.
2. Loneliness and Fantasy World.
Your internal loneliness is and feels unbearable. You want someone to be with, to share your life with, to belong to. But, you know very well that a closeness and an intimacy make you vulnerable and exposed to the Emotional pain you all can’t tolerate.
You need and want an absolutely safe person for yourselves. The person who will never leave (read betray) you. Absolutely loyal. Absolutely loving. Absolutely caring. Absolutely understanding. Absolutely kind. Absolutely…
That divine person doesn’t exist in the real life (he/she doesn’t exist in principle and some of you are painfully aware of it!), but he/she exists in your Fantasy World. You create the ideal mother, father, brother, sister, friend, partner and lover in your mind. That’s your One.
That One is your ideal half. You talk to him/her. You both laugh. You both lead an interesting life. You both do wonderful things. You make love. You are open and sincere. You feel loved and admired. You feel safe. You are free and…happy. Almost heaven.
But.
That “paradise” would be a bless to someone with a schizophrenia, but not to you. You have a very good reality check. You see a difference between your Fantasy World and your Real Life, and this is a source of your misery. You desperately want that “paradise” in your real life, because you think that it is the only possible way to be happy. Your Fantasy World, albeit very pleasant, is not enough. You want more. You want it real.
How?
To “create” your One using a real person. To get his/her real love and loyalty through a dependency. Emotional. Physical. Financial. You have to be very inventive, very convincing, very seductive. And yes, you always have to control your One, because he/she, invariably, would escape after realization that everything was a lie and an illusion.
The sings of your control are very different (depends) – mental games, flattery, bribery, intimidation, restriction, physical violence, etc… The paedophilia, rape, murder, and cannibalism are the most perverse and ultimate sings of control.
The infamous Dennis Nilsen talked for hours with the dead bodies of his victims and wrote a lot of very tender poems to them. Those dead bodies were his real and loyal “friends”. They shared his loneliness. They never betrayed him and never escaped. He didn’t have to pretend and control them. He felt safe and…happy with them.
My dear Narcy guys, I know that you aren’t paedophiles, rapists, murderers, and cannibals in your real lives. But, I know, you all have those dark fantasies from time to time. Everything is possible in your Fantasy World. You are the Kings and Queens there. You are the Gods. You are forever young, healthy and wealthy there. You can do everything you want there.
And I know how it is hard to all of you to fight with yourselves and not to cross a very thin line that divides your Fantasy World and your Real Life. You kill your various enemies in your heads and you try to be a good people in your real lives at the same time. It isn’t an easy way to live, but you all do it and, considering your lack of empathy, you do it almost perfectly. You have my respect for that.
3. Sensation-seeking, Envy and Hate.
Unfortunately, the bad Nature and the bad Nurture both contributed to your personality type development.
I don’t want to overload you with a various chemical and functional brain abnormalities’ details, but those abnormalities are real and a lot of data suggests that they can be measured and documented pretty accurately.
Among many of things, you all have a very high level of the “pleasure threshold”. It isn’t easy to make you happy, guys. You aren’t capable to extract your happiness from the simple things and stimuli (good weather, music, food, friendly talk, healthy sex, etc.).
Those stimuli can’t reach your “pleasure threshold”. They are too weak for that. You need more. Much more. Mad love. Drama. Scandal. Fight. War. Reckless driving. Alcohol. Drugs. Hard porn. Questionable adventures. Anything, that can reach your “threshold”. And not having an empathy and having a low impulse control, you guys don’t hesitate to get your immediate gratification. And it works. For a short period of time.
Without that “over-stimulation” you feel empty, bored, depressed, and generally unhappy. You know exactly when you need your next “fix”. It manifests as a nervousness, irritability, restlessness, and anxiety.
And you know exactly what would happen next, if you don’t find your “fix” as soon as possible. Your internal “monster”, “demon”, “creature”, or whatever you want to call it, would eat you alive. Do you know what is it?
It is a very interesting, but weirdly working type of a Narcy conscience. It constantly and desperately tries to save your humanity, to protect you, to warn you, to tell you how bad your deals are. It tells you that it “sees” the difference between your created and real self.
The more you do your bad deals, the bigger, stronger and more intimidating your internal “conscience-monster” becomes. You hear its ominous roar and you want to silence it. You are scared to death to hear and admit the truth and your real self.
How could you silence your “monster”? Well, you have to distract yourselves, trying to reach your high “pleasure threshold” and loose yourselves in that relieving, but unhealthy oblivion. And, pretty often, your “distractive” methods aren’t honourable at all.
So, we have another vicious cycle. Your conscience forces you to do more bad things to silence it and then punishes you for that with a more intensive force.
