Narcissism is an epidemic in our culture today.  You witness it when you experience the driver who executes a lane change at high speed that is a near miss which leaves your heart racing.  There are less threatening examples that we witness everyday and, because we have become anesthetized to the unconsciousness behavior of people who walk among us daily, we tend to shrug out shoulders and move on with our business.

For those of us who have experienced a Narcisstic encounter up close and personal, we begin to notice the little things.  I believe that I’ve written a post in the past about “flags” that are set upon certain behaviors like not answering direct questions directly or failing to acknowledge that a question has been asked.  Although I can use my Narcissistic Radar detector to back away from personal relationships pretty adeptly, it is more difficult to step away from Narcissists in a business situation.

Ever curious about where my visitors come from, I review statistics that tell me what searches have helped people find The Legendary Narcissist website.  Today, I noticed that someone had searched for an answer to the question, “How can a narcissist fake love for so long?”

As I pondered my own circumstances, I remembered wondering the same thing.  My narcissistic ex was proficient at creating a feeling of love that seemed so real to me.  Over the course of time since that relationship ended, I determined that he could not ever have loved me.  But, the fact remained, I loved him.

Consider the narcissist as an actor.  They thrive on admiration so they select an audience that fulfills their need.  As good actors do, they draw from the audience to create a reality that is believable and we, as the audience, become engaged with the story and empathize with the characters in that script.  But we don’t know it is an act at the time for our hearts are ruling our heads.

It’s that time of year again.  We’re supposed to be festive and joyful.  Our families and friends bring us close and we’re all cheery, right?

I recognize that attitude is everything.  Every day I have a choice about how I respond to stimuli in my environment.  I can choose to meander off into emotional gloom or sunshine .  Aside from the holidays, it is very easy to flush my feelings of disappointment down the drain and recenter my inner peace.

It could be the fact that a friend of mine died suddenly just before Thanksgiving.  She was younger than me.  It could be that her death reminds me of unaccomplished dreams and goals in my life.  It could be that I miss my mother … whose death and funeral memories are all tangled up in the final betrayal that I experienced at the hands of a Narcissist.

Although I take full responsibility for every choice that has brought me to the life that I know today, I continue to stumble over the hurdle labeled acceptance.  Accepting responsibility for one’s part in a drama is very different than accepting the disappointment that resulted from those decisions.

This is a movie that Julia Roberts starred in.  Although she excels in roles like this and I truly admire her skills as a performer, I didn’t rush to the movies to see it.  I guess I’ve become weary of the formulaic predictability of most romantic comedies.  As some of us know, real life is not all that predictable.

Thanksgiving is a holiday of note in the history along the path into my relationship with a Narcissist.  The first time he invited me to a family holiday meal was Thanksgiving.  I wept with joy at his invitation and played the voice mail message again and again to make sure that there was no mistake.  I may even have the recording of that voice mail message somewhere on my hard drive but I don’t listen to it anymore.   He knew that my previous lovers had not included me in their family gatherings.  That is why his invitation meant so much to me.  I really felt that I had arrived in his life.

You are quietly coasting back an forth in the gentle summer breeze on your porch swing, deeply engaged in conversation with your partner.  The warmth in the air mirrors the glow in you are feeling inside, until they casually use a confidence you’ve shared with them in jest.  Your partner studies your reaction.  You feel the clutch in your stomach, for their remark seemed more cruel than funny, but you don’t know how to respond.

It’s a turning point you will only recognize as a Narcissistic attack after the relationship has ended.  At the time, you whisked away your intuition and wrote it off to a joke at your partner’s suggestion.  How many more times did you do that during the duration of your narcissistic encounter?  How many turning points did you choose ignore?

As we learn more about Narcissists and NPD, we sometimes come to realize that the most recent experience we are reeling from is not the ONLY experience we’ve had in our lives.  While we can itemize the things to look out for and ways to extricate these emotional vampires from our sphere, it may be equally important to look into our own souls and discover what it is about us that continues to attract these aberrated people.  Allow me to share some observations that I’ve made about my style for your self-consideration as you continue on your own journey back to the lightness that once was your life.

The Holiday blahs have certainly affected me today.  There was a season when hope was still in my vocabulary and all things seemed possible.  At the time, I had no idea it was a false promise from a Narcissist.

Love is what we are told we need.  Attachment is the downfall of loving, I guess.  But I don’t know how one thing works without the other … and I’ve never seen both work together.  The paradox of that confounds me.

In the movie, The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, there was technology that wiped out the memories of love.  I sometimes wish that it existed.  But I have discovered another clue into why my soul cannot seem to leave the horror of my abusive partner’s betrayal behind.  I’m quite certain that he would be entirely off my radar by now if I had not been so traumatized by him.