Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board
Voicelessness and Emotional Survival => Voicelessness and Emotional Survival Message Board => Topic started by: bitterperson80 on February 08, 2005, 11:18:32 AM
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Hi all, I am new to this board. I wanted to share my thoughts and experiences and to hear others who have had to endure the neverending emotional pain that these people cause.
After the worst weekend ever, I finally realized that my ex is an N. This is after knowing her for about 2 years. She is a textbook definition of an N. All the signs are there. She is the most HORRIBLE, EVIL person I have met in my life...I never knew people like that were out there.
Anyway, after reading up on N's I have a question about their jobs. I read somewhere that these people excel in their jobs because they love the praise and admiration they get from people at work. My ex just moved to New York about 5 months ago. She got a good job at a Financial Management company and got a promotion in less than 2 months. At first I couldn't understand how somebody so evil could have something so good happen to them...but if what experts say is true...then this is what happens with Narcissistic people.
Does anybody else notice this happening or that it has happened with the Narcissistic people in your life???
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Some Ns are hugely successful. Others are barely able to hold a job. They aren't all identical in that respect.
bunny
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Tycutee
I'm new to this subject area too, but my soon-to-be ex-N father-in-law is very successful (also a high-functioning alcoholic) and my N husband works for him and therefore is also successful. Neither of them have personalities that would allow them to work for other people so they are self-employed. I'm not sure if that is a typical N trait. My father-in-law's ego is fed by his business success so even at 86 he works nearly full-time. My husband just follows along in his shadow as he always has.
Consider yourself very lucky that you only had 2 years of her. I lived with it for 22 years unknowingly, while he lied and hid things from me. It is a very painful thing from which to recover and I still have a long way to go, but it is getting better.
Good luck working through the process. Make sure you find a good therapist. It really helps.
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Thanks for the reply :)
Luckily I just started seeing a counselor last week......we will have a lot to discuss on Wed.
I'm still in a state of shock about the whole thing....it feels so surreal
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Yup, that's true for me too. My ex is very successful, and he works for himself on fairly short term projects (notice, the lack of relationship development inherent in "short term"). He is very talented and accomplished and will tell you so if you ask! His nit-pickiness (read OCD) serves him well in his field. He has a reputation that affords him plenty of work....in a field full of Narcissists (IMO). When he did work with a large group, people either hated him or loved him. On his own, he answers to himself and can fool anyone for the short term into thinking he is a team player. He is nasty, but there is something awe inspiring, or is that awe-ful (HA) about how he just gets whatever he wants! (certainly did at my expense!)
I just laugh a lot now, about it...nothing to be done....let that one go.
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My x N is self-employed as well. At his previous job he was successful but he ended up burning too many bridges and was laid off.
His trademark was spending extraordinary amounts of time on *paperwork* while home and when I started looking at what it was he was doing.....it was basically nothing. What would take a normal person 20 minutes to accomplish would take him over an hour. Despite this he was able to move up the ladder quickly at a young age. However, it did catch up with him later and that is why he was forced to become self-employed.
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I can relate to your surreal comment. I still feel like I have entered the twilight zone. In less than 2 years I have gone from a 53-year-old woman who thought she was happily married, had finally reached financial comfort and stability, had just sent my first child to college and was beginning to think about our empty nest years; to someone who has had to completely reconstruct my view of the future, have lost my husband, his family, our home, much of my dignity and self-esteem and all of my ability to trust. However, I have to look at the positive side that I now know that I have the possibility of a happy future which could never have been the case with my N husband. I finally realized that I would rather have a happy 25th anniversary than a miserable 50th. Now that I have done more research on this subject, I think it is likely that my own father was NPD as well, and he made all of our lives miserable until the day he died.
I was so concerned initially of the impact on my children of not having an intact family. My therapist has taken away those concerns and told me that ultimately the kids will be better off if they can see their mother in a healthy relationship with a man who is truly loving and supportive.
You will continue to feel disoriented for some time to come, but just keep working on yourself and the healing process.
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my ex girlfriend is a success. As soon as she graduated, she threw me out the door saying that she wants a man who has a five year plan, makes as much as her. The problem was I made 20K more. I would like to talk to you sometime if you are interested. My ex has freaked out and freaked me out. I want to find comfort that I am not crazy. I start therapy tomorrow.
B.
