Annoying Copycats
Narcissists have a lot of annoying qualities. One of the most annoying qualities that I have found is their need to copy everything that I do. Bit by bit, the realization becomes that they are not just set on copying my ways, my likes and dislikes, the good aspects of my personality, and my goals and dreams, but they literally want to be me. A few narcissists have even hinted at this, and two actually told me so.
When I first encountered the keen awareness of this copycat syndrome, I will admit that I was flattered by it. I saw it as a compliment when I was first getting to know these narcissists. Yet, I honestly wondered why anyone would want to copy me to the point that they wanted to be me. I have a lot of issues, and some might even seem obvious. So, it always took me by surprise when I realized that I was being mimicked in a way that was over-the-top. In fact, after a while of feeling as if my individuality was being ripped from me, I grew tired and aggravated by the copycats. They were literally stealing pieces of me to the point that I felt like I was being erased by them.
Mirroring
Mirroring is a way that we reflect ourselves onto others. It is a way for us to engage with others to build a connection and create rapport. Sometimes we mirror others unconsciously. Mirroring is often reflected in our body languages with each other as we express ourselves, show our understanding of others, and express our compassion and empathy. Mirroring can actually be so natural that we do not even notice when we do it. I see this with families, couples, and groups of people that share sync with each other.
Yet, there are times when mirroring is taken to the extreme, and this is usually the case with someone who has narcissistic traits. It is frequently a problem with someone who has narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). Narcissists mirror others for the purpose of not just repeating behaviors back to the person they mirror, but narcissists also mirror others to take on their identities. Because narcissists do not have their own sense of self, they frequently take on the persona(s) of others. Narcissists copy so much from others that they often do not know their own selves deeply.
Narcissists do not just mirror our ways. They study us. They study everything about us. Then they pick through the things about us they like so that they can emulate us. They do not just focus on copying us. They focus on becoming us. They focus on taking on our identities to mask their own undefined identities. If you have ever experienced this, you may have felt genuinely creeped out by it. I sure was! Yet, it does not feel that way when you first meet them.
In the beginning, they focus on love bombing us. Yet during the very beginning, they have already begun to reflect back to us our own qualities. They show us ourselves as if we are looking in a mirror at our own reflections. That may explain the twinge of uncomfortableness you might feel when first getting to know them. You are not actually getting to know them so much as you are getting to know yourself because they are reflecting back to you the best of you.
Through mirroring or copying, narcissists fake intimacy with you. It is fake intimacy because you are not getting to know them as deeply as you are learning aspects about your own personality. They show you the best parts of you. That might explain the fake connection you feel when first getting to know them. You are merely connecting with yourself. Narcissists are themselves a deep abyss shrouded with other people’s personalities that the simply reflect back with the hopes that we see a genuine person who is not really there.
The Highest Form Of Flattery
Imitation is said to be the highest form of flattery … that is until you have dealt with someone with narcissistic personality disorder. Then, imitation becomes a possible worst nightmare. From time to time, even I have imitated others. Whether it be in the form of someone’s style of dress or me wanting to replicate a recipe. When I admire someone, I appreciate their qualities. I appreciate the aspects of who they are, and I might even find myself mirroring aspects about their qualities that I admire hoping that their good qualities rub off on me.
Yet, it is very unhealthy to imitate another person to the point that you lose your own identity in that person. We need to be able to see where we begin and where others end. Becoming enmeshed in a person is dangerous. This frequently happens when we do not know our own identities. This is usually the case with many narcissists. They lose themselves in the identities of others.
Well, truthfully, many of them do not even have their own identity because they have chosen to forgo their real self in place of a fake persona that they created to mask who they really are, and that fake persona is usually based on someone else they are attempting to be. {Often narcissists have stolen the identities of so many others that they build a whole new persona.}
Childhood Wishes
As a child, I sometimes wished that I could be anyone but me. I learned very early on that being me was not ideal. I would not necessarily mimic others though. I would pretend to be someone I would imagine myself to be. I would make up characters and call myself by different names. I was always me, if that makes sense. I was just a different aspect of me that I was never allowed to express. I remained in my head a lot, but the older I became, the less I wanted to pretend. I figured that if people did not like me for who I was, then I was not going to force it. It was pointless.
