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Narcissists Control you in Life and even after they are Dead, if you let them…

/ racheljaners / Leave a comment

When we were together for seven years, my narcissist controlled every aspect of my life. He isolated me from my family and friends. He told me what I should be wearing, how I should be parenting the kids, etc.. He even told me how I should be thinking and feeling, and that I should be happy all the time. I had no control over my own mind or emotions because of him and his constant gas lighting. The amount of abuse is all consuming and if you don’t go through it, it is almost impossible to understand it.

My narcissist also abused me financially. He controlled the credit cards, he never put my name on the checking account, I could never get cash back if I was fortunate enough to go to the grocery store without him. He was the one who went to the store, I believe it was because he was so afraid I would meet someone and cheat, as if. He was a medical professional making more money than I could ever dream of making myself.
He frequently made statements to me, that “I am worth more alive than dead, so you better hope I live a long life.” He did not want to structure his financial plan after death that would in any way allow me to have any say in how to use the funds. We had two children together, and you would think that he would want to make sure we were taken care of if he were to die.

Instead, he made a trust, appointing his brother as trustee, who happens to ALSO be a narcissist.  So, after his death, he would be effectively still be controlling me though a legal document and his own narcissist brother that I could not stand.  My narcissist had numerous rental properties and made it so that I would have no ability to sell them, even if there was a natural disaster. He was so afraid that I would somehow benefit from his success and he was determined not to leave me and the children in a better off place in case of his death. Instead, he had us merely getting enough money each month off of his investments that we would be barely getting by. And that was only if all was going well in the real estate market, leaving no room for any property to be vacant, or allowing money for repairs. I had no say in any of it.

He viewed himself as an omnipotent hero, a viking warrior of some sort.  And he gave me specific instructions that when he died, he would want a huge monument for his grave, which would cost at least $50,000-100,000 to complete.  He instructed me that he wanted a large viking sitting on a throne for a tomb stone. He wanted it to have big horns on its head and even be phallic in nature. I thought he was joking, but in fact, he was dead serious.  I once told him that I would not be able to make that happen since he was not planning on leaving me money that I had any say on how to spend.

He refused to acknowledge my concerns about the children’s and my future regarding financial security.  Instead, he just focused on thinking about what HE wanted.  I just kept thinking, well at this rate, he will be burying me first anyways, despite him being nine years older than me.  He was depleting all of my energy, joy and health in the time I spent with him.  Now looking back, I am so grateful that I don’t have to wake up to that controlling, micromanaging monster anymore.  I believe that I received more money in my divorce settlement combined with child support than he ever would have left to me in case of his passing.  Ironically, I got back what he was stealing from me.  I reclaimed my freedom and now he has no choice but to give up some of his financial control over to me and his children.  Not a bad outcome.

In looking back, this is exactly what my narcissist would be deserving of for a tombstone, a monster on his toilet throne!  It even resembles him, true story!

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A Change of Perspective

/ racheljaners / 1 Comment

Looking back at how I survived those 7 years married to a narcissist, I realize that I now am utilizing a piece of myself that I dared not do when I was with him. Now that I am removed from the horrible abuse, I am using my own perspective. The whole time I was with my narcissist, I learned to view everything through HIS perspective, HIS eyes, HIS mind. He taught me that his perspective was the only one that mattered in our relationship, and that mine was no longer relevant or even in existence.

It was earth shattering the moment that I realized that I had adopted such a warped vision of how my life with him was playing out. He made me believe that I was the problem, and that I didn’t “respect or appreciate him” when all I ever did was bend over backwards to please him. But my hard work was in vain because nothing was ever good enough.

Before I diagnosed my ex husband as being a full fledged narcissist, I used to think that he just didn’t understand women. I believed that since he grew up with 3 brothers and no sisters, he was lacking in the compassion towards a female’s mindset. But that turns out to not be the case at all. The issue is that since he is a narcissist, he has no empathy, no compassion, no real appreciation for the views of anyone other than his own. He only has contempt for all else, especially his supply, me.

Now that I have left my narcissist, I only look through his perspective when I want to prepare myself for his next swing at me. Many times, I know what he is going to do or say before he does it. But the difference now is, I believe in myself, I know I am not to blame. I am stronger and smarter than he could ever know. And I will never let my own perspective become overshadowed by him nor any other man ever again!

Narcissists Offer Faint Glimpses of Human-like Behavior to Keep You Holding On.

