The Emotional Vampire (Narcissist) at Play
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Narcissistic Relationships
Being in a relationship with someone who is narcissistic, or who suffers with the full disorder, can be a long and painful path to bear which often leads to devastation, despair and outright misery.
Those inflicted with Narcissistic Personality Disorder, although technically not their fault, are certainly not easy people to deal with, especially when it comes to relationships.
When in a relationship, narcissists will usually allow time to pass and continue to wait patiently until they know that their partner has developed true genuine love, empathy and trust for them. Once they are absolutely certain that this level of trust has been established, this is their cue that their partner is now emotionally attached to them. This is the narcissist's cue that their partner/victim is ready to be exploited. They may then go on to employ manipulative and deceitful tactics such as gaslighting and crazymaking.
The narcissist's partner is now exactly where they want them and the narcissist can now use their victim as a primary source of narcissistic supply (attention, adoration, adulation, etc). The narcissist will usually then continue to emotionally and mentally (and in some cases physically) abuse and drain their partner until they fear that the victim may be considering leaving the relationship. The only thing that will lead a narcissist into stopping their abuse is their intense fear of abandonment. Their primary source of narcissistic supply is essential to them.
It's inevitable that extreme forms of emotional and/or mental abuse, emotional blackmail, character assassination and financial abuse are all present in the relationship in some way, shape or form. If the narcissist is married to their partner then it's also highly likely that sexual misconduct will also be an issue.
Video:
Psychological Manipulation
Once the victim feels like they have been worn down to the very core of their soul and they eventually seek to escape the relationship, the narcissist will then expertly feign sorrow, empathy and compassion thereby providing the victim with some sense of relief from all the confusion and pain they have been made to endure.
After so much devastation and despair and just wanting things to be okay, the desperate victim may fall for the bait and takes the only logical escape route they can see and so the narcissist sucks them back in ready to do it all over again next time... but only once they've attained that certain level of trust again. Again, they will wait patiently and allow time to pass. After all, time is the great healer and faith becomes restored again.
Unbeknownst to the victim, they are being kept on the end of a psychological leash which exists because deep down inside the narcissist has a very real and very powerful fear of being abandoned; abandonment is not an option and is the best factor that can be used by a victim of narcissistic abuse to their advantage.
Many people may fail to understand why a narcissist would act in such a way in the first place; why would someone have an intense fear of being abandoned by a person who they do not really love and who they do not have genuine feelings for, someone who they are abusing?
The answer to this lies not in the fact that the narcissist loves their partner or has feelings for them but because their victim, their relationship partner, is their main source of narcissistic supply and the narcissist knows that the victim has very real feelings for them.
By providing their victims with relief from all the confusion and desperation that the narcissist has made them endure, the bait is taken as a form of relief from the turmoil.
Let Me Control You...
Or Suffer
The victim is only left with two options:
Either choose the bait the narcissist offers and accept relief from the abuse, or allow the narcissist to continue engaging in character assassination thereby destroying their victim's reputation and livelihood, usually outside of their awareness and whilst simultaneously turning their private life a living nightmare.
Despite the fact that narcissists impose such dire circumstances on their victims while attempting to destroy the victim's reputation in the background, the narcissist covers up their actions expertly and flawlessly by portraying the victim as a good person to other people around them, making out that they respect their victim who is honest, intelligent, empathetic and whom they love dearly - nobody would suspect the narcissist of abusing the victim or of spreading malicious lies and rumours about them; lies mixed with truths, making them half-truths.
Narcissists choose a victim who they can likely use to uphold their false self; their good-as-gold "wouldn't do anything to hurt anyone" exterior which is, in reality, nothing more than a mask of sanity used to project their false persona.
This content is accurate and true to the best of the author’s knowledge and is not meant to substitute for formal and individualized advice from a qualified professional.
© 2017 Marc Hubs
Comments
Áine Laisrén from San Diego, California on January 18, 2019:
Thank you for this article. I'm so glad this information is getting the press it deserves!
A nony mouse on November 05, 2018:
Unfortunately, the amount of time the narcissist spends being nice and reeling the target in can make them difficult to spot. Most of us are bought up to be nice and the narcissist is adept at exploiting this. However, some are more adept than others, they are the dangerous ones. Having been married to one I should know.
The other problem is that they never truly seem to let go, or at least they seem to hope you don't. As a teenager, I went out with this guy who was about 10 years older than myself. He was a bit of a nightmare and he yo-yoed me all over the place emotionally. He would dump me for little apparent reason and then come back and plead to get back together. The third time he dumped me I resolved not to go back, but it did not stop him pestering me at my halls of residence until I graduated and moved away.
Now nearly 30 years later I have been married and divorced and he has washed up on my doorstep. God only knows how he managed to find me. He claimed in his letter to be the general manager of a prestigious hotel in the area in which he now lives. He was a hotel porter when we met, so he must have thought that I would swallow this line without checking it out.
