How long can you go before your N invades your thoughts?

[JennyWren]

So....you wake up in the morning...sort of!....stumble out of bed...shuffle blindly into the door....attempt to open your eyes....

How long before you are thinking "Grrrr......bloody flippin N"?

I am counting on some of you folks who have been out of the Ns firing line a while to go "Ooooh....I can go for weeks before he/she even crosses my mind!"

I get as far as the bathroom...which is falling apart...and I have to turn the tap on with pliers before I`m taxiing down to the end of the runway...doing my full moan pre-flight checks.

[pearlsb4swine]

Sometimes I can last 15 minutes or so.      

Really, I spend a lot of time ruminating.  I tell myself this is normal and will stop in time.  I have imaginary conversations with him, and with his mother, and his father.......his new girlfriend........But I am starting to feel like I have chewed over everything pretty thoroughly and starting to get a little bored with myself. 
so I have to spice it up a little by imagining myself 50 pounds thinner while I have these conversations......in a great new outfit........on my way to my fabulously successful career......

I hope that is progress.

Pearls

[Rosemary]

Well Jenny although we have lived apart for a year im only just behind you for the divorce  .

I think about him most days as you would if you spent 27yrs married and 1 year before that livin with him.

you just cant wipe memories out unless you had the electric treatment on your brain  ,and i dont fancy that yet .

Yes my house is in the same state as yours and im alone always struggling with something i cant fix /lift/or reach as im such a   short arse  4' 10"   

I put my rockmusic on and blast his stupid voice  out of my head  .also like pearls i think of howi will look with a different  body and haircut etc etc etc .

[Legs]

well, lucifer is still in almost all my dreams (though he rarely looks like himself..lately he has taken to impersonating other people, but I can tell it's really still him no matter how he looks.

I think the only time he doesn't invade my every moment is when I am engrossed in something but sadly it's very hard for me to do that anymore. I drank too much Confusion and Obsession and have run completely out of Concentration and Impetus.


so, my dearest Jenny, I would say I can maybe go about five minutes without some part of this thing pissing me off. I have not come to love my tiny apartment and my time alone. Oh, my order of Raging and Resentful just got here. Gotta love that home delivery!



Legs

[Rosemary]

Yeah !!!  Legs Rage against the Machine      

[tango3]

Pretty much on a daily basis.  I will be eternally grateful when he is not only out of my life but out of my mind forever.

[daisyk9292]

I can't say for sure. I feel like he's always in my thoughts. He doesn't just rent space in my head, he owns property in my head. I don't think about him all day every day, but pretty much every day thoughts of him pop up. Sometimes I ruminate, but not as often as I used to. Sometimes I see very clearly how pathetic he is, and other times I still have him up on a pedestal.

I'd like to reach a point where I never think of him at all, and if I do I am indifferent. That would be a dream come true. Right now I seem to go back and forth between love and hate but staying in hate a lot more lately, which is good. I'd much rather feel hate towards him than love. It just makes me mad that they enjoy the very fact that people they infect rarely can feel indifferent to them. They don't care if they're loved or hated, but indifference bothers the hell out of them I'm sure.

DICKS!! 

[Legs]

<<
DICKS!!  >>


 


Legs

[MoreMyself]

I can go for days now without thinking of him.  When I see my sons however, I do think of him and I guess that's natural, after all they look like their father. 

But the best part is that the brainwashing is gone, done with, finito.  For a long time after he left, all the negative statements he had made about me just kept popping up.  If I stubbed my toe for instance I would hear "You're so clumsy!" like a voice imprinted into my brain.

So even though I still think of him it's separate from that voice that was inside my head.  That's gone and I haven't heard it in a long while.  If I stub my toe, then I have simply stubbed my toe as millions of people must do on a regular basis. 

I do have one thing to thank the Hobbit for.  He was the laziest person ever placed upon the earth.  So I had to learn how to do maintenance and repairs.  I can replace roof tiles, use a concrete drill, take the sink pipes apart, grout the bathroom - you name it, I'll give it a go.  I didn't learn because I wanted to, but because my house was also falling apart for many years and he would leave the front of a drawer swinging off in the kitchen without even attempting to repair it, so little by little I learned how to do things.  I even taught my sons to operate power equipment whereas they seemed to scare the crap out of the Hobbit.  What an odd little man he was/is.

[alatariel]

I seldom ever think about dickhead any more, unless he does something to bring himself to my attention, but even that is momentary and fleeting.  He's pretty much off my radar, even when I see my kids b/c they're MY kids and I see myself in them more than I see him.  He may have contributed some sperm, and he may babysit them sometimes, but I'm their parent.

