Knowing the Narcissist : Love Me, Hate Me, Never Ignore Me

I want your love. I want your hate. I want your joy. I want your tears. I want every single emotional ounce that you possess and I want it directed at me. It is easy to understand why anybody would want to be loved because isn’t that what everybody only ever wants to have? To love and be loved. Of course it is. I only ever wanted to be loved and no matter what I did, no matter how hard I tried it was denied to me. Push yourself harder, go further, work harder and you can have it. I was promised that gain repeatedly and I complied. I strove and I toiled and I grafted. I studied, I obeyed, I trained, I ran and I ran fast, I jumped and I jumped higher than anyone else. I tackled, I shot, I pushed, I swam, I wrote, I complied, I answered, I read and I read. I did everything that was ever demanded of me. Does that sound familiar to you? Of course it is. You know what it is like to give your all and it still not be enough. You know what it feels like to keep trying until you feel like you have nothing left to give anymore. Why do you think that we are so effective in extracting that sensation from you? It is because my kind has been schooled in such a technique for so long that it becomes second nature.

Of course I was praised. I was encouraged. I was supported. I was pushed. I was told and instructed and ordered. The plaudits came but there was always the caveat.

“That is an excellent result, next time try for one hundred per cent.”

“Brilliant time but I know you can do it faster. You just need to try harder.”

“It is good but not as good as you can do. You are better than that.”

“Not bad but you will let me down if you do not get to the top of the class.”

Still, although it was conditional praise it was still praise nonetheless and this combined with my endeavours meant that I was never ignored. The achievements accumulated, the prizes were gathered and the accolades were acquired. Upwards, always upwards. Accordingly, your praise and admiration means so much to me. It was always the standard by which I was judged and so it is the same now. I crave the adulation and the passion, that is why I work so hard to cause you to give it to me. I want it, I want to be seen, I want to be recognised and that means I must receive your emotion sodden attention. It does not matter if you are shouting at me or beggin me to stop, so long as it id directed towards me. This is why everything I do is calculated to provide a reaction.

When I am seducing you, you must never ignore me. I have too much invested in your acquisition to lose you to someone of something else. My bombardment of you with messages and attention is to draw you to me, but it is also to ensure that you do not venture somewhere else and I am denied your attention. This is why I will text you and if there is not a prompt response I will text you again, then again, then call you and then turn up at your house. I need to know you are responding to my seduction. I need to control you. There is too much at stake to allow you to ignore me.

Once devaluation begins then I need once more the emotionally charged attention that comes from you weeping, shouting and screaming. It never troubles me in the same way that it troubles you to be shouted at. I require it and all it does is make me feel powerful because I know that I can prompt these responses from you by virtue of my manipulations. I know by saying nothing that you will beg and plead with me to explain what is wrong, hang around me, eyes wide in confusion as you beseech me to tell you what you have done wrong.

I am not fussy about the emotions which you pour my way. Good or bad I will take them all. The bad do admittedly make me feel more powerful but the sweet potency of favourable responses and eyes glowing with admiration are most welcome too. That is one of the reasons I alternate back and forth, making you happy and joyful towards me and then full or woe and anger. The contrast reinforces my omnipotence because I am the puppetmaster. One moment I can make you laugh and then with a flick of the switch I have you in tears. That is power. That is control and this is what emphasises my greatness. Yes, I know you consider such behaviour wrong. I am well aware of that and do not be fooled by any pretence to the contrary. I am fully aware that such behaviour is considered, bad, wrong and evil, according to your values but you ought to know that this game is not being played according to your rules. It is played with mine and I always have to win.

Should you be treacherous and be the bad person that I always suspected you to be and ignore me, then I will provoke you all the more in order to gain my reaction. Few of you realise that this is the aim, at least, not until much later. You are unable to understand this sudden escalation, this switching because of the confusion that you are mired in. I am grateful that this is the case for when you ignore me I begin to crumble. The edifice that I have built up begins to crack, splinter and fracture and I must escape your betrayal and seek out the emotions of others in order to compensate for your seditious behaviour. If I cannot bring your love or hate to the fore, I cannot remain to be ignored, for that is my death sentence and I am not allowing you to sign that warrant. I must be loved for I am worthy of the most perfect love, I must be hated because my works are that of the devil and attract your furious ire. Always look my way, always give me your emotions and never turn your back on me. Do that and all will be well. At least, for me, but then, isn’t this all about me anyway?