The Gaslighting Narcissist
© 2017 Lise Winne
© 2017 Lise Winne
I received a correspondence from someone who claimed to be a narcissist. He said he had been officially diagnosed by a qualified psychiatrist with NPD.
He wrote to me with a pseudonym. In other words, I do not know his name, age or location. He said he contacted me because he was reading my blog, and he said that it made him uncomfortable that I was listing all of the tricks of the abusers' trade (on the side right panel of this blog) and even going into narcissist's thought processes.
He said: "I know that there are a lot of survivors who are talking now and exposing how we think and do things, but listing them all in a row is a first. Part of me hopes your blog doesn't succeed in reaching many visitors, but I know someone else will just come along and do it if you don't."
The fact that he is a narcissist with gold child status and that he is from an abusive and neglectful alcoholic family, I wondered if he would be interviewed. He said it was his idea before it was mine. Since this blog covers abuse in alcoholic families and narcissistic families, it seemed like a good opportunity to find out why he turned out the way he did. I did not know what to expect, knowing that most narcissists lie, generally feel they have to be in control during the interview process and paint themselves out to be exemplary. So I had no idea what to expect. As it turned out, I believe that the answers I got from him were aligned with the literature I have read over the years about NPD.
He didn't want me to use his pseudonym, fearing he might have used it again in some other correspondence, so I asked him if I could use a single letter (V). He agreed to that.
My fist question was:
"Why would you want to be interviewed if you don't want me to expose who you are? Don't narcissists like exposure?"
V: Not necessarily. Why do narcissists do anything? It is always about obtaining narcissistic supply. Narcissistic supply is in kind of a crisis right now because so many survivors are talking about abuse and ringing the alarm bells. We can't charm and interrogate new supply for hours on end like we used to, for instance, without being suspected of being narcissistic and abusive. It is very hard to be a narcissist right now.
L: But you still haven't explained. How are you going to get narcissistic supply when you don't tell who you are? Isn't part of narcissistic supply about drawing attention to yourself, being in the limelight? Getting interviewed in a public way?
V: Actually this is a test to see whether any kind of public exposure at all is good narcissistic supply for me. I'll see how you and others respond to what I have to say and I'll decide what to do with it afterwards. I'm finding it hard to be myself, the heartbreaker narcissist I have always been. Not that I have a conscience about it, or at least I don't think I do to the extent that most people do. I have regrets, but mostly at being caught and told I'm a narcissist. A lot of people have walked away from me. I live alone. Narcissistic supply is low. If I'm reading between the lines you've left about your own story, you've gone no contact with your narcissist too?
L: This is not about an interview about me, but I realize that this is what narcissists do. They information-gather to see where you are in the abuse cycle and how much you're being effected by abuse, or if you've left in disgust and so on. Am I right?
V: Yes, but I could be lying. Narcissists lie.
L: Even about making themselves look bad? It seems to me that narcissists lie to make themselves look better, way better than they actually are, not worse.
V: Mostly you are right. There are times we want our partners to know that we could care less about the fact that we broke their hearts, that we are laughing at them when the tears are rolling down their faces. We make a point of letting them know that we want them to suffer as much as possible on our behalf. So there are times we get off on being Machiavellian. Only in private though. But if Donald Trump can get away with it more and more in public, I'm sure we will all take note of that.
L: So what you are telling me is that you enjoy hurting others, is that right?
V: Yes, that's right. I don't just choose anyone though. I'm careful about who I choose for emotional destruction.
L: That's awful. I don't know why I'm giving you attention, frankly. What made you like this, do you think? Was it your childhood?
V: I had alcoholic parents. Both of them. My father got a huge inheritance and used his inheritance on leisure, sailing, womanizing and booze. Lots of booze. My mother had lovers too, but not as many, and she only had them to take away the pain of being cheated on by my father. So I learned that taking advantage of women was normal. It was in my blood to do so. It was what I knew at a very young age. I never knew anything else. I also had an older brother who was 11 years older than me was who was assigned as my babysitter and he spoiled me. He became an alcoholic when I was only 5. My father eventually threw him out of the house when they no longer needed a babysitter for me. He didn't do well. He became a drug addict and no one knew where he lived after he turned 44. I became their favorite child who could do no wrong. You know about that because you have written a lot about the golden child. I think I was assigned that role because I made excellent grades in school and enabled them to do what alcoholics do. I didn't challenge them. I have a very high IQ. But in my core basic self, I am just like my father.