As for troll, I'm finally at the point where I've stopped having imaginary conversations with her all the time.  I can even go entire days w/o thinking of her. But, like MoreMyself, it's going to take a much longer time to stop hearing her imaginary voice in my head, mostly b/c all her criticism echoed so eerily my late dad's criticism of me, so that's many, many years of hearing it that I have to overcome.

[JennyWren]

I'd like to reach a point where I never think of him at all, and if I do I am indifferent.

Oh YES!....Now you`re talkin`! Indifferent is the ultimate snub to an N...I`m sure of it. And totally ignoring them.

Like Pearls....I enjoy a good fantasy converstation with BigBird, or mad-gf, or his bone-headed NFOO....and in such converstations I am cool as a cucumber, totally together and unphased by anything they say...and looking so damn gorgeous and slim and HAPPY. Fantasies are GREAT aren`t they? 

I do have one thing to thank the Hobbit for.  He was the laziest person ever placed upon the earth.  So I had to learn how to do maintenance and repairs.

...so here we go with the old parallel existance thing again! BigBird would give the Hobbit some healthy competition in the race to be laziest person placed upon the earth. We were supposed to be doing up the last house we were in for six years....but of course....that takes some actual hard work...which is quite hard to do while sitting on the couch watching TV...even if it IS a property rennovation show.

I am no stranger to the power tools. Which BigBird took with him incidentally. Including the tile cutter machine which he doesn`t even know how to use because he never EVER touched it. I`ll give most things a go. But I don`t like plumbing. It has a nasty tendency to end in large puddles.

I am, however, the most awful bodge artist. Yesterday I was putting up a new TV aerial in the attic...and there was no place to screw the flaming thing in any place where there was actually a signal. So now...it is hanging on string from the roof struts. It will make a lovely swing for the mice.

I know I do think about BigBird far too much. Just unpacking and repacking thoughts and feelings. And I still have that stinky little voice in my head that makes everything MY fault. But I am at least conscious of how it works now. And that makes it easier to get a grip on just how much blame to pile on my own head. Or not.

I really do want to get to a point where BigBird is entirely inconsequential to me. And right now...I think I have a great big chip on my shoulder thinking about how he has dumped me in it....with two kids to look after....while he can do what he likes, when he likes, and has plenty of money to do it. I think because there are struggles by the boat load for me....and he is the root cause of them all....it is very hard not to want to inflate his head with a bicycle pump.

[Imogene]

I wish I knew how to do more repairs.  Before X (and when I lived with a man who could do nothing, not even drive) I rented.  So I know how to paint and sand, etc.--finish work--but not how to do real repairs.  This is on my mind this morning, because I woke up in the middle of the night to a scared daughter and torrential rain and water dripping out of a ceiling vent.  I hope it is coming in around a skylight we had installed last fall, so I can get the contractor to come fix it--but I really wish I knew how to fix it myself.

To the topic at hand, though--I don't think about him all that much.  I mostly think about him when he does some lame thing with my daughter.  For instance, on the phone the other night, he clearly asked her what she had for dinner, because she answered, "Mac and cheese and a salad."  After a pause, she said, "You say that's crap."  She kind of sounded like her psychologist, who tends to repeat things that she says.  Which was funny.  But there's X, telling her she eats crap at my house, when he wasn't even parent enough to ask me what the doctor said when I took her to her annual check-up.

That's when I think of him.  Or when I consider the situation, as Jen was saying, how he's just left me to fend for myself and my daughter, while he parties off into the sunset with tenured position and big salary.  And sometimes I have really awful dreams about him.  But even when I'm writing a post about his behavior in here, I'm not really dwelling on him.  Honestly, he doesn't matter that much to me.  Our relationship was dying a slow death, and since he was so narcissistic, there was no hope of turning that around, because I couldn't go back to that younger person who admired everything he did.  Most of my ruminations now are about how I got to this place and how I'm going to get out of it, and about how anyone else can value that lying sack of crap. 

[daisyk9292]

I really do want to get to a point where BigBird is entirely inconsequential to me. And right now...I think I have a great big chip on my shoulder thinking about how he has dumped me in it....with two kids to look after....while he can do what he likes, when he likes, and has plenty of money to do it. I think because there are struggles by the boat load for me....and he is the root cause of them all....it is very hard not to want to inflate his head with a bicycle pump.

Can't blame you for that. Not one little bit.

Today is douchebags bday. So naturally he's in my head. I'm happy he's another year older because I know he hates that. He wants to be a teen dream forever. The older he gets the more pathetic he becomes, so that's a plus.

 I have to confess I'm fantasizing about some pretty sick things happening to him. It's kind of scary the thoughts I'm having. Never thought I'd wish these things on my worst enemy, but I DO!! 

