Why You Secretly Love Narcissists
The title of this article may be triggering to some, and for good reason. Nonetheless, it is a topic that must be taken out of the shadows and given its time in the sun.
Enlightenment entails looking within our own personal shadow, where landmines hide, ready to explode. It means risking being emotionally triggered, so that we can access our core wounds and heal them.
Perhaps that is the allure of a narcissist. With their glittering fantasy world which transcends reality, we feel we can escape the consequences of our past, which includes difficult truths, as well as the repressed pain deep in our unconscious.
Yet the mind is a cunning trickster.
The narcissist’s realm, at first, is seamless, pleasurable, childlike and alluring. It lowers your boundaries, washes away your doubts, and unleashes your vulnerable, authentic Self. Eventually, however, the dysfunction arrives.
While the narcissist’s behaviour is well-documented, the target’s is not. You may begin the relationship rather happy, but eventually you notice yourself growing clingy, anxious, possessive even. It is not only until much later that you realise that the narcissist aggravated those feelings by shaming and gaslighting you. They may have even played exes and other people off against you via triangulation, which spiked your insecurity.
As the relationship progressed, you grew more erratic, sometimes pulling away, sometimes clinging, and sometimes growing suspicious and paranoid. You alternated between the heady romantic days, and dystopian games and misery. Your emotional attachment grew stronger at the same rate that the relationship devolved into craziness. Eventually, you began to question who you really were.