L: So you said you were careful about who you hurt? What do you mean by that? What is the makeup of the people you hurt?
V: The ideal woman for me is blonde with curls or ringlets like a child has. Very, very beautiful. She is also innocent and innocent looking like a child. She doesn't have a heavy support system. In other words, she is from a dysfunctional family who doesn't really show her love or care. She is ignored when she talks in family gatherings. I like women from alcoholic families particularly. A woman who tries to get the parent to stop drinking for health reasons is the best bet because she's going to be empathetic. She is trusting, has horrible self esteem even though she is absolutely gorgeous. So she is love starved for me. I come in and take care of her, and then I watch to see how much she falls for me. Usually I'm pretty good at this and it doesn't take much time before she sees me as the love of her life, her soul mate. As you have written, I mirror her likes and dislikes too, and make believe that she is the only woman for me. Eventually I start testing her to see how much she will allow me to control her. Usually quite a lot. Way more than most people would suspect.
L: So if she's the perfect person, why would you want to risk getting rid of her by hurting her?
V: I don't consciously think about her leaving me over being controlling. At least not until recently when so many social media posts are about signs of narcissists. Before then, it was just a matter of threatening her more if she started being recalcitrant. These kinds of women are not good at putting up a fight. They can be talked into being women that are too selfish, ungrateful and emotional to be attractive. It's very, very easy. They also don't have anyone to run to. It's not like their family is going to take them in or care. The general public isn't going to care because I think, in general, most people really resent pretty women even if they are glorified in the media. They have the attitude of "What's that pretty woman crying about? She's got the looks, the clothes and a man with money. What's she got to worry about?" My experience is that most mothers try to convince their daughters to stay with me too, to put up with me. It is because I got an inheritance. They try to convince their daughters I have always been the dream man before they developed PMS or postpartum depression or something of that nature. The family likes to blame it on the usual emotional ups and downs that women experience, I have found. Some parents refer to their daughters as crazy, so it makes further blaming and gaslighting work like a dream for me.
L: So what is it about women from alcoholic families in particular that you like?
V: I found that alcoholic parents always tried to keep their daughters with me so they did not have to contribute financially or emotionally. You know how it is. Their main concern is drinking, so whomever can take their kids on is what they want.
I think many of them liked me training their daughter to be more compliant too. They wanted that for themselves, of course. They also liked the fact that I came from money and an upper class family with some fairly well known entrepreneurs in it. The parents mostly had the attitude that their daughter was my problem to deal with. That's why I like my women to come from alcoholic families. It puts me in immediate control of them.
Also, if my girlfriend has an alcoholic family, her family is going to be comfortable with my alcoholic family. A lot of hard core alcoholic families are rarely concerned with womanizing tendencies, so no one protests when I have partners on the side. This allows me to be the most hedonistic narcissist I can be. Everything to alcoholics is too much work, too attention-sapping, too hard to deal with, even the welfare of their daughters. Their favorite phrase is "I just want peace." They just want to drink and not care about anything, particularly a grown child.
L: Have you found that the parents of any of these women have narcissistic tendencies?
V: In my case it has been alcoholic families mostly. I'd much rather the parents be alcoholics than anything else because I know how to handle alcoholics. Narcissists are about game-playing, competing, trying to get me to bend to their will, or humiliating me. The mothers who seemed high on the narcissism scale have also tried to seduce me sexually away from their daughter. They were all disgusting, otherwise I might have been tempted to work in tandem with them to hurt their daughters, since I seem to be driven to hurt the women I love.
L: Seem to be driven? It sounds like you don't have impulse control. Surely that isn't the case.
V: Let me explain it this way. To me it is like alcoholism. It is like an addiction in that I like the thrill of it, but it gives me a roaring headache in the end, particularly if she can no longer be seduced into thinking it is all her fault for the way I treated her.