I was considered to be a quirky child – extremely introverted, super observant, and wildly imaginative. I escaped through my imagination by daydreaming and reading a lot. Only in my head did I attempt to emulate the characters I read about in books. I was always longing to live in another time. I was always longing to be the strength of my personality unexpressed to others. I wanted to be me badly, but in my narcissistic household, that just was not possible. I was whoever my parents said I was … whoever they wanted me to be. I was forced into a mask for a time, and I was desperate to remove it.
The time and space that I experienced in early childhood was filled with a lot of trauma, sadness, and various elements of abuse. Although I had admiration for a lot of people when I was younger, I had a hard enough time navigating the reality of simply being free to be myself. The more observant I became of the people around me, the less I wanted to be anybody else. I consistently saw things about people that gave me a lot to consider.
Even as a young child, I developed an understanding that some people were just not happy with themselves. If they were not happy being who they were, I did not see the point in bothering to copy them. I was not the most happy with myself, but I was content to just be me. I learned to accept my quirks, idiosyncrasies, and characteristics that made me seem to be an oddball. I learned to embrace myself even when others simply chose not to embrace me.
In fact, I worked hard at being me, and believe me, it was an extremely hard task because I battled against a lack of acceptance from all who were around me – especially my family. I frequently walked in the shadows and remained hidden. Back then, my voice was chained up and strained to the point that I experienced a time of being mute.
As a child, I did not feel freedom to be myself. Sometimes I did not feel safe to be myself either. Yet, it never occurred to me to try on a different persona. I desperately wanted to be me. I even believed I had a lot to offer the world, but being in a narcissistic household shut me down. I wished for a lot in childhood, but one of my greatest wishes was to be accepted for being me.
My First Experience With A Copycat
My first experience truly understanding the phenomenon of a copycat was when I was around five years old. My most fondest memories were when I was in kindergarten. I thought that I absolutely loved school. I actually thought that I lived for school, but I recall learning absolutely nothing in regards to education. I did not even nap my way through kindergarten.
My teachers told my parents that I seemed to be “a bit off and astutely aloof” to everything around me. One of my teachers even wrote on a report card that I was frequently always “out to lunch”. In other words, I was in a world of my own, and I frequently stayed in my world until I felt safe enough to come out of it.
I distinctly remember the class I was in because I always felt bored up until story time. I had marked periods of dissociation. I frequently daydreamed about being anywhere else even though I thought I loved school. Other than story time, I hated all other activities because we were always placed in groups. I hated groups. I hated having to interact with others. I always felt so socially uncomfortable and awkward.
I found the other kids to be fascinating enough, but I did not particularly like being around them. I only talked when it was necessary. Otherwise, I spent time in the land of my introversion. I basked in the joys of my silence. In class, I always felt my voice was chained because I felt frequently muted by anxiety. When it was time to interact with others, I was always with my cousin.
I thought the world of my cousin at the time. She seemed to have more life experiences than me, and I was always fascinated by the stories she told me about her incredible life as a six-year-old. It would seem that I would be the one so taken by her that I would have been the one copying her, but it was actually the other way around.
This cousin copied the way I talked, ate, and interacted with others. She frequently mirrored me. I remember not understanding the reason she did this because I did not come across as an interesting person. I was very quiet. I only spoke when it was absolutely necessary. Classmates thought I was weird and said so. I was made fun of by others too.
At first, I remember my cousin and I making the copying out to be a game, but I remember soon tiring of both the game and her. When I requested that she stop copying me, I remember her telling me that she did not have to and that she was free to copy anyone she wanted to anytime. For me, this was a problem. I was an extremely hypersensitive child.
Day by day, the more my cousin mirrored me, the more distressed I became about her behavior. It was to the point that I frequently associated class activities with distress because I had to deal with her copying me. She seemed to be relentless or at least that is what my five-year-old mind thought about it at the time.
