In the End It Has To Hurt
By now you all know that I am driven by the hunger that rages within me as I must seek out fuel to feed the beast. To begin with, my fuel comes from the compliments and admiration you send my way during our golden period. Yes, that blissful, wonderful time when everything tastes better, smells more fragrant, looks brighter and sounds sharper. I was asked why can I not contain my need for fuel to receiving admiration and plaudits? Why must I embark on such a destructive course which brings mayhem to everyone around me. Why must it hurt so much? A fair question.
In my case, there are two reasons for this. The first brings forth that old adage of familiarity breeds contempt. Imagine that strawberry is your favourite flavour of ice-cream. I bring you a large strawberry ice cream in a sugar cone. You take a lick and it is delicious. So fresh tasting, so creamy and there are even little pieces of strawberry contained inside of it.
It simply is the most sumptuous ice cream you have ever introduced to your taste buds. These strawberries have been grown in God’s garden, tended to by angels and grown with the purest water, the most fertile soil and vibrant sunshine. The milk has been taken from cows which graze on nothing but the most verdant grass, free from pollution and contamination. In fact, every ingredient that has been used in the creation of this magnificent iced confection is the best and perfect. Not only that, it has been crafted by the Supreme High Creator of Gelati.
I bring you a second one. Why not? This is an ice cream fit for champions. You eat this second one but by now you are feeling full. I bring a third, the taste is still great but not as good. Now I give you the good news that you are eating strawberry ice cream for breakfast, lunch and dinner and nothing else. Soon, the amazing taste of the ice cream no longer brings you pleasure. In fact, you start to dread the sight of the ice cream as it is brought to you and then it makes you angry that you have to eat it. You are sick of it now, it has lost its allure.
This is what happens to me. It always happens. Since I am wired to seek out instant gratification, even the most wonderful sensations soon pale to me. I am not built for the long-term, I have no desire for longevity. If it was me eating the ice cream, I need to go and seek out mint choc chip or even vanilla or perhaps a juicy steak instead. I need something different in order to give me that hit.
Why not then just leave the strawberry ice cream alone and seek out that new taste sensation, why do I have to subject the ice cream to a campaign of savage and nasty behaviour. One reason is that since I have invested so much energy in securing all that strawberry ice cream I am not going to let it go. I need to treat it differently and thus generate a break from its taste. With you, I need to have a break from the now stale praise and admiration you provide to me.
It just does not do it for me. Similarly, I have invested energy in ensnaring you and I do not want to let you go. I have to treat you differently to change the dynamic. I need to keep you around so I embark on a confusing campaign that means you cling tighter to me. I will of course be seeking out new admiration from new sources. There are so many flavours for me to taste. You were once shiny and new. Not any longer. Someone else is shinier and newer.
I will return to you, like I will return to the strawberry ice cream. I have forgotten how it sickened me so I will eat it again and wow, it tastes good. Similarly, I will grant you a short return to the golden period. You lavish me with praise and love borne out of relief and I enjoy it. The law of diminishing returns applies however and soon I tire of your admiration as I tire of the strawberry ice cream and once again I must take a break from it, whilst never actually severing ties with you or giving away the ice cream.
Back and forth I will go, occasionally being good to you to receive your admiration as I occasionally have a scoop of the strawberry ice cream. Thus this familiarity and unwillingness to let you go means that I have to treat you badly in order to resurrect the positive fuel on an infrequent basis whilst drawing on the negative fuel to provide the contrast.
I mentioned two reasons. The second reason arises from occasional glimpses of reality. For the most part we dwell in our false construct that we have dragged you into. You may achieve something or a colleague may secure a new contract or we notice a friend purchase a flash, new car. This provides us with a painful reminder of our own limitations and our hatred of the limelight being moved elsewhere, however temporary. In such a case we have to lash out.
