The Eight Exploitations of Empathy
You are an empathic individual. This is why we chose you. This is why we want people like you because you have certain traits which appeal considerably to us. You have traits which are ripe to be exploited by us and only someone like you can provide such an opportunity to our kind. You have certain traits which we need to exploit for our own purposes; these are eight of them
1. Trust
You cannot operate without trust. You trust us with your heart from the very outset. You readily give it to us and allow us to place our hands around it. You trust us to keep it safe and protect, unaware that our nefarious hands covet the provision of your heart. Your trust is absolute and unconditional and this enables us to exploit it repeatedly by doing as we please,acting behind your back and breaching your trust over and over again. Your reaction when you learn of our breach of this sacred trait is enormous and fuel-filled and the driver behind our need to take and shatter your trust. The concept of trust is so inviting that even though we will fracture it, we will endeavour to repair it and win it back just so we can breach it again.
2. Honesty
Your openness and honesty results in your signing your own fate by furnishing us with so much information about yourself. From your hopes and desires through to your weaknesses and vulnerabilities. You are content to detail it all to us as you live by a code of honesty, always wanting to tell the truth and for the truth to be provided to you. We know you operate by this trait and we will feign to be an honest person at the outset, free with our expressions of how we truly feel about you. How more honest can we be than to tell you that you are the person we have waited our whole lives for? Yet, honesty is for you and never for us because we operate in the shadows of dishonesty. Your honesty may be a strength in your eyes but to us it is a weakness as you have opened yourself up before us, exposing yourself to us, showing your neck to us as our forked tongue slides across our sharpest teeth.
3. Decency
You must always do the right thing. To do anything else is anathema to you and we know that this attribute of yours leaves you susceptible to our many machinations. You are polite and well-mannered. This means that you will accord with our initial overtures and listen attentively to whatever we say. You accept graciously our gifts, not realising that they are bribes to ensure you become chained to us. You always answer our calls, reply to our messages and open your door when we appear, not matter how often or how unannounced. This requirement to be civil and decent allows us to frequent you to such a degree that our charm is in and around you so often that you have no chance other than to succumb to it. You will not turn away, you will not slam the door in our faces but instead give us the toehold and time of day to weave our malign magic over you and seduce you.
4. Equality
You expect to be treated as you treat others and when the devaluation eventually commences and you find that such concepts as consideration, reciprocity and equality of treatment are missing, your alarmed and emotional response is the engine for the fuel we need. You operate by the maxim of do unto others as you would have them do unto you and thus you treat us with love, affection and kindness. Its absence by return causes you considerable consternation and upset, which enables us to draw the fuel from you in significant amounts.
5. Fidelity
To be faithful and receive fidelity in return is of significant importance to you. Your own dedication to the ideal of faithfulness means that we have little concern that you will have your head turned by others, no matter how badly we treat you. You will not transgress this ideal, even though you may suspect or even know of our own flagrant disregard for the concept of fidelity, you will remain true to it. It pains you, it hurts you but as a person of principle you will abide by it. You do not do this through any notion of pride or to seek some kind of accolade, but you do it because it is part of you. A constituent part of your moral fibre and full in the knowledge of this sterling attribute of yours, we shall do as we please with little concern that you will treat us in the same way.
6. Tenacity
You do not give up. You exhibit an indefatigable spirit which invades every element of who you are. You will not give up on the idea of you and me. You will do whatever it takes to please me, to win back my golden grace which you once delighted in. You will hang in there determined to ensure we get back on track. You will not walk away because to do so would be to admit failure and this is not something that you can countenance. No matter how bad the abuse, no matter how terrible your treatment, you will cling on as a consequence of this trait. We are well aware of this and welcome such a tenacious approach, for it provides with a guarantee of your attention and support.
7. Healing
You desire to heal and to fix is perhaps one of your most notable traits. The desire to nourish the good in people and bring it to the fore. You believe that everybody is capable of becoming better, including yourself which is why you are so selfless and giving. You strive to find the ways of making a situation better for somebody, you want to make the sad person become happy, the worried person calm and to ease the concerns of all you come across. Most of all you want to fix us because you believe we can be fixed. We will not disavow you of such a notion, not at all, it serves our purposes to keep you thinking that you can make a difference.
