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The Voice of the Narcissist

pumpkin patch Mark and I hadn’t been dating long. One late summer evening we were taking a walk through a nice neighborhood I had grown up in. I was kind of hoping that I would see someone I knew so that someone I knew would see me with Mark.

I was in the googly-eyed phase of the relationship. I still couldn’t believe that a guy this handsome and this charming actually wanted to be with me. So, naturally, I wanted the world to see me with him. Then the world would think, “Wow, that Jesse is something, isn’t she. She’s with Mark.”

Even though I was so charmed by him and enthralled with the idea of being with him, there was something that just didn’t sit right with me. I felt petty for even mentioning it. Part of me was afraid that if I criticized anything he did, that he’d dump me. Maybe the thing that bugged me, wasn’t a big enough thing to risk sacrificing being with Mark.

I was almost 30 years old at the time. I was starting to understand how important it was for me to express my desires and be open in a relationship. We were strolling, holding hands, and I felt very close to him. In a very gentle, non-confrontational way I asked him why he often talked to me in a sing-song voice.

(This voice was kind of cute in the beginning. I had wondered if that was a voice that he used when he was finding his way in a new relationship. Maybe he didn’t know how to get close to a woman or be intimate, so he resorted to this patronizing voice. I hoped that he would get comfortable enough with me that he could drop the annoying voice.) Continue reading →

Control — 2 Comments
17
Aug 09

Sweeping the Floor

sweeping I would not win any awards for my housekeeping skills. Quite frankly, it would sadden me if I learned that awards were actually given out for such a thing. I am not a slob, but I value hanging with my kids, reading, gardening, and fresh air over a clean floor. I don’t think my less-than-perfect domestic skills are a character flaw. We live in our house for a few days at a stretch, and then I hit a wall and we straighten things up and “pretend that we aren’t messy,” as my daughter likes to say. No one would eat off of our floor, but that’s why we have tables.

So while I may not get the award for cleanest floors, I did set a record for numbers of failed attempts at getting the floor perfectly clean. My ex was incredibly patient with me when it came to training me how to properly clean hardwood floors. We would have lengthy discussions (lectures) on technique, cleansers and tools. I’m sure he was thinking that even a trained monkey could do a better job than I; and if he could create a tool that even a monkey could operate, surely I would be able to get the job done.

That was our routine. I would get out of bed in the morning, he would head off to work, and I would begin the task of implementing both the instructions and the proper tools for making his hardwoods beautiful. I say “his” because in all the time I lived there, it always felt like it was his house. It got to the point where I would get this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach about 15 minutes before he was due home. I knew that I had failed, once again, and that I would have to endure another lecture.

He never raised his voice. He didn’t even look at me crossly or give me some sort of resigned sigh that would indicate the hopelessness of my attempts. He would talk to me like your second grade teacher talked to you when you just couldn’t get your a’s to look like an a with the proper curve of the ending tail.

Remember how she would patiently explain that you must make the a have that tail so that it is properly distinguished from the o? In second grade that tone of voice is warm and comforting. Coming from your husband, that tone of voice is grating and irritating, mostly because you realize that your husband doesn’t think you are any more intelligent than a second grader. Continue reading →

Control / Lack of Empathy / The World Revolves Around Me / You Might Be a Narcissist If ... — Comments Off
9
Aug 09

Prioritizing

old window 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?” Continue reading →

Control / Lack of Empathy / Moving On — 14 Comments
8
Aug 09

The beginning …

110208-0231 This is the beginning.

This is where I start to sort out what it means to survive narcissism. I am still coming out on the other side of this relationship. I’m not sure anyone knows how long it takes to make sense of the experience. Maybe I will always attempt to make sense of it. But with lots of humor and the help of great friends, I’m beginning to see what I’ve learned, and what I continue to learn about why I ended up in a relationship with a narcissist.

Now I can say that it continues to be an entertaining journey. I’m not sure I would say that if I hadn’t gotten out. When I was in the relationship, I was too busy looking at the trees to see the forest. From this new perspective, the forest isn’t scary anymore. And the trees weren’t that difficult to cut down. I’m braver than I thought I could be. Now I can see that those trees were comical, not menacing. I’m sure it sounds crazy when I say the trees were comical, but if I hadn’t laughed at the bizarreness of those episodes, I’d still be there, struggling for my next breath.

I gained a lot of confidence from educating myself about this disorder. This blog helps me to vent, make sense of, laugh at, and maybe even help someone else. This blog will not be clinical, or negative, or cynical. There is a time when a survivor needs to commiserate, and feel sad, and lick wounds. This blog is about how crazy, funny, insane and ridiculous it is to live with a narcissist. It is that humor that made me realize that my relationship was not normal. His behavior was too strange. It was not because I continued to screw up. His behavior WAS NOT NORMAL. I’ve got a lot of stories. Maybe those stories will shed some new light on this disorder. At any rate, it’s always good to share stories with other survivors. There’s nothing quite like that moment when a survivor looks at you and knows exactly what you are talking about because they’ve been there. There’s nothing quite like the feeling of having all this craziness understood by another in a way that only happens if that person has experienced the same thing.

Revision (2/5/10) Continue reading →