Does The Narcissist Think About You Afterwards?
I know that when I have disengaged from you that you will think of me more than anything else. This is all by design – be it instinctive (Lesser or Mid Range Narcissist) or calculated (Greater Narcissist).
Your mind becomes a whirling thought engine as the questions loom and dart about your mind like swooping spirits. Why did he do this? What did I do wrong? Where has he gone? Why won’t he talk to me? Is he with someone else now? How could he treat me like this? These questions and many of a similar nature remain at the forefront of your mind. They are exhausting as you grapple to find the answers, always achieving an unsuccessful outcome because invariably you do not know who has actually disengaged from you.
I cast you to one side, you did not leave me and cause me to apply an Initial Grand Hoover in order to bring you back under my spell. I saw no need for you anymore and therefore I was content to throw you on the scrap heap, broken and spent, a broken appliance left to its own considerations and dwelling heavily on this cruel treatment.
One of the questions which charges around your mind as you try to sleep is does he think about me? Do I ever feature in his thoughts? Does he think about what I am doing? Does he recall the good times? You wonder whether I am lying on my bed in a similar state of anxiety, mulling over what has happening. Your thoughts spill and tumble and whilst you want to dispel these memories you cannot help but want to embrace them, experiencing that bitter sweet sensation of both delight and agony – of course this is being driven by your emotional thinking which is wanting to feed your addiction to me.
You try to get into a comfortable position hoping that slumber will soon drag you into unconsciousness so that the pain will evaporate, if just for a few hours. Yet, even the place you now lie in evokes the image of you and I coupled together, wrapped up in one another as we made love through the night, or at least you felt we made love. Did we actually make love to one another? Did I really love you? You know you loved me, indeed you still do, but what of me?
Yet again a question leaps into your mind. I am everywhere. You consider whether I think about the treatment that you have received and do I feel guilty for behaving that way? Do I have a reason for hurling you to one side so callously and am I wondering whether you are all right? Your truth seeking empathic trait is being seized on and corrupted by your emotional thinking. It drives you to want answers and you are left believing that such a driver is logical and should be addressed. It keeps the thought of me in your head, going round and round, question after question, ensuring that your emotional thinking is alive and surging.
Just as you hold onto the precious memories of the golden period you wonder whether I am similarly replaying them through my mind, recalling the wonderful times, the delicious things we did together. You can summon it all in such detail. The places we went to, the other people there, what day of the week it was, even the exact date. You remember what we wore, what we ate and what was said as the memories tumble through head. As the clock shows it is now closer to morning than it was to the evening, you wonder whether I am thinking about you in a similar fashion?
While you toss and turn in your bed which resembles a place to be endured rather than a place of comfort, I am fast asleep. From the moment my head touched the pillow I fell asleep free from thoughts about you. No imp sits on my shoulder jabbing me with a precious memory and keeping me from sleeping. Whilst you ruminate, cogitate, fathom and review, I am oblivious to everything. During my waking hours you do not invade my consciousness. There is too much to be done, too much fuel to extract as I deal with looking after and nurturing the new primary source of my fuel which replaced you. You have been deleted because you failed me (at least in my mind that is the case) and therefore you have erased from the record. The narcissism demands that. You are of no use to me and therefore you are erased, deleted, removed and wiped away.
Truth be told it was more of an overlap with both you and her supplying me fuel until the old stale trickle was switched off and dumped. In my mind you never existed. My fixation with the new prospect and her golden, delicious, potent fuel means that everything is focussed on her. Her seduction and the maintenance of supply dominates my mind save when I am extracting my fuel from the range of supplementary sources that I interact with throughout the day. I may drink from the mug you once bought me to recognise I support a particular football team but there is no flicker of recognition about you. I do not halt, cup in hand, halfway to my mouth and smile at that trip to the stadium when you insisted on buying half the contents in order to please me. It is just a mug to me but the tea contained in it and prepared by my new prospect is delicious and I tell her so. Her beaming smile provides me with that dollop of fuel as expected. To me it is just a mug bearing the crest of my football team. The link you had to that piece of ceramic has been severed and cast into the abyss. The narcissism demands that must be the case – your replacement governs our thoughts and actions now and therefore there is no need to be reminded of you, that is redundant and as effective and efficient machines, we reject the redundant, jettison the unnecessary and remove the failed.