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When in a relationship with a narcissist, you quickly learn the predictability of his or her reactions to certain circumstances. That is why you walk on eggshells, so that you don’t accidentally trip one of those hair triggers and set off an explosion. (Even though you are NOT at fault.) You tiptoe around as to not make them upset somehow because you know the awful reaction that would happen if you do, but every once in a while the narcissist will withhold that terrible predictable reaction and you are shocked and feel instant relief. You even feel gratefulness to your abuser that you had been spared his or her fury.

Subsequently, you then see a faint glimmer of hope that the narcissist has potential to change his or her nasty ways and slowly transform into a human. However, that is part of their great deception. Narcissists are incapable of change, incapable of having empathy, incapable of truly loving another person. So, narcissists throw you a bone once in a while to confuse you and keep you off track to think that all of their previous overreactions were just misunderstandings or “in your head.” These fake-outs keep you dangling by a thread.

Those very limited instances where the narcissist doesn’t rage at you when you were certain that he or she would because they commonly did in the past, confuse you greatly and help you maintain hope for the relationship. But this hope is futile. See the narcissist for what he or she really is, a soulless monster. No amount of abuse, whether be it emotional, physical, spiritual, financial, sexual, etc. is worth putting up with because a good person who truly loves you would never attempt to abuse you in any way.

Do I Stay or Do I Go?

/ racheljaners / 1 Comment

This was a difficult decision to be made. Not as easy as it may seem to most. After years of emotional cruelty, you may feel depleted of confidence in yourself, and you may be afraid of the unknown. I was.  At least there is some familiarity with this devil you know, verses the devil you do not. However, if you stay, you are doomed to more inevitable abuse. If you leave, you will have challenges to face, but you will be free to breathe again, to just be…again.

It all changed for me when I discovered what Narcissistic Personality Disorder was and learned that it was incurable.  I had no choice but to leave.  I knew that it wouldn’t be easy, but I had faith that it would be worth it. It has been four months since I left my narcissist, and I am so glad that I did. I still am waiting for my divorce to be final. In the meantime, I am living at my parents house with my two children trying to save up enough money to build a house of my own. I am struggling to both homeschool my little ones while making money to help sustain us.

When I was with him, I felt like I was drowning, I could never catch my breath when he was around. Thinking back to how I felt when we were together, it was as if he and I were stuck in a boat out in the ocean, all alone. Then he would push me off the boat into the shark infested water and I would struggle to keep afloat, and plead with him to throw me a life preserver. When he had enough listening to me beg for help, he would rescue me begrudgingly and then tell me how lucky I was that he was around to come to my aid. That is what narcissists do. They drive you to the point of desperation and then when you crack, they use it against you later. It is mind boggling really. If I had never gone through this daily misery myself, I could not really understand it if someone would have tried to explain it to me.

When you are in the thick of it, it is difficult to see through it. Looking back, it is crystal clear what he did to me. But at time, I was so immersed in the emotional torment that I began to think that everything must be my fault. That was before I knew about the narcissist’s weapon of projection. That is when the narcissist accuses you of doing what, in fact, THEY are doing.  The narcissist will control every decision and every action in the relationship. They may make you feel like you have a say, but in reality, you have been conditioned by them to know what to do or say as to not provoke a negative response.  So, really you have no actual say in anything.

He also enjoyed making me feel like I was ungrateful if I ever suggested doing anything by myself. I could not visit my family by myself, but then he did not want to go with me. So, he cut my family and old friends out of my life. Then he accused me of not being a good wife if I ever suggested getting together with a mommy friend without the children. He would say that we are married and why be married if we wanted to do things without each other? He would also famously claim that “he was not a babysitter” and that if I wanted to do things with my mommy friends, it can be when he is at work and I can take the kids too. Because when he was home, it was “family time” despite the fact that it meant we do whatever HE wanted to do. Or if he was around me and the children, he was tuned out sitting in the corner on his IPAD instead of doing one on one things with our children. Ugg!

I must say that I am doing better every day and I am so thankful for my parents and friends that have taken me back into their world with open arms. I feel so embarrassed that I let that monster take me away from them in the first place, but the sheer fact that they see past it and are glad to be here for me and my children makes my heart explode with gratitude. To think that if I would have stayed with my narcissist, my children would have grown up not ever experiencing the nourishing, loving grandparent relationship that they get every day now.  Also, my brother is an awesome influence on my children too.  They adore him because he actually takes time to do things with them.  Something that their own father rarely did.  My children are able to be themselves, to be silly without being micromanaged, to be able to pursue what they want without judgement.  They are free to be children now.

