Sounding Off
Vent your spleen. Have your say. Give us both barrels. Let us know what you really think. Such sentiments towards my kind are entirely understandable and they invariably occur post discard and sometimes post escape. There are differing rationales associated with this almost overwhelming need to speak to us about your experience of being entangled with our kind.
1. Anger. You realise how you have been manipulated, abused and taken for a fool. Your anger is substantial and you feel a pressing need to unleash that anger against us with a litany of insults and some choice language.
2. Enlightenment. You have had your epiphany and realised precisely what ensnared you, how it happened and why. You have seized this knowledge and now feel elated that you have done so. There is a sense of superiority in finally having all the pieces of the puzzle click into place and you want to confront us. You may not actually tell us what we are but you will certainly want to use the words, “I know what you are now.”
3. Unfinished Business Part One. Nearly all discards occur without you being told that the Formal Relationship is over and if you are given such notice you are rarely given any proper or adequate explanation as to why this has happened. This results in the need to confront us at a later stage in order to try to find out why what has happened, has happened.
4. Unfinished Business Part Two. This is akin to the situation above but the basis of this confrontation is in order to demand of us how we could do what we did and address your need to have us explain ourselves for what we did during the relationship.
5. To Understand. You do not know what you were entangled with and you are unable to comprehend how somebody could behave in that manner towards you after everything that you did for us. This tirade details all of the help you gave us, the advantages that you conferred on us and each and every thing you did for us in the name of love.
6. Clear the Smear. Predictably enough, you will have been smeared following your entanglement with us. You have heard all about the lies that have been peddled about you and you want to set us straight about how those comments were wrong, that you did not behave in the manner which we have described to other people and ultimately how you need to clear your name.
7. The Right to Be Heard. You have a significant desire to want to be heard, especially as our manipulation of your will have caused you to feel that you have not been listened to during the Formal Relationship. You want your voice to be heard, you need to articulate your thoughts and feelings and an opportunity to avail yourself of discharging this need is too good to pass up.
8. Convey the Pain. You remain horrendously wounded by your experience of being entangled with us and you want to let us know how badly we hurt you, how much it pains you still and how upset you are to have been treated this way.
9. Sing the Praises. Sometimes you exhibit a capacity for nobility which manages to transcend the hurt, the pain and the angry. You remain bewitched by the golden period and all those magnificent attributes that you believe we still possess and therefore rather than attack us, expound bitterness or lash out, you declare all the reasons why you still love us, why you find us mesmerising despite what has happened and you wish us well for the future.
10. Justice. It is only right that are given the right of reply to the treatment that has been meted out against you.
11. Medicine. You put up with the tantrums, the lengthy invectives, the oral onslaughts and you were pummelled by our words. Now it is the time to give us a taste of our own medicine.
Whatever the motivation may be, your need and desire to have that final confrontation with us, to purge yourself of all those thoughts and considerations is huge and is very difficult for you to resist. Indeed, most of the time you do not resist it at all, instead you look to engineer situations whereby you are able to speak to us and deliver this tirade, this riposte, this howitzer. You will seek us out in order to provide us with a piece of your mind. Is this a good thing? Well, there are two potential upsides when this is looked at from your perspective. The first is that you are able to get things off your chest. All those thoughts which have whirled around your mind for weeks on end, the ifs and buts which prevented you from sleeping, the imponderables and the unanswered have been released as you allow your words to explode from you in an outburst of emotion applicable to whichever rationale which has driven you to this point. The second is that you may well feel that you have achieved some kind of closure by engaging in this step of giving us a piece of your mind.
But what about our perspective on all of this? What does this blast, this sounding off and this diatribe mean to us? This is where giving a piece of your mind in such a manner is actually not a good thing for you to do. Why is this?
1. Sounding off in such an emotional manner, whether it is insulting us with angry words, crying with pain, savagely mauling us with a sneering and twisted face or even expressing how you still love us, just provides us with fuel and it is plentiful. You may have collared us on the telephone to vent at us. Anybody normal would end the call as they are repeatedly harangued and insulted, but not us, we will listen as we soak up all that fuel. Yes, we will be argumentative, defensive and belligerent but that is just to keep your tirade going owing to the plentiful fuel you are providing to us.
2. This is a prime opportunity for us to hoover you. If we see you are angry, we may express false contrition, if you are hurt and upset we may declare how we will make changes so everything is right, if you reminisce about our wonderful times we will offer that golden period again to you. You are giving us a glorious opportunity to hoover you and in your heightened emotional state there is a good chance this will succeed.
3. If we do not hoover at this point, you have just given us several reasons to execute a hoover at a later juncture by confirming to us that you remain adrift in the emotional state, you are fountaining with fuel and still beholden to us. The signs are good and it all points to a successful hoover in the near future.
