I was going to do a not-a-Narcie post today, but… as you can see I did a Narcie post.
Like a typical Narcissist, Narcie is taking over my blog… while protesting that she is not doing any such thing.
I must be mistaken.
She doesn’t mean to be invasive, that’s just her way… you wouldn’t want Narcie to have to change herself into someone she is not to suit you, would you?
Be mindful and let her be authentic.
Today Narcie has recovered from her sad
about January 1st not giving her a brand new life with all her dreams come true all at once.
.
.
But she’s not out of the blues’ woods yet.
The problem is that all those people she called on New Year’s day to share her woes with won’t let her forget that she behaved the way that she did and was in the mood that she was. She wishes they’d all forget about it because she wants to forget that it happened.
If you ask her about it, she’s going to deny that it happened and tell you that you’re remembering things all wrong. You were the one who called her and ruined her New Year’s day by sharing your bad and sad woes with her.
How selfish of you!
She was fine until you called!
Why must other people ruin everything for Narcie!
It’s just not fair!
She’s such a good person, she deserves better than this!
.
This episode is loosely based on my experiences with my mother apres-tantrum.
My mother believed that she was a good person.
But even good persons like her have their limits. While they are a martyr and saint at all times… they are allowed to have moments when they’re not (those moments only prove just how super saintly and what super martyrs they are).
Being a good person is a burdensome chore, and other people are always being bad persons who drive the good person crazy, until the good person blows a fuse, goes on a rampage, crying, screaming, throwing things… and then lecturing the bad person for hours once the good person has run out of tantrum steam.
About a few hours after (or maybe the day after, if the fit had occurred late at night) one of my mother’s fits… she would be filled with the narcissist’s version of remorse and be very very sorry that it had happened.
Basically she was embarrassed that she’d ‘acted out of character’ as it didn’t go with her good saintly person persona.
Her solution to getting rid of her remorse, embarrassment, and the uncomfortable truth of who she actually was and what she was actually like, was to put on a happy face and be super nice… and pretend nothing had happened.
It had all been a bad dream, there, there, stop making such a fuss about nothing (if I’d said something like that to her while she was in the midst of tantruming… a tantrum which often started over a nothing… well, it would have simply added more righteous fuel to her scorched earth policy of the moment).
Anyone (mainly me) who had witnessed her tantrum, had to forget about it. Wipe that data from your memory… or be a boring and difficult pain in her arse by reminding her that she had had an oopsie.
Her cheerfulness not long after having threatened to abandon me because I was a terrible child…
Her joy after having throw all my stuff around my room, knocking everything off shelves onto the floor, because she couldn’t stand the pigsty anymore…
Her joking and kidding after she’d just lectured me for hours after screaming at me, told me all the awful truths about myself and what hell my existence caused for her…
It was surreal…
She was euphoric… because she’d unburdened herself of all her stress, and now she was light as a feather. Happy… la la la tra…
Ugh! What was wrong with me, why was I being such a heavy, serious, tiresome, bore by moping, looking so glum, and what was with all the whining… I was bringing her down, ruining her good person good mood… life was beautiful and I should smile and enjoy it!
New day, new her… but how long would it last this time?
An Upturned Soul 
Wow, this describes my NarcM to a tee. Thanks (I think, lol). I went NC in April, someone else will have to hold all her nastiness for her now. But not to worry… I’ll still carry the previous 45 years worth forever it seems. *sigh*
LikeLike
Thank you for sharing 🙂
Congratulations on going NC! It’s a tough decision to make, and even tougher to do and keep it going, especially with family.
NarcM’s tend to do the whole ‘poor me my child has abandoned me and I don’t know why because I’m such a wonderful mother’ she-bang to anyone and everyone who will listen. People you know and people you don’t know will contact you to try and help you both have a made for TV movie reconciliation.
If you can make it through several months (including X-mas), you’re on your way to a sweet NarcM-free life. It will be surreal, but a new kind of surreal rather than the Narc-surreal, one where you get to call the shots and write the story.
I made a lot of mistakes with myself when I went NC from my NarcParents. The main one was that I filled the NarcVoid they left when I went NC with them by becoming my own Narc to myself.
In the first few years after NC from a family Narc, you need to give yourself plenty of time to decompress and to allow all those things you kept repressed and suppressed to express themselves. You may feel like you’re melting, but the thaw is necessary.
Best wishes, and be gentle with yourself (something which is surprisingly hard to do if you’re an ACoN, but very worth learning to do).
LikeLike
Thank you for the thoughtful response. Xmas was very hard, I got invites from good friends but spent it alone as I didnt want to have to fake smile my way through their gatherings and not know my real feelings.
What do you mean by becoming your own Narc to yourself?
Right now there’s too many unexpected external stressors in my life to even access healing the past (my health, job, home all changed for unconnected reasons after I went NC) I’m pretty worried about the aftermath of all this emotionally and still wake up already in flashbacks every single morning before I can even take control of my brain. 😥
So any tips would be appreciated.
LikeLike
I didn’t mean to worry you. Being a narc to myself simply means that I played the part of my parents to myself, saying to myself what they had said to me, and continuing the treatment even though I was NC with them and could stop. It takes awhile to work what you’ve absorbed out of your system.
This book helped me – Going Mad to Stay Sane by Andy White (his blog – http://andywhiteblog.com/) – as it put my relationship with my parents and my ‘role’ in their relationship story into perspective.