Basically I'd love for anything that he has absolutely no control over to happen to him, something he can't manipulate or weasel out of. Something that makes him feel completely vulnerable and powerless.

Car accident
Serious injury. loss of limb, paralysis.

Terminal illness

Getting the living shite beat out of him, by the H of a mistress (wish my H had, but glad he didn't might have caused more trouble than he's worth and affected our D)

If mistress is single, he chooses a bat shite crazy stalker like in Fatal Attraction who makes his life a living hell.

I want him to SUFFER! I want Big Bird to SUFFER!! I WANT THEM ALL TO SUFFER, SUFFER, SUFFER!!! 

I feel a teeny weeny bit better now.   

[JennyWren]

Today is douchebags bday. So naturally he's in my head. I'm happy he's another year older because I know he hates that.

  Oh...it`s the little things that please me. Yes...they HATE birthdays. Being OLD is just so scary for the poor ickle boys. It is just a day....just a number...but so very very upsetting to them. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha har.

I hope he wakes up to find loads more wrinkles...and grey hairs all over. Ns worst nightmare. Plus a sudden lack of function in the pants region. Happy Birthday douchebag. You`re falling to bits....as time marches ever onwards. Mwahahahhaha!

I have been imagining how to rid the planet of the BigBird for some while. But there are always more and increasingly horrible ways so do it!  It helps to get the anger out of all it`s hidy holes. In actual fact...I would really REALLY like to just switch BigBird off...like flicking off the light swiitch. No noise....no mess (!)...no nothing...no BigBird. Just all gone. No more twisting reality...no more mind games....no more lies....no more weirdness.

Seems only fair. 

[daisyk9292]

I hope he wakes up to find loads more wrinkles...and grey hairs all over.

Actually he was going bald, so he had to shave his head. 

I've noticed this is the trend today for many middle aged men to look more youthful. It's replacing the comb over. It is a big improvement over the comb over look, as long as you have a nice shaped head.

But his isn't really and he has big ears. So now he literally looks like a dickhead with ears! 

I honestly don't know how he's able to attract anyone. It has to be the musician thing. Get up on stage, play a guitar, and there will always be at least a few female "groupies" to worship you and throw a bra at your head. Even if it's a bald head on a middle aged married manboy.   

I like your idea. Just make them freaking disappear!!!!

[tango3]

Toad started going bald very young, so he's been shaving his head for years.  Guess he figures it makes him look younger????  Just makes him look uglier and older. 

And yes I've contemplated the joys of him getting some sort of revolting disease, the kind that eats him from the inside out, with atrocious pain that no medication will ease   I'm torn between that scenario and him having an horrific motorcycle accident and ending up brain dead and I get to flip the switch

[pearlsb4swine]

I like to imagine xnh having regained all the weight he lost, been thrown out by new gf, fired from his job with nowhere to go, broke, coming to me for help.  At which point I buy him a one way bus ticket to the hometown of his N parents, who live in another part of the country. 

Or, I imagine him perishing in a fiery car crash, having neglected to change any of his life insurance beneficiaries after the divorce so I still get the cash.  At which point I refuse to pay for his funeral, and suggest to his parents that they donate his body to be used a medical school cadaver.    

[MoreMyself]

I used to imagine all kinds of fantasy ends for the Hobbit.  But not any more, because I have realised that the worst happened to him at a young age, and I don't mean his abusive upbringing.  His narcissism is like living in a tunnel.  Whereas the rest of us experience emotions like a full orchestra, he only hears the drums.  Where I can go outside on a beautiful day and literally lose myself, forget myself, in the amazing sights and sounds and smells, the Hobbit barrels along in that self-obsessed tunnel he lives in thinking "Me Me Me". 

I think they know they are missing the full experience of life and that is why the Hobbit is so restless and impulsive and always jumping to the next thing and abandoning commitments.  They put on a happy face because it's their way of winning, of trying to fool everybody into thinking they are better off, happier, more successful than other people. I have read some experts think that the narcissism is a cover for lack of self-confidence and insecurity, but I don't believe that.   I just think they are shadow people, pretending to live, and that they know at some level that they are skimming the surface of life while others are diving deeply.  But that's just my idea.  Perhaps it's just my way of accepting that the Hobbit got off financially better (by refusing me child support) and travelled and dated others while I had to finish raising our son, keep maintaining the house and providing stability.  Perhaps its just a little lie that I tell myself.  But I'll just go on believing he's a sad little shadow person while I experience life more fully.  It might be a lie but it works for me and I intend to keep believing it.

[pearlsb4swine]

Way to rain on my parade, Moremyself!!

Just kidding.  You're right.

Pearls

[daisyk9292]

I have read some experts think that the narcissism is a cover for lack of self-confidence and insecurity, but I don't believe that.

