DID I REALLY CHOOSE A NARCISSIST?

WHO CHOOSES WHO IN A NARCISSISTIC RELATIONSHIP? WAS IT YOUR FREE CHOICE? POST NO.6/N (A 10 minute read)

That may seem like an absurd question but none the less I am sure that all of us who find ourselves in a sentimental relationship with a NARCISSIST will ask ourselves this question. Did I really choose a NARCISSIST male as a sentimental partner? YES; I did! But in truth, NO; I did not! OH, NO! I did not KNOWINGLY choose to be involved with a NARCISSIST; of course I didn´t!

Not me, nor you, or your sister, or your best friend, or your mother perhaps, NO, not one of us KNOWINGLY chose to be abused by a male NARCISSIST. NO; not one of us! So, how do we manage to get trapped by these predating NARCISSIST males then!

WHY NOT PICK A REGULAR GUY?

Now there is another question for you! Why did we not pick regular guys as our sentimental partners instead of NARCISSISTS? Well, of course, the answer is quite clear to me now! NOW! In retrospect! So, off we go with NARCISSIST boyfriend no.1 and let´s have a retrospective look back and see how that whole ugly time of my life occurred.

Being just 15 years old at the time, I had limited experience with sentimental relationships with the opposite sex, as you may well imagine. I had by then had my first boyfriend who was every bit the regular guy type. Very nice, thoughtful and kind but not overly stimulating! That relationship lasted the weeks that it did and in fact came to its end because of a very attractive, bold-natured regular guy type, who was an awful lot more stimulating to be with.

His experience of girls was well known at secondary school and he had been partnering regularly with girls older than himself. There was a gulf of difference between these two young lads, both of whom were 16 years of age and in the same class at school!! Yes, that was an awkward situation and the first boyfriend did try seriously hard to rebuild our relationship but I had by then begun to meet older boys myself.

Mr. Stimulation was great fun to be with but nigh on impossible to see with any regularity; he was always in demand. And there were no more sentimental dalliances with boys from my own close home environment. Before meeting NARCISSIST boyfriend no.1, nights out at the weekend often meant close ups with members of the opposite sex!

There were the boring types who simply wanted a one-sided sexual encounter and the more stimulating types who also just wanted the sexual encounters but fortunately, two-sided ones. But none of this age group of males, the 18-20 year olds, were wanting to have sentimental relationships with the girls that they met.  

WHO MAKES THE FIRST MOVE?

As I wrote in my first book ON THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN Paperback, now into the late 1970s as we were, the NO SEX BEFORE MARRIAGE notions, had all but completely faded away. It was easy to find casual sexual partners of the opposite sex but not so easy to find a male who did actually want to have female company beyond the sexual interactions!

I really do not know why I had gone to a local mobile disco again. It had been a long, long time since I had. But this time there was a guy that I had never seen around before locally and he couldn´t keep his eyes off me. He certainly looked more mature than the rest of the local lads! Who was he?

It was not long before he came and spoke to me and to say that he completely charmed me would not be strictly true. Maybe it was the tatoos on the arms!! I never have been a fan of tatoos on males. But he kept trying and as he was rather attractive, I arranged to meet him another time.

Now this is where I can see that I made a major blunder, like we all do with these NARCISSIST types. I was sincere with him. I was getting a lot of stick from my NARCISSIST mother and slacking at school which had its consequences to bear as well. At that particular moment in time, I FELT particularly beleaguered, totally misunderstood, always everyone´s scapegoat and all of that I explained to him.

He listened so attentively, he sympathized with me, he comforted me but beyond that, he also told me that he so understood me because what do you know? He knew exactly how I FELT as he had gone through all that I was now experiencing and what was more, he still was suffering at the hands of his NARCISSISTIC parents!!!

We seemed to be one and the same, that was how it FELT to me. He was very passionate and affectionate but would unsettle me by talking of running away together and getting married. "To HELL with our parents, we did not need them; we had each other!"

Before I continue any further, I am going to analyse the state of play even at this early stage of this NARCISSIST´S game of capture and domination! 

SOME OF THE EMOTIONS THAT NARCISSISTS SUFFER AND INSTILL INTO THEIR VICTIMS TOO! Photo by Susan Wilkinson on Unsplash.

