Psychopath and Narcissist Survivors Support Group

Milo · Joined: 23 Oct 2007 Posts: 807

Grieving,
Family ties can/ do run strong. XN's successful and younger (by a year) brother still feels 'obliged' to basically 'side' with XN and help him out when he's in another bind, mainly to 'save face' for the rest of family I've since discovered. None of the family 'get' the concept of 'enabling'.

As hard as it might be, it may behove you not attend the games for a while. This wouldn't be letting the XN 'win' at all. It's simply a case of your 'self preservation' and not exposing yourself to further 'humiliation'.

Yes, you could stand your ground and turn up at the games, convincing yourself you are still only there for your brother. I suspect though Grieving your attention would probably stray elsewhere.

Please do yourself a big favour hun, consider yourself and stop worrying what XN may make of your 'absence'. YOU win when you do the right thing for yourself.

Grieving8484 · Joined: 10 Mar 2008 Posts: 56

You're right...I would definitely not be paying attention to the game but rather the fact that he would be throwing the OW in my face. I just hate that he'll get high off the fact of knowing why I won't be there. It just stinks that this is something I've enjoyed for the past few years, a regimen that is usually enjoyable and peaceful for me. But you're right, I'm still not in the right state of mind, still vulnerable, even though my strength is coming back slowly. You don't realize how many tests are going to be thrown into the mix along the way..I was just hoping he would be completely away until I'm strong again.

keepingseparate · Joined: 07 Mar 2008 Posts: 87

XN was enmeshed with his family too...None of XN family has any boundries. I am grateful my children or I will never have to see these people again. I wonder if this is a characteristic of N's to never separate from their family of origin??? Does anyone know??

As you know I choose to go to my daughter's sporting events. Honestly if I can stay clear/powerful XN (coach) is comical! He is so busy showing everyone OW and how happy he is...How he has moved on etc. It is like a 3 year old! XN told my daughter yesterday, he is going "clubing" with OW all the time and having a blast! Who tells a child this and why???
I think he is trying to convince himself??

Anyway I will be glad when it is over....My only chance of recovery is 100% NC! Otherwise I do stay connected at some level! Other's on here have told me until NC I stay stuck....

Grieving8484 · Joined: 10 Mar 2008 Posts: 56

Ns brother kicked him off the team! I think he knew it was too upsetting to both my brother and I..I appreciated that Smile

YAY!

I was just thinking to myself last night....how long did it take many of you to really move on? I still feel stuck in so many ways..I'm definitely healing but I've been hitting a few bumps in the road lately...the NC has really been the best thing once I stuck with it...it's been a month since my last slip up text...

keepingseparate · Joined: 07 Mar 2008 Posts: 87

I have wondered how much time it will take to heal too?? But, who is to say?? I would assume it depends on the "self work" we do!

I tried to have a date Saturday and realized it is not fair to anyone. I need more time for ME. Doing some things different is helping with the constant "wondering" of my XN. I brought my tennis shoes and work out clothes to exercise today.

My goal is to be healthy and when XN contacts me....and this will happen (12 years together)! As soon as the OW confronts N with something he will call me! Anyway, my goal is that I won't be sick to my stomach and won't ever take his call! I never want to feel how I have felt the last 2 months EVER AGAIN!...the pain is something I have never endured in my 48 years, I know physically and emotionally I cannot handle ever again!!!!!!!!!!!

alamobelle3 · Joined: 15 Feb 2007 Posts: 615 Location: San antonio Texas

In a word - SUPPLY -

they want to move on to the new supply but want the reassurance
you will be around when it doesnt work out .

If you fear your safety - reassure him you will be friends -
then once you are safely away block him from everything as he is sure to stalk and harrass you

In the N world - one supply is good - several is better

Also I think that they use the bit about friends to convince themselves
their crappy treatment of you wasnt that bad - after all you are
still friends .

