7 Sayings on Cessation
1. After everything that I have done for you.
How can you leave me after everything that I have done for you? I gave you the world and now you have thrown back in my face. I of course only gave you everything because I wanted something from you. I did not give you my all because I loved you. I gave you so much because I wanted everything from you and I was so close to taking everything from you. Now that you are trying to escape me, you are suggesting that I have failed and that I am not brilliant nor magnificent and I cannot stand for that to be the case. I want to blackmail you into staying. All that I gave you were not gifts, they were bribes and now it is time for you to earn them, so you had better damn well stay.
2. But we belong together.
We do belong together because I own you. I bought you with my false affection and dishonest love. I attached you to me and bound you in chains that are long and thick and you dare try to cast off those shackles. I do not know where you end and I begin. You thought that was romantic the first time I told it you but I was actually telling you a rare truth. You and I are one because you are subsumed into what I am, I consume you, I envelope you and I control you. You cannot walk away from me now because we are too enmeshed, too attached and too conjoined. You are tearing me in half. There is no you. You gave that up when you allowed yourself to be drawn towards me and bound so tight to me that you became part of me. What has been joined together can now not be undone.
3. I will die without you.
You cannot leave me because if you do you shall surely tear my poor heart from out of me. That is suitably dramatic and is designed to pull on your heartstrings even though I am telling you that this is how brutal and heartless you are in trying to end our relationship. I cannot allow this to happen because I have not finished my seduction of your replacement and if you go now you will take away my precious fuel before the new source has come online. This will leave me panicked, chaotic and driven into a frenzy in order to gather fuel from other sources, if I am able to that is. If I cannot I will no longer exist and it is all because of your selfish, wicked behaviour. How can you cut me down like this? How can you slay me in such a callous fashion? Heartless harpy, seditious slattern and callous crone that you are.
4. I cannot help what I do.
You cannot leave me just because of what I have done and what I have not done. How is that fair? I thought you were a fair person, open-minded and caring, are you not? I doubt it now as you are intent from getting away from me and all because of the way I have treated you. Look I am sorry, really I am, but I cannot help it. You make me that way with the things that you do. No, I am not trying to push the blame on to you, I am explaining it to you if you would at least listen to me. How can I explain that it is just something that happens when you are walking away from me? I never intended for it to happen you know, it just happens and you should be the one apologising to me because you make me lose my temper with your control and the games you play,you are doing it now you fucking bitch, I hate you, do you hear me? I hate you. It is your fault. Not mine. I can’t help it.
5. Why do you want to spoil everything?
I really do not understand you at times. I mean, what do you have to complain about? We live in a beautiful house, you have an expensive car, a platinum Amex and I let you do whatever you want but still it is never enough is it? Yes, I know I sometimes i have to lay down the law but if I didn’t you would spend us out of existence. Do you know how hard I have had to work to build all of this? It doesn’t just spring up overnight and I did it for us. You have used me. I welcome you into my life and this is how you repay me by spoiling our idyllic life. You would be nothing without me, do you know that? You have a fantastic life, all provided by me, there are hundreds of other women who would give their right arm to be with someone like me and you are going to throw it all away and leave. I knew there was something not right with you, you need help,you are insane. Ask anyone and they will agree with me.
6. Who will help me now?
You cannot leave me, who else is going to help me? I have kept you here under figurative lock and key, a virtual prisoner in your own home because not only do I need you to fuel me but I need you to mother me. That was the agreement when we got together. I would feed you false love and fraudulent gratitude and in return you would cook for me, clean this house, wash my clothes, cut my toenails and wash my hair. You would wait on me hand and foot and be at my beck and call. I cannot do all of these things on my own and I haven’t got the energy to find someone at such notice with you leaving. You are such an awful person, to leave me like this, especially when I am ill. Who on earth does that to someone? You should think of others and not just yourself you selfish cow.
7. Don’t go, I will change. I promise.
You really are going to go aren’t you? Good Lord, I didn’t see that coming. I thought you were good for another six months of abuse and mistreatment before you somehow plucked up the courage to try and escape me. I don’t like to admit it but you have caught me out and now I am concerned, I can feel the control slipping away from me and I have to get it back, I have to stop you. A crack around the face has worked in the past but something in your eyes tells me that even giving you a good hiding won’t stop you going, even if you have to crawl out of that front door. I know, I will throw myself on your mercy. You will like that. You have always been trying to save me, well here is your chance. I will change. I will get help. Just please do not go. Of course I mean it. I will do anything to stop you going and taking my precious fuel away from me and making me look a fool in front of all my adoring admirers. I cannot have that happen so yes, I will get some treatment, I know I have done wrong and this time, more than ever, I will change. I swear it on the lives of anyone who springs to mind so it seems like I really mean it. Of course I don’t, why should I change? The only thing that will change is my primary source of fuel but that is not ready yet so you need to stay. Please. I will change. Don’t go.
3 thoughts on “7 Sayings on Cessation”
Vent Your Spleen! (Please see the Rules in Formal Info)
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“But we belong together.”
There is a lot of meaning, endeavour and speculation behind those four, seemingly innocuous words. This is true for all people, not just narcissists and empaths.
Recently, I have been reading about and contemplating the Polyvagal Theory, as coined and elaborated by American psychologist Stephen Porges.
The Polyvagal Theory is a very interesting look at human physiology and behaviour, with nods to both evolution and human sociality.
While the theory itself is too complex for me to describe here in one comment, it is well worth learning of and reading about for anyone interested in understanding narcissism and general human behaviour.
