I always felt the narcissist in my life was someone I couldn’t trust. I have known this narcissist for my entire life, literally — they knew me since I was a few days old.
Yet, I don’t know who this person truly is.
They have kept who they are such a dark mystery that I honestly don’t know they truly are. You would think after 28 years, there might be a bond or relationship.
Building relationships in families are normal and important.But I eventually realized I was as important as the furniture around me — I was just a part of the background.
Since I didn’t know who the narcissist truly was, I didn’t feel comfortable around them. Whenever they were over for a family dinner, I would step into a character almost — it was the person I needed to be. The same was true for my other family members as well.
The narcissist was a poison that I needed to keep away from. My lack of faith and confidence in the narcissist only marked me as a villain. It seemed as though I had committed some outrageous act against the narcissist. So, to be fair, they needed to settle the score.
I was always on their hit list
If there was something wrong, it always had to be my fault. If the trash can was almost full that was something they needed to drill into me about. The narcissist wanted to make a point to call out all of my imperfections and flaws.
I remember times in my childhood when the narcissist would make fun of how messy my bedroom was. I was ridiculed by them at every turn. It’s tough to look back and see that this narcissist was cruel to me; I wanted to fix it. I wanted to improve who I was because I thought I was the problem.
I will never forget the look on their face, the pure joy they experienced from making a fool of me in front of family and friends. Whether it was joking about my awful handwriting or how painfully slow I was at my math homework.
They would incessantly poke fun at my flaws because they liked the reaction they got from me. Once I started quipping back or showing that their words didn’t bother me. Unfortunately, the narcissist’s words and actions still affect me to this day.
My existence burned them
I hope that no one ever has the misfortune of being hated since birth. I never got close to my narcissist because they didn’t want me to. I needed to stay away from them because I was going to hurt them somehow.I had done something awful to them and started a war; I don’t even know why or how.
Narcissists are commonly understood to be highly insecure. For narcissists to combat their insecure feelings, they need to stay at a distance and attack before they can be attacked first.This kind of hate isn’t noticed at first. It feels like tough love or teasing to show affection.
But there was no affection, there was no care, there was only control and manipulation.One day, I noticed that the narcissist did not like me to refer to their family members by aunt or uncle, or whatever their role was. My relationships with other family members somehow took away from their relationship with the narcissist.
There’s nothing I could have done
My family’s narcissist was prissy and wanted everything to be a certain way. Down to the way they drank their water — everything had to be how they wanted it.They always wanted water when they came over–but it must be bottled.
Or how on family holidays, there would always be a fight over how quickly the table was set and taken down after dinner.There was always this control that needed to happen.
There wasn’t anything around me that that narcissist didn’t try to control some how. I was fighting a losing battle.I tried to get ahead of what they wanted for a while, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t get ahead of what they wanted and be who they wanted me to be.Nothing I ever did would be enough.
After all, the narcissist had a score to settle — what that was, I will never know.
Takeaways
Despite the difficulties I was going through at the time, I knew that I had done the best I could. And I will continue to deal with the consequences of this on a daily basis. Recently, I came to the realization that at the end of the day, it was never good enough for them. It's difficult to accept that they genuinely did not like me.
But it is what it is, and I can only move forward from here. This period of my life won't define my future.
If you resonated with anything in this article, I want to you know that you are not alone. If you feel unsafe in your relationship, visit TheHotLine.org for live chat, or call, or text.
Author's Note:Hello! Thanks for taking the time to read my article! Sharing my story has always been important to me. If you resontated with anything in my story, just know I'm giving you a virtual hug.
So, if you liked this story, leave a comment, a like, or a follow! See you soon! :)
That’s my family to a T; finally I had to break free.
Russell
8d ago
After 3 yrs. I'd had enough, not only was my wife a narcissist, but her 40 yr. old son was too, it really came down to emotional incest with them, nobody could understand me until I talked to a psychologist.. my notes were pretty much verbatim with hers... anyhoo that one day, amidst the trash, the pets, the stink, the attitude, etc. Her and I were alone outside, her grandchild, 12, was inside sleeping. She complained about the size of the trash bag I used, instead of 15 gallon, I used a 20 gallon... it was on , she went into a rage.. I was like, are you for real? Next thing I said was you know you really embarrass me...what do you say to that? When there was just her and I... she ran into the house madder than 2 wet hens.. I stopped and realized that what I said was a classic phrase.. one year later.. im gone.. NO contact for 4 yrs. now..
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