Wingnuts the lot of them
_________________
illegitimis non carborundum

Ginger Rodgers matched Fred Astaire step for step only she did it backwards and in high heels !

samvaknin · Joined: 15 Feb 2007 Posts: 2230

Narcissists are afraid of intimacy and commitment.

http://samvak.tripod.com/faq80.html

Remaining Friends with the Narcissist

Can't we act civilised and remain on friendly terms with our narcissist ex?

Never forget that narcissists (full fledged ones) are nice and friendly only when:

They want something from you – Narcissistic Supply, help, support, votes, money… They prepare the ground, manipulate you and then come out with the "small favour" they need or ask you blatantly or surreptitiously for Narcissistic Supply ("What did you think about my performance…", "Do you think that I really deserve the Nobel Prize?").

They feel threatened and they want to neuter the threat by smothering it with oozing pleasantries.

They have just been infused with an overdose of Narcissistic Supply and they feel magnanimous and magnificent and ideal and perfect. To show magnanimity is a way of flaunting one's impeccable divine credentials. It is an act of grandiosity. You are an irrelevant prop in this spectacle, a mere receptacle of the narcissist's overflowing, self-contented infatuation with his False Self.

This beneficence is transient. Perpetual victims often tend to thank the narcissist for "little graces". This is the Stockholm syndrome: hostages tend to emotionally identify with their captors rather than with the police. We are grateful to our abusers and tormentors for ceasing their hideous activities and allowing us to catch our breath.

Some people say that they prefer to live with narcissists, to cater to their needs and to succumb to their whims because this is the way they have been conditioned in early childhood. It is only with narcissists that they feel alive, stimulated and excited. The world glows in Technicolor in the presence of a narcissist and decays to sepia colours in his absence.

I see nothing inherently "wrong" with that. The test is this: if someone were to constantly humiliate and abuse you verbally using Archaic Chinese – would you have felt humiliated and abused? Probably not. Some people have been conditioned by the narcissistic Primary Objects in their lives (parents or caregivers) to treat narcissistic abuse as Archaic Chinese, to turn a deaf ear.

This technique is effective in that it allows the inverted narcissist (the narcissist's willing mate) to experience only the good aspects of living with a narcissist: his sparkling intelligence, the constant drama and excitement, the lack of intimacy and emotional attachment (some people prefer this). Every now and then the narcissist breaks into abuse in Archaic Chinese. So what, who understands Archaic Chinese anyway, says the Inverted Narcissist to herself.

I have only one nagging doubt, though:

If the relationship with a narcissist is so rewarding, why are inverted narcissists so unhappy, so ego-dystonic, so in need of help (professional or otherwise)? Aren't they victims who simply experience the Stockholm syndrome (=identifying with the kidnapper rather than with the Police) and who deny their own torment?

Click on these links are read the articles:

It is an established fact that abuse – verbal, psychological, emotional, physical, and sexual – co-occurs with intimacy. Most reported offenses are between intimate partners and between parents and children. This defies common sense. Emotionally, it should be easier to batter, molest, assault, or humiliate a total stranger. It's as if intimacy CAUSES abuse, incubates and nurtures it.

Continue to read this article here (click on this link):

http://samvak.tripod.com/intimacyabuse.html

Intimacy Retarding Paranoia

Paranoia is use by the narcissist to ward off or reverse intimacy. The narcissist is threatened by intimacy because it reduces him to ordinariness by exposing his weaknesses and shortcomings and by causing him to act "normally". The narcissist also dreads the encounter with his deep buried emotions - hurt, envy, anger, aggression - likely to be foisted on him in an intimate relationship.

The paranoid narrative legitimizes intimacy repelling behaviours such as keeping one's distance, secrecy, aloofness, reclusion, aggression, intrusion on privacy, lying, desultoriness, itinerancy, unpredictability, and idiosyncratic or eccentric reactions. Gradually, the narcissist succeeds to alienate and wear down all his friends, colleagues, well-wishers, and mates.

