A Time To Mourn

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For the past two days, I have taken the time to mourn. I have cried over loss. I have wept with deep grief. I did not even realize I had experienced such a great loss. Despite the fact that a fracture had long occurred before the loss, and the loss was happening in stages over time, I felt the loss greatly today. I lost a grand illusion … an illusion that I sincerely believed to be a friendship.

Friendships are a balance of give and take, and although I believed that the friendship I had with a narcissist was a balance of the two exchanges, somehow the scale tipped over to show me otherwise. Had I known then what I know now, I might not be feeling the emotional heartache that I feel now. If I had known then that I was actually becoming friends with a narcissist, I am sure things would be very different, and this would not be a time of mourning.

Had I known that a person who stood on the outskirts of a group of people waiting to have a conversation with me was really a predator with an agenda to become a fake friend to me, I would have certainly kept my distance with her and given her a reason to hate me from the start. I would have never given her a chance to interact with me in a way that would have given her any indication that a friendship was a warranted one with me. I would have, I should have, and I could have … but I did not. So here I am now. I cry. I hurt. I mourn.

Why do I cry for the loss of a narcissist? Why do I cry when I know she was never really my friend? I cry because in the beginning I was not aware she was a narcissist. I believed the best of her. I had no other reason to believe she had evil intent. I did not recognize her narcissistic potential. But … the signs were all there. The signs were definitely all there. I saw the signs, but I wanted a friend.

The signs were there when I saw her behave with grumpiness towards me for no reason. I saw her sneers and classically cold narcissistic demeanor. I saw her calmness that mimicked a stance of intimidation making her unapproachable to have meaningful dialect. I saw her leery glares that expressed her displeasure more often than not – especially if I expressed an opinion very different than her own. Yet, I passed these things off not wanting to stand in judgment.

The signs were there when evenings out together filled with dinner and laughter would turn to puzzling wonder the next day at work. Why did she not speak to me? Why did she not look at me? Why were my greetings met with a solemn vow of silence? Her cold brush-offs always caused me to question myself, doubt myself, and view myself in light of mistakes that I may have made and whether I had not dotted my i’s or crossed my t’s. Yet, I passed these signs off as problems she may have been having but did not want to share with me. How was I to know?

The signs were surely there when I asked a question only to receive a sarcastically-toned reply along with a smirk to match her attitude. The signs were there when she looked at me with contempt for almost anything where I might have been more knowledgeable whenever than her. Any chance to one-up was always an acceptable form of competition when I did not realize there was a race. The signs were there when she stiffly succumbed to hugs I gave in gratitude for a number of things she had gifted me. I was gracious even with gifts she knew I would not like simply because she knew my likes and dislikes. Yet, I figured she was making herself hard to love. I loved anyway. What was I thinking?

In retrospect, I did not heed many of the signs even when they progressed to red flags waving profusely in the air. Instead, I questioned my experiences and reckoned that I must have been the only one with them because everyone else had such nice things to say about her. She was so esteemed because she showed a caring attitude towards everyone … everyone but me at least. Otherwise, she was vengeful and in so many ways I did not know. Yet, I never fit the pieces of the puzzle together. We were at work.

I simply did not pay attention even though the signs were in my peripheral view. I passed them by, and then it felt like all of the sudden when I least expected it, I was confronted with a full-fledged narcissist staring back at me with hate-filled eyes with the only goal being to annihilate me. She had strategically planned the demise of my career, and although it sounds like a conspiracy, I know, but it is true. There’s more to this story I do not have enough space, time, and heart to share, and I feel completely broken beyond repair.

I was just too busy believing that the “goodness” this narcissist showed me should have outweighed the “bad” that I felt around her. I allowed the admiration and edification from the words of others on her behalf to cause me to deny the continuous questions that lingered over her minor but narcissistic micro-facial expressions. Her narcissistic micro-facial expressions always indicated that I could see what was hidden beneath the surface. She was a monster for a lack of a better word. In many ways I saw what was real but gaslighted myself into denying reality’s existence.

Near the end it was her ultimate betrayal that would bring me to the conclusion that she was not only a narcissist, but she was also a dangerous narcissist. During the period of her betrayal of me, I would be granted a reprieve – a period of time where distance from her required me to fight off a new narcissistic focus. It was a period of time where I fought a battle with a different narcissist and survived it with an arsenal of lessons learned. It was during this time that the truth came crashing in on me.

This narcissist whom I thought was my friend – all while not realizing the extent of her narcissistic capabilities – hated me. She hates me. She hates me with such a strong magnitude of emotion, that I would only be able to grasp the full weight of her hatred for me until recently. It is now that I experience the fall out of my internal pain. It is now that my gut trembles with an overwhelming sensation of tears mixed with sadness, grief, anger, fear and enormous hurt … so many tears that they fall like riveting streams of water from my eyes. I feel the pain. I feel the hurt. I feel the loss.

I mourn the loss. I mourn the loss. I mourn the loss.

It is a time to mourn …