I have spent an interesting couple of months being entangled in three different relationships/dynamics with men who exhibited highly narcissistic tendencies.
It has been painful. And scary.
I have been forced to confront the following. To admit being a victim of narcissistic abuse means admitting that human nature really might not be all that “good deep down. That indeed, a person’s core can absolutely rot. Then, there is another possibility that is more frequently preferred: there was some hidden “goodness” in the narcissist which was driving the whole thing–this is “cheaper” for us to believe, it gives us a false feeling of control, and it keeps us away from accepting the ruthless brutality of truly broken people.
It might be a mistake to project our evil onto the world–but I think it’s even more dangerous to project our goodness onto the world. If we do this, we simply will not survive.
I would not be surprised if I myself didn’t suffer from some form of narcissism, but I must own that I have some redemptive qualities in the core of who I am that haven’t changed amongst the radically disparate circumstances of my life. The first and foremost: I cannot abandon anyone in my life who is emotionally fragile in any way. Even if someone I hate begins to cry — my whole world stops. I drop everything no matter how important. I forget my own pain in the presence of another’s. I become completely open, attuned, and attentive until they are okay.
I have made the assumption that others protect accute vulnerability in the same way — and hope that you don’t make the same mistake, because if you are dealing with a narcissist and you twist your arm… you bet they are going to break it off. If you are crying, they will say anything just to make it worse before promptly hanging up.
Even at the height of my selfishness, in my early 20s, I remember being there for a partner I knew I was eventually going to have to split up with. He was really fragile during the last few months of our relationship and I wanted us to come to a shared understanding of our irreconcilable problems before ending things. Being in the more emotionally secure position,I stayed with him, essentially as a friend, until he was ready to officially split things off. Having had my share of traumatic and chaotic breakups since then, I have wished that any one of my exes had been willing to do the same for me.
Narcissists do the exact opposite of this. If and when you are emotionally fragile, you are not useful. And if you are not useful, you are not just a neutral obstacle but have committed the cardinal sin of asking for them to care about anyone else but themselves. If they gave you anything at the beginning of the relationship, when you’ve reached this point, they will not sacrifice even a sip of their coffee and complain that they can’t hear you through your sobbing, so maybe you should call when you “get your sh** together”.
I have stayed willfully naive to this fact for years.
The best protection is to be a careful study — to understand that there are psyches out there so deep and so dark and so twisted that it would benefit you to keep a vigilant watch on yourself and any potential intimate partners you come across. If your problem is over-giving, JUST BE SELFISH. You already have an internal radar which will tell you when you’re wrong, so be adamant about your needs. There are only 3 possible outcomes in a relationship with a narcissist:
(1) you compromise your needs in the beginning,you get used, and they leave you.
(2) you morph yourself to the narcissist’s demands to become quality supply and then they choose you as a “partner” so long as you keep this arrangement or until they find “better” supply.
(3) you stick up for your needs in the beginning, you only give as much as you get, and they leave you.
Hopefully this helps.
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