You get the majority of your Narcissistic Supply from conversation. So it is vital that you control the flow of verbal interaction.
Other people might want to discuss themselves and their lives. They call this sharing, you call this a waste of your precious time. They might want to talk about the things they love, which is very boring unless it’s you they love then it’s fascinating and nourishing, unless they want to criticise you in some way, have you acknowledge some wrong which they incorrectly believe that you did to them, or point out a mistake which you made which you couldn’t have possibly done as you never make mistakes. This is unacceptable and it drains what little energy you have and therefore they must be censored.
Controlling and censoring others is easy for you. You simply do to them exactly what you do to yourself. You are always very careful about what you say and how you say it. It is impossible for you to express yourself spontaneously, every word which comes out of your mouth has been vetted and edited and passed through all the filters in your mind. You only speak when you are sure that your speech is perfect, which is why you repeat yourself so often. Once a speech has been perfected it needs repeating to be certain that everyone has heard it and appreciated the masterpiece you created.
Of course you must pretend that your speech is spontaneous, a spur of the moment expression of genius. A sudden realisation. A flash of enlightenment. You know what I mean, you’ve studied these things, you’ve watched how humans interact, how they talk and converse, and can mimc their ways and do them better than they do them. Your version is new, improved and of better quality as you have practiced it until it is perfect.
Your self-censorship and self-control are beyond compare. It’s as though you are encased in amber. This particular trait is not one which you adopted from others, but was one which was given to you by those who initiated you into The Way of The Narcissist. It was part of the initiation ritual. Your spontaneity was crushed, your self expression was denied, your emotions deemed dangerous and exiled along with your natural self. The only part of you allowed to remain was your mind which filled in the emptiness left by the removal of all the other parts of you. Everything which you express is a mental construct.
Your mind was trained with relentless military precision and force to become an omnipotent dictator. The fortress which you’ve built around yourself is unassailable. And although this causes great suffering for you, especially when stray fragments of your true self rise up against your mind’s dictatorship, it is actually very useful.
People find your self-control admirable, they perceive it as confidence and mastery, and it often attracts those who long to be controlled and protected by someone who is in control. Of course a permanent state of self-control is very stressful and sometimes you need to let off steam, especially when The Fear – the ghost of the real ordinary mortal human inside of you – rises up. Those who are under your wing of control may complain about your need to let off stress steam, they may call it a tantrum, a verbal blitz attack from out of the blue, or an overly dramatic raging outburst, they may even accuse you of losing control and being out of control, they are wrong. These are controlled tests.
After all being in charge of controlling so many other people, the world, is a burdensome responsibility and you need to weed out those who do not deserve such an oppressive regime. They claim to love you, but you can’t feel it, you need to see it. If they can weather your storms and love you more for them, then they are worthy to be kept in your gilded cage forever and ever, never to be allowed to speak, feel, act or anything without a permission slip from you, and certainly not allowed leave.
If they try to leave, view it as an aberration, a lapse of reason and logic on their part, momentary insanity, and hunt them down either passively – blank them, pretend they don’t exist, wipe them from your life and let them know they have been unceremoniously discarded, play the victim with their friends and family, and your friends and family, and make sure word gets back to them about how everyone thinks they’re bad, they’ll be shamed into seeing the error of their ways and come crawling back to you begging for forgiveness – or aggressively – watch their every move, use their friends and family to spy on them for you (as they usually agree with you about the escapee, that they’re crazy to leave someone like you who is too good to be true), keep hounding them until they see the error of their ways and come crawling back to you begging for forgiveness. Some people enjoy these sort of games, and sometimes you find them enjoyable too.
I want a fairy tale by Ladyeriu
People find your self-censorship to be an alluring bait too. In fact their attempts to reach you in your fortress are a source of large doses of Narcissistic Supply. They believe that they can save you from yourself, that their love can heal the deep, suppurating wound within you. They believe this because this is what you lead them to believe, but even if they could heal your wound with their love, save you from yourself and free you from your amber fortress, they must not be permitted to succeed.