Yes and some "experts" believe the complete opposite. They are 100% convinced that they are super duper special, unique, with high self esteem and confidence.

When I first heard it's a cover for insecurity and low self confidence it actually made me feel better to believe that. That deep down they really believe they are less than. I liked that thought.

When I heard some say it was a myth, I was infuriated!! 

I find little comfort in the fact that they are just empty shells. I don't know why. I guess because that means they can never feel any pain. At least not emotional.

Oh well, just have to keep on hoping for the physical suffering I guess!! 

[Legs]

au contraire! Or however you spell that....they can feel emotions....I am damn sure they can feel rage and anger and jealousy and humiliation


and bitterness...let's make a list of emotions we are positive they can feel



Legs

[JennyWren]

I have read some experts think that the narcissism is a cover for lack of self-confidence and insecurity, but I don't believe that.

Yes and some "experts" believe the complete opposite. They are 100% convinced that they are super duper special, unique, with high self esteem and confidence.

Hmmmm. Time to be a difficult bazturd. 

See....I think there are different flavours of N when it comes to this. I think there are the kind that Mummy (or whoever) told was just scrummy and perfect all day every day....who go on to be the full-of-themselves arrogant Ns who believe to the very core of their spinal fluid that they are Ace Human.....Emporer of All...Mighty Worthy One who all must admire.

Then...I think there are the hollow little shadow people. The ones who were NOT praised for merely sneezing...and who learned the only way to be accepted....or even noticed.....was to develop a performance of a False Self. They act for all the world like the Mighty Worthy One who all must admire....but...inside...they are nothing.

I don`t know about self esteem and whatnot. Well...that is to say that BigBird`s golden boy Nbrother is extremely pleased with himself 24/7....while BigBird is actually very anxious and....yes...insecure.

I think one of the problems of NPD is the different arrays of classifications of the different flavours. They probably share commonalities of brain (mis)function....they may present in similar ways...but as to their individual variation...I don`t think generalisations can be made. Except to say they all deserve to be abducted by angry aliens. With red hot probes.



Now...on the other burning issue here of N-destruction fantasies....I CERTAINLY indulge most happily in imagining both realistic and ridiculous sticky ends for BigBird. It is exceptionally therapeutic to just ragefully type about rampaging electrified rhinos attacking him on the toilet....or freak bolts of lightning electrifying his precious car and vaporising all but his filthy underwear.

But....when all is said and done...his biggest punishment is absolutely as MoreMyself describes. BigBird will never know what happiness....or contentment are. Never know anything but a burning anxiety to push on to the next thing...THAT will make him happy, he thinks. But it never does. The next car. The next house. The new TV. The new girlfriend.....but it never makes him happy. And it never will. And that will always be somebody else`s fault.

  Where I can go outside on a beautiful day and literally lose myself, forget myself, in the amazing sights and sounds and smells, the Hobbit barrels along in that self-obsessed tunnel he lives in thinking "Me Me Me". 

I can just see him in his little tunnel Hobbit-hole.....hurtling along as fast as his short legs will carry him...with nothing but himself in his thoughts, hopes and dreams. And that is not a fantasy. That`s a fact. 

[alatariel]

Oh, I believe they can feel envy.  And self-satisfaction.  And smugness.  And pride.  Superiority. Inferiority.   Discontent. Maliciousness. Contempt.  Disgust.  Greed. 

[JennyWren]

au contraire! Or however you spell that....they can feel emotions....I am damn sure they can feel rage and anger and jealousy and humiliation


and bitterness...let's make a list of emotions we are positive they can feel

BigBird used to get beside himself anticipating stuff he thought he would enjoy. Excitement I suppose you could call it.

He certainly felt glee at the misfortune of those he despised.

Then there is fear of being caught.

Rampant sexual attraction 

Misery and self-pity

That`ll do for now.  All self-focussed emotions.

[pearlsb4swine]

It is frustrating to me that so many of the things you read about Ns contradict each other.  They have high self-esteem, they have low self esteem;  they were treated coldly by their parents, they were over indulged by their parents.  Most of the more scholarly things I have read have admitted that there is very little research on narcissism and a lot of the stuff that is presented as fact is really only someone's theory.  I personally don't believe my xnh suffers from low self esteem.  From the way he behaved, the conclusion I have come to is that he consciously believed he was superior to other people but tried to hide it because he knew it was not socially acceptable.  I think a lot of the preposterous stuff he said was because he was trying to hide his real motives and beliefs from me.  He would make these ridiculous arguments because he knew it would not go over very well for him to come out and say, "We will do it my way because what I want is more important than what you want."  Back then I thought he was suffering from emotional problems or something.  Now I think a lot of his supposed distress was feigned.  It's the only thing that makes sense.