L: Because abuse and narcissism awareness are so big right now?
V: Exactly. And it has opened my eyes to what I'm doing too. Before it was just that I was an ACOA to be pitied and to feel sorry for. In a pinch, I would say I needed to control everyone and everything because people expect ACOAs to be controlling. I grew up in a household of irrational and unreliable alcoholics and I had to find a way to self-control and control what I could of my own environment. That meant controlling others too. I made excuses for myself constantly. I would harangue my victims about how hurt I was by my parents just to get them to feel sorry for me. Beautiful women like to fawn all over guys who have been victimized. Regardless, I believed wholeheartedly that I was the victim of alcoholic parents and I could explain every bad deed I did with ACOA excuses. Everything that went wrong that I couldn't blame someone else over was because I was an ACOA. Narcissists lie to themselves as much as they do to others. They excuse themselves because they see themselves as eternal victims.
L: I noticed. But ACOA isn't about enjoying hurting others.
V: Exactly. When I figured out I was a narcissist, and that I had all of the traits, the game was over. It was especially over when my victims said I was a narcissist, and when my parents went broke, died and the flow of money dried up. I still try to play the game because I'm addicted to it.
L: Addicted to hurting people? That's not a thought that most people can comprehend.
V: You can comprehend it if you think about serial killers. There isn't much difference. We kill people emotionally because it is easier when it comes to the law. And a lot more easy to get away with than what a murderer does. You give the silent treatment and the woman who was on the receiving end of it is about as gone as any murder victim. And you can smile in the most upscale social circles afterwards. You can toast to yourself for a job well done in a fine restaurant and not be worried about being hunted down by a police investigator. Cops don't care about the silent treatment. You can hang out with people with money, seduce another innocent woman and do the same thing to her as you did to the others, run believable smear campaigns on all of your victims, go dancing, go yachting. The world is still your oyster even when you've made someone suicidal, made them beg on their hands and knees for mercy. You traumatized them beyond their wildest imagination, because they never really suspected you were so cruel, and you get away with it all because society does not care. You can't do this when you murder people physically. Emotional murder almost does the same thing as physical murder, except your victims might speak. But you keep them silent by threatening them. And believe me, no one speaks. Until recently. But even then, people who know about narcissism are taught by their money-soaking therapists that narcissistic rage isn't something you want to provoke in us.
L: So you hurt people because you think you can get away with it?
V: I'll admit that I love seeing a really beautiful angelic beauty with tears flowing out of her eyes. Her heart is breaking for me. Little ol' me. That's a thrill. A woman who is crying because you are leaving her for another woman, even if that woman doesn't match in the good looks department, is powerfully ego enhancing. It gives me so much power! I feel giddy and arrogant, carefree and flippant. I'm high five-ing myself. I'm on top of the world because I won!
Of course, you want her back or in a threesome competing with another blonde, so the silent treatment is never for too long. It doesn't always happen that she takes me back, so I tell her that I can't live without her just to re-engage her back into my harem. You do what ever takes the least amount of work and commitment to get her back and under your control.
Before gorgeous women, I was never important to anyone. I really wasn't important to my parents even though I was a golden child. I had to be the biggest phony for my parents in order to be given the honors of being their golden child, so to me it was never a real victory. It was just a way to survive. In your post about favoritism, you talked about how some golden children have to make up stories about their siblings so that they stay clear of the drunken rages. That was me. Drunks are easy to please as long as you enable their drinking and never challenge them.
When I realized I could take those skills and be a phony to beautiful women, I thought "Now we're talking! The life I always wanted!" In the beginning I f**ked a lot of women and didn't care about their feelings. I was indiscriminate. I realize that most people think it is a sick thrill.
But is it much different than using a prostitute who is desperate for money? If she wants your money bad enough, and she's on her last dime, she'll let you poke her any where, right? It's the same thing with these women. They want me to love them and take care of their sweet innocent selves, but there is a price to pay. I'm only required to love them and care for them if I want to. And that can change. There are no laws saying that I have to treat a woman right, or be kind, so I refuse to if I don't feel like it. I try to get away with what I can. Alcoholic families are not going to care that much about what goes on in their children's relationships.