I may still wear the jumper you bought me but I never consider that weekend away in the highlands when I complained about being cold so you purchased it for me. I may walk past someone who wears the same fragrance as you. I do not remember you as I smell it, not the way you remember me when you smell my cologne and you remember me next to you and that emptiness washes over you once again. I just think that it is a pleasant scent and carry on walking by. It is as if I have pressed delete and you have been erased. You never existed, your thoughts, words and actions all melt away. Your connections to me are severed, your presence eradicated and your memory denied. I have switched off that appliance and everything associated with it has been obliterated. We do not think of you because at this point we have no need to think of you. You serve no purpose to us and therefore remembering you and I is a redundant exercise and a waste of our time and energy. We must not waste anything and thus the instinctive impact of our narcissism ensures you are not thought of.
When we have disengaged from you and we have done so because we have a new Intimate Partner Primary Source we do not think about you. If you enter our spheres of influence by messaging us, ringing us, walking by us or even coming to see us, you can expect at best a cold and polite short moment of recognition before we move on and at worst a malign response to send you away in hurt and pain. You failed us – we no longer want or need you. You have been replaced and therefore you are stricken from our thoughts and should you ever invade our sphere of influences in another way, we maintain this rejection of you.
However, once the new IPPS enters devaluation (and this person will – that is a guarantee – it is just a question of time) well, then you become useful to us once again and our narcissism alters the record once again. This time you will be remembered, although if truth be told you ought to prefer that you remain cast into obscurity because in all likelihood we will be coming back for you in some form of other to draw again on our investment, to seize our property once again but solely for our benefit.
33 thoughts on “Does The Narcissist Think About You Afterwards?”
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Surely I can’t be the only one who oddly envies the lack of emotional empathy? I suspect I have high contagion element, bc when I get time away from my kid, I spend many hours just sitting alone relaxing into my own energy which is empty of others emotions.. Line- Aaaaaah! RELIEF.
Of course I wouldn’t choose to be a narc, but I often wonder—can I somehow disentangle my own awareness from others? What would that feel like? I need to do this bc I’ve been a caregiver both at home and professionally since I was 21. Thats 24 years of being submerged and invaded and what feels like drowning in, emotional empathy.
I suspect this may be why it was relatively easy (with your help HG) to grasp the narc worldview- basically I just tried to imagine the opposite of what I am and bingo! got it-damnnn little jelly actually
This is why your evolutionary tirades (lol as they may well be known forever thanks to whoever coined that) -make so much sense. I could not CHOOSE to be other than my nature, neither can the Narc – which is why I don’t have anger at them.
I envied sociopaths when I was a teenager, but couldn’t become one. Anyhow, they’re not all high-functioning, like fictional sociopaths Hannibal Lector or Cathy Ames. We see stupid sociopaths in the news all the time.
As for narcs not having empathy, that doesn’t mean they don’t suffer. I suspect the lessers and mids may suffer quite a bit, and never know why. They don’t know why things keep going wrong. They don’t know they can’t really love or feel regret: they have ersatz emotions that convince them as well as anyone else. “Nobody loves me!” John Lennon howled during yet another drunken, violent tantrum, forgetting all the damage he’d done to people who did love him, including first wife Cynthia, who loved him when she couldn’t possibly have known he would become rich and famous because he was just another art student with a garage band.
Despite his musical genius and verbal wit, I’m pretty sure Lennon wasn’t a Greater. The pity plays and tendency to try to settle things immediately with his fists are not typical. He may have had a genius IQ, but his character was that of an ignorant thug.