That’s why I always tell you: “My dear Narcy guys, try, really try not to do the bad things. Don’t feed your “monster”. You just won’t survive when the “time of truth” comes. And it will come. Invariably. Sooner or later”. But you (aside of the one of you) don’t listen. You don’t “hear” me or anyone else who tells you the same things. The denial is so sweet…
But let’s back on the track. You see the ordinary people and you see how it is easy for them to be happy. Their “pleasure threshold” is so low in comparison to yours. They can extract their happiness from anything literally! And if they are wounded, they don’t have to go to extreme to “fix” their wounds. The mere friendly hug could help them, but not you.
You know how different you are and how it is hard for you to be happy like them. To laugh like them. To relax like them. To be free from that heavy burden you have to carry on your plates…
You envy them for that. You feel inferior and you hate them for that. Their mere happy existence insults you deeply. You want to punish them for that. You want to show to all of them what that means to be you. To live like you do. To fight with yourselves like you do. To foresee the slightest possibility to be wounded and to do everything to prevent it. To be guarded constantly. To survive.
Those visceral Envy and Hate make you look and act like a pure Evil. You know deeply inside that you aren’t evil persons at all. You just want to live peacefully, like anyone else. But, in many cases, you can’t control your Envy and Hate. You can’t address those destructive forces to something benign and constructive. You hate yourselves for that and you direct those destructive forces against you. When you reach the “no return point”, you stop to value even your own life. Nothing matters anymore. You give up.
4. Lack of Empathy.
Having the Emotional pain, the absolute internal Loneliness (personal isolation) and the low “pleasure threshold”, you all try to survive in this world. And the lack of Empathy makes your life journey absolutely antisocial.
You can “read” people intellectually, but you can’t “feel” them. You don’t feel their boundaries, so you don’t know where to stop at. Moreover, those people are so nauseatingly happy, so it makes you feel inferior, envious and angry. And that means that you always (intentionally or not) have to hurt people around you.
Of course, if you can’t feel someone’s pain, you can’t feel it. Dot.
But.
You can feel your own Emotional pain. You, my dear Narcy guys, know about the pain more, than anyone else. To avoid or to stop hurting people, just project your own words and actions on yourselves… How the cheating on you feels? How the verbal or physical humiliation feels? How the rejection feels? How? You know how.
You don’t need the empathy to navigate in this world successfully. You have the Self-Projection instead. It works pretty effectively, when you want to get a control upon your destructive urges and don’t want to find yourselves in the mental hospitals and prisons…
P.S. I don’t know how to finish this letter properly. Honestly.
So, my dear Narcy guys, I just want to express my sincere respect for your really heroic attempts to live a decent and pro-social life despite of your highly conflicted Nature. And I want you to know, that if you really want to heal yourselves and have a good life, everything is possible. Good luck.
Noname
16 thoughts on “A Letter to the Narcissist – No. 82”
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This was a fun and interesting read. To this day I’m still not quite sure if I’m a narcissist or not, and this letter formed a very interesting collection of comparison points. I check most of the boxes, but there are still some notable deviations. For example, I absolutely love nice weather, beautiful sunsets, and so on. I also, generally speaking, don’t feel the need to devalue my partners. I prefer a consistent peace, and if it’s not possible, I leave. I spent a lot of time wondering why that might be the case, and while this letter might not have completely edified the situation, it certainly gave me a lot to think about.
From a certain perspective, as someone who very well may have survived for years on tertiary fuel without really “noticing” this was the case, I like to analyze the concept of a sustainable fuel model. There are certain things which, as this writer said, many narcissists are far more willing to indulge in through fantasy than in real life. As society develops, acts of abuse become less and less easy to “pull off,” or live with after. There is definitely a risk/reward paradigm at play here for both parties, where I think both narcissist and people who are potentially preyed on could benefit from a system which develops satisfying and rewarding fuel alternatives. But I suppose it’s similar to being a vegan: even if the alternatives exist, they will not be viable or appealing to everyone.
So, this made me wonder a bit: I know that the driving force between many of the choices I have made (re: avoiding indulging abusive urges) was an attempt to avoid unwelcome mess and complications. In that light, it worked out very nicely for me. So, even if not everybody would be willing to do it, perhaps a surprising number of people would actually be satiated by, for example, vr games designed to provide fuel. I can’t say how viable this would be from a psychiatric care perspective though, there may very well be downsides (such as a decreased ability to discern fantasy from reality, due to excessive vr immersion)
Noname…
Great letter!
The way you wrote this makes a lot of sense and fully clicks with my internal thinking about it.
It somehow adds to HG’s knowledge, or puts it in a different perspective.
