Discarded Into the Unknown

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Five active narcissists: two idealize, one devalues, one discards. Mathematically, the count is four, but there is more to the story. Let us just get to the discard phase of my life first. Currently, I have been discarded by the PGN (Professional Gaslighting Narcissist).

If you recall my previous blog entitled Devalued With A Bag of Gaslighting Tricks, the PGN arose from behind the shadowy scenes to become the narcissist of my narcissistic nightmares. The PGN is literally a mean-spirited person pretending to be the most generous and caring friend. Even though I am not a licensed clinician with the ability to give diagnoses to others, I sincerely believe that there is not a trained clinician who would not diagnose the PGN as a covert malignant narcissist. This PGN is dangerous!

For many months now, I have enjoyed a lengthy discard by the PGN. Yet, this discard feels very different compared to the discards of the past with the PGN. This discard has lasted for almost a year and a half. There has been little to no contact on either of our parts. Since resigning from my position from the former workplace where both the PGN and I shared employment, communication had been in spurts at best. I had little time for her during work and outside of work because of my newly involved professional duties, and we no longer worked on the same team. The only times that we might come together is if we saw each other in the workplace parking lot where we might fill each other in on life events or schedule meetups to grab a bite to eat.

For the most part, I felt that the distance between us was mainly driven by the fact that she no longer had close proximity and influence over me as she once did when we were on the same collaborative team. When I accepted the position, I distinctly remember the pained look in her eyes as I told her the news. She was not happy for me at all. She had reacted as if I had deserted her, and she even implied that I did not deserve the position when she commented that she would have applied for the position had she known about it. Everything was always a competition for her even though I did not compete.

Frankly, the PGN all but disappeared from my life even though we worked in the same place. I became so busy that when I noticed we were no longer a part of each other’s lives, I was relieved because I had already begun experiencing major problems with a different coworker who presented with extreme traits of narcissism (but more on this one later). Plus, I felt that one less dramatic person in my life actually gave me less stress to be concerned about, and I did not have to dwell on things that the PGN had already done against me that I was still recovering from at that point in time.

From my experience, most narcissists are known for their lack of object constancy. Whenever I am not around the narcissist, I basically do not exist. I am only thought of in terms of narcissistic supply. If I do not contact the narcissist, the narcissist does not contact me. So it is with the PGN. She only reaches out to me when she wants narcissistic supply because her other enablers are not available to her. Even when I would text her, I would gauge her narcissistic supply tank by how quickly she responded to my texts. If she responded hours or days later, then my supply for her was neither needed nor desired, and this is how quickly I learned in the friendship that I could never turn to her if I really needed someone to talk to or even if I had an emergency (especially if I was in the devalue or discard phases with her).

Nevertheless, there has been very little communication between the PGN and me, and I have found that her absence in my life gives me so much peace because being around her induces an atmosphere of drama and various narcissistic devalue tactics from her. Although I do not know what is in her heart to do or say, I do know her by the patterns she has displayed over time. I know that when I go through periods of her silent treatment against me, I have undoubtedly wounded her in some way. The only wound that I may have inflicted upon her that may have led to this most recent discard was my refusal to participate in a group gift in her honor … a group gift that was much too expensive for me to reasonably handle without suffering a monetary disadvantage.

Personally, I have suffered more than enough losses where the PGN has been involved in my life. So, I did not even need to think about my decision to opt out of participating in sharing in the expensive costs of a group gift for her. I had made my decision clear not to participate when her husband asked me to help pitch in with a specified amount. Although he claimed any amount would do after my hesitation, I knew better. I knew that I would be silently judged based on any amount that I gave, and nothing would be good enough besides me paying full price for the gift. To make a long story short, I chose not to participate even when there were attempts by her flying monkeys (enablers) to bully me into participation.

In fact, one of the flying monkeys alluded to the fact that I was not showing gratitude for the PGN and her efforts of having orchestrated a farewell employee party on my behalf. It was a party, by the way, to which she and her closest flying monkeys showed up close to an hour late for, to which there was no offer to even treat the guest of honor (I ended up paying for my own meal!), and to which there was barely any conversation with me the entire time. I was completely iced out of a party that the PGN gave in my honor. What was the point? Plus, the PGN gave me a party knowing that I do not even like parties in the first place because I am an introvert! She already knew that I would hate it, but she did it to make herself look like a good friend and to see me squirm with high anxiety because of the social aspect of it all. No one could possibly know, except the PGN, how anxious I was to even attend my own party only for she and her flying monkeys to treat me as if I did not exist.

So, as you can see, I really do not care that the PGN is no longer speaking to me. I relish in her longstanding silent treatment against me. Her failure to understand my introversion actually works against her. She is somewhere believing she has won a competition against me when she is actually giving me the silence and drama-free life I have been craving the moment she entered it. At this point, I recognize her silence as a discard of me because of all that comes with her discards each time they occur. She discards me with supreme silence when there is distance, and when we were at work, the silence was coupled with frozen stares of seething rage.

For the record, I usually recognize that the PGN has discarded me based on how she stonewalls me (ignores me when I am physically present around her even if she is the one who has invited me to an event) or if I receive a text from her in which she orchestrates a meet-up for us but with no follow through that the meet-up will even occur. On this particular occasion, the latter of the two happened where a text was sent regarding a meet-up but no follow through occurred on her part. From that point onward, there has been silence (no further communication) as if the text was never even sent to me. I did not press for any further contact because it has always been my experience that she will gaslight me into believing that I misunderstood her text (even though it is really quite simple in explanation).

Interestingly, I feel that this discard is the final blow to a friendship that never existed for her in the first place. I was only too late to realize this, and although I bid my own silent farewell to what never has been, it is still a painful realization nonetheless. To to top it off, the discard occurred around a significant day that the PGN has always half-heartedly celebrated on my behalf unless she wanted to make a big display in front of others (which I later came to understand had more to do with putting her new supply and other flying monkeys in check about what to expect from her if they did not align with her desires). On this significant day, she gifted me with a present she knew I was not likely to forget.

This year marked the first time the PGN never acknowledged me for my birthday – not even with her often forgetful and belated wishes days later. This time around, there was no wish, no text, no call, no nothing. Although I celebrated her without participating in the expensive group gift, she repaid me with the true gift of her heart which is how she has always felt about me all along. Her gift to me was her annihilating silence … a silence that was engulfed by her raging inferno of hatred which she has spent the bulk of this so-called friendship unleashing upon me in self-serving and passive-aggressive ways.

In the end, I painfully came to an understanding that I needed to relinquish this farce of a friendship with the PGN and wholly accept the loss of someone who mimicked the empathy, humility, honesty, and love that never existed at all. From the start, the PGN solely befriended me with my destruction in her mind. She analyzed my strengths and weaknesses. She took from me the best parts of me and presented them in a way that were unauthentic for herself. She sabotaged me in ways that pronounced irreversible destruction. There are even some issues she caused me that I cannot ever undo.

Yet, although she has discarded me, a discard is never really final for most narcissists because there will always be a need to eventually extract supply for themselves. In my experience, narcissists always return. However, I have come to the conclusion that it is a time to mourn her. So, I mourned her loss, and all I can say is when I have mourned a person’s loss who is still among the living, I have closed the door on continuing a friendship. I have closed the door on this narcissist, and she is dead to me. It is not my intention to be so callous, but I have no more emotional reserves or cares that can be given on her behalf. I am done.

Yes, this discard is so different from the rest. This is the final discard even, and I accept my place into the unknown. I bid thee farewell, PGN … the one and only Professional Gaslighting Narcissist.