As did reading the work of Pema Chodron. Her – Start Where You Are – is good advice.
Trust yourself to find the healing/recovery which you need. You’ll guide yourself to books, articles, resources which are helpful. Taking something from here, something else from there, creating your own new system for your own gradual self-healing process.
Don’t put pressure on yourself to be anywhere other than where you are. Or to be anyone other than who you are here and now.
The flashbacks happen because your system is processing things/changes. It takes time to adjust to the new scenario. Keep in mind that you’ve spent years in the old scenario, have adjusted to that, have designed yourself to survive that. Give yourself time to adjust to the new, the NC, the unknown.
You don’t need to control your brain. Let your mind do what it has to do. Know that you’ll be okay.
Let your emotions be all over the place, intense at times, empty at others.
You survived growing up with a NarcM = you can survive anything, and this time you’re doing things for your own thriving not just surviving. It’ll take time, TLC from you to you, mistakes may happen but they’re okay so don’t stress when they occur. Let yourself be yourself and get to know who that is bit by bit.
You’re going to be fine!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I see, similar to the “inner critic” which even has my NarcM’s voice. That makes perfect sense and was super helpful. Thanks so much! 🙂
LikeLike
Love your narrisist character. It’s a brilliant idea!
LikeLike
Thank you very much 😀
LikeLike
Damn, this describes half the social media posts I saw about the New Year’s. They’re already acting like 2018 is an awful year because “poof” all their woes weren’t magically fixed.
Narcie is a very “special” girl.
LikeLike
Thank you for sharing 🙂
We can all be a bit narcissistic about events like New Year. 2017 was a tough reality check for most of us one way or another.
Funnily enough my cynical friends started off 2018 more openly hopeful for a better year, and wishing others the best. I think 2018 is for the realists who are open to possibilities and are willing to wait (and do the work) for things to develop gradually. Anyone who wants a quick fix to a problem that needs a slow fix is going to have a case of the narc-blues.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I have to say i love Narcie, but she´s not a real narcissist she is way too lovable almost a bit pathetic. Where are the condescending remarks and the haughtiness 🙂
LikeLike
Thank you for sharing 🙂
I love Narcie too!
But remember that the typical Narcissist tends to be charming and likeable when you first meet them, during the honeymoon/golden period phase, but then things start to go wrong for them, the charm and likeability begin to crack under the pressure of reality, and you begin to see what lies behind their facade.
Narcie is going to develop. She may devolve into a monster of sorts.
There is always something pathetic about Narcissists even when in monster mode. The trick is not to feel sorry for them while seeing how pathetic they are and allow your feeling sorry for them to manipulate you into getting stuck with them forever trying to save them from themselves (or one of their many ‘foes’) – you have a choice about what you do with how you feel about them.
Have you visited this site – https://narcsite.com/ – it’s (supposedly) written by a narcissist, and is rather insightful.
LikeLike
When i got some distance i could easilly see how sad, pathetic and desperate it really was, nothing left to do but feel sorry for her.
The more desperate they are the nastier they become.
They remind me of the killer rabbit from Monty Python. At first a cute harmless bunny and then, RUN AWAY!!!!!!!!!!!
The words that sums it all up are sad, desperate, pathetic.
When i learned how little it all had to do with me it started to fade away. I guess thinking it was all about me, is pretty narcissistic too. 😉
I know about Tudors blog and i have read some og his articles.
As i have gotten some distance, this whole narcissism thing. It has somehow lost my interest.
I feel it is like winning a computer game, now i have finished level 4 it´s off to level 5. I am off to more exciting adventures.
I am looking forward to hear more about Narcie and her adventures. She reminds me of Queenie from the Black Adder series.
In the end i guess Black Adder was right:
Ill-conceived love, I should warn you, is like a Christmas cracker: one massively disappointing bang, and the novelty soon wears off.
LikeLike
Gotta love Blackadder!!! And Monty Python! And Not The Nine O’Clock News…
Glad to hear you’ve leveled-up… it’s great when it happens. Suddenly what didn’t make sense before slots into place and where you were stuck, you’re free to move and do it your way!
Congrats!
LikeLike
Don´t forget the Young Ones and Bottom.
BBC had so many good comedy shows in the 1980´s.
The Young Ones are the only ones that have actually made me fall of a chair laughing.
It occured to me one day.
A narcissist have the emotional capacity of a toddler.
Why am I so obsessed with an angry poo-flinging toddler and her opinion?
That is just ludicrous.
You just have to accept a narcissist is just FUBAR and obviously they act that way because of what they are.
My point is trying to understand a narcissist is like a broken pencil… Pointless…
LikeLike
The point of understanding a narcissist isn’t necessarily to understand the narcissist but to find the answer to a question like this – “Why am I so obsessed with an angry poo-flinging toddler and her opinion?” – so that you can ‘level-up’ and move on.
Ultimately the narcissists in our life are about us and not about them.
You’ve leveled up now, and the previous level now seems like a WTF was I thinking scenario, which is a good thing even though it’s about a not such a good time of your life. What you’ve learned from it is what matters, and you’ve learned a lot.
What matters now is what lies ahead, the adventure continues (hopefully sans-narcs btu if one appears, you’ll know how to handle it).
LikeLike