Narcissistic Abuse

April 15, 2012

M,

     Last night I finally slept.  It was the sleep of the mortally exhausted.  Usually after consuming half a bottle of wine, my sleep is like death, deep and unencumbered by visions.  Last night’s sleep was vigorous.  Hundreds of scenes and faces were flashing past my subconscious as I slumbered.  I can’t recall any of these snippets, but what I do remember is you, pervading my every thought.  I awoke filled with a sense of you.  I’m not even sure if I, myself was present in any of my dreams last night.  You hijacked my mind.

     When I’m awake I can at least exert enough control over my thoughts to get things done when needed, but as soon as my mind has a moment of idleness it turns back to you.  You are constantly running through the back of my mind, ready to jump into the forefront at a moment’s notice.  I suppose that it should be no surprise that in slumber you would so easily permeate my thoughts when I am defenseless against my subconscious.  Nonetheless, after fighting my way back into the waking world, I was struck with how deeply you had impressed yourself into my dreams.

***

     This, my friends, is exactly what addiction feels like.  Narcissists have a bizarre effect on their victim’s brains.  They dangle whatever it is you want most in life right in front of your nose like a carrot tied to a stick, but every time you start buying into this dream that they are promising, they yank the carrot away, leaving the victim desperate for more.  When the victim finally starts to think the Narcissist has truly lost interest in them and starts to move on, the Narcissist rushes back in dangling that carrot closer than ever.  Over time, the victim becomes obsessed with getting that carrot.  Every slight or bit of evidence that the Narcissist is mentally checking out makes the victim replay every conversation trying to figure out what they have done wrong to push him away.  Eventually every waking moment is spent dwelling on analyzing the Narcissist’s behavior, wondering when he will come back around with his characteristic adoration and promises. 

    Every time the Narcissist pulls away, an intense physical and emotional withdrawal is felt, comparable to that of a drug addiction.  This is how M. began controlling me.  He would get me hooked with ego-stroking and passionate love making, and then just disappear whenever I made a false step, such as asking him if he ever thought of becoming my boyfriend.  I quickly learned that to keep him around, I was going to have to drastically lower my expectations.  I couldn’t ask him honest, pointed questions, I couldn’t ask for a relationship, I couldn’t ask him questions about his past, nor about the other women in his life.  I slowly stopped asking.  Essentially, I handed over all the power to him, because every time I made a move, I realized it was the wrong one and I would be punished with emotional distance.  I let him lead, only daring to ask him to spend time with me once every couple weeks.  He would refuse to make plans in advance due to his busy lifestyle, so again, I learned not to ask.  All I could do was pitch suggestions that we hang out and hope he wasn’t busy at that moment and could carve out an hour or two for me. 

     I had always believed that emotional abuse looked like my parents’ fights: calling one another names, yelling, breaking things, making threats.  Today, I have a very different understanding of what emotional abuse looks like.  I have no other words to describe using someone’s emotions as a punishment/reward system designed to exert control over them.