So, the moment that I voluntarily jumped off that boat, which held me and my narcissist, was a pivotal point that has moved my life in a positive direction. I had faith that I could swim to safety on my own, never again looking to my captor to appear the savior. Now, instead of fear of the future, I am excited to see what it feels like to find myself again.

Everything is your fault. Even if the Narcissist forgets something, it is your fault…

/ racheljaners / 1 Comment

Narcissists are incapable of taking responsibility for their actions, unless it is advantageous to them. They will ALWAYS take the credit when something good occurs, however, if it is something undesirable, they shirk their responsibility and shift the blame to everyone else. It is a mind numbing experience to witness. Every time this occurred during my marriage I felt like I wanted to bang my head against the wall, somehow I was always the one to blame.

Well, I am separated now and going through the divorce process and I still undergo the same treatment, however less frequent. The latest head banging occurrence has to do with my narcissist’s daily phone call to our two beautiful children. He has difficulty remembering to call our children on time, and when he is late, he always asks me why I did not call him to remind him to call. He blames me!

I have repeatedly explained to him that it was not my responsibility to make the call and remind him that is was his time to speak to our children. However, he sees it quite differently. He said that I am “mean” for not having the children call him if HE forgets. One night, he forget to make his call and the kids were already in bed. He actually wanted me to wake them up after I had tucked them into bed 30 minutes before his text. After I refused, he went on a texting diatribe blaming me for not reminding him to call his own children. He vilifies me for not being responsible for him.

In the early days of the separation, I would call him at his appointed time if he was late and he chastised me for “not being patient” and said that I was “pressuring him.” At the time, I thought I was doing him a favor. So, I stopped. I realized that it was HIS responsibility to remember to call our children, not mine. Then later he got mad at me for NOT calling to remind him to call. So, I gently explained to him that I had tried to help remind him before, but instead got yelled at by him for “not being patient.” He denied ever reacting that way.

So, this is just another prime example of how you cannot ever win with a narcissist, you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t.

Narcissists Rationalize Their Mistreatment of You and Belittle Your Concerns

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I have come to the conclusion that a narcissist has the emotional equivalent of a 4 year old. It is as if they are a child trapped inside an adult’s body because everything is all about them. They are the sun and the whole planetary system revolves around them. They walk all over you as if you were no more than a blade of grass under their foot. If I ever had a legitimate concern about my health, (for example, I would experience strange pins and needles in my extremities) my narcissist husband would dismiss it as nothing, however, his plantar fasciitis (annoying heel pain) seemed to be the end of the world!

Even issues I had about our relationship were played down by him. One time, I expressed concern to my husband by saying that I can’t help but feel like I am “walking on eggshells around him.” He looked indignant at me and callus. He scoffed at me without any concern for my feelings and said, “that sounds like something your Mother would say.” Then he asked, “Has she been filling your head with this kind of psychological jargon?” This is just another example of a narcissist showing his lack of empathy. He never asked me any deep questions about WHY I felt the way that I did. He was just offended that I had anything to say that made it apparent that our relationship had issues that he was ignoring.

The vasectomy talk went much worse. When we were first married, he told me that he would have a vasectomy after we decided we were done having children. Well, when that time came after our second child, he refused to get the surgery. He put it off and said maybe in a year. Then after that year came and went, I brought the topic up and he said that he still was not ready and that he didn’t appreciate me pushing him!  I was sick of being on birth control pills and they were making my hair fall out in clumps. So, I expressed my sincere concern about the serious side effects of pills, like cancer as well as stroke and deep vein thrombosis for women over age 30, but he did not care. He is even a doctor and knows the risks but still downplayed them. He made me feel like I was making a big deal over nothing. He insisted that I just stay on the pills anyway. He was really upset that night, so I just bit my lip and let it go. I waited yet another year, then all hell broke loose.

The night I dared to bring it up for the third time in a 2 ½ year time span, I was in tears because I already knew how he would respond to me pleading for him to get the surgery. He reacted with no emotion except irritation and anger. He was offended, indignant and upset that I brought the topic up on a “weeknight when he just wanted to relax and watch TV with his wife.” I was having medical problems at the time and serious anxiety symptoms that I contributed to the pills, as well as the continued hair loss. I was really meek and tried to convey my depth of concern for my health by continually taking the pill. I humbly asked him to reconsider and have the surgery. He responded with no concern for me, no hugs, no understanding, no empathy. Obviously. Instead, all he thought about was himself and how this conversation was “ruining his night.” He even went as far as to say, “we have discussed this before, you are pushing me again and now I may never be ready to have the surgery. But if you want to go ahead and have your tubes tied, then be my guest.” I was horrified, not because of the $10,000 price difference between a tubal ligation vs. a vasectomy, but that he would suggest that I was the one being unreasonable.