L: So are you sensitive to criticism like other narcissists? Is a woman who stands up for herself perceived as criticizing you?
V: A woman who gives me flack about any of part of my behavior is intolerable. It's not that I can't stand criticism, though I can see why many insecure narcissists might cry the blues over it. It seems they can control the amount of criticism they get if they blow up at people over it. I pity them for being so thin skinned because that's a weakness. I still believe, however, that the thin skin is an act so that no one will challenge them, so they can exert control and tell their victims what to say about them.
L: What do you do if you are losing control? Isn't losing control inevitable?
V: If I have another woman in the wings, I'll just convince the other woman that my present girlfriend is crazy and victimizing me. The fact that I'm challenging my girlfriend with another woman I might leave her for, is another incentive for her to stop being recalcitrant. She's well aware that she's not the only one in the picture and if she sticks up for herself too much, I'll leave her for a new woman. Sometimes I'm just bored with my girl and leave with the other woman anyway. I don't enjoy being in a relationship with one woman more than two or three years. When women don't feel they are anything special or deserve anything, you can get away with so much. It's what I wanted. An easy life, plenty of women, just like my father, only without the drunkenness.
L: So your whole philosophy is to only deal with women who don't challenge you? Doesn't that create a one-dimensional existence? To me that would be like living on planet earth living next to a volcano and never knowing what the rest of the earth was like. You're just dealing day in and day out with a volcano that could blow at any time.
V: Narcissists don't like the spice of life. They create it. They are the spice of life. They like people and things to be predictable. That's why we always put you in roles. Women who are a challenge aren't my preference, though I understand some narcissists like it. I especially feel that way if I am supporting a woman. I feel fine kicking them to the curb without a backward glance. That is, until recently.
L: Because of social media putting the spotlight on abuse?
V: I'm getting older too. And yes, I've been accused of being a narcissist. I left a lot of women in pain who don't want me back at all and have made my life miserable talking to each other. I'm going to keep saying my causing them pain was unconscious in a way. My excuses worked for a long time, even to myself, especially the ACOA angle. I never thought I'd be rejected or called a narcissist. You get arrogant and feel you are infallible, or that you will pop back into form, like you will always be accepted back no matter what you do.
L: So have you changed? Are narcissists capable of change?
V: No, I don't think they are capable of real change in terms of transformation. You still have that addiction whether it is active or dormant. I attribute my very minor change to a very high IQ and wanting to learn about narcissism. I went about learning about the subject to argue my way out of what was being said to me by my exes, but I found the descriptions fit me, no matter how many excuses I gave and counter blaming I tried. None of it worked. They knew and I knew. I doubt many narcissists come to that conclusion. They think they are still always getting away with lies even when the lies stopped working for them years ago.
I also became aware that abuse and tricking people was an anomaly and projection on my part. I really did think that everyone was like me or would want to be like me given the option. Still, I don't believe I can truly understand what an empath feels or what motivates them. Without an exceptional IQ, there is no way a narcissist will change, even a little. They will just keep trying to find more innocent gullible supply, even hitting up very young children if they have to. A young child isn't going to know about narcissism. Or even that their pain is due to abuse. But, children are hard to extract supply from in the long run, especially your own.
L: Does that mean you have children?
V: Yes, from a number of different women. I brought them up the way my parents did, trying to get them all competing with each other for my love and admiration. I find that children see through your game more than women. I'm estranged from all of my children now.
L: No golden child hanging around for hand-outs?
V: The golden child became a consolation prize. When a golden child is the only one left, you feel deflated. What you want is the competition between your children. You go through tremendous withdrawal about the lack of competition. Again, this is about an addiction, not about a relationship with your child. What you do with your child is never a relationship if you are a true narcissist. You set them up to compete, and if they don't compete because they've been reading up about narcissism, or their mothers are giving them books about narcissism, you can't have the game you desperately want. Narcissists are capable of deep depression like non-narcissists. So the golden child just seems like this desperate actor who only hangs on because everyone else has left, who will say any phony thing you want to hear. Maybe I'm projecting. You are right that we are probably pretty guilty of projecting throughout our lives.
