Narcissists are boring

Yes it is!

All I did really was let him have the last word and never reply. It's been a month now. I am sad but it's been a lot more peaceful than taking abuse. x

It's the worst bond to have break x

It's so sad to estrange a child, but I finally understand it's necessary now. If I didn't stop talking to him I would just be allowing him to verbally abuse me for hours and continue to control me, never knowing where I stand because he would never make any plans to see us. If there hadn't been GC involved I probably wouldn't have put up with what I did. I will miss GC, but I won't miss being treated like that. A stranger at a bus stop would be kinder than my own child.

So sorry VS, Allsorts and Wyllow3, it's so painful isn't it. I've had the N Mum, the N ex Partner and now one N Child. In the end I learned to change myself because I knew they would not change and I'm thankful that I have a healthy marriage to a good man, a lovely balanced child who is not an N and my Mother is too batty these days to be able to do much harm. It has been really, really hard but I think it might get easier now I have actually distanced. I have more life behind me than I have ahead of me and most of it has been extremely painful. I hope my next 20 years can be free of N nonsense and that by the time I am a vulnerable old lady I can feel safe in my home knowing that my N son will not come and batter me.

It's been helpful for me to read the above. I've posted else thread as I'm currently getting out of an abusive relationship with someone I def believe has strong Narc traits.Q and A in head as to why I got caught up in it and about my own Mum, who has not been with us since 2006.

Narc? No. Lacked the bitterness or degree of blame.

But my abiding feeling is that I existed to make HER happy and OK as I grew up. That was my role, that was the necessity to get the care I needed as a child. Not to cry, not to be angry, be a happy-happy healthy OK child. And to take on the abiding family messages about What Life Was For. To disagree was to betray. One sought approval and hugs were short on the ground.
I know why: good reasons, including her own father taking his own life when she got engaged! Long forgiven. My sister has long said, she was incapable of understanding me and as the eldest I got it very full on as, 1950's style, I was nose to nose with her for the 5 years until school.

As a very depressed teenager it was so NOT OK (I did try to ask her for help, no go, it was "chin up").

Returning to separating from current nearly Ex, it does not surprise me that I was vulnerable to the early full on "love bombing" so he became the centre of my universe and after that I was hooked on trying to make things OK for him, until a crisis came and his mask dropped.

The degrees of expressed hatred, blame, maliciousness were something I'd never met before, for although my Mum was needy and opinionated, and was never at fault as she never had adequate self-awareness, she did not turn to bitterness thank goodness.

As she had a breakdown when my Dad died when I was 19 I just carried on trying to get her approval and love but kept my own difficulties away from her. My tougher sister, who as a child had both a twin and a more normal start (nursery from young, more "real world" start) sort of looked after her without getting too pulled in.

It is only when you get to true understanding you can move on.
If you can recognise either they or you can’t change and it’s not possible to have a relationship as every time you meet you feel upset and hurt, what life is that.? I recognise that something I must have done or said at sometime must have had a very negative impact on my d, she won’t and doesn’t want to resolve anything, I want her happy, finally accept that will never be, never the less I really want her happy before anything, I can manage now as I am.

Yes Allsorts there are people forced to estrange a child commenting on this thread

PS According to my mother I am the problem as well. I was scapegoated from an early age. I have gone through terrible depression and suicide attempts due to things she has said and done.

I see through it all now (but have wasted many years thinking it was me). Life's too precious to be with people who devalue and attack you when there are kind, good and reciprocal people in the world to be friends with. I would say to anyone in this situation: BE with people who accept you as you are, don't be with people who tolerate you or abuse you.

Allsorts

Any child from an abusuve relationship, a narcissist that plays with your head, physical abuse, should walk away for their own mental health. No one chooses to whom they are born and that family has total control over you for years. You have to recognise your helplessness in such a situation, equally seek to understand rather be understood by those parents. They are not changing because they can't. .Some adults, regrettably have children that are impossible, those children rule and make home a totally unhappy place one crisis after another.

I get that they can't change. But I also forget that they can't, if that makes sense?

We do judge people on our own standards, at least I am guilty of it. I don't mind change or admitting I'm wrong (but only if I actually am! LOL)

I have had a minimal relationship with my mother for years because I realise she can't change. She is broken and always will be. A victim of her own circumstances that breaks everything she comes into contact with. She does not want help, she wants attention and does not care how bad the drama is that she uses to make everything all about her. She cannot love. She pretends to, but she cannot. She cannot be responsible for her own decisions because it's "everyone else's fault, but hers" in her eyes.

To have a mother with this disorder and now a son who also treats me like this, is beyond belief- and I am really bored of the abuse and drama. According to my son I am the narc. I am NC with him and my life is peaceful because of the drama he was creating.

From now on I will concentrate of healthy, reciprocal relationships with friends and family who are NOT narcs. I am sorry for anyone who understands what I'm saying because we're in the same boat. Life goes on- and it can become more peaceful.

I accept what I cannot change (narcs) and I change myself.

Doodledog

I don't think they can move on, OaU. Crocodiles won't seek therapy as they don't know that there is an alternative to being a crocodile, and for them there really isn't.

It's not an excuse, but an explanation. The best thing is to stay away as much as possible, but when it's family or when you have to work closely (or whatever) with one, all you can try to do is switch off from it.

Yes, you're right Doodle dog. I was forgetting and judging them on my standards. That's something I fall down in when I forget that not everyone has my standards. Not everyone is capable of love and care.

Narcs are boring. I'm BORED of always being "wrong" even when I'm not.