No WAF I’ve envied the lack of empathy too. We sound similar in those feelings of relief when free of the emotions of others (but usually only when I’m tired as I am now). In the past, when people have said things like ‘just say no’, ‘just look after yourself, it’s not your problem’ I’ve always thought things like ‘being more of a selfish arse isn’t something I aspire to thanks’. Now…I’m re-thinking, I’m not there yet, but I am thinking differently.
You know this imprinting thing? I’ve thought a lot about that, all I can come up with is that I was imprinted by a long line of empaths and it is evolutionarily (if that is even a word) in my DNA. Sisters, mother, grandmother. No N’s.
I’ve suffered significant losses in my past and always been able, eventually, to learn from them. My worry is that they have increased my empathic traits and I thought this was a good thing. This chapter could have a different impact. Not sure how I feel about that yet.
Woke…I would totally choose to be a nARC over what I am. I mean we are all going to die one day and who cares about the niceties that we do. I know that all the work I try to do to make people like me and to feel better about myself means nothing. I mean really. Even though I know its fake they don’t and they still don’t give me all I need. They should as I’m so kind to them, right?
Growing up my mother used to tell me that I was a horrible manipulative person. She would continually tell me I was evil. I suppose that if she had told me how wonderful I was like she thought of my sister, I would have been better off. I do know what she is talking about though. I have complete manipulative tendencies. In fact, I don’t want to brag but I can get most people to believe and do what ever I want them to.
The difference is the guilt. I am constantly trying to stop myself from being manipulative. I am constantly feeling bad about it. Perhaps my pyschopathic codependent completely abused mother recognized she was creating a demon child and tried to put the breaks on Rosemary’s baby? Too late, she missed her window of opportunity.
I wonder if I didn’t have that guilt would I be happier? Would I have been a full blown narcissist? Would I be a sociopath? Would I be normal? I mean really we share the same monster, narcs and us. The craven. Mine is at the forefront of my mind. Theirs is hidden down deep because of their ability to do so. AT this point I’d rather have mine hidden down deep too. I’m tired of the constant battle with it. I’m tired of fighting and fighting and fighting it. In the end does it really matter what anyone else feels? They don’t care about our feelings the way we care about theirs? Why is our way the right way? Is there any right way? I mean we constructed the high moral grounds but based on what? Think about it.
Maybe we’d all be happier if we just didn’t give a FUCK…
Thank you for sharing this information with us, HG.
Thank you for sharing this information with us, HG.
You’re welcome
I wish he would delete this dirty, shelfy, secret, secondary, stupid little empath, source of admiration and annoyance appliance from the record and concentrate on some other fucking appliance.
If you ensure you have a solid no contact regime not only will you not be hoovered you will soon be far less affected by what has happened. It is in your hands.
yeah we wish they would because we can’t do it ourselves. It feels fucking good. I don’t want to end. you don’t want it to end. WE are addicted. Now we wait for them to end it.
A question I have that is often in my mind is that there are many high profile narcissists with no primary source. How is that explained!? What is their fuel? MJ? (For example)
1. There may be an IPPS but you do not know about them.
2. There may not be an IPPS, but there may be a NIPPS.
3. If (1) and (2) are not applicable, the narcissist will have many secondary sources (intimate and non-intimate) because of a very large fuel matrix and therefore gains fuel from these various secondary sources in lieu of a primary source. Greater Narcissists have much larger fuel matrices and are far more skilled at maintaining those fuel matrices and therefore can operate off a number of secondary sources with ease.
Is Princess SE ok? Violetta asked about her and I was also wondering—curious.
I do not know.
Well please find out because I need to tell her that Nordstrom Rack has some CK 4” heels in camel and black that are salivation inducing that she needs to match her new purses.
So basically a weirdo like MJ used kids or staff to fulfill his needs. He was a weird guy, narcissist or not.
He was a narcissist (and weird with it) and had an extensive fuel matrix.