L: So does the projection get to the level that when you hurt other people, do you think they are planning on hurting you, so you retaliate? In other words, is it a pre-emptive strike against a phantom hurt?
V: I was attracted to the most innocent empaths, so most of the time no. But if I was in a relationship with a woman who had some narcissistic traits, then maybe. I think my exes all developed some traits of narcissism after being with me, so I wouldn't trust them now.
L: So do you think you are awesome? Are you self-aggrandizing?
V: Yes. It's part of my brain chemistry even when I know it is not a logical. But I have to really, really force myself to think logically about why I might not be as awesome as I think I am. Self reflection is hard. It terrifies me to think of myself as like everyone else, plain, unexceptional. I frankly don't know how anyone else lives with those thoughts either. You want to feel really superior so you can get what you want. Anyway, I feel good, even when I cause a woman to cry. To empaths that doesn't make sense because they would have guilt, shame, regret, be apologizing and so forth. I think narcissists are as happy causing deep emotional wounds to their spouse or lover as they are when they are drinking and being the life of the party. There isn't much difference, or differentiation from the two emotional states like there would be in an empath.
L: So where does the self aggrandizement come from if you can will yourself to think logically, or the opposite about it? Where do you think you are better than others?
V: In the sense that I get away with so much. And that I could acquire many beautiful women who I could practically do anything to just because I had money. They'd stick around even through painful betrayals. Often they worked harder for me when I betrayed them. That's heady. I suppose it is like owning a horse. You try to break their spirit so they will do what you want them to do. You're the master.
L: I can't believe that would be fulfilling. And from all I have read, women leave men like you. So you are abandoned. How does that make you feel on top of the world?
V: It's the addiction to being emotionally abusive. It's like saying "I got drunk at a bar. I drink a whole liter of vodka every day and no one notices that much. I'm pretty awesome that I can fool so many people!" It's not like winning a prize at something inventive. It's not about loving someone and being proud of who they are and the children you have made together. It's about being satisfied that you lied, took advantage of someone's belief in you, abused them, and didn't get caught.
L: So is it like having a sex addiction with multiple affairs? Did you try to keep the women apart so that you didn't lose a single sex partner?
V: Yes, it is very much like that. It's not just sex though. It's getting to control someone's perceptions of you. And not getting caught that you are a liar.
L: But you did get caught, didn't you?
V: I got caught, but I still haven't paid for it.
L: Isn't losing relationships a way you have paid for it?
V: In some ways. But don't forget, I'm still a free man. I can still go out there and do it again to someone else and there are no kids or exes around to tell them who I am.
L: Do you use an alias, like you are with me, to get more supply?
V: I have thought about it, but no. I'm still in shock that I'm a narcissist. If I wasn't so bright, I'd just keep on doing this, and to some extent, I still think this way when I'm on automatic pilot. I learned how to be this way from my parents. It is ingrained in me. It is a family tradition to cheat, lie, womanize, blame everything on someone else, to be thought of as admirable because you are a phony. Tricking people into being narcissistic supply for you isn't hard at all. Even an empath could do it if they put their mind to it. All you have to do is find an empath from an alcoholic neglectful family, interrogate, find the weak spots, exploit, fault-find, gaslight, terrorize, discard, love bomb, repeat. Not difficult.
L: So why do you think most empaths are not inclined to do it?
V: Stupidity? Not caring if they are crucified on a cross? Telling the truth when lying would bring them a much better outcome? You tell me.
L: No, I don't think I will expound on that subject. I'm interviewing you.
V: Stupidity then.
L: No, stupidity is rigidity, an incapacity to change or learn. If abuse is an addiction then you are too stuck in the cycle of the addiction to learn anything, which is the epitome of stupidity. If you live a life of lies for personal gain and convenience, then the truth has to be separate from you, only something others are privy to. That describes stupidity too. When you are so closed off from the truth entering into your consciousness, then you will have to drive yourself insane trying to keep all of your lies straight. You'll never evolve into anything, or reach any kind of enlightenment about anything, or know anything other than your own lies. That is another definition of stupidity. It sounds like living in a haunted house with a lot of anxiety, frankly.