Im NC and it's great.

Any child from an abusuve relationship, a narcissist that plays with your head, physical abuse, should walk away for their own mental health. No one chooses to whom they are born and that family has total control over you for years. You have to recognise your helplessness in such a situation, equally seek to understand rather be understood by those parents. They are not changing because they can't. .Some adults, regrettably have children that are impossible, those children rule and make home a totally unhappy place one crisis after another.

Recovering from narcissistic abuse is weird and confusing because you spend a lot of your time thinking that if you could handle things better, things would be better.

The truth is there is just no way of better handling abuse.

Family who abuse you quit long before you did.

They can protest but they quit, estrangement is not on you

VioletSky

I think I understand why my mother is the way that she is and I do have compassion for that

But behaviours you inflict on one or some, having a false self and covering up those bad behaviours makes it a choice.

Yes I agree Violet . Understanding the cause and having compassion don't cancel the choices made to behave in particular ways

It’s very difficult dealing with anyone with a mental illness, not for the faint hearted. I wouldn’t say a narcisstic person was sane and level headed.

The thread is about whether narcissists are boring, though. Not necessarily a thread just for sharing experiences. IMO they aren't - they are individuals. Some are boring and others anything but

Except that the title is not reflecting the discussion. I think the title is misleading and unfortunate, but it is possible to see where the conversation is going despite the title!

I do get your explanation VS re the purpose and reason for that title though

The difficult thing about learning to recognise them is that they often start by being kind and even loving. It is dangerous to assume that everyone who is good to you has ulterior motives - on the whole they don't.

I know that I can be too trusting, and too ready to 'let people in', and that does leave me open to being targeted again; but if the alternative is to distrust everyone, be on constant alert for red flags and shut myself off from people, I don't think it's worth it. It's tricky.

The thread is about healing

It is about getting to that place where narcissists are boring and predictable.

It's about recognising them

It's about protecting yourself from them

It's about knowing when others are using the triggers a narcissist installed to hurt you or shut you down.

It's about loving yourself enough to walk away from them

It's about helping others do the same

I don't think they can move on, OaU. Crocodiles won't seek therapy as they don't know that there is an alternative to being a crocodile, and for them there really isn't.

It's not an excuse, but an explanation. The best thing is to stay away as much as possible, but when it's family or when you have to work closely (or whatever) with one, all you can try to do is switch off from it.

I do find it boring because narcs are stuck and repeat the same old same old stuff like a stuck record because they won't seek therapy to move on. Instead it is us who get therapy and move on (and then we really are past hearing it all regurgitated)

The thread is about whether narcissists are boring, though. Not necessarily a thread just for sharing experiences. IMO they aren't - they are individuals. Some are boring and others anything but.

FWIW, I think that an understanding of why they are how they are is really helpful. It can make you understand that their treatment of you wasn't personal, and not your fault, but a result of their 'wiring'. It took me a while (ok, ages, and I still hurt sometimes) to realise that obsessing about their behaviour is no different from obsessing about why a crocodile eats people.

You can choose to look for reasons why your arm was bitten off and bemoan your fate, or you can accept that it was nothing you did, and there was nothing you could have done differently. There is no point though. It's just what crocodiles do.

I agree Madgran

We know what we know. I couldn't possibly begin to explain everything I've been through on an online forum, yet that doesn't alter facts. That's why it is useful to talk to people who know and have shared experiences, with very little explanation needed.

Brilliant comment Madgran

FannyCornforth

Sorry, I put that badly - I meant understanding why the abuser acts the way that they do.

Yes I agree. I think an understanding of why is important. I just don't think that people should have to endlessly express that understanding on a tgread like this, when talking about and sharing experiences and finding people who have had similar experiences.

I know what you mean, Allsorts. I have known two narcissists (by my diagnosis!) and neither of them is happy. Both have had a string of failed relationships and few, if any, close friends. They tend to reinvent themselves each time they get a new supply, as part of the 'mirroring' that goes with love bombing. This means that they don't really know who they are - everything from taste in music to political allegiance shifts to that of the new supply, and when the devaluation starts it devalues their sense of self. They start again when the next 'supply' comes along.

I think they genuinely think they have found 'the one' to help them (whether it is a close colleague, a lover/spouse, a best friend or whatever) each time, and the 'love bombing' is as real as they can be. It's all a lie, but they mean it when they say it. they really want someone to understand them and 'complete' them by giving them unconditional love/respect/care.

When things go wrong, as they always do, they are angry/disappointed as they see it as someone else letting them down, which proves to them that nobody is ever going to be good enough for them. They really do think they are the victims, and that nobody understands them/people are jealous/all women(or men) are unfaithful/they are being picked on etc etc, and they can't see their own role in any of it.

Their actions might be choices, but they are driven by deep-seated psychological motives (usually of survival, because of the abandonment they suffered as a child).*

They are very damaged people. It is really difficult to have any sympathy when you've been on the receiving end of their cruelty, but I wouldn't want to live in the head of a narcissist.

*I don't want to say too much, but the two people I knew both had 'events' as children. One lost her mother at 5, and the other was sent to a relative's because her younger sibling was sickly and their mother couldn't cope. Her sibling was 4 years younger. Both of these things tie in with what the psychologists say is at the root of narcissism - a feeling that they are alone in the world at a critical stage of development.

I think I understand why my mother is the way that she is and I do have compassion for that

But behaviours you inflict on one or some, having a false self and covering up those bad behaviours makes it a choice.

Sorry, I put that badly - I meant understanding why the abuser acts the way that they do.