We must denigrate, despise and demean in order to create that contrast again, we make you look bad and we look good. By putting you down, or the friend or the colleague we feel powerful and in control again. The horrible sensation vanishes. On these occasions, envy and fear drives us to be horrible to you. We have to do it to make ourselves look superior in comparison.
In both instances we need to provide a contrast in order to maintain our fuel. Thus, all cannot be rosy in the garden, we need to spray the weed killer over the flowers you have grown to ensure we receive the fuel that is our primary aim in life.
35 thoughts on “In the End It Has To Hurt”
Vent Your Spleen! (Please see the Rules in Formal Info)
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
HG,
I have to thank you. I’m not good with expressing the gushy stuff but I’m so overwhelmed with gratitude right now that I have to express it.
I’ve been avoiding KTN because I didn’t want to trigger emotions I couldn’t deal with. The words “In the end it has to hurt” has new meaning to me now and the inevitable emotions are flooding me. You have literally been there from beginning to end. In the beginning when I knew something was wrong, I found you, and you helped me understand what I was dealing with. You introduced me to the power of knowledge with your teachings and a solid support system within your readers. I made many many many (x 10) mistakes along the way but you always had my back. I can’t count the times I’ve said to myself “Why didn’t I do what HG said?” I went from a crumbling mess on the bathroom floor to someone that can hold her head high because I realize my fate isn’t to be a victim. I now walk with a little HG angel on my right shoulder and a HG devil on my left, guiding me through my daily interactions. I don’t know you, we’ve never met, but you have impacted my life in a way that no one else has. There is a question on the empath detector “who is your hero”. I got stuck there and never finished. I think I can now say with certainty that you are my hero.
This post may have been more appropriate in an email but I want the readers that are in the depths of their pain to know that it doesn’t have to hurt. It’s hard work but if you apply what you learn from HG there is relief.
Thanks to you HG, I was able to achieve true no contact and find peace before the end. In the end, the true end, it doesn’t have to hurt. He is gone and I feel content.
From the very bottom of my heart, Thank you HG.
Good to read and you are welcome.
Congratulations Mercy! Well articulated 🥰
Thank you MB, I hope you are doing good.
Congratulations, Mercy! It was very good to read what you wrote. And so true.
I am moved to tears Mercy,
During the months of your absence I knew you were not ok because that was so not you, going from 100% involvement in the forum to zero, there had to be something seriously wrong and being unable to reach out for help or understanding, hearing now what you went through, and reading this moving, touching text, I could not keep it dry.
I hope for you that your recovery is real, and that the only way is up.
We are all here for you, 😘
Z, Now you have me crying again. I really do think my recovery is real but I have moments that sneak up on me. The last time I saw him was over a year ago and that was an accidental run-in at the grocery store. Before that, it had been months since I talked to him. After he was arrested I deleted my social media and quit reading local news. My friends and family know I won’t talk about him. The people that don’t know, I ignore. My daughter called me one day and told me that someone had committed suicide in the jail and it was rumored that it was him. The next day she told me it was confirmed. That was the last day I spoke about it to anyone until now. I really believe that if I hadn’t achieved true no contact before he died, I would be in a much worse state of mind.
Coming back here and remembering where I was when I first started reading compared to how I feel now was overwhelming. My gratitude toward HG and all of the readers that helped along the way is real.
Z, once again I wish I knew you in real life. I know we’d be good friends. Thank you for being here ❤
I have question. The Narc discarded / silent treatmented me starting back in mid April. The last we spoke je saiid we should go our separate ways. I do not contact him a s he is blocked on SM however I did recently contact him to let him know someone in my family had passed away. I was not blocked but he did not acknowledge the message. Is that ST, discard, corrective devaluation or does that just mean im just on the shelf? From your articles, I think shelf or corrective devaluation because there is a channel open but does a Narc correctively devalue for 4 months?
I do not know enough about the dynamic of your relationship to answer the question accurately, I need more information and to that end you are best served by organising a consultation.