8. Loving
Your love is immense. Unconditional, vast and seemingly unending. Like the largest reservoir, your love is that which we must ensnare and once achieved we drink from it with an unending thirst. You are devoted to the idea of love and we will exploit this repeatedly. We exert control over you by suggesting to you that you must not love us if you will not do that what we want. We test your love for us by placing immense demands upon you knowing that you will always rise to the challenge. Your love for us is such that it is sweeter than that which might be obtain from others but it also remains intact for far, far longer. It endures the torrid devaluation and the heartless abandonment so that we know we can count on being able to come back once again and take hold of your love yet again for our own unsavoury and malicious purposes.
29 thoughts on “The Eight Exploitations of Empathy”
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One has to remember that the Empath is Superior to the Narcissist, the empath being the host, and the narcissist being the energy parasite. Therefore the Empath can survive, and thrive, without the cruel destructive manipulations of the narcissist, they can and do find authentic and kind individuals who don’t set out to destroy them. Narcisist abuse is devastating, some don’t recover, or even take their own lives.
The Narcissist needs the empath to feed their emptiness and feel real, they can’t do without. Yet the Empath does not need them. The Narcisist is therefore inferior.
And yet who is it that is left curled up in a ball weeping as the narcissist simply moves on to the next prey seamlessly and efficiently?
You have such Brutal charm HG……
I agree.
I don’t think it’s as easy as that Mr Tudor. Why do you panic when an empath is on the verge of leaving for good? Surely you’d just say ‘bye then’.? Mine got desperate and victimised himself, texts galore
I never panic.
Some narcissists do. It’s the reaction generated by their narcissism to compel them to take action to nullify the threat to control posed by the potential departure of the victim. It is short-lived however as control is always achieved in one form or another, the short lived duration a contrast with the deeper and more sustained impact on the victim who is disengaged from.
HG: mine has escalated. He just simmers in hate. Some narcs don’t move on. I don’t know why. Over 12 years of this shit. I don’t contact him but I did react as his latest song smearing me with my picture basically that someone sent me. I told him to get a dog. Clearly he can’t find anew woman. As he is a victim narc sort if, I told him seeking sympathy … well the dictionary has sympathy between syohillis and shit. Now I move on….but he always said he will destroy me or kill me. He is sick.
Oh I see. It would seem they always get control back somehow – unless your strict no contact regime is adhered to properly. Its so hard. Thanks for your reply
Even when you are no contact the narcissist will gain control through the second or third assertion of control (see The Three Assertions of Control from the knowledge vault) although there’s no direct impact on you.
Thankyou HG. Do you do home visits?
A consultation will give you what you need.
But does doing so make them superior? It is all a matter of perspective I think.
Not all Empaths curl up and weep and if they do… not for long…and not all narcs move on… some simmer in anger and bitterness and stalk and post angry songs all over social media two years after you left them and they never leave you alone despite how many blocks you place, they find the way those tech savvie angry narcs…. Not all are you. But you know this…
“One has to remember that the Empath is superior to the Narcissist…”
That strikes me as a delusion of grandeur, honey.
“Yet the Empath does not need them.”
Addiction does not ask what you need. It decides for you.
“The Narcissist is therefore inferior.”
There is no such thing, sweetheart.
The narcissist wins by making you play the game. You win by refusing to play it in the first place.
The moment you believe that, as an empath, you are inherently superior to anybody else, you have already lost and are exhibiting one of the indicators of narcissism.
There are plenty of narcissists who shape your life every day: those who ensure you can sleep safely at night; whose poetry, music, art, and literature you admire; who build businesses that bring food to your table and fuel to your car; who rescue people from burning buildings or save lives on the operating table.
Narcissists vary. Their schools vary. Their intellectual abilities vary. Their capacity to destroy varies. Their capacity to build varies.
“The Narcissist needs the empath to feed their emptiness and feel real, they can’t do without.”
Yet the narcissist also recognises the emptiness within the empath when ensnaring them, mirroring precisely what the empath longs for but cannot provide for themselves.