I did check it out and it did turn out that someone who coincidently shared his name and lived in the same area was indeed the general manager of this posh hotel. However, the picture that was with the article was clearly not my ex. So I did a bit more digging and found his picture on facebook, with a profile saying that he is unemployed, as did his linkedin page. In fact, he had been unemployed for 7 years and had previously been a shelf stacker.
I feel embarrassed about calling him out on this BS and have simply said that I have no desire for any sort of relationship with him after the way that he treated me in the past and that as I have a disabled child I do not have time for any other relationship. He immediately starts saying how much he wants to help me. When I said that he should be concentrating on his career, to try and sidestep his completely ingenuine offers, he immediately starts saying he would be willing to pack it all in because he loves me so much.
I know very well that he has no career and that he is just trying to feather his own nest. I know the guy is minimally qualified, but you would have thought that having behaved so badly in the past that he would have the sense to realize I am not going to jump into a relationship with him again. Just goes to show......
Trina Allman on January 16, 2018:
Thank you for your help an Insight on this matter I am a woman in love with a narcissist we have been together off and on for 20 years and we've both had emotional and physical traumas growing up this information is not only helping me but intern helping him and hopefully with educating ourselves on this will be able to grow and become normal or more stable people
Tamara Moore on May 14, 2017:
I am glad people write about NPD Abuse! I want future generations to be informed! And yet, despite my best intentions to desire the protection of others, thru education and posts, such as this one, I still get comments telling me to "move on", or "quit dwelling on it". I am not obsessed, nor dwelling on it. As everyone can plainly see, not only are my poems and writings about NPD Abuse, but also they are about Pets, Romance, Love, Happiness, The Lord, and even Nonsensical subjects... Yet, when I write about NPD, even if it's a Healing Poem, I get whacked acrossed the head with disapproval. It hasn't stopped me, yet! And, it will not stop me from trying to educate future generations about this insidious abuse.
Hugs,
Tamara
Natalie Frank on May 13, 2017:
This is dead on the money. Nice write up. One additional point - At some point the victim will usually decide they have had enough. Unfortunately, when the narcissist is someone they are strongly tied to - a parent, spouse etc. - they don't feel they can break away entirely. They also learn the narcissist has basically ruined their reputation and the good will others close to them had for them and the really talented narcissists can even convince others to reinvent the persons history so they not only think the person is a monster but remember them always being like that. The narcissist will genuinely want the person back in their life but has done too much for it to be possible even if the person want it. This ends up with the victim suffering more when they feel forced to see the narcissist because they don't want to completely sever ties and the narcissist also suffering because the person will never trust the narcissist again and the narcissist can't fully control them any longer. The more others around the narcissist buy into their lies and reconstructions the worse things get. Any way you look at it, this disorder results in a lot of pain and ruined relationships.
Tamara Yancosky Moore on April 19, 2017:
He, and his Enabler, together, played with me like I was a toy in whom they could see how long it would take to finally break me. They worked together on me, as a team, and even after the Narcissist ghosted me, after smearing me, his Enabler continued to email me and jab at me, triggering me, and subtley injecting insults into me. I have come to believe that she is either an Inverted Narcissist, or a regular Narcissist, just as the X-Boyfriend was.
Natalie Frank on March 22, 2017:
Very well written article with a great deal of useful information. On the money in terms of who a narcissist operates. Thanks for a great Hub.
Tamara Moore on March 18, 2017:
Nice that something positive came out of it! Good for you! I would like to read more about your experiences. So glad I met you :-)
Marc Hubs (author) from United Kingdom on March 18, 2017:
Excellent - not the fact that you've experienced it but the fact that you've found therapy in writing about it. I did exactly the same. It's the reason I became a writer.
Tamara Moore on March 18, 2017:
Excellent article! I have had experiences with these kind, unfortunately, and it left me spinning with the dreadful cognitive dissonance for a long time afterward. Vicious, they are! I have several poems about my experiences with these predators, (which has helped in my healing process by being able to express and explain my feelings).
simplehappylife on February 11, 2017:
thank you :) It definitely does.
Marc Hubs (author) from United Kingdom on February 11, 2017:
Great comment, thank you. Indeed, narcs tend to seek out people with higher levels of empathy than usual which they can exploit. I think these experiences make us who we are today.
simplehappylife on February 11, 2017:
I've been surrounded by them most of my life (mostly family members). It took a long time to learn how to disconnect from toxic people (which was virtually everyone I had known). I'm highly empathic and easy to influence in certain situations, so I've always attracted vamps. Nowadays, I keep things simple and my circle very very small. I'm a lot older and wiser now, so I don't get sucked in. But when I was younger, I was constantly taken advantage of and made to feel guilty in the process. I still carry some feelings of guilt (even though I am in my forties now and I'm well aware that it is not necessary). They're energetic scars that don't quite "hurt" anymore, but you still feel them deeply. So, I totally understand how damaging manipulative people can be.
Great article :) Thank You :)