In The End It Has to Hurt. I know this is not related to your post but the title makes me wonder how many narcissists die alone and lonely with no one to mourn and grieve the loss of them. I have seen many patients die and most had family close but some had no one beside them except for us nurses. I suppose if they are wealthy enough to pay for someone to be there that is something but they have to know the feeling of overwhelming emptiness. No fuel anymore or very little. I wonder if even at their own END do they hurt?
Dear Wendy,
I’d hazard a guess to say, they’re probably too sick to care or perhaps even notice. What little fuel remains, is from from their nurses and doctors all running around attending to their every dying need and maybe feeling sorry for them being alone at the end and hence would be getting sufficient comfort, along with some tea n sympathy into the bargain.
My midrange weasel absolutely ‘lapped it up’ (like a dog wagging its tail) all that care and attention when he was in hospital (probably hitting on the nurses into the bargain). Family and friends who visited him were just added bonuses. He didn’t die but came close.
Nope, I personally, do not believe they hurt in the end, only our ET allows us to believe they do.
Luv Bubbles xx 😘
Yes, absolutely Bubbles.
I knew a physician who works in the hospital—he said that a lot of people use the hospital to fulfill their social needs. I imagine that some of them might be empaths trying to escape their narcissist(s)!
Bubbles
I agree. StepNarc wasn’t hurt in the end. Even my sister who WANTED to see that he had regret etc had to admit there was none. We just hope for that because it gives US some comfort or meaning. If we can learn to let that go, it’s helpful in our being able to detach from their toxicity and to not be repeatedly pulled in to their manipulations. Their showing any regret IS a manipulation that is not only borne out time and time again in a relationship with them, but also used at the end to attempt to keep you tethered for all eternity.
“it’s helpful in our being able to detach from their toxicity and to not be repeatedly pulled in to their manipulations.”
This must be why my empathy cup is empty when it comes to illness. I have *really* been able to detach from this type of toxicity. I do not wish to be pulled in again!
Dearest NarcAngel,
Great explanation lovely one …thank you
Yes, it’s manipulation to the very end and as you said it’s all about hope, comfort and meaning for us. In the meantime, they’re still getting their precious fuel.
My dad died ‘alone’…..he reaped what he sowed. I was never tethered to him
They’re usually so drugged up in the end they still feel nothing …..ironic isn’t it ? Hahahahaha
My stepdad just had mum and the nurses by his side when he died. She was more interested getting back to her cats. She didn’t cry, she said “well, that’s the end of that then”
People are such strange creatures !
Luv Bubbles xx 😘
Bubbles, when I come across this line “They’re usually so drugged up in the end they still feel nothing …..ironic isn’t it ? Hahahahaha”,
I thought ‘miaow’, I laughed too,
so I can think ‘miaow’ about me too 😉
Bubbles, thanks for sharing this and your perspective. I’m sure they are still just getting everything they can get out of all around them until the last breath! And yes, our ET makes us wish they felt something more.
Dearest Wendy,
I feel compassion for those who are genuinely alone and have no one.
Narcs are fairly self sufficient.
Unfortunately. we don’t come into hospital labelled ….. narc, normal, empath or something in between ….. pity 😂
Luv Bubbles xx 😘
Bubbles, having read your comment as above and then reading…”Unfortunately. we don’t come into hospital labelled ….. narc, normal, empath or something in between ….. pity”, ……..I’m crying with laughter. Hilarious! Xx
Dearest lisk,
It wouldn’t surprise me Lisk, they do the same with shops and supermarkets. The weasel used to give the checkout chicks Christmas gifts! He had no real friends. He apparently made ‘heaps’ in the hospital haha
The empaths ‘escape’ to hospital would also sadly be from the abuse wounds inflicted by their narc.
I hate going to hospitals and funerals to see people come out of their bat caves, pretending to care and look good by gracing themselves with their obligatory visit.
