Letters from Springfest #1

                                                        March 23, 2012

Dear M,

     I figure that you, of all people on this Earth, would understand the experience I’m having right now.

     I wish with my entire being that you were here having these experiences with me.

     Everywhere I go, I find myself daydreaming about what it would be like to have you here.  I imagine looking over at you and smiling and realizing how abundantly full my life feels with you in it.  I imagine you smiling back as you also realize what a perfect moment in time this is.  My soul resonates beautifully with yours.

     I wish you were here so the joy reflecting off your face would be mirrored in mine as we both revel in the joy of life…of experience.

     I swam in the river today.  I imagined you there and how you would look with the sun reflecting off your hair…how warm your body would feel after the chill of the river.

     I imagined holding your hand, walking down the paths.  I imagined your arm around me as we listen to a moving piece of music. 

     Yesterday, I got lost at night.  I couldn’t find my campsite.  Everyone had gone to bed and I went for one last bathroom run but when I tried to head back to camp, I had mis-remembered the location of our site by ten degrees.  I searched and searched and after an hour of trampling through other people’s campsites with a super bright flashlight, I happened upon C. participating in a jam tent with an adorable Reese Witherspoon look-a-like (who happened to be wearing overall shorts) with a powerful blues/funk style voice.  This was at 4AM.  By the time C. had wrapped up and showed me the way home it was 6AM.  I had been crying with frustration over being so lost but I ended up having a beautiful night.  So it goes at Springfest.

*     *     *

      So the most “exciting” thing that I have learned about while studying narcissism is something called mirroring.  Essentially, the narcissist will study their victim and learn about what makes them tick.  They will find out about their hobbies, their passions, and dreams and use that as a mechanism for achieving closeness.  They do this by incorporating parts of your personality into theirs, becoming chameleon-like as they take on new personas for every new victim. 

     Looking back on this letter, it’s amusing to me that I used this very term to describe the imagined look of joy on both of our faces.  I have come to realize that this is exactly what was happening from day one.  He knew what emotions to feign based on my facial expressions.  M. used to look at me with such love and devotion expressed on his face; I could never understand why he could never say the words “I love you.”  It seemed clear from his expression that he was feeling nothing less than love for me.  Now I understand that he was merely copying the look on my own face, hence why his words would never match up.

     When I met M, he was presenting himself to me as a deeply spiritual person, well-acquainted with things like Reiki and philosophy.  He came across as the most loving, accepting, open-minded and non-judgmental person I had ever met.  As I was interested in Mediaeval Fairs, he would often bring up Game of Thrones, telling me how much I’d love it.  He would even recommend the books, though he had not actually read them.  He knew how much I loved the Lord of the Rings and acted as if it tickled him when I told him he looked elven.  He made sure to have his copy of The Hobbit lying on the kitchen table when I came over.  He said he was re-reading it before we went to go see the film together.  The movie outing, of course, was never to be.  He even once went on an archery expedition with me and acted as if he thoroughly enjoyed it, but declined every further invitation to the range.  I could go on and on about all the things he did to make me feel close to him, but really, none of the things I’ve listed thus far sound troublesome.  In fact, I was aware of some of these things in the moment they were happening.  He acknowledged outright that he had not read the Game of Thrones series. 

     The trouble only became apparent to me ten months after we met, in the middle of making love.  He said to me that I was the only woman he had ever wanted to have babies with.  I immediately recognized this as my own thought, and in fact my own words.  He had finally claimed ownership of something that was so uniquely mine, that I could not for one second believe them to be his thoughts.  This was the moment when reality as I knew it began to come crashing down.  Why on Earth would this man claim such a preposterous thing? 

     It was this moment that ultimately led to my discovery of words like “sociopath” and “narcissist.”  I had googled something like “when someone uses your words as their own.”  Mirroring is the ultimate weapon in the Narcissist’s tool belt.  By mirroring the victim, they can gain the victim’s trust much more quickly than they could by actually getting to know them in an authentic way. 

     I believed I had met my soul mate.  That was the only explanation I had for the way our thoughts and bodies fell into such synchronicity with each other.  When I discovered that this feeling was a hoax meant to gain my trust and trick me into lowering my defenses, I could only describe the experience as emotional rape.  So much for souls that resonate beautifully with one another.