I will never forget that hot feeling of anger that flushed to my face. I did not like the feeling because I felt like I wanted to cry. I became so fed up with her copying me that I began shutting down in class. I felt myself zoning out to the point that the voices around me seemed to grow further away from me. I wanted to disappear.
Copying me seemed to become a sadistic game to my cousin, and she seemed to take more pleasure in my unhappiness about it. The more distressed I became, the more she copied me. In fact, I became so distressed about her behavior that I tried to express myself about it to one of my teachers hoping that something would be done about it.
Eventually, my cousin pushed my buttons enough to where I reacted with a great outburst in class. I felt so provoked by her imitation of me that I yelled at her in class. I yelled loudly for her to stop and leave me alone. I remember that my anger felt like a huge weight. Instead of the teacher finding out the issue of that moment, she sent me to stick my nose in the corner.
I will never forget how the heat of embarrassment covered me like a blanket as I stood in the corner of shame. I was hot with anger. I had a weird feeling and thought that my cousin was trying to replace me, and I felt that it was so unfair. Instead of me being able to enjoy the “fun” that was going on in class, my cousin seemed to sit in my place and laugh about it. I fought back the hot tears that rose to my eyes.
As I heard the others playing, I remember turning to quickly glance over at my cousin. Maybe it was just my imagination, but I could have sworn for certain that her voice became just a little louder and her laughter became just a tad bit sinister. I could hear her mocking the way that I talked and others around her laughing about it.
My cousin seemed to take over my seat, take over my place in the activities, and put herself in my shoes. Normally, when someone puts themselves in the shoes of another, they are empathizing with another. In my cousin’s case, there was no empathy. She had no mercy for me. I felt that she was stealing my identity. I literally felt that she shapeshifted herself into me and had swapped places with me.
After having dealt with this situation long enough, I finally voiced my thoughts to my parents only after one of my teachers mentioned to my parents all of the problems I seemed to have been having in class. The teacher told my parents that I was frequently having conflicts with another student in the class. This infuriated me because the teacher did mot come to me about the problem at all. I was guilty for an outburst caused by provocation, and I felt hurt because it seemed like the teacher did not care.
“So you’re having a conflict enough to cause problems in class?” my dad asked with demand in his voice. I thought, “But of course!” Someone stealing my identity was a huge conflict, but when I tried to explain the situation to my parents, my dad was the first to say, “just continue being yourself” and “I do not want to hear about you getting into trouble again!” I just could not win!
“How can I be myself when someone else is trying to be me?” I had asked my dad. I was in tears and cared less about his coming punishment against me. I did not understand why he could not see the problem with this. My dad’s solution was for me to talk to my cousin about it … to tell her that I did not like her copying me and there could only be one of me because I am the original.
At the time, I thought his idea was not so smart. I did not think my cousin was going to listen to me. She had not stopped before when I had requested she do so. Even still, I recall asking my dad, “So what if she continues to copy me?” Then he replied, “You could always give her a taste of her own medicine by copying her. She might like that until she doesn’t and wants you to stop, and that might make her think about how she’s treated you.”
Interestingly enough, I did work up the nerve to tell my cousin that I did not like being copied by her. The most I recall is that we got into a big argument and she stopped being my friend for a while. She even smeared me to others in the class, and she told everyone in the class about the boy I had a crush on. I was mortified, but I did get over it.
Although her retaliation made me feel sad, I felt better because I was relieved to be able to enjoy being me again. I was relieved not to have someone watching and copying my every move. I was relieved not to have someone seemingly taking up space as me. I was an introvert anyway, and all of that drama had caused me a considerable amount of stress. I just wanted to go back to being in my norm.
I do not know what lesson my cousin learned or whether she even learned a lesson about copying others, but I learned a valuable lesson. No copy will ever do when it comes to being me. I would rather be me any day than be someone else. I gladly accept my quirks, my issues, and my imperfections. I accept everything about myself. I spent too many years growing into who I am, and no one can do me better than me [even if they think they can]. I was created to be me. I am my own original version of myself, and that is good enough for me.
Strangely, I moved on from child’s play to adulthood madness with a few more copycats, and a few of them are narcissists.
Stay tuned for more posts.
My Voice Unchained 