Maybe that’s why narcs die alone … their posse of people were sick to death (no pun intended) of them and stopped pretending haha
Luv Bubbles xx 😘
Ah, Bubbles, my first laugh of the day was this comment of yours. Bat cave. The pun. Laughing……
Dearest Asp Emp,
Da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da
Batman!
😂
Luv Bubbles xx 😘
Bubbles, OMG, I loved Batman when I was a kid. My sister and I used to sing along to it (she taught me the words cos subtitling on the tv didn’t exist then)……KAPOW! BANG! CRASH! WALLOP! – those pop ups on the screen…..laughing at the memory, ah, Batman and Robin…… 🙂
Asp Emp, me too!! I was always thinking, in my little empath/love devotee child’s mind, of the pros and cons of each, which I would marry if I was all grown up!! Robin, so cute! Batman, so manly! Haha, thanks for that memory!
AV, I was not even considering marriage at 6 / 7 years old, never mind to either Batman or Robin for that matter……dressed in public like that?! 😉 I think my sister and I were not the ‘princessy’ type of girls.
Probably about the time I quick watching Batman and Robin was about the time my romantic nature left me. Haha, I have a low love devotee percentage, it’s there but it’s not much. Back then I just thought it was the thing girls did when they became adults. But the misery of my parent’s marriage changed that. And, they didn’t always dress that way. 😂
Dearest Asp Emp,
Batman was great, not so much Robin
See …… we were even into ‘masks’ bat then 🦇
😂
Luv Bubbles xx 😘
Bubbles, yeah, we fell for the masked crusaders ! I’ll tell you a secret, I liked Batman too, in his ‘birthday blues’ with his 8 pack 😉
I must be a narcissist because I am sure I will die alone unless my family are still around.
I do not tell others about my health, and I really try to blow off—or escape from—people who talk about their ailments.
I just don’t have capacity for that type of empathy, especially when I see so much of it as fake.
Mine is still alive, and his primary sources are non intimate partner. From the interactions I’ve had with him in the past and things he’s said, he does not see being alone as a consequence of his own behavior. Even in situations where people got away from him because he was emotionally abusive, he would spin it, and in his mind, he was the one who got away from them by choice.
Mine isolates and spends a lot of time alone, and is a victim lesser. Although if anyone ever got a hold of him to diagnose him, I think he’d qualify for schizoid pd tendencies too, plus he has substance abuse. I think the chances of him ever coming to any sort of realization about himself are pretty much close to zero.
Hi Wendy, I have wondered similar things. My daughter worked for years in a care home and would talk about those who never had family visit, sometimes for years. We take about how sad it was, back then prior to knowing about narcissism. Now we have come to think many must be narcissists that people walked away from. Or conversely, they are an empath discarded by narcissists in their old, feeble age. Another woman who worked in such a home once told me of the couples who would come and one or the other would insist on being as far assist as possible. Now I understand that.
If my mother ends up in a home I do not believe I would be visiting, it would be a relief. But she gets fuel from everyone, as I suppose they all do, for her a visit to the doctors is a veritable fuel fest. It is sickening, always has been but even worse now that I understand it. The good news is that it makes my ANC painless, I have almost zero empathy for her.
Thank you again, for sharing your thoughts here.
A. Victor, thanks for sharing this and yes it is truly sad to see those that die without a loved one. Both scenarios I’m sure in play, being left by someone, prob a narcissist and the narcissist who burned all their bridges in life. If they were horrible people while in good health they will not have their family show up for them when in poor health and when dying. I understand how you feel about your mother completely.
I suspect the vast majority.
I read about a man who made a huge scene at a funeral because it was not about him, but about the grieving and the deceased. That man will not be missed at his own funeral. But I guess it doesn’t really matter. It would only matter if he found himself alone in the nursing home, which he probably will.
BC30, wow, it really is amazing their unbelievable ego!
Seriously? Haha that’s a sentence my mother always uses to refer to egotistical people: “s/he would kill to be the deceased one at a funeral just to be on the spotlight!”