Continue to read this article here (click on this link):

http://samvak.tripod.com/journal60.html

The narcissist does his damnedest to avoid intimacy. He constantly lies about every aspect of his life: his self, his history, his vocations and avocations, and his emotions. This false data guarantee his informative lead, asymmetry, or "advantage" in his relationships. It fosters disintimisation. It casts a pall of cover up, separateness, mystery over the narcissist's affairs.

Continue to read this article here (click on this link):

http://samvak.tripod.com/narcissismintimacy.html

The narcissist divides all women to saints and whores. He finds it difficult to have sex ("dirty", "forbidden", "punishable", "degrading") with feminine significant others (spouse, intimate girlfriend). To him, sex and intimacy are mutually exclusive rather than mutually expressive propositions.

Continue to read this article here (click on this link):

http://samvak.tripod.com/faq79.html

People with Personality Disorders (PDs) are very afraid of real, mature, intimacy. Intimacy is formed not only within a couple, but also in a workplace, in a neighborhood, with friends, while collaborating on a project. Intimacy is another word for emotional involvement, which is the result of interactions with others in constant and predictable (safe) propinquity.

Continue to read this article here (click on this link):

http://samvak.tripod.com/faq69.html

Narcissists have no interest in emotional or even intellectual stimulation by significant others. Such feedback is perceived as a threat. Significant others in the narcissist's life have very clear roles: the accumulation and dispensation of past Primary Narcissistic Supply in order to regulate current Narcissistic Supply. Nothing less but definitely nothing more. Proximity and intimacy breed contempt. A process of devaluation is in full operation throughout the life of the relationship.

Continue to read this article here (click on this link):

http://samvak.tripod.com/faq80.html

Inevitably, the sexuality of patients with personality disorders is thwarted and stunted. In the Paranoid Personality Disorder, sex is depersonalized and the sexual partner is dehumanized. The paranoid is besieged by persecutory delusions and equates intimacy with life-threatening vulnerability, a "breach in the defenses" as it were. the paranoid uses sex to reassure himself that he is still in control and to quell is anxiety.

Continue to read this article here (click on this link):

http://samvak.tripod.com/personalitydisorders47.html

http://samvak.tripod.master.com/texis/master/search/?q=approach-avoidance

Question:

What is the mechanism behind the cycles of over-valuation (idealization) and devaluation in the narcissist's life?

Answer:

Continue to read this article here (click on this link):

http://samvak.tripod.com/devaluationidealization.html

Thus, paradoxically, the worst his anguish and unhappiness, the more relieved and elated such an abuser feels! He is "liberated" and "unshackled" by his own self-initiated abandonment, he insists. He never really wanted this commitment, he tells any willing (or buttonholed) listener – and anyhow, the relationship was doomed from the beginning by the egregious excesses and exploits of his wife (or partner or friend or boss).

Continue to read this article here (click on this link):

http://samvak.tripod.com/abuse14.html

Thus, on the one hand, the narcissist feels that his freedom depends upon re-enacting these early experiences. On the other hand, he is terrified by this prospect. Realizing that he is doomed to go through the same traumas over and over again, the narcissist distances himself by using his aggression to alienate, to humiliate and in general, to be emotionally absent.

This behavior brings about the very consequence that the narcissist so fears - abandonment. But, this way, at least, the narcissist is able to tell himself (and others) that HE was the one who fostered the separation, that it was fully his choice and that he was not surprised. The truth is that, governed by his internal demons, the narcissist has no real choice. The dismal future of his relationships is preordained.

Continue to read this article here (click on this link):

http://samvak.tripod.com/faq4.html

In his quest to find new sources, he again embarks on ego-mending bouts of sex, followed by the selection of a spouse or a mate (a Secondary Narcissistic Supply Source). Then the cycle re-commence: a sharp drop in sexual activity, emotional absence and cruel detachment leading to abandonment.

Continue to read this article here (click on this link):

http://samvak.tripod.com/faq29.html

Hank · Joined: 13 Jun 2008 Posts: 26