Many people carry some form of emptiness, and each attempts to fill it in different ways.
Jordy honey. I am speaking specific. Those who harm. Not those who don’t harm who happen to create great things. Anyone normal, empath, narc, psychopath can be smart, successful, artistic, or inventive. We are all humans. I repeat we are all humans. My issue is with direct harm. 80%of homicides in the us are by someone you know. Serial killers per Robert Ressler: 100% were abused as children. He said there is a very short period of time to intervene. I joined this blog as I know what’s it’s like to face a dispute with a psychopath and a narcissist. Guess what? Fear of death is part of it. And that’s good instincts. I am done with that. I would rather be single forever than with another. And I would love to help adults and children to protect themselves so I educate. I read HG, occasionally others and I read lots. Maybe I will volunteer in retirement to help in someway. Especially trafficked kids. But I know I help those in my orbit and it comes from education. I have no issues with cluster B who don’t harm or commit crimes, some do not. But if you do, I believe in locking them up until their only time outside is in a coffin.
Jordy: can you say the same?
If so, why not? There is no judgment from me, i am just a simple human voice walking this planet among you. But I have a curious mind. What say you?
One other thing: I have thought about this as most my loves in life have been empaths. But I married a ASPD and a narc. I think he admits to it as his latest song about me… well he speaks about having no ego to defend against poverty and injustice. For me… I am not a mental health provider. My life was working first as a prosecutor then a lawyer and my best achievement was a mother. By all accounts I am a good mom. But I question the addiction as I only had two Cluster B. But I kind of get it. With my first husband the ASPD, I was not addicted at all but I did choose him as a good father and he is, and the money. Guilty. I liked what he offered me and my children. Would I have agreed knowing he was a criminal: NO. My second husband: yup. I am going to be brutally honest: he is a broken child. He is dangerous and harmful but he doesn’t mean it. He wants to be loved so desperately. He lives in an isolated world of fantasy. Deep down he lives in shame, fear and often thinks of suicide. He drums on to fulfill the fantasy of others , I don’t think even himself so his glandeur of fantasy was not even innate. He was made to believe he would be an artistic superstar. His mother told him he would never need to work while she isolated him, abused him, parentified, controlled, told him he could not drive, could not play guitar as Dhad… etc…she made her child her spouse. When you see it. When you witness the horror up front and direct, when you understand it… after time concealed it and you are being love bimbwd. When you wake up and truly see a broken child….well what would a healthy person feel opening up a cargo stuffed with trafficked children from Mexico? You look at their little faces, you see the horror, you see the evil people who did this and YOU CARE! It’s a human horror and you know know the truth…. The sadness I have learned is you can’t fix it.maybe God can but you cannot. So these traumatized children grow up to be traumatized people. Thank God it’s only a small percent. You cannot save them but I disagree.it can be improved for a time. But you can protect yourself by trusting your instincts and going as best you can to no contact or putting them in prison if crimes committed. I think the addiction is motherly instinct to fix the broken child! Go for it if he is at 2 or 3 or young but as an adult. It won’t work. Yet what empath who feels the call of a broken baby or toddler trying child…doesn’t feel that instinct towards love and healing. It is not an addiction … it is a fixed instinct! The addiction part rolls in when you allow that urgeorinatinxt to hurt you or others.
Hi Jordy: psychopaths and narcissists who do no harm to society and contribute are valuable members of society. Problem is often they harm. Everyone has a background that predates them, this does not excuse harmful behavior. We must hold people who harm and abuse accountable. Not all harm is criminal. I am talking criminal harm. There is a good program on Netflix now called Allegedly. It’s a true crime podcast by a brilliant journalist. So take Rex Heuremann. He was arrested a few years ago for being a serial killer and is a narcissistic psychopath ( like Ted Bundy, etc…). Now he was also a husband of 27 years and a father and no evidence that he was anything but a good husband and father. He was a successful architect working on big projects for targets and American Airlines, no doubt his skilled work contributed to society. But he was also a killer who took the lives of at least 8 young women. Torturing and killing them in his home. Many of them mothers to young children. He also was into vile violent poem and child porn ( endless harm). How do you define him?