They might leave you if they freed and healed you because you would no longer be the person who attracted them. You might become human too, mortal, ordinary, and this is something which is too terrifying to even consider. What you can do however is slice pieces of your painful wound off and give it to others as a gift. It’s theirs now, and they must own it and heal it if they can, however they will fail. You’ll make sure that they do, they can’t be allowed to succeed where you have not succeeded as this would make you appear to be a failure.
You are a superior being and everyone else is inferior to you. Appearances must be maintained at all costs, even to your own detriment and destruction. When you do self-destruct make sure you take everyone with you. If they love you they will follow you. Their self-sacrifice will be proof of their love. You won’t feel it, you can’t feel a thing encased in your amber fortress, but you can see it because the amber fortress is a window through which you see the world, slightly warped and of a strange hue, but the world can’t see you…
Or at least you hope they can’t see you… and that all they see is who you choose to let them see, the image you project and the identity you work so hard to create and maintain.
*If you feel censored when in the company of certain people, controlled by them – and I’m not talking about social situations where you have to be well mannered and tone down your language, be diplomatic and courteous. If you feel that who you are somehow causes them pain, that your words of self expression hurt them, that nothing you say or do is right, good, welcome or wanted. If you feel that you have to become who they want you to be, who they’ve decided you are… if who you actually are feels locked in a cell, a prison of silence. Then consider that that person or those people may be Narcissists. Their censorship of you can be very subtle and gradual. Their censorship of themselves can be quite attractive to those who relate to it, to those who like to draw people out of their shells and encourage them to express themselves. Narcissist like this attention, feed on it, and never come out of their shell. They can’t, but they can suck you into it.
**As always my views are based on my personal experience of Narcissists. Please share your views and experience. Break the silence!
*** ***series sponsored by NarcissistSlayers.com – this link will take you to Letmereach.com, a brilliant source for information on how to heal from a relationship with a Narcissist written by someone who knows what it’s like, has survived and is sharing her experience, and the Narcissist Slayers award nominations where you will find links to excellent blogs which offer advice and personal experience of relationships with Narcissists
An Upturned Soul 
Reblogged this on I Won't Take It and commented:
Once again, spot on!
“If you feel censored when in the company of certain people, controlled by them…If you feel that who you are somehow causes them pain, that your words of self expression hurt them, that nothing you say or do is right, good, welcome or wanted. If you feel that you have to become who they want you to be, who they’ve decided you are… if who you actually are feels locked in a cell, a prison of silence. Then consider that that person or those people may be Narcissists. Their censorship of you can be very subtle and gradual. Their censorship of themselves can be quite attractive to those who relate to it, to those who like to draw people out of their shells and encourage them to express themselves. Narcissist like this attention, feed on it, and never come out of their shell. They can’t, but they can suck you into it.”
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Thank you 😀
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[…] And I saw it just after I’d posted my latest installment of my Zen of Narcissists series today – The Zen of Narcissists: Lesson #6: Censorship and Control. […]
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Another perfectly expressed awareness of this group!
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Thank you 😀
It’s one of the ways I use to know if the person I’m with is or isn’t one. There’s a feeling which is very specific.
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Dear Ursula,
this series of posts is stunning and very useful as you describe the emotions we get when in company with a N with such a subtle approach, I have never found anyone able to relate to it in such a way; it’s incredible, every phase, every observation is true and so real.Thank you so much for this.
Although I am determined to learn to perceive it, it’s sort of painful to realize I have been living this all my life, therefore there is a kind of responsibility in being attracted by the same kind of people, as though there were a psychological disposition, a form carved in your soul ready to welcome this lethal poison. I have to say i am a bit discouraged at the moment as it takes a lot of time to digest and healing is never definitive as once you have been under their thumb it’s like having a pattern tattoed on your soul…I am impressed I had a sequel of N in my life, especially men, no wonder i am alone without love…My N friend doesn’t appreciate my distant approach, so when she sees she doesn’t get what she wishes she give me a cold shoulder, but i have to be very careful with myself as I need to protect myself. reading all this and recognizing it in reality makes me feel lucky I am not a N. Me and self control aren’t very good friends, although i am a bit of a perfectionist but i will never be pondering my words that way, sometimes I think loud!
