Rain’s New Narcissistic Supply
Rain was giving a party for her new narcissistic supply. This was a new friend that Rain wanted me to meet. She was sure that I would find I had so much in common with the new friend. This friend was so special that Rain was throwing her a party. That is far more than Rain had ever done for me. Rain never threw me a party (not that I would have wanted one being that I am an introvert). She had never even acknowledged my birthday.
So I knew that this new friend was very special. Rain’s love-bombing of this new friend seemed over the top, and she wanted everyone present to see all of the love she was showering upon her new friend – especially those who stood around and watched this display. It appeared that Rain wanted to devalue and discard us all in the process. We had obviously all done something that inflicted upon her great narcissistic injury, but as I have seen with most narcissists, it is hard to decipher the method to their madness in how they decide to treat their supply. They do what they do because they want to, and often times that is the only reason.
When I surveyed the extent to which Rain made a bid deal about the party, it became apparent to me just how much I meant to Rain as a friend. I had been nothing more than a placeholder for the perfect narcissistic supply to come along for her. Being that there were just some things that Rain could not tolerate about my personality that made me more of a problem supply than good supply, I suppose the new perfect supply had not only the things that Rain lacked but also the things that I lacked as well. So at this party I was presented with what appeared to be a better version and carbon copy of myself. I literally stood speechless when I met the new supply face to face. She was me in so many ways!
Snow
Snow. Snow! It was Snowing! Rain found her Snow. She found someone to stick. She found Snow, and for Rain, Snow was wonderful. I am not even being sarcastic when I say this. It was all true. To stand in their presence, I was standing in the ray of sunshine because Rain beamed as she introduced Snow to everyone in the room. It was more love-bombing than I experienced when I first met Rain. I wondered if anybody else could say the same.
Upon meeting Snow, I found myself scanning her over and taking her all in. There was nothing that I could not like about her. Snow was incredibly intelligent and had an all around pleasant personality. She had the qualities that embodied so many things about myself. She was empathic and compassionate. She was soft-spoken and meek. She was introverted as well. It was as if I was staring at myself … an obvious version of myself that Rain had searched out and found to be better.
I took note of the fact that Snow was totally enamored with Rain, and Rain was totally enamored with Snow. I realized as I watched them together that there was more to their friendship than just friendship. There seemed to be intense sparks that were beyond just the normal like. Yet, all the while as I watched Rain, I thought I was watching glimpses of myself in action too. We had similar styles and similar mannerisms. The only thing that was different about me was that I did not want to date Rain and I was not enamored by her at all in the sense that I wanted anything other than friendship despite my genuine love for her as a friend.
I glanced around and realized that I had been kept in the dark about this. I did not feel a sting of any unpleasant emotion, but I did feel confused though. Why had Rain kept me in the dark? Why had Rain not mentioned Casualty or Snow to me. Why had she told everyone else but me – a person she claimed to be her best friend? Why did no one else seem surprised in the way that I felt? Looking back, I realize that is exactly how Rain wanted it. She wanted me to have a surprised reaction.
Rain had not planned on Casualty even attending because she had not even been invited, but because Casualty had shown up, I did not have to be confused because it was clear that Casualty was confused too. It had become later apparent to me based on Casualty’s facial expression that she had been duped by Rain into believing something different about their friendship which might have been why Rain conveniently ignored speaking to her during the entire party.
Later on during the night, Rain pulled me to the side for a conversation. It was the first real conversation we had in a long time. She wanted to know what I thought about Snow. What was I supposed to say? Instead of asking her why she had shut me out, I kept quiet. I placated her and told her what she wanted to hear even thought there was nothing negative that I could say. In fact, there was nothing negative that I wanted to say. I actually liked Snow.
However, I did have lingering thoughts though. I wondered if Rain would treat Snow differently than she treated me. I wondered if she would show Snow the mean and raging side of her that I had seen myself. I wondered if Snow had any discernment. I wondered if she realized that Rain is a narcissist. If she knew, I wondered if she realized what she was getting into, but I had no room to judge. I still considered Rain my friend despite my realization that Rain is indeed a narcissist based on the criteria. This illusion of a friendship was not going to last long though.
Simultaneous Struggles With Narcissists Opened My Eyes
Only on occasion did I visit with Rain and Snow. I became busy with my life, and I was bringing an end to a toxic friendship with another narcissist at the time who I had considered to be my best friend for 13 years. Not only that, I was also dealing with surmounting episodes of stress where two other narcissists were concerned in my life. Additionally, I was doing an in-depth study on narcissists, narcissistic personality disorder, and narcissistic abuse, and I had begun graduate school with the thought of becoming a professional counselor. I actually believed wholeheartedly that I wanted to help people with narcissistic personality disorder! I thought I would be able to help narcissists be free! Who was I kidding? I had not studied enough about narcissists. I simply had no clue!
