I spent a lot of time reading the literature about Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD). It’s good to arm yourself with the tools that help you deal with a narcissist. There’s a lot written about how narcissists need to have their narcissism fed. Constant admiration and adulation is food to a narcississt. In the absence of that adulation, they will find a new source.
When thinking of narcissism, I always pictured a tree searching for water. It has to have water for survival. Some trees send roots deep into the ground. Other trees, like aspens, have shallow root systems. Narcissists have shallow root systems. They are never loyal to one source. They don’t trust their partner to always feed them, so they turn to their kids or their employees or a new lover.
I had moved out. I had purchased my own home. The kids and I were settled.
A year had gone by and he informed me that he was irritated that he was no longer my priority. That was always an issue when I lived with him. No matter how my life would get turned upside down, no matter what I cooked for him, or how I cleaned for him, or the relationships I ended so as to have more time for him, he’d always complain that he wasn’t my priority. And now that I wasn’t even living under the same roof with him, he still couldn’t believe that he wasn’t my priority.
Imagine a person having that thought. Then imagine that person actually putting that thought to words – “Why am I no longer your priority?”
It clearly would always be all about him.
It doesn’t matter that we no longer share the same house.
It doesn’t matter that I left him.
What matters is that I must always make him my first priority – above the kids, above myself, above all else.
Tags: all about me, child of narcissist, divorce, narcissism, narcissist behavior, NPD