On the bright side, maybe something is moving for me and I will end up moving. Today i had my (our!) usual walk to the quais and saw an exhibition of Brassai’s photographs, I think you might like it as the main themes are releted to light and shadow and the night.
I tried to rewrite my book but i can’t as I feel stuck as the feelings are not there in the same way, I am still wondering if it’s a good or a bad sign, it makes me feel melancholic.
I did appreciate what you wrote about how you met your partner and i am happy for you you have been together since, it’s a real treasure!
Life without love is empty, isn’t it?
take care,
seashell
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Thank you 😀
I think it’s a good sign that you can’t rewrite the book, it means you’ve moved on. Yes, you still have things to work out, but you’re progressing. It takes a long time to work through it all, that’s true, but during that time you make small shifts each day and those shifts accumulate eventually becoming a big shift.
If you decide to write it should be something new, like charting what you are going through now, so that later you can see how far you have come, and during the writing you will see how much you know and understand.
The things we experience in life, especially those we’ve experienced since childhood, eventually make sense to us, why they happened and what we can do with what we’ve experienced, how to transform it from how we have always seen it into a new way of seeing it, and thus transforming how it affects us.
And you aren’t alone without love, it just feels that way. Your life isn’t empty. You have love within you which is blossoming as you learn to love yourself more and more, and as you experience that you will feel less alone because you have yourself to keep you company, and as your relationship with yourself deepens, you’ll attract people to you who will encourage you to be yourself because they love you as you are. Give it time, you’ll see. And your relationship with yourself is the most important one you will ever have and influences all the other ones you have, so it is a very valuable relationship.
The exhibition sounds wonderful, and so does the walk 🙂
Take care beautiful soul!
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I think you are right, that’s why something is about to move and change in my life.Just think think that a few seconds after writing to you, my friends emailed me saying the file has been saved! This means that just in case i had lost it i wasn’t supposed to write about it anymore with the same longing attitude and if i was so concerned and affected by losing it, it means that somewhere in my mind i do give value to what I do in spite of what i say about myself, actually implying the word failure that is so cherished by my parents. Therefore i have a very low self esteem indeed but there is a core hidden and unattained in myself, a vital one and a healthy one.
i do think I couldn’t have gone this far without you, I even told my psychoanalyst- he didn’t take it badly, a master of fair play!!
Just wanted to tell you that what i feel when I am close to a N is exactly as you describes, the censohorsip and uneasiness, the sticky gluey energy, the craving for information whithout giving back any, and yes, it is gradual, it’s like being through a mincemeat process, there are planned phases leading to annihilation and through prograssive steps.
thank you from the bottom of my heart.
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Thank you!
Life has a way of working out. Eventually things make sense. Your core is healthy there is no doubt about that, and now it is time for you to stop hiding that core, you hid it to keep it safe, to survive and keep your self safe. Now you are ready to bring it out into the open and enjoy who you are. Your parents’ voices and influence are growing weaker as you grow stronger and acknowledge your strength.
Just don’t let your psychoanalyst read my blog :O kidding, sort of 😉 I’m a nutcase… but I enjoy my crazy! It’s a healthy crazy for me!
Keep doing what you are doing and trust yourself, you’re a beautiful and amazing being and the more you see it… the more you blossom!
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Don’t worry! Your blog is so precious to me, I won’t allow him to steal your knowledge!!!!!!!
Thank you for your words, i sense i am feeling better actually, hope to see my self coming out and as you say beautifully, blossoming. i will try also to have more confidence in life, instead of waiting for the worst…
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Don’t worry 😀 Do what you need to do for yourself, you are precious!
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i have just read your reply to the lady talking about her husband, I was so moved I had tears in my eyes, you explain so well my parents too, as though you met them.