He had a warped way of thinking that I could not wrap my head around.  I then asked him why I should continue to risk my health by taking the pill and he responded by saying that “he risks his life every day driving to work” and he has a much higher likelihood of getting killed on the road than I do of having complications from the pill so I should just “take one for the team.” I was flabbergasted at his comments, then it got even worse. He continued to elaborate that if he got the surgery, I would be able to get remarried and have more children with someone else if I ever decided to leave him, but that he couldn’t if he wanted to. I could not believe what he was saying!  Up to that point, I never even considered that possibility as an option. He thought so little of me and did not trust me, which was the real reason he refused the surgery he once promised to have. He was a liar, a fraud. He thought only about himself and his needs and wants. It was abundantly clear to me how our marriage would be moving forward at that point on. It wouldn’t.

I then said that if he refused to get the simple procedure, I was going to go off of the pill, and we would just have to use condoms. Boy, he hit the roof!  He was horrified that I would even propose such a solution. He said that he would not even consider using condoms with his wife. So, I was held hostage, I had no choice but to stay on the pill because at that moment I realized that he did not care one ounce for me, for what I wanted and whether I felt healthy or not. It was his way or no way!  As such, I decided that as much as I love my two children, the only thing worse than staying on the pill was having another child with that man who cared nothing for me.

The whole night was an eye-opener, my narcissist had the cunning ability to rationalize his mistreatment of me in the most despicable ways. I learned that I may have no choice but to leave him at some point, but the final straw was yet to come.

So, the moral of this memory is…if you feel like your concerns go unheard by your partner, than it is time to consider the worst. He or she does not really love you or respect you, this is a common indicator of a narcissistic relationship.

 

 

 

 

Can a Narcissist Sincerely Love Anyone Other Than Themselves?

/ racheljaners / 3 Comments

Is a narcissist capable of truly loving another human being?  This is a provocative question because “love” is defined as “a strong affection, attachment or devotion for another arising out of kinship or personal ties, as well as an unselfish loyal benevolent concern for the good of another.”  Narcissists by nature are selfish creatures only concerned about themselves, so it natural to believe that this selfish state of mind cannot possibly coexist with love.

The very description of a narcissist is a person who is incapable of empathy.  Empathy is “the feeling that you understand and share another persons experiences and emotions.” Therefore, if you cannot truly understand someone and share in their emotions, you cannot really love them.  Empathy is the basis for all love.  Unfortunately, because narcissists do not have the capacity to empathize, they cannot tap into real emotions that are vital to feel love, nor are they capable of giving unconditional love.

To a narcissist, love is what YOU can do for them.  As sad and shocking as it seems, you my dear, were not loved by your narcissist, you were tolerated, you were absorbed, controlled, owned, and reprogrammed by him or her.  To a narcissist, he or she views it as a privilege for you to be in their life.  There is no true reciprocity, no give and take, no connection, no acceptance or devotion, trust or growth.  All those essential components needed to create and sustain a healthy, viable relationship are absent.

You may find yourself struggling with the memories of your narcissist showering you with attention and “love” in the beginning of your relationship. You may want to believe that this cannot have been just an act, but unfortunately it was. This love-bombing phase encourages you into a false sense of security with him or her so that you drop your defenses and trust them blindly.  This makes it easy for them to manipulate and later destroy you.  Then when you feel that you cannot take any more abuse, you begin to pull away.  At that point, the narcissist jumps back into the love-bombing phase again to lure you back to their control zone.  It is a vicious cycle that will continue until the narcissist gets bored and decides to move onto an easier target, or until you break free from it yourself.

So as the definition of love goes, does your narcissist unselfishly put you and your interests before their own?  No, because he or she has no capability to feel authentic, true love. The bottom line is that you deserve to be loved, cherished and heard, and a narcissist is simply incapable of it.

 

 

 

*Definitions of “love” and “empathy” are taken from the Merriam-Webster online dictionary

During the Relationship With a Narcissist, You Become an Expert at Lying…Mostly to Yourself

/ racheljaners / 3 Comments

How have you allowed yourself to stay in this abusive relationship so long? The answer is really quite simple, you lie to yourself. You fool yourself into desperately believing that things will get better, that he or she will change. How could those glimmers of greatness that your partner exhibited in the early stages of your relationship have faded away forever? It is because he or she was never that person to begin with. It was all a façade to snag you in the first place.

