BEING IN RELATIONSHIP WITH A NARCISSIST
Reflective Paper
By
Pavan M Srivatsa
Founder – Chakshu Foundation,
Consulting Psychologist
How the room looks like
The four pillars of narcissistic people are –
1. Lack of empathy
2. Grandiosity
3. Sense of entitlement
4. Seeking admiration and validation.
The roof under which they live is – lack of self-esteem.
The windows of deep relationship attachment are closed completely with lack of light of empathy.
The door of acceptance is closed and are locked with multiple locks.
Outside painting of this room is so colourful – meaning, the nar projects oneself to be innocent and great but, victim and gains sympathy.
The floor is filled with sharp nails and glass pieces that prick your feet but the nar knows where there is a proper flooring and keeps the leg there and there only.
Charm and intelligence-coloured light bulbs change their colours gradually to lack of compassion, one way communication, lying and being judgemental – wanting the power to make every decision and thereby putting others in bad light.
Victims often feel unheard, not being noticed, being criticised, wrongly judged, picked on negative traits only, rejected. The victim runs out of hope because, they are being treated hopelessly by the narcissistic partner. The nar partner installs balloons of hope and burst it when the other person starts believing the nar. These balloons used to decorate the room is conditional – as in, the nar will decorate the room with balloons of hope and happiness if and only if things are going according to the nar’s expectation only.
Nar plays the role of being a prince. If not, he turns to a beast and becomes abusive – in most cases, verbally and emotionally.
Nar imposes and assigns rules and roles to be played to fulfill the nar’s expectations. The opinions and needs of person/ people in relationship with a nar is never heard or understood or considered.
Pleasing the nar is next to impossible which makes the other people give up hope on relationship. This make re – rendering of hope is impossible. When calling off the relationship, the nar uses the victim card to make the others in relationship feel more guilty, more hopeless and more worthless than staying in the relationship.
The partner needs to build up on one’s own identity, skills and social circle to make sure that their future is secure, present is safe and thereby develop oneself – go through to grow through shift in attitude rather than denial of what has happened to them because of staying in relationship with a nar. The impact of being in relationship with nar makes you perceive everyone to be nar or conditionally staying with you. This further makes the person feel emotionally exhausted and their social battery drains quickly because, the nar’s shadow is being carried everywhere you go.
Pleasing a nar is difficult. Your efforts went in vain. That doesn’t mean that your efforts go in vain everywhere with everyone. Your efforts give results on the outside. This is because of faulty generalisation.