It’s incredible ursula how helpful is what you do; your help is unvaluable, i am learning to see things through your words, pretty much as though i had been blind for all my life. i won’t tell openly my shrink but i have understood more about myself with you than …to say nothing of my former N shrink!!!
ti voglio tantissimo bene
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Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you worry about telling your psychoanalyst about my blog. I had one of my comical mental sketches moments where I imagined your psychoanalyst looking at the blog, pulling at a long moustache, glasses steaming up, and going – Oh la la la la la la! C’est completement dingue!
Please do what you need to do 🙂
I just write about my experiences with my parents. There are certain things which all Narcissists seem to have in common, behaviours and traits. And so children of Narcissists tend to have similar experiences even though they have different parents.
There is a certain blindness which children of Narcissists develop to survive their parents. Since a child can’t run away and society forces us to stay even if we try to get away, we adapt. One of the ways we adapt is to not see, because seeing hurts too much because we can’t do anything about what we see and we feel powerless. So we adapt… years later when we are adults we’ve forgotten what we did to adapt and continue not seeing. Then something challenges us and we begin to see again. This time we are not powerless, yet we still believe we are because part of us is trapped in the past when we first chose to close our eyes. We have to embrace the sight we saw then to release ourselves from the trap, and we have to feel our pain so it can heal us and we can heal it.
Anche io ti voglio molt bene ♥ 😀
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i was joking! when i talked about you he said:sacré rencontre!he has no moustache and he’s a dwarf..but at least he doesn’t seduce me as the former cruel wolf disguised into an handsome charming and soft spoken prince!
i know you worry as you hate manipulation, but here there is nothing of that, i just needed to mention you because i think you are very special (not the french way, english way) and you are exceptional in many ways, in this world people are just concerned about themselves.
I really want to get out of this magnet thing for N, but there is one thing hunting me.As i haven’t been loved as a child i still have this bottomless pit as you call it, everything is fine in my relationships with friends, but with men i feel i am unlovable and I think it’s clear i need to be loved, therefore I have all the behavoural patterns of someone who needs to love and to be accepted in spite of herself, as though i wasn’t good enough.When you wrote you have been together with your partner for !/ years, this means it’s possible.Is my fear real or imagined?i do know I need to work on it, but in my heart i think this flaw of not being loved will come up and spoil every opportunity.
i hope this present attitude will persist and will allow me to grow, i am afraid to fall again.
you are such a star!
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You know, you’ve learned some valuable skills from the Narcissists in your life. These skills can be used in positive ways. Narcissists use them negatively because that’s part of the disorder.
You can pretend better than an actor in a role. So do it. Not to pretend to be who you are not, but to encourage and support who you are. It’s about amplifying who you are and who you are becoming, which is more yourself. Within yourself you know that you are loveable. But that knowledge is fighting against years of negative programming which the Narcissists made you believe… but you never truly believed it, however you did accept it because you had to as fighting it then was too much effort. But now you have the strength to fight it and deprogram yourself. And you have the knowledge to create a new and healthy program for yourself, one which suits you and encourages you.
Your friends are a valuable source of support, they let you see that you are loveable to others. Just apply what you’ve learned from them to your approach to romance and men. Pretend that you know you are loveable – it’s true, so you’re not faking it you’re amplifying a truth and embodying it so that you will attract to yourself those you seek rather than those who are seeking you at the moment.
Before I met my partner I had done a lot of work on myself because I knew I had to or I would end up in a relationship with someone who was like my parents. I kept myself out of relationships very deliberately and consciously. By the time I met my partner I wasn’t looking for love at all, in fact I’d concluded that it would never happen and maybe that was for the best. And it’s a classic case of when you’re no longer looking for something, it finds you.
I had to do a lot of work on myself after I fell in love to stop myself from sabotaging the relationship… so falling in love is not all plain sailing, it’s a very different kind of sea and wind 😉
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Sabotaging sounds familiar to me;I perfectly understand what you mean by acting on believing that you are lovable but i don’t get why with friends is easy to establish a healthy bond whilst with a lover it’s trickier and it’s there I get miscontrued and I attract N. Has this got to do with the deep intimacy established by the love relationship linked to the bond we had with our parents?