THE NARCISSIST´S GAME PLAN REQUIRES TWO PLAYERS ON THE BOARD!

As I explained in Post No.3/N WHO ARE ADOPTED OR ADOPTIVE NARCISSISTS?, this young man was already a very troubled, tortured and unstable person when I met him. He was isolated from all that had been his world. But he had not been ostracized as he was telling me, oh, no! He had isolated himself from his adoptive family and was in self-destruct mode and destroy the adoptive parents too!

He was full of anger, hatred and bitterness, I can see that so clearly now. But his situation was not the same as mine but he made it seem like a mirror image of my own. INFJ type as I am, well, I took him at face value. Of course he was telling me his truth, why wouldn´t he? It never occurred to me that he was lying!!

This is all part of the love-bombing phase as it is clinically known! I would prefer to call it intensified grooming, as that is what in effect they are doing to you. They are grooming you into a false sense of equality and a false sense of kindred spiriting. They are so passionate and sexually active that they seem like the partner that you have never had yet!

The intensity of all this passion and long hours spent in deep conversation, emptying out your FEELINGS to this GROOM/PRINCE CHARMING makes it FEEL like a real relationship. During these early stages of the game, the covert NARCISSIST is setting up the board and allowing you to FEEL that you have free movement across the whole board.

Up to this point he was still playing the role of Prince Charming and absolutely lulling me into a false sense of security. That in simple terms means that by his stimulating company coupled with his stimulating sexual behaviour, I became a willing partner to this young 17 year old NARCISSIST male.

THE FIRST SIGNS OF THAT UNDERCOVER NARCISSISM!

It seemed initially as if nothing was wrong at all with this relationship except maybe one thing and that was his pressurising me to go astray! One thing that I have always known for sure, the one thing that has never come under any doubt at all to me, has been my father´s steadfast loyalty to me, his strange, little daughter.

I can now see that my father was this young NARCISSIST´S natural enemy. I had a true love bond with my father and that was a source of pain and envy for him. He could not FEEL that way but of course, that is what is always missing from a NARCISSIST´S life and that is a true love bond with someone, namely mother or father.

As he was no longer at school, he had no schedule and this was becoming very problematic to me. I knew that I did not want to keep getting in trouble at school but most afternoons he would be waiting outside the school gates on his motorbike and wanting to whisk me away. His persistence was absolute and I succumbed on most days.

The result being that I was not going home directly from school and having dinner with my family instead I was filling a void for this empty NARCISSISTIC being. He was consciously trying to distance me from my family and was succeeding to a degree. There were those days when I did not make it to school and letters being sent to my parents.

YES, all were in agreement that this young lad was a very bad influence on me. I was given more restrictions within my freedoms and I can see that my parents set boundaries that were very generous in truth. But he refused to comply with their boundaries. I would say to him, "Come on, I must get back home! I´ve got school in the morning!"

He would laugh and make a total mockery of our parents, schooling and their indoctrination methods. He would deliberately hold me back making me overstep the boundaries and receive the consequencial bollocking from my mother when I got in. I could see this was not what I wanted to be causing at home.

He would find the ways though to break those boundaries again and again. My school chums had now given me a wide berth, they did not like him and did not need the trouble with either family or school. Maybe their ostracization of me, just as my mother´s attitude towards me, both played absolutely into this young NARCISSIST´S hands.

School became an unfriendly place to be and home had become a very antagonistic place to be. My Prince Charming/covert NARCISSIST actually seemed like my saviour! The next phase of a NARCISSISTIC relationship. Your NARCISSIST actually seems to be the only true friend that you have.

Therefore, he is gaining ground and scoring many points over you even in these early days and weeks of the relationship. He is encouraging you at all times to draw battle lines and do battle with these people who you have always cared for, or had long-standing relationships with. By his own behaviour, he is not winning any support. By your own behaviour, you are losing all your support sources.

The ISOLATION has begun! And I will continue with that next phase of this ill-fated relationship in the next post. Can you look back now at a relationship with a NARCISSIST and see how the web was being spun and how you were being more and more entangled in that web? 

It is painful to recognize and admit one´s own errors of judgement but when we are dealing with NARCISSISTS, there is much underlying trauma left within us all and we must try to understand how and why it all happened, in order that we can finally flush those demonic memories out of our brain´s for good!

Thank you for reading and have a great afternoon!