4. You confirm to us that you have failed to grasp the logic and reason of the situation and therefore your defences are weak. This means that further manipulations can be used and they will prove effective in terms of fuel and control.
5. We take no notice of what you are actually saying. You may think that your speech is devastating, that you are landing telling blows on us, that you are assassinating our character and making us look terrible. You are not. You are playing into our hands. We are laughing at you inside.
6. You are confirming that we continue to have considerable control over you. We may be busy with a new primary source but this confirmation acts as a green light to further unleashing of manipulations against you because you are not able to let go.
The temptation to give us a piece of your mind is vast and overwhelming but if done in the usual emotional fashion of the typical empathic individual you are just giving us more of what we want, failing to hurt us and extending your own entanglement with us.
25 thoughts on “Sounding Off”
Vent Your Spleen! (Please see the Rules in Formal Info)
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Ok I’m sounding off…
Settled with coffee this morning to find nothing in my inbox from narcsite. Hmm…HG must be travelling. Wait…I see the avatars in the recent comments list has changed. Go to WordPress to find that the button: notify me of recent comments has been toggled off (not by me).
Leaving this for anyone experiencing problems. The WordPress goblins are running amok again/still.
NA, WordPress is ruining my life right now. I have nothing helpful to add. When I click onto the web from the app my font is at like a -..0001 on my mobile.. I keep getting “unable to load”. Laptop seems to be working but I have to have narcsite on the go.
Well I know that with my current person who I ended up here over, trying to talk to him like a normal person about certain behaviors, all it did was give him ammo to store away and use against be later. I do think my person isn’t well, and I’m very sad for him that this is how he is now.
In my opinion, you still have to have your own bottom line behaviors that you will not tolerate, or accept into your life, otherwise it starts eating away at your dignity and self respect, and that helps no one. I’m incredibly saddened that no contact is how it has to be, but certain behaviors of his showed me there’s no other way- any contact with him, and eventually I always got hurt. The best thing you can do is have rock solid boundaries with someone like this, and sympathize from afar if you must, but one little toe over the line (ie any contact what so ever), and people like this will just run roughshod over you when you least expect it.
Thank you all. Your messages really mean a lot to me.
And yes, lisk, I do feel like this is my very own mental illness, specific to this one person though! Anyone else I think I could have cut off long ago.
No more peeps out of me. And I’m enjoying my own silence.
I don’t know If we are in the minority but I feel the same way. I don’t hate my narc or wish him any ill will. I also feel incredibly sad for him. He is an empty void that can never be filled. He can never evolve or grow. He will never know what it feels like to be truly loved. Its very sad. With that said, there’s no point in engaging because the narcissist will never get it and it is us, the victims, that end up suffering.
Leigh – I used to feel sorry for them too, but then I realised they damage everyone they engage with, and move on without a backward glance. It doesn’t matter why, it’s what they do. They don’t know or care about what we think they are missing, so your last sentence is spot on!
I think I have my own category. I wish I was angry and I hated him because I feel like moving on would be easier (not EASY; I know it never is). I actually feel bad for him. I guess I’m in the minority in this, but I do feel like narcissism is a mental illness (no offense, HG), so how can you be angry with someone who doesn’t know better? And how do you walk away from someone without explaining why? I am in the middle of this right now, and it’s heartbreaking. I want so badly to tell him why I am not responding, but he won’t believe it or understand it because of whatever is going on in that mind of his. I keep trying to word a message that explains why I am not answering, but works. He can’t care about me, but I do care about him. It sucks all around.
BL: I feel for you and, like most in this blog, I have been exactly where you are now. It’s easy, now, to say just don’t answer him at all, just stay no contact, that it does get better and even gets easier as you further understand what he is. I know it hurts, I know it’s frustrating, I know it’s crushing because part of you wants to feel sorry for him, because to do that you give yourself forgiveness. Sounds odd, yeah? To forgive yourself for believing in him, for getting hurt by him, you *need* to find something you can forgive in him. But BL, as HG has said, that is your emotional thinking trying to keep you addicted (and yes, even hopeful) and it is a lie.
If you haven’t already, I highly recommend a consultation with HG. He really can help you through this, and most importantly, help you find the courage to fully let go of your guilt, and your narcissist.
Well stated.
BL, Compose your message then go stand in front of a brick wall and read it. The wall will have the same understanding that the narc would, but you won’t get hurt in the process. (Just don’t hit the wall. That would hurt)
I think we all have a moment when we feel bad for them. It is unfair from our perspective but not to them. They do not see anything wrong with who they are. I use to struggle because I thought I was a horrible person for not being able to forgive. I felt that because narcissism wasn’t a choice and they couldn’t be cured, it was my duty as someone with empathy to forgive.
