Your Lonely Life with The Narcissist
In the egocentric world
of Your Narcissist, YOU
do not exist, at least not as a real person. You exist as a service provider, a
status symbol, or simply a source of emotional ‘supply,’ that they gain through
a toxic feed-back loop. The REAL you, the one they seem to laud when they are
in a state of dysregulation and must recharge your batteries through that
intense ‘thing’ that they do-LOVE Bombing. The minute your narcissistic
son, daughter, partner, or friend, realizes you are becoming fed up with
them-they flip the switch and turn on the charm. The charm is not a genuine
recognition of your strengths, although they know you have them, the charm is a
tool of manipulation. It is like petting the cow before you milk her, a
veritable ‘Here Kitty-Kitty’ routine designed to set the stage from round two,
or after years of abuse, round number one thousand, Welcoming you to Gold Star status in the Twilight
Zone of Trauma-Bonding.
It is not like you never
suspected something was wrong with your ‘person,’ or imagined they were
defective in their social skills, to say the least. The truth is you had no
idea they were Fake Entities, made up of pure deception and
fraud. It is even more likely that you never knew there is a name for your
person: Narcissist, and that that are descriptive and definite
categories which your narcissist fits into like a glove. If your narcissist is
covert, their ‘mask’ was so well developed that it may have taken you decades
to identify them as The Problem and not you. Like a snake
slithering in the grass, they camouflage themselves with superficial charm and
intense emotional storms of ‘gratitude’ and pleas for forgiveness, leaving you
only one noble response-to brush the erroneous behavior aside as a mistake.
Despite the gross
manipulations, your inner warning signs set off alarms that you ignored or
excused, chalking it up to some eccentric nuance uniquely
theirs. You always suspected something was not right with Your
Narcissist, but they were so good at covering their tracks that you
discounted your concerns. People who exist in their own realm hiding behind
deception and a false identity, are like ‘Actors’ in which the ‘Stage’ is real
life; yet there is no reality. The Narcissist is a walking, talking, oxymoron,
an ironic, enigmatic conceptualization of all the best parts of a normal
personality, yet peppered with confusing behaviors that are far from normal. It
is like an Actor entered your life at some point and never left the role. The
REAL person that you thought was great, never existed.
The reason most
narcissistic people develop a penchant for deception and role playing is
simple: they know they are flawed, but refuse to accept it;
instead, they create a false image composed of everything that YOU like, like a
custom-made persona. The Narcissistic person is often a good worker, and very
intelligent, so they are capable of understanding what is expected of them, and
they can deliver. The Narcissist at work may perform exceptionally well in many
types of settings, in the church system, they are saints, among friends, they
are ‘the best,’ always willing to help, but at home? At Home is a
different story because the average narcissist gets comfortable at home in
their own environment and they feel entitled to be themselves,
to kick off their shoes and remove the mask.
The problem with a
narcissist being ‘themselves’ is which self will they be
today? The Abusive Tyrant raging because they were frustrated or dissatisfied,
or even bored? Or will they put the mask on and play a game of “Love
Bombing’ to keep the targeted person in the relationship duped?
In all of the chaos of
narcissistic games, unpredictable behaviors, and rollercoaster cycling up and
down from happy to sad, the victim is fully alone in the room,
wherever ‘the room’ may be. The Love Bombing stage makes it seem like the
narcissists care about you and are willing to ‘see’ you and listen to you, but it
is like a quick breeze on a hot day, it quickly passes. The 'love' of a
narcissist is like the taste of honey that was not honey at all.
Loneliness gradually
sets in, where you feel as though the narcissistic family member or partner is not
aware of you as a person. This is apparent when you are excited over your good
news, or a personal accomplishment, and you rush to immediately share with Your
Narcissist, with your eyes wide and your heart full of cheer, only to have your
news discounted in favor of a distraction. Right in the middle of your notice
that you received a promotion in which your salary was doubled, they will
nonchalantly ask if you remembered to buy milk on the way home. Flabbergasted,
you answer “No,” because who is thinking of milk with such tidings to bear? The
energy of the revelation is halted, cold water thrown on your lifetime
accomplishment, so for a brief moment, you have a flash of anger; but not
willing to further ruin your announcement, you ignore it. A huge Red Flag was
just waved in your face, by years of conditioning has trained you to keep quiet
and forget about it.
In another scenario, you
just enjoyed a great movie and want to share, when they break the flow of happy
cheer with mundane distractions:
‘Hey, let’s go to my mom’s,”
or ‘I think I am going to run a quick errand-be right back;’ even worse, they
pick a fight over something inconsequential right in the middle of your story.
Your joy and happiness were once again interrupted. Years may pass before you
feel the impact. You are alone in your own world, there is no room for you
in the narcissist’s world. After endless pointless conversations in which
you attempted to make your concerns known to your narcissist, you accept the
fact they do not live on the same planet with you.
The sudden realization
that your narcissist does not ‘hear’ you or ‘see’ you, is like an abandonment,
even a death. The person you loved with all your heart, and whom you sacrificed
much of your own happiness for their comfort, as Brett Butler said to Scarlet
O’Hara, does not “Give a Damn.” It is over. The illusion is broken, and the
‘relationship’ you thought you had, never truly was a true ‘relationship’
between two present and participating adults. It was a ‘relationship’ of One.
The mind is an amazing
tool that adapts to the circumstances it functions in; therefore, cognitive
distortions put in place, begin to crumble. An earthquake takes place, and your
world is turned into a shambles, as the brain and heart experiences a total
reorganization-as everything that ‘was,’ is no more.
You are truly Alone.
Sara
Niles
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