The Most Wonderful Narc Was A Wonderful Illusion
Rain broke me. She broke me on purpose. That is what narcissists do. They break people for destruction. They break hearts. They break spirits. They break down their victims into former shells of themselves.
On numerous occasions throughout our so-called friendship, I had attempted to have a heart-to-heart conversation with Rain. I was never able to do so. In fact, I was never able to talk to Rain about any of my problems. I was never able to vent. I was never able to share much about myself to her on my terms. When I tried, everything I said was met with her iciness that signaled to me that sharing about my feelings or thoughts were not allowed.
Anything I did share with Rain was because Rain asked me out of curiosity. She really knew nothing about me. I knew more about her than she ever knew about me. At some point I began to wonder if she truly considered me as a person worth knowing. I have never felt that any narcissists I have known cared about me as a person. She was no different. She did not even know anything about my family. In the years that I had known her, I had lived in two apartments, and not once had she ever visited me even though she was invited to do so.
Rain only gathered information about me to later use against me when she wanted to gaslight me, minimize my accomplishments, deter me, or even ridicule me. She did not get to know me for me. She never knew me as a person. She knew me as her I related to her in narcissistic supply. I was supply only. I was her fuel. The value of fuel is only for gassing a narcissist up.
My friendship with Rain was all an illusion. She was not my friend even though I was her friend. In fact, I was a very good friend, but nothing I did was ever good enough for her, and the more I studied up on narcissistic personality disorder and narcissistic abuse, the more I realized I had a problem. Rain was and still is a narcissist. Rain was not going to change. I had to break free. I had determined this when she broke down my spirit by admitting to me that she only cared about her problems when I faced a depressive episode.
Breaking Free
Through my study of all things narcissism and the painful realization that I was in a one-sided friendship all along, I began to slowly break away from Rain. I had bonded with her traumatically. I came to realize that she appealed to the need in me to have someone hear me and understand me. Yet, Rain did not hear me, and she did not try to understand me. She gave me lip service. She gave me the illusion of understanding. She gave me the illusion of an intimate friendship. She gave me trauma bonding.
Rain was selfish and had admitted this on numerous occasions to me. She had admitted this to me during a phone call when I was reaching out to her as I struggled through a depressive episode. Her behavior towards me had pierced my heart, and I never responded to her in the same way again even though I continued to be present for her. Despite my continued present, she consistently was not there for me. She did nothing for me at all that was meant for me alone. She did things for me that were ultimately for herself. She thought of me with herself in mind.
Needless to say, while she and her newfound love, Snow, grew ever closer together, I grew more distant. I liked Snow a lot, and we actually hit it off, but I knew we were not going to become friends. I knew that Rain was not going to tolerate me being friends with any of her friends. If Rain was distant from me, then her friends would be distant with me as well. I knew this instinctively. All the while, though, I visited Rain a lot less until I stopped altogether. She had constant narcissistic supply in Snow, and I was not really needed anymore.
So I made attempts to dislodge myself from Rain’s life. I soon realized that had I never been in Rain’s circle to begin with and was always on the peripheral. I was nothing more than a prop. I do not even know why she found me so “delightful”. Besides being a good friend to her, I was not for the crowds she entertained at all. I was much too introverted and lacked the ability to follow through on her demands. In fact, we did not have much in common apart from a trauma bond.
Specifically, I will never forget when Rain told me that she was attracted to the pain in my eyes. I recall feeling astonished as I looked at her facial expression when she said what she said to me. She told me that I was obviously someone who could relate to pain, knew pain very well, and could understand it in others. Looking back, I recall not being sure how to take her words. So I assumed maybe she was complimenting me on my gift of empathy.
In actuality, however, the pain Rain saw in my eyes was fuel for her to gain narcissistic supply. She realized that she had struck gold in a mine. This explains why there was such a ravenous look in her eyes when she expressed this information about my knowledge of pain to me. As a narcissist, she was excited by all the narcissistic supply she would gain from me. She was excited to know, too, that I had the ability to withstand pain because she was surely going to inflict it. Had I known then what I know now, maybe I could have saved myself from what would happen over time. I do not know.
Rain inflicted a lot of pain, and I withstood it because I was so accustomed to doing so in all of my so-called friendships with narcissist and because I had lived it all during childhood with my parents. Yet, this was the first time that I was aware of what was happening to me. I had in many ways, even if blindly, aided Rain in inflicting pain upon me. I was a blind flying monkey. I had enabled her behavior towards me in so many ways, but the veil of blind deception was being removed from my eyes.
I was setting myself free. Being out of Rain’s presence was a catalyst for me. Being able to view the situation from the outside looking in enabled me to take steps away from Rain that would lead me to breaking away from her. Rain must have sensed something was up because she decided to include me in on a trip. The trip was the beginning of the end for us.
Stay tuned for what happens next. Does it ever end?
My Voice Unchained 