Love – Narcissist Style

Those who love me, follow me…

My father used to say that all the time… but what did he mean by it?

What he meant was that you – whoever you were, his wife, his child, his brother, sister, parent, colleague, friend, mistress (he had a lot of those), etc,  – were supposed to love him no matter what he said, did, didn’t say, didn’t do. Your love was required by his law to be unconditional. He on the other hand could only love you on condition… on endless conditions. The first in the long list of which was that you had to love him unconditionally.

Confused?

Confusion is the least of your problems with a narcissist, but sometimes seems like most of them are made of it.

Love is confusing…

especially when it involves a narcissist…

especially when the narcissist has decided that they love you… and that you must love them because they have chosen you to be the very special object (and you are an object to them) of their affection.

.

.

Love is very important to a narcissist.

They’re obsessed with the stuff!

They want it more than anything else… they crave power, control, money… especially money because it gives them power and control, and they love those things very much, but love… in its abstract form obsesses them more than money, power, control, because love is money, power, control.

Confused?

It’s simple really – when someone loves you they give you money, they give you power and control over them and their money.

These are things which represent love to a narcissist, and of which they can never get enough… they always want more, and more, and more…

these things are loved with an obsessive all-consuming darkness by the narcissist… and if they see you as having the key to them getting these things, you too will be loved by them with an all-consuming obsessive fervour, dark… growing darker…

However…

at first it will seem as though you’re in a spotlight, the sun is shining just for you, only on you…

They can only see you… special angel, where have you been all their life, why have you been hiding your magnificence…

.

.

at first it will be everything you’ve ever dreamed, hoped, wished, yearned for… love narcissist style when it is in its early stages is nigh on impossible to resist.

It’s a thing of fantasy but it seems so real… and while you’re embodying the role of their very special someone, it is real, even though it is a delusion, illusion, too good to be true…

they believe it… and because they believe it, so do you… because you want this, need this to be true… so do they…

but their ideal of love, of you as their lover, their special angel who will heal their every pain, wound, hurt, with your love… is too idealistic and that bubble will burst, their expectations will be disappointed cruelly as your immortal wings burn revealing you to be human… a human who can’t fly as they need you to… as they do…

.

.

Before Twilight, True Blood, Being Human… there was Interview with a Vampire…

.

.

… before that vampires were occasionally sexy but not as sexy or seductive in a humanly appealing manner, they were supposed to be but really… were they sexy or just funny old bats wearing too much make up… to be laughed at, having a bit of a thrill while safely chomping popcorn.

It’s strange how our fascination with vampires, with zombies, the undead, the supernatural… coincides with our increased awareness of people known as narcissists…

Myths sometimes are what we use to make sense of reality… or escape it…

If you’ve ever been involved with a narcissist… you may feel as though they’re a vampire, sucking the life out of you yet still keeping you alive, never quite killing you off or gifting you with immortality but perhaps keeping you hanging, promising it (death or immortality), maybe, one day… and you may end up feeling like a zombie during the long wait as they decide whether to finish you off, finish it off with you or keep you forever by their side.

I was a zombie for many years, mostly around my mother. To put up with her version of ‘motherly’ love, I had to die a little inside every day until I was just an animated corpse going through the motions of living.

Of course… I could have gotten away… or could I?

.

.

Try getting away from a narcissist whose story is all about how much they love you… if they have to kill you or get you to kill yourself to prove their love for you, they will… find a way. Their love conquers all.

The narcissist isn’t the only person keeping you tied to them, there are others who, like you once were, are caught in their thrall, upon whom they’ve worked their glamour… sometimes they’re worse than the narcissist because there are more of them, surrounding you, working for the narcissist…

some of them wake up and when they do… sometimes that’s even worse than when they were hypnotised because… if they can’t face what has happened to them, then they won’t allow you to do it either.

Confused?

As always… confusion tends to blur things until no one knows what’s real or what is not, and everyone is playing murder in the dark… trying to hide the traces of their fingerprints, footprints, and what they’ve done while they were not of sound mind, when they were in love with an ideal, a dream, a beautiful illusion… deluded by a desperate desire to be loved, and would do anything for love, just a morsel or droplet of it…

.

.

So…

What can we learn from narcissists about love?

They excel as teachers of love… of what not to do, of what love isn’t… and sometimes that’s far more valuable for us, we learn more from our pain than we do from our pleasure.

What I’ve learned about love from narcissists is – get used to it being confusing. More than that – Pay attention to what people do rather than what they say.

A narcissist will tell you everything you want to hear…

They are quick to say – I love you – but do their actions confirm what they say?

.

.

They sing pretty songs to you while serenading and seducing you (they’re serenading and seducing themselves with their hero self who loves you… it’s all about them, not you)… but… words… words about things they’d do for you… but do they do these things?

And I’m not talking about filling your room with flowers, buying you diamonds, chocolates, sweeping you off your feet and carrying you off to Paris, making you feel like a hero saving a damsel in distress, the man whom the siren can’t resist, or whatever they do in films and romance novels… narcissists are good at doing those things, they take their cue from fictional versions of romance and love, about how to woo you, just as you do, only more than you do…

and they’ll expect those things from you if you’re wooing them…

they’ll expect you to remember the anniversary of the day they broke a nail or got a splinter while lifting a finger to generously help you, and be rewarded for such a sacrifice… when any normal person would have helped you before you pointed out to them that some help was needed, would brush off any wounds as par for the course, and wouldn’t expect you to recall or reward them for an incident which they considered normal.

When a narcissist does something for you… be prepared to spend the rest of your life trying to prove how grateful you are and never succeed.

My mother still expects me to prostrate myself at her feet and kiss them, lick them clean just for giving birth to me (that ain’t happening anymore, but for a while I did that shit) as though I forced her at gunpoint to do that.

.

.

… but are those things really about love or are they about ego? The narcissist’s need to feed a starving ego?

The greatest profession of love isn’t in the grand gestures… it’s in the ordinary every day things, those tiny details which can sometimes get overlooked because… we’re human.

We sometimes don’t see real love when it is right in front of us because it’s not glamorous. It’s quiet not shouty. It’s just love not a flashy thing pretending to be love. It doesn’t come with a deafening soundtrack, sentimental gumph, or fireworks. It’s just a touch, a look, a word… subtle… too subtle. Ordinary… too ordinary.

We’re late for an appointment and the person waiting for us not only doesn’t say anything but is happy to see us.

We look like hell, but someone looks at us as though we’re gorgeous, perhaps more so because they see our real selves, disheveled, distraught, messy.

We stink… we’re rude… we rant… grumble… whine… they smile, and give us a thumbs up in some way which isn’t obvious. With them we can be ourselves… if you’re after unconditional love, that’s it! You’d run a mile from yourself… but they don’t, they move closer and accept you as is… ???

That’s real love…

A narcissist wouldn’t recognise real love if it hit them in the face and had a label on it screaming in bold – REAL LOVE!

But you… you can… and sometimes you can because once upon a time you didn’t.

Best film I’ve ever seen reflecting this is – Don Jon (2013) – hint: the narcissist is not a man in this film, and it’s not Julianne. It’s not for the faint of heart who want everything wrapped up with pretty bows, and who prefer fantasy over reality.

.

.

We can all be a bit narcissistic when to comes to love…

that’s normal and natural for humans…

we live, love and learn…

some… never do…

but we can learn from their inability to do so… and sometimes what we learn enriches our ability to love… to really love what is real.