Also, it is due to the cycle of the “pedestal and the pit” that I discussed in my post, The Ways That Narcissists Abuse. For example, he isn’t terrible all of the time right? If he was, it would surely be easier to leave him wouldn’t it? He is smart enough to realize that if he is bad for too long, you will get fed up and go. So he will throw a bit of sweetness your way, just to wet your appetite to keep you hoping that he may return to the wonderful person that you thought he was in the beginning. You lie to yourself every day. You do not trust your gut feeling that he may just be a terrible person, a narcissist with no soul.

But then that has other consequences, you start to question your own judgment. How could I have made such a bad decision in choosing this person to share my life with? I know that I sure did. I couldn’t come to grips with my awful luck with men until I faced the cold truth and realized that I had been lying to myself all along. I chose to ignore the red flags waving in the breeze when I first began to date him. The fairytale blinded me! I do not blame myself nor do I blame you for falling prey to the unobtrusive spider. However, I want to open your eyes to what I recently discovered, you need to ask yourself the hard questions. You need to figure out what your weak spots are and wipe them clean so you never get stuck in this situation again.

As if lying to yourself was not bad enough, you begin lying to all those people you hold so dear. You don’t lie to be malicious, you lie to keep them from worrying about you. Or you lie to make them see your partner as a good person. You would hate for your friends and family to see him as he really is, so you make excuses for him, you cover-up for him. That is what I did. I felt ashamed that I was trapped with this manipulative and uncaring human being, so I overcompensated with tales of his good deeds or nice words, and conveniently left out the bad parts, and the hurtful comments that he dished out.

This kind of editing is not all that different from what people do on social media sites, I guess. But, I could not live a false life like that anymore. I needed an escape, I needed to live an authentic life where I was comfortable living the way I wanted. The truth, no matter how much it hurts, will come out. Nothing will scare off a narcissist like the truth. So I say, let the truth rain down and clear those muddy waters!

You are replaceable to a Narcissist

/ racheljaners / 2 Comments

First of all, if you have left your narcissist, congratulations! Your life has just begun! It is an incredible journey, that I am only just embarking on, but it is worth it. On the other hand, if you have found that a narcissist has abandoned you, congratulations! Your life has been spared! I will go on more about this later. What I want to discuss in this post is how replaceable we all are to a narcissist. So, no matter what, don’t feel bad that the narcissist is now on his or her own. Because they have no empathy, or real emotional attachments, or even appreciation for us as individuals and what makes us unique and amazing, the narcissist can just move on when it is convenient for them. They will do it quickly, make no mistake about that.

Due to the very nature of Narcissistic Personality Disorder, the narcissist must at all times be in a state of idolization. They need a continuous dose of Narcissistic Supply. They depend on it to boost their insecurity and it allows them to function. Without their supply, the narcissist goes into crisis mode and their whole world shuts down. They are incomplete. The victim is used by the narcissist like a mirror, he projects what he feels onto that person and expects the person to reflect a perfect image back at the narcissist. However, what happens when that mirror does not cast a reflection any longer? Without that false vision and constant reassurance, the narcissist will go to any lengths to replenish his supply. He will look in odd places to scramble and fill the void.

In most cases, the narcissist will look in places closest to him, for example his workplace, at a bar, a commuter train, or online for his quick fix of narcissistic supply. They become hell bent on showing the ex-victim how easily he or she can be replaced. In my case, I spent the past seven years being a superb supportive wife, mother, housekeeper, homeschool teacher, cook and maid. I devoted every waking minute to taking care of our believed children all the while walking on eggshells to make my husband happy to keep the peace and to try to make the house a happy home for my babies.

I was sacrificing my happiness for everyone else’s and I never complained. I packed and unpacked boxes for six moves in six years and decorated each house and made it a home. I was forever putting out fires when my husband got home and he felt he was not getting enough attention. Now, as I have left him and moved myself and my children into my parents house because I have primary physical custody, my ex has decided to cut to my core by showing me just how easy it is to replace me. One month after I left him, he hired a live-in 25 year old au pair that he flew into the country from the Ukraine. Despite the fact that he only has two weekends of visitation a month, he felt the need to hire a woman to help take care of the kids for those select few dates. Unbelievable.

When I have told my friends about this awkward situation, they all say the same thing. He is living all alone with this woman 95% of the time, they must be having a relationship. I hoped that would not be the case and I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt, however, I must look at the surrounding facts.