Really, really thank you for this letter.
Hello INFJ Nonane. Very good letter. If only they would listen!!!
Hi Hg. I am the daughter of a father and a mother both narcissists and you have described well what is also my story and my being. However, I must clarify some points.
As for me there are times when I feel happy (really happy) even with very small things, and others where as you say, something wakes up inside me and I have to get some strong emotions.
I admit I love animals (especially felines) much more than humans. I feel physically ill when I know that they have hurt some helpless beasts or even some wild beasts, while I don’t feel very sorry when they kill a person, in fact I would say that it usually leaves me really indifferent. Sometimes rather I imagine myself killing someone I hate or can’t stand, someone I think is harass stupid and mediocre, but then only fantasies remain.
However, there are also people that I really appreciate and who I really love, I am able to become attached and have feelings, even very intense ones, but in most cases they are passengers and after that it is as if that person had never existed, there is almost nothing left.
But while I’m with this person I could never hurt her or damage her with terrible things like some I’ve read in this blog.
At some point everything ends, and I have to leave, to switch to someone else or something else. That’s all.
When and if I decide to take revenge, my revenge is always very cruel. The other feels stunned, taken by surprise. But to hate I have to have a real reason. And I have it often.
I did not want to children, too much effort, I prefer to surround myself with so many cats.
I don’t like good weather, I hate the sun, I hate summer. I prefer the thunderstorms, cold winter and darkness which for me is always comforting.
When the limelight turns off and the voices of my many admirers and faithful followers quiet down, and even the envious and poisonous detractors become silent, I return to my peace and my silence, my tranquility, my simple things of all days. Because the mission was accomplished and now I can stay calm, at least for a while …
I am not looking for love, or at least not as others seek it. What I would like more than anything else is eternal youth and immortality, both because life is beautiful and I do not feel like leaving it and because it is a pity that a stupendous creature like me should grow old. But I’m not willing to sell my soul. I mean, I don’t want to give up any of these things.
I would like to do something really useful and beautiful for the world, even without the world knowing that I did it. It’s not important. In fact I prefer the image of a bad girl, it fits me very well. And style is fundamental.
There are an angel and a devil inside me and I can’t quiet nobody of two.
I’m Wonder Woman and Bridget Jones together.
I’m Dr. Jeckyll and Mr Hide.
But you will always see of me only what I want you to see.
Just happened to drop by n read this one and can’t help but say, – Damn! This is one fine letter! You totally pegged it! Completely fits with my observations n conclusions, too!
Hello to all. I’m fine, but very busy in ongoing projects. Hope you’re all doing well!
– Windstorm
Welcome back, Windstorm! I’m glad you’re doing well and hopefully you can come back more while working on your projects.
Windstorm – glad you popped in! I had to do a double-take and make sure it wasn’t an old comment when I saw your name…I was like: “July 25, 2019!!! Hey, that’s yesterday!!
It’s so good to see a post from you 😃, glad to hear that you’re well and busy with stuff – hope it’s all good stuff 💚.
WhoCares
It’s always good to hear from you too! I follow HGs IG and keep up with all the comments there. Things are going well, it’s just a slow slog trying to finish the objectives I set for this year. I do miss everyone. Stay well!
Windstorm,
Re: slow slog towards objectives…wow, do I ever hear that!
I so miss your presence here; it really cheered me up to see your little Peppa Pig picture😀.
I don’t follow HG’s instagram…but worth reconsidering if you’re there!
Take care 💜
Hi Windstorm I’m so happy you dropped in for a visit. I miss you and your comments,
Windstorm apologies that last comment went out before I was finished writing it. I hope you can drop in more often dear. Have a great summer and take care. 😘🙃
windstorm
OMG!!! you are back, I missed you so much!!!!
They take from us what they don’t have, are emotions, are feelings, because they want them so badly. Instead of nurturing them and letting them inside to touch there heart, they become frightened they remember the past and pain and suffering that they had and they become frightened just as that young child was frightened so many years ago. They don’t want that pain again so they run, they destroy us and what we are trying to build with them because they simply do not want history to repeat itself. They will never let anyone in ever again.
It still doesn’t make it any easier.
Thanks FM1T. It’s a hard truth to accept.
Twisted Heart,
I know sweetie, I know. 💞
These words are haunting.
This one broke my heart.
After everything they did to me I don’t want to sympathize with their emotional pain but I know it’s there. I’ve seen it and felt it and suffered it first hand by this sickness. I don’t want to feel sorry for them but I know they have it so much harder than I ever will because they know they are empty inside. I can’t imagine what that kind of darkness feels like. I just want us all to heal once and for all. This pain and abuse has to stop.