Despite working hard in grad school, I felt situations in my personal life were coming to a head. I was ready let go of these toxic relationships, but I had great fear about doing so. I do not even understand why I had such great fear. Not only did I have fear, I battled enormous grief. My friendships with three narcissists brought me great grief, and I was also dealing with ongoing episodes with my narcissistic mother. Yet out of all these situations, Rain gave me the greatest heartache during that time.
My friendship with Rain was literally breaking my spirit. The anxiety I suffered felt insufferable. Even from a great distance, she brought drama into my life when all I wanted was peace. With Rain, I had no peace, and instead of discarding me as I actually hoped she would because of having a lengthy love-bombing phase with Snow, Rain clutched onto me even harder. She must have sensed my desire to get away from her. In my experience, narcissists always do. They have always sensed my desire to break free from them. When they have, they ramp of their tactics against me.
My eyes were opening, and thanks to all of the study on narcissism, narcissistic personality disorder, and narcissistic abuse, I was becoming very aware of the personalities that were surrounding me. They were personalities that I loved but who did not truly love me. They were personalities that were set on my destruction and who seemed to secretly hate me but had a way of hiding their emotions and behaviors so that they gaslighted me into thinking they felt otherwise towards me. I was becoming more cognizant of who was in my circle, and I was wanting to put an end to it all. I was wanting to close the circle, but I had not established the necessary tools to do so.
The Barometric Pressure Of Rain
Because I was too busy to visit Rain on weekends after first meeting Snow, Rain would find ways to infiltrate my weekends by showing up to my area unannounced on the weekends. One weekend she called me to meet with her, Snow, the loud and annoying colleague and the loud and annoying colleague’s boyfriend at a restaurant. I did not understand why she needed an entourage, but she had apparently given Snow the impression that I was the very best friend, and if I did not show up, then this was going to look strange since Snow really liked me. She invited the loud and annoying colleague because that was who she really regarded as her best friend, and the loud and annoying colleague would take the focus away from any conversations that became too serious. Apparently, I had made a great impression on Snow, however, and Rain needed me there.
Much to my disappointment, I reluctantly showed up despite my explanations of not being able to stay for a long time since I was busy with school work. Rain did not care. Rain never cared about what was going on in my life. She did not even bother to ask. When I showed up, it was an awkward time. I was purposefully late so that I would not have to stay long. I hate gatherings with more than three people. I do not even like being in a group of three people. I am on the high end of the introversion spectrum, and Rain knew this about me. Yet, she did not care. She always felt the need to push me out of my “box” by having parties or gettogethers all of the time. Yet, she never wanted to spend any one on one time with me for very long just to hang out. She needed to have an entourage around her even if there were people in her entourage that she did not like and gossiped about when they were gone.
Needless to say, this particular occasion was different. I did not know it then, but it would be one of the very few times I would show up for Rain again. Our friendship was about to go through turmoil that Rain would blame on me. In the meantime, however, she would continue to attempt to invade areas of my life that I deemed sacred to me. My time and my space are sacred to me, and I had no idea all that Rain had planned in store to attempt to unravel me. She was very cold towards me during this particular meeting, and I was not sure specifically why even though I had an idea. I was being devalued but not necessarily discarded. I figured that she might have been quite salty about what happened regarding all the revelation I learned from Casualty weeks prior at the party she gave for Snow. Nevertheless, I did my best to ignore Rain’s narcissistic behavior and make decent conversation even though she spent an enormous amount of time being sarcastically cruel to me.
To get through my time of torture, I made the best of my time and attempted to get to know more about Snow not realizing how much this pleased Rain because Snow liked my character, and Rain was in love with snow. In a interesting twist, I realized upon heavy observation that Rain had been preying upon Snow for weeks prior to meeting her. Snow would make for the perfect narcissistic supply. In fact, Snow would prove to be far better supply than me since I was obstinate and did not want to submit to Rain’s desires for me. One thing Rain hated about me was my stubbornness. She hated that I was not going to be controlled by another her, and since the loud and annoying colleague lived a great distance away and had a boyfriend, she needed Grade A supply. Snow was perfect, and although I was attempting to cut my ties with Rain, trouble unfolded and everything unraveled over time so that I would have no choice but to mourn the death of our so-called friendship.
Stay tuned for more to this story and its culmination in Part 10 and maybe Part 11.
My Voice Unchained 