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my ex girlfriend is a success. As soon as she graduated, she threw me out the door saying that she wants a man who has a five year plan, makes as much as her. The problem was I made 20K more. I would like to talk to you sometime if you are interested. My ex has freaked out and freaked me out. I want to find comfort that I am not crazy. I start therapy tomorrow.
B.
B. good for you! Get everything out of it you can. I have left a message this afternoon to setup therapy for myself with my "old" therapist.
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My ex-N is in the music business and sales. Perfect for him. He can project whatever he wants either on stage or in the boardroom.
Best,
bludie
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Now that I think about it...my ex had a couple of jobs where she would always say there were people who didn't like her for no reason whatsoever. At the time..I was still being fooled by her fake personality and thought that she was soo sweet..and how could anybody not like her...now I see lol
So far at her New York job, everybody seems to like her..but...she's only been there less than 4 months...I wonder how long she'll fool them??
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I find my H is adored by women because of his charm, but men don't like him or trust him (except the one gay guy in his office). He has never displayed the meanness typical of N personality, but just the false kindness and sweetness. He surrounds himself with women who will do his work for him and make him look good. He is so disorganized that he can't run his personal or business life. I was just the woman who ran his personal life. Now that he's on his own, he is quite hapless and has no direction and can't make decisions. His first choice was to go into radio and TV, but when he realized it would take a great deal of hard work to be successful, he opted to go into business with his father. Probably the biggest mistake he ever made. He will always been an actor, however, and the world is his stage.
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Brigid,
It's funny you said that...I remember telling my ex that she would make a good actress....I didn't know why I said that at the time..but now it makes sense....she was always so over dramatic about everything and tried to make everyone and everything all about her.
And like ur husband...she always surrounded herself with the opposite sex. I remember walking in the mall with her one day and it seemed that ALL the guys knew her but not one girl spoke to her....weird...
The men just can't get enought of her.....i have seen her talk to them like shit and sweet talk the hell out of them....they all fall to her charming ways....women didn't do that so well...when one of her female friends started acting up..they were the crazy ones..if i had a dollar for everytime she called one of her female friends crazy..I would be rich! In the last year..3 of her female friends "supposedly" went crazy lol
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i am new to this topic, but i can give you what i know. my n mother is extremely successful at her job. she is a teacher and all of her students love her, and all of her co workers, principal, etc. think she is amazing. she even tutors students after school and moniters bussing...plus she has rescued 3 abandoned animals on school property this month. she is the do-it-all woman and everyone loves her...but no one knows what she is like when she is not at work. my opinion is that it is part of her striving for perfection. she is obsessed with it, i don't feel that she is a good teacher because she loves what she does and wants to help children..but that she needs to appear perfect. i may sound harsh, but it took me a long time to come to that conclusion.
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I work in a profession littered with narcissists, and let me tell you it leads to an otherworldly feeling at work, too! Some days it is almost unbearable. Usually the really lost causes end up getting some sort of comeuppance, but it takes a long time and by then they often have tons of prestige and tons of money. The universe is not set up on any sort of fairness system!
In fact, I think the work world is much harder on genuinely sensitive and honest people than it is on narcissists. And I say that as someone who has a few hard edges of my own (I had to grow them along the way to survive).
Sometimes I wonder what percentage of my interactions at work have any reality to them at all. When narcissists are around there is so much posturing and competing and interesting shadings of the truth that somedays I feel like I'm in a play or a movie, and not in real life. Does anyone else every have that feeling?
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When narcissists are around there is so much posturing and competing and interesting shadings of the truth that somedays I feel like I'm in a play or a movie, and not in real life. Does anyone else every have that feeling?
All the time. It's a sitcom, a soap opera, and a TV drama. The wierd thing is, it makes going to work more interesting. :?
bunny
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Vunil: I felt that way (fake) with my second husband. Everyone in the arts community here thinks he is soooo wonderful...Mr. Social. Until they get close. Only seeing people when they are partying helps/keeps them all blinded. He is very, very talented.... a seductive trait, I can tell you. He can shmmooooze like nobody's business, but he is empty and honestly cannot find anything other than that facade of his to occupy his mind. We tried counseling together and after one session, the therapist pulled out a book of personality disorders and read to me....I thought she was making it up to sound like him...all in the book, though..... NPD.
(What a bolt of lightening that was........it also described my first husband)!
This is why he drinks/parties all the time. I'm sure it's far too much work to find out what's under the layers of crap for him so we parted ways. He didn't want to do therapy or work on the marriage, he didn't want to assess his drinking, he didn't want to/or couldn't love my children. Now that I know more, I see my kids represented competition to him..how sad.
