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Confession of Someone Infected

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surf14:
I can relate to your story Tokyojim about  the N friend who pulls you into their n world and stokes the ego to the point where the Nness rubs off.

 I had a male friend who I  felt about the closest to as anyone in my life aside from  my mate.   He was always so positive of me and made me feel so good about myself.   I supervise students who rotate thru  my workplace  (healthcare) and I got a student  interestingly enough from the small town next door to where I grew up in Wisconsin.   (now live in Hawaii)  She was 13 years younger than him and seemed to seek him out as a partner.

 Long story made short;  they had a workplace romance that  intefered with my professional  relationship with her.  But the worst of it was that from this point on he really changed.  He was no longer supportive but rather competative with me.   I guess he compared his student girlfriend to me and wanted her to compete with me.  He began sabatoging me and became hardened towards me.  What had previouly been a supportive  and loving friendship now turned into a relationship where he no longer treated me with repsect.  I  brought this to his attention on several occasions but he wasn't ready to look at the dynamics.  It went on and eventually we were able to construct at least a distant but civil connection.

The failure of this relationship was VERY painful to me and of course I felt betrayed by him  (he had promised before this student arrived to not get involved with her)  but this is the first time I really began to look into Narcissistic PD.   About the time all this happened he became very upwardly mobile in this healthcare facilty.  I agree with the previouos writer that these people can really be bright, energetic and driven because that's how he became.  But he lost his heart and began to have other relational probelms with peers.  He has since moved on to another facility and I am relieved as he had been trying to bring his  girlfriend (now wife) into  my department as an emplyee.  That would have created some real problems for  me considering his overprotectivenss of his childbride.

During his period of change I remembered that five years previously we had been doing an exercise which looked at self-image.  At the time he had described himself as  a lazy, no-good bum and a total sloth-worm.  I had been aghast because this was nothing like how he appeared.  Now  I understand that this is the flip side of his nacisssitc character and is how he really feels about himself inside.  

Tokyojim:  I'm glad you did some reflecting  as to what  were the secondary gains you were getting out of this relationship you were in.  And I think it is easy to be be seduced into sliding back in to that reality when it appears to  offer  a reflection back that seemingly has no flaws in it.  Your awarenss tho is the key.  Have a good one.       Surf

futurehope:

--- Quote ---I guess what I am saying, is that it is important to me to recognize and understand my role in this marriage mess. Everyone has positive and negative aspects to their personality. At the beginning, there were aspects of my N's personality that were very attractive. But ying and yang in everything: Those same things became the black hole that exists now. I want to find a way to take responsibility for my part, so that I won't make the same mistakes again.
--- End quote ---


I know I have responsibility here too but sometimes I just feel like that paula cole song, Throwing Stones.

 "My inner vision, dulled and darkened
I keep myself away to you
I f$%# my sorrow humblely
And throw my crown upon the ground

It's you I hope for
And us I pray for
And me that I believed was wrong
But now my anger is my best friend
Be careful I may bite your head off"

but I really do hear what your saying lynn, I think In my case I may have started w/ a slight dependent or avoident disorder. (Which got worse as time went on.) This is what I intend to discover in therapy.  Also I think I was so wrapped up in my own emotional pain at the time that his way of "akuna matata" was so attractive. and boy!, The persuit and attention he gave-WOW!!!, made my head spin. Plus he was cute and we had alot in common from our childhood pains. "us against the world" I thought.


--- Quote ---“They do have an energy and optimism, and if their grandiosity is not extreme, it is believeable and infectious.”
--- End quote ---


TokyoJim, I have a friend who I talk to about this at work. (He has a NFather.) Although he can’t stand to be around my NH for long, He has confessed that the confidence that he gives off is very addicting and very attractive to him too. Interestingly, He is a shy more reserved person. There is also his humor, which at times is hurtful, but in small doses can be really funny. Also him saying things we, normal folk, would never have the nerve/gall to say. They can be very vibrant people. Good luck in finding some of those answers.


--- Quote ---the N friend who pulls you into their n world and stokes the ego to the point where the Nness rubs off.
--- End quote ---
Nice surf, that’s great way of putting it. I have defiantly felt this at times and its affected some of my relationships /decisions. Now I remove myself from it, it is so morally caustic. I, like Tokyo Jim, sometimes wonder if part of that will be with me forever.

Tokyojim:
Yes, I have the fear that one part of the N thinking is staying with me.  That is, the thinking that almost all other people are boring and have dull, repetitive lifes that fit the poet's, "Most men live lives of quiet desperation."

Except for a few weeks (in the past 40 years) in which the N spent tremendous sums of money and had an unusual time, his life has been a "dull" one itself, living in a multi-family with mommy with no job, few friends, and virtually no travel.  But somehow he has convinced me that there is that "grand" life out there if one only has the nerve to go for it.  He loves to quote Roosevelt's, "There is nothing to fear but fear itself," as the motivator for pursuing the glamorous life that he will soon join AS SOON AS......

I still have trouble shaking this, but the one thing that make him seem ugly is when I am with young children (he hates children).  As part of my work, I sometimes interact with them and realize that THIS is the stuff that life is made out of.  He would never be in my presence when I was with my children and avoided me when I was involved with my family life.  He was blunt: "We had nothing in common."  (My children are grown now.)

I cut off his NS about two months ago, and he stopped contacting me.  This forum and my readings have strengthened my resolve to cut contact forever.  However, after 40 years! this is difficult.

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