Adventures Within & Beyond

“Hate is the complement of fear and narcissists like being feared. It imbues them with an intoxicating sensation of omnipotence.”

“Here lies the partner’s salvation: if you, as his intimate, wish to sever your relationship with the narcissist, stop providing him with what he needs. Do not adore, admire, approve, applaud, or confirm anything he does or says. Disagree with his views belittle him, reduce him to size, compare him to others, tell him he is not unique, criticize him, give unsolicited advice, and offer him help. In short, deprive him of the grandiose and fantastic illusions, which holds his personality together.

The narcissist is a delicately attuned piece of equipment. At the first sign of danger to his inflated False Self, he will quit and disappear on you.”

- Sam Vaknin

Something happens to you after suffering narcissistic abuse. It’s unlike anything else I’ve experienced, and it’s not a teachable moment. There is little to compare it to, except for maybe that point when you realize the acid is hitting weird.

This is a collection of thoughts, events, and dialogs that try put words to the messed up tangle left in the wake of dealing with an intimate partner who seems to fall into a spectrum of the dark triad.

Introspection.

“I’m worried.”

“What are you worried about?”

“I’m worried I’m the narcissist. I’m worried I am the one with the sociopathic tendencies. I worry about this every day. I worry that I am the one who created all of this; who is responsible for everything I am going through. That everything she said about me is true, and I deserve everything that’s happening right now.”

Silence, and an arched eyebrow.

“I’m worried that I could have avoided all of this. Don’t narcissists exhibit a complete lack of ego? They have no ego. I suffer from a poor self-image. I worry about who I am. What I am.” I mean, fuck. I don’t even like looking in a mirror. Every time I look in a mirror I see every flaw staring back at me, and I look for more, the same way I notice the weird angle of my face on this Zoom call. “So yeah, what if I am wrong about everything?”

Patient silence.

“Do narcissists worry that they’re narcissists?”

“No.”

“Oh.”

“We’re rowing this boat together, Greg.”

I’m laughing now, but I am not sure if I am laughing because I am going insane or if I am laughing because I am relieved. I think I even knew the answer to my own questions, but I am lost. So lost.

Refraction.

I think about what I shared with her and how what I shared was part of me. I opened myself emotionally and it all spilled out.

My things. My loves. The light and the darkness and the shadows and the sounds that inspire me. I shared it all and she said she loved it all and yet I think she loved nothing but the way I made her feel in that moment. Now those things have been stolen from me, and I want to know they’re ok. That they’re still worth something. Where are they? What is she doing with them? Who is she showing them to as if they were hers?

I can’t find them in myself anymore; it’s as if someone has ripped out everything inside me, inspected it, and walked away with no comment.

Now I’m sitting here staring at all of it as it surrounds me: a stuffed animal with whatever it was once made of scattered about outside it’s body. None of it fits back inside anymore; it’s all messed up and gross.

And it’s like, “shit. I’m not real. I’m an empty stuffed animal. Fuck.”

Deception.

I wake in a cold sweat.

Again and again I wake up.

Something stares at me from the corner of the room in this house that I barely know. Long white hair and dull white eyes; a presence that consumes almost all the space between the ceiling and floor. It floats in this room that should be safe, but is instead haunted. I am haunted.

If I was a child I would have screamed. Or maybe I did scream. I don’t know.

I only know none of this is real, but as the world starts resolving around me I am hit with waves of something — some emotion. Memories of her words creep in from the corners of the room:

“I’ve never loved anyone the way I love you.”

The waves are thick inky depression. The intimate whispers and promises of “forever” flood me. The words ring in my ears, and the lies reverberate through me.

I hum like a plucked instrument, my mind twisted into something I can’t quite figure out anymore.

I think about the sex.

I think about the drugs.

I think about a life I never actually knew.

It lasts all day.

Erasure.

I’ve never subscribed to the idea of absolute regret. I’ve always believed every lived experience provides us with something to learn and grow from.

But this? I want to erase this thing, this presence. It’s like an unwanted whisper in my ear; a memory that won’t stop revisiting me. Empty words of love and desire and promises of “forever together.”

I want to lie in a field and watch clouds turn into dragons and talk to someone who isn’t out to destroy my fucking soul.

I need to find myself and my love and my joy again, rather than sit in the decay that I feel inside.

There is a darkness in me, like the abuse left a stain. A heavy black line. A Franz Kline painting across my mind.

I remember how I loved the way the light hit the wall of my bedroom in the evenings.

The color of it through the shades.

The reflection of it through the blown glass lamp.

The way it crept by as the sun set.

I keep trying to remember that as I lie in bed, pushing away unwanted thoughts of her standing above me as I curled into a ball of panic on the floor.

“The narcissist’s True Self is introverted and dysfunctional. In healthy people, Ego functions are generated from the inside, from the Ego. In narcissists, the Ego is dormant, comatose. The narcissist needs the input of and feedback from the outside world (from others) in order to perform the most basic Ego functions (e.g., “recognizing” of the world, setting boundaries, forming a self-definition or identity, differentiation, self-esteem, and regulating his sense of self-worth). This input or feedback is known as narcissistic supply. Only the False Self gets in touch with the world. The True Self is isolated, repressed, unconscious, a shadow.”

- Sam Vaknin

Reflection.

No rationale.

I can’t find anything rational here; I can’t puzzle my way through what happened. It’s just a mess of opposing emotions. There was a duplicity to the entire relationship, the same way there was a duplicity to so much of what she said to me.

I hated her and I loved her.

I never wanted to see her again and I wanted to be with her always.

And when I think about it, that’s the problem. This person made no sense to me because they were both things at once. An empty vessel that filled itself with me; that created a fantasy world in which we both existed — a world I wanted, and she was happy to give me for a time.

She told me elaborate stories woven from a tapestry of lies that created a false reality, and I believed it. Each story held a tiny bit of truth: maybe the place it happened, the people involved, or the time it took place. But the details, they were fabricated as part of our shared fantasy.

It was at once a love story, a drama, an adventure, a porno.

I lost myself between the lines.

Finding myself starts again.