My theory is that MJ’s oldest 2 of his 3 children are biologically from Marlon Brando. MJ wanted to have kids with lisa Marie, because he was insistent on having kids who were from high status. Marlon Brando was really good friends with MJ, and Brando was a person of excess and didn’t really have good judgement. He also had 13 kids of his own, so I can’t see why he wouldn’t help MJ out, if MJ approached him with that favor.
The more that the eldest two mature, the more they look like marlon brando and some of his other children.
ANM—that situation is so bizarre. The daughter is beautiful. She is stunning truly. Is she an empath or a narcissist? I don’t know enough except she has had a lot of problems. It was heartbreaking when she was in tears at his funeral and Janet was behind her.
The guy who played Oliver in the ’60s musical said he’s the real father of Debbie Rowe’s kids.
MARK LESTER ?! Wtf
I remember when this was a really hard thing for me to accept. I was told here by some very wise readers that “it’s not personal, he doesn’t even think about you when he does these things”. I replied “It’s personal to me!” Of all the convos I’ve had here, that one stands out the most. It’s not personal, he’s not thinking of me. Why? Because I’m not giving him the fuel he needs. How does he get fuel? By manipulating my emotions. Why isn’t he thinking of me? Because he can’t manipulate me anymore. GOSO
Mercy
Telling someone that the narc doesn’t even think about them is one of those things that is seldom appreciated in the beginning and can cause problems, because it seems like a mean thing to tell someone that they don’t matter. In time however, hopefully they see as you did, that it is to stress it’s just how the disorder works and to remove the “it’s personal and calculated” mindset, and the fallacy that we are higher grade or have a better nozzle (matter) anymore than the next pump. A hard one for most to accept but necessary in moving on.
Well stated, NA.
NarcAngel, You and K were the meany’s in that conversation and it took some back and forths to let the emotions go and understand what you guys were trying to help me understand. Because of that turning point, I can detach my emotions when I read HGs teachings
Mercy
Haha. Well I’m glad over time you got that it was well intended, but I’ll bet there were some choice words thrown my way in the interim. That’s expected though.
Mercy
Hahahaha…it wasn’t my intention to be mean but I am very happy that it became a turning point for you. Very good, detachment is important.
K and NA, you guys weren’t mean haha. You just gave a little nudge to someone that was looking in the wrong direction. No choice words thought towards either one of you. Those were reserved for the N.
Mercy
Hahaha…empaths don’t let empaths look in the wrong direction (empathic traits of truth seeker and honesty coming to the fore).
Thank goodness for that K!
Thank you HG 🙏🏼 this is exactly what I needed to read and reinforce myself with today.
It’s still early days but every day that passes where there has been no interaction with my N combined with your posts , assistance packages and UTube videos I can see tiny little glimpses of me coming back. Since the dawning of the fact I’ve had a lifetime of Narcs starting with my Mother I’m not sure who me is yet but I feel positive that I’m there somewhere for the first time in I can’t remember , and for that I can’t thank you enough.
I hope it’s been just what someone else needed to read today too 😊
Good to read.
I am reading this and yes, I pity myself and all that are stuck with these thoughts in our head. BUT I also pity YOU. I pity the person that can’t stop thinking about getting fuel. How draining. I would know….. I constantly want to feel like someone loves me in order to validate myself. I’m thinking of ways to help people in order for them to like me. You also need validation whether you think so or not. Fuel is validation in my opinion. You need it in order to prove to yourself you are exactly what you think you are. That would be a shitty way to live as well. Furthermore, you may not be thinking of us when we are agonizing over you but you are thinking of us when you decide to hoover and we are living our new lives and forgotten you. You think of us in terms of scheming. You are still obsessed with us. The only difference is you are in control of contact and manipulations. You have the identity you are trying to maintain and we are trying to gain an identity. Exhausting. Utterly exhausting.
This is where I can relate to the narcissist. This is why I find it so hard to relate to “normal” people.