Yesterday in my session I wondered if the bottomless pit of need to be loved prevented me to be loved actually.My said said: A bottomless well is hell but if you put a mirror you can see the sky:poetic, but is the mirror’s function to reflect our image, our acceptable lovable image instead of the horror we have been taught by our parents?
I am exactly in the same frame of mind as you were, I don’t think it is ever going to happen nor am i looking for it. I ponder and write and enjoy the company of my friends, surprised each time to see myself in their eyes. I am jobless but i have made up my mind about thinking something is going to turn out well, i have to live in the meanwhile and i try to be confident.i also make an effort not to link my self worth through this shortcoming, as taoists say, I should worry when everything is fine (which is not!!!).
And no, you are not a nutcase, but a living evidence of how intelligence and sensitive nature can rescue someone from being crippled by parents who are not parents after all, if we think of what love is for a child.
I would have loved to love a child in a deep hearted and healthy way, but life hasn’t given me the chance;it’s a dreadful mourning but there is nothing I can do about it, except having a kid with a stranger you come across in the street or on the internet, but it’s not my idea of love. Children touch my heart so deeply, they are pure and there is nothing of what was in my parents’ twisted mind.
I think you’d be a very loving and caring parent!
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That is a question which is very good – why with friends it is easy to establish a healthy bond whilst with a lover it’s trickier – and worth exploring. See what answers rise up. See what insights emerge.
I have always treated people the same, male and female, as friends first, which is probably why I never attracted an N as a romantic partner and they were never attracted to me romantically/sexually. I did not seek ideal love or an ideal lover. To me love has to be practical, so friendship first because friendship is valuable and lasts when it is true. Romance is something which can develop in a friendship. If you don’t connect as friends… I have no idea how that kind of relationship works as I’ve never had one of those.
My favourite quote about life and worrying and not worrying is – “If a problem is fixable, if a situation is such that you can do something about it, then there is no need to worry. If it’s not fixable, then there is no help in worrying. There is no benefit in worrying whatsoever.” ― Dalai Lama
I’ve been in so many weird predicaments… things work out or they don’t, but they usually work out in some way, and I’m still here and okay, so… *shrugging French style.
If you put a mirror at the bottom of a bottomless pit…!? Where is the bottom of a bottomless pit on which you place the mirror? And besides even if you find the bottom, the mirror won’t reflect the sky because it’ll reflect those who are looking into the well and throwing coins into it making wishes which they hope will come true and that you’ll make them come true for them.
Sorry… my mind needs to shut up sometimes!
You’re not a bottomless pit of need, you just feel that way, it’s very different. You want to be loved, that’s normal and natural and everyone feels that way, it’s a human need and we all long for it. The bottomlessness is the void… all humans have it and feel it, we usually pretend it isn’t there because it is too big for us to grasp. You can see it expressed in poetry, books, art, music, etc… we all have it and it doesn’t make any difference how healthy we are. It is the universe inside of us, which also contains black holes, as well as the Sun and stars and comets. We are indeed made of starstuff (Carl Sagan) and sometimes we feel our origins as very real feelings and explain them via metaphor.
You are your own child, give that love you have to give to a child to yourself. Let the mourning be a healing for the child in you who would have loved to have a parent like you. It’s a beautiful relationship when the need to be loved, the bottomless pit of need to be loved is met by the deep bottomless love you have within you.
You are in the right place for you right now, experiencing what you need to experience to develop what needs to develop so you can move to where you need to move and be there when the time is right. Trust yourself.
Btw, I wrote to the author of Going Mad to Stay Sane and he replied. He is working on possibly reprinting the book, maybe as an ebook.
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reassuring to see my shrink’s metaphor on the mirror is obscure for you too!!
i think i am hopeless as far as love is concerned, i don’t understand and probably I will never live it again. When i talk about the void i wonder if the reality of not having lived real love in the family would condition intimacy with a man, maybe there is no rule as some people can live it just the same and some just can’t.
i wish i were so confident in life as you are, I find it very very hard. I might not have the right tools and attitude and angst doesn’t help either.
