Pursuit
The Spoiled Bully was relentless in her pursuit of me, but I was ignorant of her invasion to be inside of my personal bubble. My mind was elsewhere, but two of my friends took notice. In fact, one of my friends even noted that she observed how The Spoiled Bully was always placing herself around me, but I seemed aloof in not taking any notice of her at all.
Perhaps that is because I was aloof, and I did not take any notice of The Spoiled Bully at all. From my standpoint, I honestly tend to not be aware of narcissistic personalities in the very beginning. They are not on my radar until they place themselves there. For whatever reason, I tend to be nonchalant even though I do notice them within my peripheral view often slithering their way around me.
So it was with The Spoiled Bully, and once she continued to badger me with her presence, I had no choice but to finally take notice even though it took a bit of prodding on someone else’s part. Strangely, my friends at the time thought I should have been honored that this praise and worship leader wanted to be my friend because visually she was seen as a cool person. She was a part of a cool circle of people that was held in high esteem within the church, but I could have cared less. My friends, in fact, chided me on being rude.
A Cool Person
Once I got to know The Spoiled Bully, I did find her to be a cool person. I do not remember specifically how a friendship began with her, but when it did, it took off in full blast. We did not necessarily have very much in common except a love for music and God, but I reasoned that a love for God was enough. I also reasoned that I could overlook her flaws because I definitely had flaws too.
With any new relationship or encounter with a narcissistic person, the first stage of love bombing or newness is the fun and feel-good stage (at least for me it was). The Spoiled Bully and I had lots of fun in this stage. We became fast and best friends (or so I thought). We spent a lot of time together, and I got to know a lot about her. If I had to take a test on anything about her life, I would have passed with flying colors. I could not say the same for her though, when it came to me, but she always gave the surface appearance that she listened to me.
Looking back, on the other hand, The Spoiled Bully did very little to get to really know me. She did not even know where I was originally from, did not know about my family, and did not know about my inner personal life outside of church. It was a while before she even recognized my birthday despite the fact that she had asked me about it. She only connected me to my job and talked about it for surface conversations, but there never seemed to be any true effort on her part to really get to know me.
Beyond The Outward Mask
Needless to say, I did not pick up on the negatives regarding our friendship in the beginning. I was too busy basking in the joy of the newness of friendship that I had never given consideration to before. The Spoiled Bully and I were complete opposites but were seemingly becoming good friends. We were even opposites when it came to spiritual beliefs. Imagine that! She did not believe in the same way that I did as I had experienced life in the spiritual realm [literally], and she was far more streamlined compared to me. There was no room for her to believe in what she considered to be imaginary.
Nevertheless, I considered The Spoiled Bully a friend, and I thought she was a cool person until I realized who she was beyond the persona she portrayed within the public arena of church. Of course, we all had issues that were not worth presenting publicly, but church was the place that people should have been able to go and release without being judged for their problems. In spite of the issues, I did not judge The Spoiled Bully based on her narcissistic traits, but I was nonetheless flabbergasted the more she revealed overtime the venomous rage that lay beneath the surface.
Despite it all, however, nothing could take away from the fact that The Spoiled Bully was a super talented songstress and musician. She, in fact, was a guitarist, drummer, and pianist and amazingly gifted at all three. It was always a pleasure to hang out with her and listen to her practice. I would literally soak within the ambiance of the music. I was in awe of her giftedness. Little did I know that being one of her primary audiences prior to ministry time provided her with supreme narcissistic supply. In fact, I was great supply during the love bombing stage until I was not.
Stay tuned for the next post.
My Voice Unchained 