In my own reading and consideration of the theory, it is clear that Dr Porges reiterates that the Polyvagal nerve in the human body is a key to understanding human responses to threat as well as human responses to sociality. In explaining the theory and thereby explaining the human need to be social, Dr Porges repeatedly uses the term: ‘to feel safe in the arms of another.’
In Porges’ view, the main objective in relation to a person’s wellbeing, growth and progress is to feel safe in relationship with others.
In my own consideration of Porges’ statement ‘to feel safe in the arms of another’, there is more to feeling ‘safe’ for a human being than to feel safe when being in relationship with another person or other people.
To illustrate what I mean, it helps to think of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, a theory attributed to Abraham Maslow and recorded in the 1940s. Maslow’s theory comprises of a five-tier model of human needs, depicted by hierarchical needs within a pyramid.
At the base of Maslow’s pyramid are physiological needs, that is: breathing, water, food, shelter, clothing and sleep. These are the basic ‘elementary’ things a person needs in order to feel safe. These things are essential to survival.
The second tier of Maslow’s pyramid are safety and security needs, that is: health, employment, property, family, and social ability.
The second tier of Maslow’s pyramid is only achievable once the first tier is fulfilled. A human can focus on things like employment, family and social activity only when he or she can be sure of having adequate breathing, water, food, shelter, clothing and sleep. Before these very basic elements of safety are fulfilled, the person’s individual survival is under threat.
Going back to Dr Porges’ Polyvagal theory, it seems to me that in his theory of a human’s physiological need to feel ‘safety’, Porges generally jumps over the first tier of Maslow’s theory and assumes that the second tier – feeling safe in the arms of another – can be fulfilled without first considering the very elemental needs of survival, which are the elementary physiological needs.
My comment may seem like it comes out of the blue to those reading here about narcissism. If you study narcissism for a while though, taking into consideration HG’s teachings *as well as and in tandem with* other information about human behaviour, the various aspects begin to become more interrelated.
Wiser now! Very interesting. There are also brain chemicals at play. Consider this Harvard study:
https://hms.harvard.edu/news-events/publications-archive/brain/love-brain
I have read several articles on how love can be addictive as the brain chemical released causes it. It is a feel good drug. Love is a drug lol.
So if narcs don’t love but they love bomb. It is as HG says an addiction. Literally!
Hi Contagious,
Yes, I agree, I think it’s interesting too.
Thanks for mentioning the article. I find the passages below from the article you have referenced particularly compelling.
The following passages describe analysis done on “the first functional MRI (fMRI) images of the brains of individuals who were in the throes of romantic love” – as stated in your article.
“Photos of people they romantically loved caused the participants’ brains to become active in regions rich with dopamine, the so-called feel-good neurotransmitter. Two of the brain regions that showed activity in the fMRI scans were the caudate nucleus,a region associated with reward detection and expectation and the integration of sensory experiences into social behavior, and the ventral tegmental area, which is associated with pleasure, focused attention, and the motivation to pursue and acquire rewards.
The ventral tegmental area is part of what is known as the brain’s reward circuit, […] This circuit is considered to be a primitive neural network, meaning it is evolutionarily old; it links with the nucleus accumbens. Some of the other structures that contribute to the reward circuit—the amygdala, the hippocampus, and the prefrontal cortex—are exceptionally sensitive to (and reinforcing of) behavior that induces pleasure, such as sex, food, consumption, and drug use.”
While reading these particular passages, I recalled an article that I read recently. This article – detailed below – is about the neurological effects of habitual porn consumption:
Title: ‘Watching pornography rewires the brain to a more juvenile state.’
Source: ‘The Conversation’
(This article is located on the website: NeuroscienceNews.com.)
Specifically, your article about love, Contagious, reminded me of this article due to the findings it describes, as follows:
“To try to explain these effects [i.e. sexual dysfunctions due to long-term pornography use], some scientists have drawn parallels between porn consumption and substance abuse.
Through evolutionary design, the brain is wired to respond to sexual stimulation with surges of dopamine. This neurotransmitter, most often associated with reward anticipation, also acts to program memories and information into the brain. This adaption means that when the body requires something, like food or sex, the brain remembers where to return to experience the same pleasure.
Instead of turning to a romantic partner for sexual gratification or fulfillment, habituated porn users instinctively reach for their phones and laptops when desire comes calling.
Furthermore, unnaturally strong explosions of reward and pleasure evoke unnaturally strong degrees of habituation in the brain.”
Contagious,
You say that love “is a feel good drug.”
I can see and understand what you mean.
After reading about the effects of love on the brain – as well as the effects of other things on the brain like food, sex – and drugs – your comment makes sense.
After thinking about it, though, I would describe the effects of ‘love’ in a slightly different way.
If you think closely about the following line:
“..when the body (i.e. biology/physiology) requires something (i.e. depends on something for survival) like food or sex (i.e. elemental physiological needs for individual survival), the brain remembers (i.e. via evolutionary adaption vis a vis surges of neurotransmitters like dopamine) where to return to experience the same pleasure (i.e because it is a physiological survival need).
I find it interesting that ‘love’ – that little four-letter word that is notoriously difficult to define in simple and concrete terms – has the same effect on the brain as food or sex (or drugs).
In that respect, it can be grouped with other basic ‘physiological’ needs.
Humans are social animals – we live in groups and can’t survive and progress in the long term if alone. Therefore, sociality is akin to a ‘physiological’ need.
It makes me think that the word ‘love’ is actually holding back people’s understanding of the human need for sociality and co-operation.
Maybe it would help people to stop glorifying ‘love’ and thinking about it as some kind of mystical aspiration.
Instead of glorifying some mystical and unrealistic ideal of ‘love’, it would be more productive and progressive to consider that sociality and social cohesion is a basic physiological need.