V: You see? That was a trick! You said you weren't going to tell me why, and you did. Narcissists are good at this! But let me tell you, I'm not stupid, and my fellow narcissists are not stupid either. Our intelligence lies in game playing and war strategy. I would put money on it that if you had a chess convention, and pitted a narcissist against an empath at every table, the high majority of narcissists would win over the empaths. To the narcissist, life is a game with winners and losers. The winners get to advance, while the losers stay behind and kill themselves.
L: Kill themselves?
V: Depression, losing, being unpopular, and injustice kills people.
L: So what you are saying about injustice is the game includes cheating.
V: Of course. Especially if you can get away with it.
L: I think empaths like working with others for a more just and peaceful world.
V: We know that. That's why we choose you. Because you want this cotton filled soft gushing love romance with compassion and equality, a life that resembles a heaven with rainbows, and we can take advantage of those deep desires in you, confuse you into thinking it is possible with us. You actually like forgiving us and making excuses for us because you feel sorry for us and the bad childhood we endured. That's your mistake! We're actually disgusted by how you act about it all, but we're drawn to you anyway because you're turning the other cheek, excusing us and looking the other way when we're abusive. It validates our fraudulent selves and criminal abilities like no one else can. It excuses the cheating, acting and lying we do. On top of it all, we'll compete with you about who is more empathetic and kind, even if we have to make total lies and BS out of it, even if we embarrass ourselves for not being believable. The battle and who wins is what is important to us, not how we get there and what tactics we use.
L: But what if the empath walks away from the game?
V: We don't care what you do as long as you think about us. If you don't think about us, we go through terrible withdrawal and wonder who you are talking to. That makes us paranoid, so we tell as many people as we can that you are abusive and crazy. We also make you seem stupid too, if we can. It's the only way to win if someone doesn't want to play our game.
L: You mean the smear campaign is the only way you feel you have won?
V: Correct.
L: So suppose you tell as many people as you can that your victim is abusive and crazy, and that victim accepts that they have been smeared, and goes away entirely forsaking their past, and pursues relationships with people the narcissist does not know? How does that work out for you? Let's face it, that's how many survivors end up.
V: As long as you aren't effecting our potential supply we don't care who you are with. We will defend our supply, our potential supply and our territory to the bitter end against you. To us, we own the people we share in common. Those people belong to us, not to you. We won those people, not you. Our supply are mostly pawns, things we maneuver in a chess game. We need those pawns. We need the kings and queens to validate us too, but a lot of pawns are what we collect and are invaluable to us. As long as you aren't talking to those pawns, we are fine with your relationships, with people we don't know. Except (and here's the crunch) we want all of your people too.
L: Why? It's not enough that you have conned all of the people we both know?
V: No. Anyone you are talking to we regard as potential supply too. They are a threat to our superiority, even if they are unlikely supply or people we would ever come across in our day to day world. We really believe we should have all of your people on our side too, not on your side, so that your self esteem remains in the gutter, so that you are forced to capitulate to us. We also feel threatened if we think there is a connection between your supply and our supply. We don't want there to be any chance that your camp is talking to our camp. We want to keep all of you separated.
L: So how do people react to your divide and conquer strategies? Is this how you feel superior, by maneuvering to take people away from us?
V: Yes, because people are so stupid that they believe us, that they don't investigate anything. It's amazing that people fall for what we tell them so easily. The only time they aren't so easy is when they have been burned by a narcissist before. So it does contribute to why we think we have superior intelligence.
L: So what if there are a lot of people in our world, and we seem to be doing well? Say we have a very active social life and know hundreds of people. Also let's surmise you have given us the silent treatment -- and we've moved on and don't want you back?
