It baffles me with a particular type of awe and envy that there are people out there who do not have any idea what it’s like to deal with people who posses a personality that could be described as narcissistic (I know most intimately & mainly refer to the covert type). Who have never experienced first or second hand the effects of gaslighting, coercive control or manipulation. That for them most people are decent, say what they mean and “falling’s out” are simply that “six of one, half a dozen of the other” small, well-intentioned miscommunications. What glorious rose-tinted bliss is this! They have never known the heart-racing, hot-faced, panic attack chest tightening, reality-bending befuddlement of the person opposite you swearing that night is day as you point vigorously at the sky in desperate incredulity. When you later remind them that last time you talked they swore night was day, they say they didn’t say that and so you splutter, foam at the mouth and descend into a very specific kind of madness. Everyone thinks you’re crazy, maybe you are crazy, you definitely feel a kind of crazy.
I’ve known many, they were there before I was born, they can be your close relatives. Some people’s approval you will never earn no matter how hard you try. YOU simply do not “deserve” it. If they gave it to you they’d lose it for themselves, they are on a perpetual seesaw of competition for ok-ness, you can never balance it out, if you give them things they simply sink to the bottom of a vast positivity vacuum never to be acknowledged or seen again. And they aren’t coming back in the form of reciprocation, oh no no, it ain’t gonna happen, ever. I refer you back to my earlier statement about how… “YOU simply do not “deserve” it”. There are some people in your life you will be afraid of, is the reality I’ve always known. They don’t want you to say you are afraid of them, they become hostile when you do, so you must not say it but you feel it and you know it and you live poised and waiting for the next literal or metaphorical blow.
I feel like I’ve attracted them, amassed them throughout my life, they can tell I’m a suitable target. I have a peculiar type of compliance that doesn’t look like compliance to the casual observer. I know many lovely people too, when people are kind, open and honest my personality is not at risk, we enjoy a clear communication, a safety and an open handed, mutually caring friendship. But my head is marked, those people see me coming, I am easy to guilt, desperate to please and wilfully principled enough to frame as unreasonable. Convinced by my conditioning that somehow it is my job on this earth to make others feel at ease, their feelings are mine to anticipate and sooth.
But not anymore, I’ve been on a four plus year journey to break old habits and learn die hard new ones instead. I cannot be guilted or shamed into compliance. I cannot be told my resistance to mistreatment is anger/unreasonableness or bad behaviour on my part.
No. Is an answer in itself.
You will get out what you put in. If that’s nothing, then it’s nothing. I owe no one proximity. I owe no kindness to those who show me none. Call me “difficult” or “angry” and all you will hear is your projection bouncing back to you from a closed door.
I no longer live in fear of your negative opinion of me.
I know and recognise the signs and the behaviours and I am out of there before you finish your twisty little sentence.
It’s a long road but I dream of life without them, any of them.
If you’ve got no idea what I’m on about, good for you, think yourself lucky and I hope it stays that way for you. But please know that your experience is simply that, YOURS and others may differ wildly.
If you do know what I’m talking about then I’m sorry that you do xx