Wonderful news for the ebook!I wrote to the publisging house but they never replied.
by the way, thank you so much for explaining the N phases in a relationship:this allowed to me to live something painful without feeling any pain just disappointment as my N didn’t appreciate my attitude(i ignore what happened in her head) and couldn’t get attention when she craved for it, therefore she gave me the silent treatment and then puf!the final discard.Thank you Ursula, thanks to your words for the first time or almost i don’t need to doubt about myself and my conduct and i could identify all the phases, it was like seeing a movie and it didn’t affect me as it could have.
You always say to trust myself, maybe this is the hardest bit for me due to the last experiences i have had.
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You’re not hopeless where love is concerned, you just haven’t understood your style of love yet, found your muse of love – I’m not talking about another person, I’m talking about the blossoming of your own love inside. It’s there and you can see it when you feel love for your friends, or when you see a sight which makes your heart beat faster, or smell a scent which makes you drift in loveliness, or listen to music you love which transports you, or go to a concert or a museum and feel inspired, etc. Those are all expression of love, it permeates everything.
Loving a piece of music is the same as loving a person as people are music too. So when you see how you love, your style and how it moves within you and connects with the world around you, you find your muse and it inspires your relationship with people too.
You have a huge amount of love inside of you… it wants you to discover it and love it and then it will burst out of you and draw to you more love in many shapes sizes and expressions.
How you love your friends, use that love as inspiration to love those whom you see as lovers.
I have difficult attitudes, troubling thoughts, and angst and darkness… I just love them because they are a part of the whole of me, without them… I wouldn’t be me. They inspire me too, it’s just not uplifting. It’s different. I love to argue with my mind, it leads to interesting discoveries.
My confidence is just the kind which comes when you finally resign yourself to being yourself and give up fighting being yourself, and realise it’s actually a good thing, that being exactly who you are as you are is rather nice, and slowly you relax into just being, and it changes how you interact with the world and how you relate to yourself, every part of yourself. If you feel bad… that bad feeling is accepted as a part of all of you and it eases it. It’s a passing wave.
I always say trust yourself because you know everything you need to know about yourself whether it is conscious or subconscious, you know, and your inner knowing will guide you. It is a challenge because you’ve been taught not to trust yourself, and you had to in some ways betray your own trust to survive, but your self knows that and forgives, and just wants you to reconnect with it. It’s one worth doing because it connects you to yourself in a way which gives the kind of confidence which goes with self acceptance. And so when you are with someone like an N who is trying to impose their stuff on you, you feel how you feel about it and know your own truth and by trusting yourself you stop the scenario unfolding in favour of the other person and change the direction of it, keep the balance of power equal. You trust yourself to protect yourself, you trust yourself to express yourself.
😀 et voila!
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Hi there Ursula,
I hope you are fine..you know, I daren’t say it, but I feel better and i am happier to be myself, I feel as though a burden had been taken off my shoulders, I see myself better. Thaks to oyur words too.What you say about people being a music is really true, it’s exactly how I perceive people, as everyone has his or her own music, the main thing is to listen, and then if you love it, you can listen to it forever, otherwise there is a reason leading to have your ears hurt, it’s more important to know when it does rather than knowing why, but again we shall listen to ourselves when the music becomes noise.
I think i have spent all my life to listen to others but not to myself, as a result of my family imprinting.Today I feel free, although not ready to put everything into action but in a while I will. Acceptance and trust of oneself is the key word, as you say, I think I am more tolerant and understanding towards myself, if one day i succeed in having the same amount of understanding I have for people for myself, it will be perfect!
Creativity is very much linked to self love in my case, as if i love myself, I will be able to express myselfnot only to witness or claim my truth, but also to create through words or forms my inner world.I know now, thanks to that file, that I value what I write, I need not to dive into perfectionism, another familiar N obsession.
I think you have find the way to oppose yourself to the N lethal relationship through self expression on several levels, you are such an inspiration for me, all your posts reply to old questions I have always had on my mind.