1st – He refused to give me her cell phone number because he said that “he did not want me to mess this up for him.” There is no landline either, so I only wanted to have the ability to contact my children when they are in her care in case of emergency. However, he refused twice. Strike 1.

2nd- Then when I finally got to meet her, I noticed a bouquet of flowers sitting beside her in the car. Both of my children said that “Daddy got the flowers for Irena.” Strike 2.

3rd- Then I was looking at my Kohls membership rewards account online (which he uses) and I accidentally discovered that he had made a purchase for her, including a bra, yoga pants and a camisole top. Strike 3.

To be honest, I have always tried to play fair. I don’t like to jump to conclusions. However, looking at the facts makes it hard for me to see it any other way. He is obviously in stage one of wooing his next victim. Now, I honestly ask myself…Self, does this make you jealous? Me… Not one bit. Then I ask…are you surprised? Me… Not really but the reason I am perturbed is because of the children. They are young and will be confused and don’t deserve to be caught in the tangled web of deceit that their father continuously weaves.

So there you have it, another example of how far a narcissist will go to secure his next vile of narcissistic supply and when that vile is all dried up, you better believe he will look for it elsewhere.

Narcissists are hypersensitive, easily offended and have no sense of humor about themselves

/ racheljaners / 18 Comments

The narcissist is not able to handle any kind of criticism, whether constructive or not. They are hypersensitive. They can dish it out but cannot take it. They make jabs at you or your loved ones and then pretend that they did not. For example, he may say that you look fat in that outfit, then when you react to the hurtful comment he says “I am just kidding, you are so sensitive!” Narcissists quickly turn it around and make you the one with the problem. Or they flat out deny that their statement was meant to be offensive and say that you are reading into their comment negatively.

Narcissists do not “fit in” when around a group of people, no matter how hard they appear to try.  The narcissist is like a stoic rock post standing amongst the trees.  It may try to mimic the height of the trees, but it cannot ever become a tree. It is simply not made of the same stuff.  Because narcissists are not able to feel emotion, they cannot identify with people’s feelings and needs.  When you think back to his sense of humor, you may remember him being fun and silly and able to laugh at jokes, trying to blend in.  However, he reacts differently if the jokes are made at his expense. He may lash out at the joker, or act wounded and as a victim.

The narcissist views himself as perfect and does not want to be seen by anybody as less than so. Therefore, any joke that is aimed at him will make him react in a oversensitive manner. The narcissist is easily offended because jokes at their expense puts them in a less than perfect light. My narcissist could never even be called a pet name that he viewed as undignified. Once I sweetly teased him that he could get lost coming home from the grocery store. Then he overreacted by saying “That is not nice! Why are you being so mean to me? I cannot believe you would talk to me like that!” Even though, he routinely missed his turns so often that it became comical. However, it was ok for him to make jokes at my expense, and when I spoke up, he would accuse me of “being no fun, or too sensitive.”

My narcissist was almost a prude about certain things, he would never pee when I was in the bathroom, he was terrified that I might see him in an vulnerable position. I wouldn’t have looked, but I thought that after seven years of marriage we could let the boundaries down a little bit. Who cares? But he always made a big deal out of it and kicked me out of the bathroom, even if I was busy brushing my teeth, so that he could use the toilet.

God forbid if I had stressful day and would be a little bit testy. He felt that I should have a smile on my face at all times. If I didn’t, he would make comments like “Why don’t you just be happy?” Well, nothing irks me like someone telling me how to feel. I felt that he was trying to strip away my rights to my own feelings. He never let me just be cranky without serious consequences. He would call me out and start a fight with me, instead of just giving me some much needed space, which would have made me in a much better state of mind. Then after the brawl, I would have no choice but to “put on my happy face” or else face another dispute. So in the end, he always won.

Heightened sensitivity to people’s remarks is a trait of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. It is a type of paranoia that is difficult to live with. My narcissist always took offense to even innocent comments by coworkers, my family, and me. It always made me unsteady when he would ask me what I thought other people meant when they talked to him about something that day. I would have to constantly bring him back down to earth by saying that people are not out to get him, or to take jabs at him, but that he reads into their ordinary conversations. He still did not believe me. He would accuse me of being too trusting and naive. I touch upon this kind of paranoia in my other article, What are the signs of NPD?

This oversensitivity does not get better, the narcissist never “loosens up.” They are always getting their “feelings hurt,” even though they don’t have feelings like you and me, they are empty inside.