To me, the BAU is studying him, he will be a helpful lab rat. Lock him away forever. No one is un-replaceable except to those we love and who love you. Plenty of people can be a great architect. What we don’t need is monsters like him in society.
Hey dear Jordy:
I never feel empty. I think however I have a lot of mothering instincts. A bomb could go off, I would not wake. My child gets up, bling! Awake. It is a strong instinct. When I look back, I see the mistake I made with him. At first, he had a good job, handsome, that sexy British accent, educated and helpful to my life …. But he also shared early on a terrible childhood and the need to find his father who abandoned him. In comes MOM. I hire a detective agency and find his dad, I try to fill his life with love and purpose. He got a drivers license, learned to play guitar, reattached to old friends, was a step dad, got his own dog but she was mine too completely, I loved her too, traveled. Sex was amazing. But I don’t think he filled in any emptiness. My life is stuffed full with people who need me or at minimum value my counsel. I think I ignored signs because the sex was great and we had common interest and he helped me start my own law firm. Valid reasons. It was not all bad. But he is a nonstop victim. He nonstop seeks sympathy. And although my exes were not like that or far from it, rich successful men are often daddy like which irritates me. He was a broken child and I think that for me….i didn’t have enough education or know how then and felt love and God could fix all things. God can but that’s up to him. I’m cannot and failed. I think this narc ensnared me because of lack of education ( thanks HG) and he appealed to my motherly instinct. I don’t want to be in that role again. When we divorced I worried ALOT about having to pay child support. People would say but honey you don’t have kids with him? I would smile and say “ I know.” 😉
Now the addiction. Well I don’t have family or friends and most of my IPSS are not narcs. But I see it in that I do still care about him as I see him as so damaged. Mentally ill. I keep my distance as I am fearful he could harm me. I went no contact but last year he sang about sleeping on the pavement and it got to me. Here I am on a luxury trip and my ex husband ( of a couple months) was homeless. Oh no! I must help! I consulted HG. It was an attention seeking act and not even true. But I am afraid I will always pity him. I will always wish him well the despite the harm he has done to me. I still see him as a broken child. That is my addiction. But I think bears especially baby bears are cute too- that does not mean I could walk up and hug one! HG has helped me understand that I am not responsible for a grown man. I owe HG a lot!
Contagious
Dear Contagious! I absolutely love reading your comments! Just know that you’re wonderful. I hope you’re doing well.
I feel the same way about you and even your pic makes me want a much needed vacation… it’s been over a year.
Josephina: Tonight I had another thought after watching this Spanish series where children are abused. If anything causes me to action , it is that issue. I often think where I can use my skills to help and I will. But we were talking about psychopaths and despite their different wiring per the man who coined psychopaths, all were abused. I was in court on a construction case, and the jury poll before for me in LA was asked who had been abused: half raised their hand. The case was a little boy whose bio father tried to get him away from the mother’s abusive boyfriend but the boyfriend put him in a fridge. He died. CPS was sued. This brings me to the Turpin case outside of LA where one girl ran away but 13 children were found malnourished and basically tortured. Chained to a bed. Most had physical and developmental issues. Then came foster care and there was more abuse then came lawsuits and now the money to care for them. But a couple weeks ago a dozen or so children were found in similar circumstances in OHIO. Most malnourished suffering physical and biological defects and some as young as two. The parents and grandparents have been arrested. But I often wonder: how can this happen? How can we help? I have sensed it even with a teen calling child protection services when I saw an older man and a child at a Cracker Barrel. I was a big sis volunteer. I founded a charitable arm for a child abuse center but ironically some of the teens there are both victim and predator ( rapists). I always am kind and ego building to my neighbors children, they like me and hope trust me. There are these three girls home schooled that I worry about as they seems to be highly controlled and their religion is considered by some cult like. I hope my kind and ego building words sound and that they could come to me if in trouble. Unlikely. But it is so sad. So little people can do to protect children. You must keep your eyes and ears open and my hope… any kid who meets me … thinks I am safe. But what is scary too… like HG…. They are at risk of narcissism and psychopathy if not both. Teachers are so important. Too important as so much responsibility on them. But hats off to the good ones as they are in a place to make a difference. I had the best pediatrician. She was from India and she when the children were prepubescent would tell the children no one is to see you naked – not me- not mommy or daddy without your permission. She took the time for about 10 minutes hitting this theme home that it was their bodies and their right alone. And if someone makes them uncomfortable, if someone wants to touch, you tell someone you trust, you call the police at 911. God bless this woman. If only every doctor were the same. I personally feel right or wrong, anyone who can harm a child is a psychopath with zero empathy or perhaps a paranoid schizophrenia or someone with no reality. What say you? Ideas to help? Thanks
I suspect you may be HG. in drag….