He now has a lovely, much younger girlfriend who is fresh off a divorce from a pompous jackass...oh, sounds familiar! (dancers love pattern he used to say!) Poor girl!
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It depends on the N. In my case my brother is so insecure and afraid of failure that he just piggy backs on any sap that comes along. For years I was that sap.
He could be a very successful person if he wasn't such a frigging lunatic. As it is he sets things up so he always gets the credit and never takes the blame. How could I not see what an idiot I was being? I could have retired on what I made that ingrate.
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I have had a lot of these types of successful, charming, narcissistic boyfriends. And one thing I noticed about them, and about women friends I made before I realized what was going on, is that they are really great with new people. The first few interactions or few months, people always love them. I know I did! They make good conversation. Their jokes are funny. They look you right in the eyes as if they care deeply about what you're saying. It's only when I realized (after only about 1000000 disappointments!) that I was just their audience, not a person, that I was able to really see what was up. They were looking in my eyes for my reaction to them, not to see me. One big hint was that they never seemed to remember anything I had said...
They go through this pattern over and over again. Fortunately for them, there are always new people. For attractive successful men, there seem to always be 25 year olds willing to adore them, no matter how old they get. As the women get wise they can trade them in on a new one.
I think a lot of professions have endless cycles of new people to impress, and this is why many narcissists excel in those kinds of jobs. New constiuents, new students, new clients, new congregation members.
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Vunil,
You have described my N H to a tee. People love him in a social setting because he gets on "stage" and tells jokes and does impressions and everyone thinks he's hilarious. He was always looking for the next new audience to enthrall because those of us who had heard it all before didn't adore him and praise him while he was going through his routines. He loved being around young adults because then he could be really inappropriate and they would love it. He always wanted to be the cool dad who was hip to all the latest music and fashion and could talk to them in their language. He is quickly slipping from being a cool dad to being a pathetic one as the kids begin to realize that he doesn't really care about them, but just wanted the adoration and attention. Now that it is up to him to decide if he actively participates in their lives rather than me directing him to, he never has any involvement in their activities or even talks to them on a regular basis.
I finally understand why he has so few friends (really only 2 and both of them are also getting divorced--big surprise!), but lots of acquaintances. He is in sales where he is entertained by companies and entertains clients. It is the perfect venue for constantly creating new stages and people to schmooz. He has a way of making a woman feel that he really cares about her and is listening to what she says. Mainly he just wants to talk about himself and have her care about him.
I hope that through therapy and a lot of soul searching that I can prevent myself from making the same mistake again. They prey on the vulnerable and after going through the last 18 months I am certainly that. But I think I've come a long way and have gotten a lot wiser. I wish we could brand them with a big N on their forheads to warn their future victims.
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Hi everyone,
This is a very interesting thread. My ex told me how women whom he worked with in various places were attracted to him,and I think that was probably true. He had so many charming little tricks, like gazing into the person's eyes, listening very intently,giving little winks.I used to think that it was me alone who prompted this reaction from him, but of course it was in fact a routine, made easier for him no doubt by the fact that he is so handsome.
On the other hand,when his job brought him into contact with the public,he was sometimes told off by his boss for reacting badly to customers who challenged or annoyed him.
He (and I ) both thought that he was capable of getting a better job than the ones he had. To that end he applied for a university course.He had no money as usual,so guess which idiot paid his course fees. After four weeks he dropped out. There was also some mystery about an earlier course he had left suddenly;I think he must have dropped out of that as well. It amazes me that in five years I never asked him about it.
Sincerely,
Lara.
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I hope that through therapy and a lot of soul searching that I can prevent myself from making the same mistake again. They prey on the vulnerable and after going through the last 18 months I am certainly that. But I think I've come a long way and have gotten a lot wiser. I wish we could brand them with a big N on their forheads to warn their future victims.
Congratulations on your victory! Pulling away is really tough.
I think you sound really wise and that wisdom will help you being able to see their invisible "N." My newest thing is to try to really listen to how I feel when I'm with a new person, not the surface stuff, but deep down, am I comfortable? Do I feel a little off-kilter as if I'm not really there, as if there is even some sort of vague danger in the air? Because when I feel the latter it is almost always because the person is a narcissisist. I don't always listen to the feeling and get wrapped up in them and then realize-- but the feeling told me early.
Here's to all of us being able to spot them :)