We don’t have to take action. We have to be ok with letting it be what it is. We don’t have to love them, we don’t have to hate them, and we don’t have to forgive. We just have to accept what is and move on.
My two cents on forgiveness and Karma.
My view of the forgiveness movement is that it is ridiculous ploy to make people think they are somehow magically transformed by doing so. Nonsense. You were empowered all along but didn’t believe it or utilize it. It ingrains in people once again that they have to be giving something of themselves in order to be whole. That you have to earn what was rightfully yours all along – respect of self. Saying you forgive someone else changes nothing of what happened and it certainly doesn’t change them. Who are we to be forgiving anyone anyway? The only person you have dominion over is yourself. Forgive yourself for not realizing it sooner and move forward and away without needing to alter anyone else’s existence. There’s the power.
In that same vein:
Karma as a solution is bullshit. Dreaming that someone will get their comeuppance in another life is just a way to make yourself feel better about taking no action against their transgression in this one. Karma is a fancy word for inaction.
Both as much an illusion as the narc facade, and aren’t we done with that? Let’s not trade one illusion in only to continue to adopt others.
Fair comment.
NarcAngel, I agree and realizing that it’s ok not to forgive is freeing. As far as karma, karma is that bitch that escaped. It’s me, I’m the bitch!
Mercy lol @ it’s me I’m the bitch (karma)
NarcAngel: we don’t have to believe in karma, but we can be relatively sure that the inferior breeds of narc will eventually fuck themselves up the ass. They proceed only in terms of immediate needs and immediate results, and are completely unprepared when what use to work in the past suddenly blows up in their faces.
The exasperating part is they will never have their noses rubbed in their own fucked-upness. In their eyes, it will always be Someone Else’s Fault.
Truth!
V
I don’t know about that. We like to think of them fucking themselves up the ass and being unprepared, but because they live in the now, they don’t dwell on theses things like we do. If the toaster isn’t working one day, they’ll fiddle with it a bit. If that doesn’t work they may slap or kick it to see if that produces any result. If that fails, they will take a quick look around them and lo and behold – the blender. How could they have missed the sleekness and beauty of it’s full functionality sitting there on the shelf all this time!? Time to take it down and give it a whirl. Toaster? What toaster? They don’t eat toast and never did. They drink smoothies. You have confused them with someone else.
Accurate.
Madonna can’t hook up in bars with 100% success anymore. Failing somatic?
As an aging, never-terribly-successful actress, what will Meghan do when the show-biz offers trickle to a halt and whoever’s replaced Harvey Weinstein doesn’t even want her on the casting couch?
BL, You are caught up in emotional thinking. I know you feel bad for him but it’s not your job to fix him. You can’t. It’s not your job to teach him how to behave better. He should still know it’s not ok to treat people badly even if he was not taught it early on. That’s just not an excuse to continue behaving that way. If you try to word a letter to him to explain why you are not responding, it is pointless. And would actually be responding which is what he wants. There is nothing you can say to get him to understand your point.
I’m sorry you are going through this. Everyone here has or is going through it and it sucks. Once you realize you don’t deserve to be treated like this you will look back and wonder why you ever tolerated it for one minute. It’s a process and everyone has to do it in their own timeframe. Take some time to he good to yourself. Do things that make you happy. Spend time with people who genuinely care about you and treat you well. Taking care of your own emotional well being will do wonders for your self-esteem and give you the strength to move forward without guilt. You’ll know when you are there because you will feel a sense of peace about letting go. 💕
I wonder, could trying to fix or save the unsaveable also be considered a mental illness?
It’s true didn’t you want to say, that in some perverse way, narcs respect is when we simply go no contact without a final word?
I’ll know I’m free when I don’t give a shit whether the Narcs I’ve encountered respect me or not. I still have the urge to “show them.” There are people I haven’t seen since I was in Jr. High that I still want to “show.” I couldn’t entirely enjoy all the theatre things I did in NYC because people on my home town weren’t there to be “shown.” When I listed them on my reunion bio, did people think I was making it all up? Had I made it up? Wait, I have stills, I have the program, I even got a couple of good reviews and one absolutely scathing one!
At one reunion, I was comparing notes with a guy is known since 2nd grade on who got on trouble more often. His wife gave me a suspicious look and practically dragged him away. Lady, he used to hit me, not hit on me!
I was a scrawny, bucktoothed kid. Then I was a lumpy, brace-faced adolescent. I had a few years of 20-something hotness; now I’m putting on weight and I brux. Does the hotness count if they didn’t catch it while I still had it?
This is flawlessly described! I kept being so sweet & loving while being ignored, never realizing until now I was giving MASSIVE amounts of fuel.