V: The more people there are in your world, the more threatened we feel. So if you are, say, in the public eye, we have an immediate compulsive need to dismantle that or effect it in some way. We might need to do a fast hoover, a total love bombing effort, even pretend to others that we love you to death, just so that we can find a way to manipulate you and your world. We don't want you to hate us and be devastated in that case, so we pour on the love with great regret at having to stoop to your empathetic level. We expect you to be punished for not being controlled by us, permanently punished. We love the idea of the tears we left you with, but if you find a way to be admired and loved without us, we know we have lost and that we are nothing. That is extremely shocking and provoking to us. We cannot stand to lose so we have to re-engage with you to get you back into the game.
L: So an empath should never see reconciliation with a narcissist as genuine, right? It's just tricks like love bombing, manipulation and hoovering, yes?
V: Yes. Absolutely. Would you trust an alcoholic who said he never wanted a drink again? Alcoholics want a drink all of the time. They can't get their minds off of alcohol even when they have been sober for a couple of weeks. Life seems lackluster and boring without alcohol. Just ask any of them. Sobriety is very hard to maintain. Will they go out and drink again, especially if a little voice in their head says there are no repercussions from drinking, and that no one will ever notice they slipped? Probably. It's almost a definite, isn't it? On that basis, will a narcissist abuse the target again when they think they can get away with it? Probably. Again, it's almost a definite. We don't come back into your life to be nice to you, though we have to pretend to get through your door. We come back because we think your life is getting so far away from our ability to manipulate it, and the people around you.
We especially hate targets who read about narcissism. We know they are disgusted with us when they find out who we are, but disgust is the territory of true narcissists. Empaths aren't supposed to be disgusted. They are supposed to be making excuses for us and forgiving us and living in fantasies of peace and harmony. We thought we had the upper hand in the disgust department.
L: Really?
V: Disgust and disdain are for narcissistic control, not for an empath mindset. Even so, I am genuinely disgusted by empaths for being gullible and thinking the world is love and peace. Or unicorns and rainbows.
L: I tend to think that we are entering an era where the empaths being disgusted by the narcissists and the narcissists being disgusted by the empaths will eventually separate the two, like a doves and hawks dichotomy. The empaths aren't going to want to be hawk-like and the hawks aren't going to want to be dove-like. So "birds of a feather must flock together." You should be with your own kind.
V: That's my biggest fear, being stranded with a bunch of narcissists and sociopaths. I'm not attracted to any of them, but I can see how it happens. I'm sure some narcissists get stranded with these awful cast of characters like prisoners in a jail cell. It is harder for them to keep empaths when articles about narcissism constantly come up in facebook feeds. It is the new topic of the day and it is gaining a lot of momentum instead of losing it. You can't just say anything you want any more. Narcissism is getting harder to hide. Especially in the circles I travel in. It's my present crisis, a crisis I never thought I would have to face. My dream was to die with a dutiful wife and several mistresses all pining for me. I thought I'd die a kind of God. But the victims are getting the limelight. The hero worship has gone to the empaths. I really can't see flying with my own flock with that going on. I still really long to be the lone hawk diving for the weakest dove I can hook my talons into. If I can't have that, I'm at a loss. I'm not cut out to be a dove. I'd have to totally disguise myself. I think I may die alone.
L: Most narcissists do. Psychologist Judy Rosenberg said as much.
V: On that note, we are done with this interview.
L: And you make the decisive move.
V: Like any narcissist would.
After the interview ended, I still had some questions rattling around in my head that I wished I had asked. One was a subject that kept popping up over and over in the survivor forum I belong to. It's a subject that survivors have a hard time understanding at all.
So I decided to ask him if I could give him a few more questions. I actually thought he'd reject my request, as the end of our session he seemed short and dismissive. And I knew that narcissists liked to reject what ever they didn't initiate or control. But to my surprise, he was willing to continue provided it was just a few questions, and that I understood that he had a right to end any of them. I agreed. So here is what transpired:
L: After we got done talking about family dynamics, and narcissists playing chess with other people's lives, I got the vision of a narcissistic authoritarian family playing games as their primary family pastime, and a typical empathetic family playing music together as their primary pastime. Am I onto anything here?
V: Maybe. My family played a lot of games after dinner. We never played any instruments together, not once.
L: Interesting. Did your family practice the silent treatment on any of its members?
V: Yes, but not as much as I did.