Hi Jill:
No HG is far more intelligent and successful than me and we are both straight… I think. I am. I can see and understand that you think I lack empathy for my ex but you don’t know the whole story of his abuse both physical at first and brief and mental and financial etc… if you knew you would understand. I paid for his food each year that he lived there and not with me. And I offered to help but I could not let him back as he was a danger to my safety. So my decision to move on was a logical one but emotionally difficult:) sorry if I came off as not caring about him. I still do but he is not good or safe for me. Even with normals or empaths… sometimes you must go. There’s reasons you stay and reasons you go.
Also Jill are you here to promote drag? Transgender? It’s ok that you do. I believe in free speech but it’s lease respond;)
Hey Jordy:
Part two and slightly off topic. But tonight I watched Ted Bundy mother speak at his sentencing hearing. She was a nervous housewife and mother. She married a cook who was Ted Bundy stepdad. What was interesting but maybe prepped was that she could rattle off every job, every school years and dates and said she had a phone bill that showed how often she spoke to her son. She spoke if late nights helping with his homework. She did not find him to be a difficult child. He was a hard worker She raised him and his 4 siblings but there was a short period that Ted lived with his grandparents from birth to four. She was a Christian and felt the death penalty was barbaric and wrong and she planned to visit him and she did when on death row. She felt Ted had a lot to give to society. Ok a mother and a mother who knew what he had done but she seemed to love him, and be committed to him.
But pan to Ted and I saw no emotion. In fact I got the impression he was embarrassed by her. He took a few notes, spoke to others during her testimony and there was no eye contact. He seemed disinterested. She would look at him but he didn’t make eye contact. I did find her “ oh yes I will see him” almost chipper attitude a bit disturbing because she had to know he raped and killed many but this was a sentencing hearing and it appeared she was doing her best for her son. I have seen interviews of the brother who adored and looked up to Ted and the cousin who was close. By all accounts I have seen Ted Bundy a narcissistic psychopath lived a double life. There is no evidence the mother abused him. Or of abuse. But the instability is that due to economic reasons before she remarried he lived with her parents but all remained close through his life. Fascinating really as Robert Ressker who coined the term serial killer says 100% of serial killers come from abuse. She said she loved her children equally too. No evidence he was a golden child, a scapegoat, etc…. Now you would think something happen to make this man a monster but what? Worse… what if it was all genetic?
Watch every portion of the trial and it is obvious he has no empathy. He is grandiose. And he was reckless….and impulsive and a predator of course.
Oh and he scored 39 out of 40 on the psychopath test by Dr Robert Hare!
I remember how much I read and learned about him back then. I watched documentaries, feature films, read books, and listened to interviews.
I remember sitting on the steps of my medical university in complete despair. At the time, I was very naïve and genuinely believed my ex was just like him.
My thoughts were something like:
“I wish you had cancer instead. At least then I’d know what to do. But here… I don’t know who could possibly save you.”
He was brought up thinking his mum was his sister, mother and son as siblings living with his mums parents (presumably because she had Ted at a young age and it wasn’t ‘right’ back then if you were young and unmarried. There’s definitely a genetic/nature factor, but also a nurture one too that triggers it off. Maybe Ted’s biological dad was a narcissist/psychopath, maybe his mother was and she was playing the victim with tears/pretending to have been the ideal mother. She mightve smothered him and treated him like a spouse for her emotional needs?
I thought psychos were born psychos and narcs were made – how does that work with Ted I wonder. Fascinating true crime stuff
So very true….