How Narcissists Choose To Celebrate Me

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How Narcissists Choose To Celebrate Me

In three words: They do not. Narcissists do not choose to celebrate me. If they do celebrate me, they always have a motive. Their celebrations of me are always insincere … never genuine no matter how much I hope. Celebrations of me always mean gains for them even if their only gain is to devalue me or discard me.

Recognition

From the time that I can remember, I was conditioned by my parents that feeling anything other than what they told me to feel was pretty much unacceptable. So, when it came to recognition, I had to contain my excitement for receiving awards or pretty much any attention at all. I was constantly cautioned not to show pride because pride goes before a great fall. Yet, if my parents were happy that I made them feel proud, then I could be happy too. I look back now and realize that my parents feared not so much that I would fall but that I would never rise. They took great pride in my accomplishments – more so than I did.

I cannot say that I ever really cared to be validated by others outside of my parents. If they were happy, then I was happy … that is until I began stepping out of their shadows to chart the course of my own destination. It was then that I no longer cared about receiving even their validation since I would only sporadically receive their validation anyway. Besides, my parents’ validation of me was not based on who I was but more on what I did, and I always wanted to be celebrated for “me”. The “me” that I needed my parents to see was invisible. So I assumed no one else really saw “me” either. In the case of opening my life up to narcissists, being invisible to them is always true.

Over the years, narcissistic friends have always shows facial expressions that outwardly demonstrated their “applause” of me as it benefited for others to see, but I could always discern their inward narcissistic stare glaring from their eyes. Their narcissistic stares always showed their disgust, overall disdain, and anger regarding any of my recognitions. Most of the time, I could not understand their negative energy towards me particularly since they called themselves my friends.

Narcissists in my life have always found some way to upstage me or minimize my accomplishments. Some even had the nerve to imply that I did not deserve my accomplishments based on whatever they felt I was lacking in standards. However, I have always taken their fits in stride by using my sarcastic wittiness to shut them down. Of course, my form of retaliation never bodes well with them because sarcasm and wit at their expense causes narcissistic injury. Maybe that is one of many reasons I am devalued and discarded by narcissists on special occasions.

Birthday Celebrations

Birthday celebrations have been pretty much the same with all of the narcissists in my life. There is always the narcissistic abuse cycle that determines what type of birthday celebration I am going to have, but mainly, no matter how often I celebrate my birthday, narcissists really do not unless they have a motive for doing so.

The narcissistic abuse cycle consists of the idealize phase (love-bombing), the devalue phase (insults), and the discard phase (abandoned). Only very early on in a relationship with a narcissist do I experience a time of love-bombing. It is always clear to me that narcissists listen to me because when they gift me, they gift me with things that I have mentioned to them even if in passing. When they really want my narcissistic supply, narcissists are fantastic gift-givers. When they really want to win me over, their gifts always come off as really thoughtful.

Despite these being narcissists that I am talking about, I am still always surprised when they devalue me. Perhaps I hold onto hope that the person I am dealing with will realize that their narcissistic traits are a problem. Of course, that is just wishful thinking, but nonetheless, I am still sometimes surprised when narcissists do things to devalue me. It is hurtful, and after they treat me so well for a first birthday celebration when first getting to know me, I am taken aback when they devalue me with the silent treatment or some other hurtful tactic meant to put me in line with their desires.

After a first birthday celebration of me, narcissists will consistently devalue and discard me for all of my birthdays afterwards until these narcissists are no longer in my life. These devalues and discards around the time that they would normally celebrate me can be especially hurtful since I often do not expect such mistreatment especially when they often give hints that they plan to celebrate me. Oftentimes, I do not even know what I have done to set them off against me.

Other times my intuition warns me when devaluing and discarding tactics are on the horizon from narcissists. Usually, things start off normally in which I do not have a clue that anything is different from the ordinary. Narcissists might even call and text me talking about my birthday and scheduling with me times to meet up. Then, however, narcissists will typically counter their idealization of me with a quick blow of the silent treatment. Some have even discarded me as a birthday gift.

How is it possible to have so-called best friends that forget my birthday year after year when the first celebration was over the top? Why is it necessary to mention to others what is done for me in reference to my birthday when I have finally caught up to their schemes of narcissistic abuse against me? Why do narcissists become offended at the slightest desire to pull away from celebrating them when they never celebrate me? I already know the answer. It became clear when I began to study the characteristics of narcissistic personality disorder. Narcissists do things to only benefit them. Period.

What I find interesting is that people I consider genuine non-narcissists do not even know when my birthday is as I have never had a need to mention it, and they have never had a need to ask. If birthdays happen to come up in a discussion, we will all simply politely wish each other “happy birthday” and be done with it. I wish it were that easy with narcissists, but it is not. Wherever I am in the narcissistic cycle of abuse with them when my birthday rolls around, I am always devalued or discarded. My birthday is never even acknowledged by narcissists during the devalue and discard phases. Whenever birthdays of narcissists roll around, I am lucky to be in the idealize phase with them so that they are self-assured of being guaranteed a gift. Reciprocation just does not happen with narcissists.

How narcissists choose to celebrate me is strictly based on their agenda, but most often, they do not celebrate me at all.