I keep telling myself that he has to actually live with
himself. And really—that is massive burden enough. Don't crack the egg. When I back away and reflect upon what that means, I’m relieved to finally be
extricating myself—painful though it be—and I see the curse and Herculean
strength it might take to gaze at who you’ve become if you're a narcissist and it sure ain’t pretty.
But the narcissist avoids this at all costs--even the cost
of one’s significant other, one’s soul, one’s own offspring.
On some levels, narcissism is quite complicated. On other
levels, narcissism is quite simple.
Take the almighty Atlas-like projected image of power,
strength, and control holding up the world—in all actuality--just a crumpled over Nymph, chained to the reflected image in a lake, held by the hypnotically beholding power of the mirror, unable to
wander away from the source confirming his existence—eternally dependent upon the
manipulated, reflections of others. Ironically, as much mirror staring occurs—it is a staring without seeing—a staring at
the spinning-armed Giant one needs to slay without the feel of the wind
startling one into the reality of the shape of a Windmill. The empty staring never
yields the gift of insight into one’s self.
For he will not see his true self—he cannot even see bits of his
own horcruxed soul—all scattered around like Voldemort, initially in order to survive, to stay alive.
As strange as it sounds, his hatred of me isn’t really about
me, per se, but rather an intolerable, displaced, self-hatred. His weakness—that he cannot handle any small
bit of challenge to the delusional, projected, fragile view of self—that the
following masses must worship and reconfirm over and over and over. All hail the king.
I am merely the small, peasant child on the side of the road,
crying out as the Emperor passes, He has
no clothes on. I am the Christine
who pulls back the Phantom’s mask. And in leaving I am refusing to continue to exist as the
side-kick knight errant who eventually takes up Quixote’s delusions in his
stead.
It really is quite simple and ironic.
He exquisitely hurts when I call him on his fake, new
clothes. And yet, the narcissistic injury I induce itself is one rare opportunity for
healing the deeply seated narcissistic wound that tethers him to the lake. A rare chance to wake up, after all these years.
And thus he hates.
He hates the truth about himself that he cannot face—that he
cannot control—that he cannot manipulate—that for the most part, he cannot even
see.
And thus the ultimate manipulator, ironically enough, lacks
the smallest, most human ability—self autonomy to control himself without
controlling others. He has to manipulate others, in order to manipulate himself. For his true self is too
far off and too unknown to manage without the insulation and coating of the admiration of others. His true self that he walled off from, pushed outward, has shriveled up and
died behind his own protective wall and most likely doesn’t exist anymore. Instead,
the ornate eggshell stands in with the center blown out—ridiculously fragile,
void of anything other than the decorated outside, mere hardened, glitzy, expensive Faberge for all to admire until it cracks.