I really loved the pictures in that garden full of living creatures. it’s like acccepting the hand of nature and clinging to the light rather to the darkness.
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That’s wonderful! And I am very happy and excited for you! 😀
And you’re absolutely right, take your time and let yourself ease into this blossoming love for yourself and all the energy it brings and the creativity it inspires.
You are a beautiful soul and now you get to witness that and be that and feel it and enjoy it! So wonderful!!!
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Please bear in mind that it was you who helped me to find myself and understand this behavioural pattern.Such invaluable gift, i will never be able to thank you enough for it. You are the wonderful person here, it’s the gift for all you have gone through!
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You found yourself through me, it’s important to see it that way because it’s important to see your own personal power, to realise that you are the source of all you need in your life. And the way you thank me, is by continuing to do what you are doing, to share yourself, express yourself, love yourself, discover yourself and allowing yourself to be yourself and blossom into your natural self as you are doing. It’s beautiful! And it inspires me, you inspire me… and for that I am grateful to you because that inspiration moves me and lets me know that who I am as I am is okay (and it continues to remove my own N parental programming) 😀
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Here again is another memory trigger of my relationship with my Narcissist friend. She would often ask me to describe how certain things made me feel. Even at the time, I didn’t feel as though she was asking because she cared how I felt, but rather her questions made me feel like a fly under a magnifying glass. Another thing she used to accuse me of was being so cold. “Show your emotions!” she would scream at me. Again, not because she wanted me to get my emotions out, but because unless she could expose my weaknesses, she would have nothing to exploit. So when I did rant, and she agreed with me – got right on my side – she was able to help me to distance myself from whoever I was ranting about. In this way, she managed to separate me from the father of my kids.
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Narcissists don’t understand their emotions – it’s all just a knotted ball of stress and fear to them – so they often seek emotional information from others to help them. But it doesn’t help them because they live in the mind. The mind can mimic emotion, analyse and dissect it – hence the under the microscope feeling – and even intellectual see how it works, but it just doesn’t feel it. Same as Narcissists.
They also use others to express emotions for them, thus they will badger you until you emote. Prod, pick, question, poke, drip, drip, drip… until you explode.
And yes they see emotions as a weakness, but it’s more complex than just knowing which buttons to press to get you to react. It’s really about them, everything is about them. They envy your range and understanding of emotions, your ability to feel and enjoy feeling even when it’s painful. Pain scares the crap out of them. It brings them too close to their human side.
They like to get involved in the relationships of others. It’s motivated by admiration/envy and desire to be you and have your life… it ends up being very destructive if you don’t catch what they’re doing in time. Which is sometimes had to see until it’s too late.
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[…] Narcissist has no real identity, only an illusion of themselves built on their ability to control other people. When they lose control over others, this illusion is shattered. This explains why […]
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[…] * has no real identity, only an illusion of themselves built on their ability to control other people. When they lose said control, this illusion is shattered. This explains why they […]
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Come to think of it, the one narcissist I got entangled with constantly used the word “suffering.” I couldn’t make any sense of it. What the heck was this endless preoccupation with “suffering?”
I just thought it was more of his jabberwocky. Now I see that it wasn’t jabberwocky at all.
Anyhow, good article.
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Thank you for sharing 🙂
That’s a good point. Narcissists do seem to be a little bit obsessed with their own suffering – try to take it away from them in any way when they’re attached to it and they’ll get medieval on you.
Sounds like you were in the company of a ‘Poor Me’ narc.
Also sometimes known as a ‘Yes, But…’ in the language of Eric Berne and Games People play – http://www.ericberne.com/games-people-play/why-dont-you-yes-but/ – they have a problem for every solution you try to give them, their suffering is an intrinsic element of their identity and makes them ‘special’.
Glad to hear you see the jabberwocky clearly and don’t get caught in its slithy toves!
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[…] Narcissist has no real identity, only an illusion of themselves built on their ability to control other people. When they lose said control, this illusion is shattered. This explains why they […]
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