L: So was there much cohesion within the family? Were there outsiders and insiders, and some who never showed up at family events? In other words, did the family seem loosely connected to you, like there was almost a total breakdown of bonding? What I'm trying to get at here is the silent treatment being part of family tradition in some way.
V: That goes without saying. But some members were joined at the hip too. My parents tried to control it all, but they couldn't do it effectively because they were drunks.
L: Okay, last question: I belong to a survivor forum for adult children of narcissists. Post after post after post comes up about how the narcissist ruined their wedding or their sibling's wedding. There must be a thousand posts on that subject alone. And the responses are commiserating responses like "My mother ruined my wedding too. It's what they do." However, no one really understands why. Because the last thing we would want to do is to ruin our child's wedding. Or not attend. It's unfathomable to people on this forum as to what narcissists get from not attending. They like narcissistic supply, so wouldn't having a lot of inlaws give them that? And if they do attend, why are they so obnoxious and loud that no one wants to be around them? Where is the narcissistic supply in that?
V: This should be self explanatory. They can't stand their child belonging to someone else. They thought the child was all theirs. So if they don't attend, they are sulking about that and trying to punish you for leaving them for another man or woman. Narcissists want all of you, and if they feel they are denied that, they discard you.
If they make a scene, it means they are outwardly showing their anger over the fact that you got married. They want to f**k up your wedding, ruin your dress, ruin your time, ruin the cake, ruin the guest list, get the band to stop playing. They may not do all of that, but they want to. It's like throwing a wrench into all of your plans for a happy and peaceful wedding so that you won't ever dare to upstage them again or make them second fiddle. That means they hate the spotlight on you.
I can't believe that thousands of you didn't get this.
further reading:
What Do You Do? Getting an Apology from a Narcissistic Ex After You’ve Gone No Contact -- by Dr. Tara J. Palmatier, PsyD
**recommended: When a Narcissist Makes an Apology -- by Sharie Stines, Psy.D, for Psych Central
**recommended: The Fake Apology -- from the Freedom from Narcissistic and Emotional Abuse website
Apologizing to a Narcissist -- by Kim Saeed
* a forum for narcissists to answer questions ... they talk about how they are dealing with apologizing in this thread: Apologies and Narcissists
excerpt from Cool Blonde:
... I can agree that before becoming aware of my Narcissism, I rarely apologized and I think one reason is that I don't usually realize when my behavior is harmful. Also, in the times that I do realize it, it is usually well after the fact, which then makes it especially awkward to apologize. Another thing that makes it especially difficult for me to acknowledge guilt and apologize is that I have so little self esteem that I tend to feel a deep sense of shame rather than what you might call a "healthy" sense of guilt. Then when I feel the shame, my first reaction is to fight it off and bury it before it can "destroy" me. It's kind of distracting, to say the least. This sense of shame is much stronger than guilt, in that it is a feeling of being worthless as a person and cuts right to the core of my being, whereas guilt is more like feeling bad for something I DID, without affecting who I am as a PERSON. Although it is rare, I have felt regular guilt before, and at those times, I felt that I was able to apologize. The problem is that I usually don't know how to approach it so instead I'll sometimes do something like treat the person especially nice or buy them something ...
excerpt from T.C. Brown:
I agree with other panelists that this question has two parts: before diagnosis and acceptance of NPD and what begins to happen after this occurred.
I rarely apologized for anything I did before learning of my NPD. The reasons are very similar to what others have talked about. I had a heavy sense of negative shame which made me feel as though by admitting I was wrong that I was saying I was a bad person, unworthy of love and all the good things in life.
It was during this time that I did not understand other people were real, with feelings that are not there for my personal manipulation.
Lies Narcissists Use To Make You Stick Around -- from The Rebel Circus website
How to spot a Narcopath or Narcissist lying -- from the Narcissists, Sociopaths, and Flying Monkeys - Oh My blog
45 Lies a Narcissist Tells to Control You -- from The Narcissist's Wife blog
The Pathological Liar: Sifting Thru a Narcissist’s Word Garbage! -- from the Narcissistic Partners & The Relationship Agenda website
* a forum for narcissists to answer questions ... Lying
