Am I just unlucky to have 4 narcs intimately involved in my life?

[Somethingtodo]

Maybe its because I only discovered what narcs were yesterday - and I have been futily (?sp is that even a word?) trying to manage these people all my life - it has been exhausting.

But it has been such a relief to see the pattern defined rather than remain immersed in the amorphous, disorienating, demoralising, shit storms they create.

1. sister A - this one I have been NC with for 3 years (best decision ever) because her behaviour was so extreme. Relieved I instinctively made the right decision.

2. sister B - another other sister I have endured and tried to manage - but have now decided NC is the only way.

3. My MIL who has been a vicious cow to me for 30 years since we first met when I was 17. She has been "nicer" to me in the last few years - with thro me the odd bunch of petrol station chrysants....as she needs me onside in her deteriorating old age (she is also an alcohlic)

4. A new boss at the place I worked for 23 years who overwork and bullied me to the extent that I end up resigning with severe menatl and physical health issues.

But as of today they are gone. I am just left managing the fall out - my own self esteem and the weak PA excuse for a df/dh that is my husband.

Maybe I am the common denominator ? Are they attracted to me? Or am I just unlucky to have been wrestling this lot for so long?

Springy, I understand where you are coming from. Having been at the receiving end of extremely destructive behaviour, it is very difficult to disengage and is a learning process. I have high standards and apply them but... if you are in the eye of the storm, so to speak, and are the target of hateful and manipulative behaviour, it takes the care of good friends and family to keep you sane.

Straightforward it is not.

But you can't skip to the end. That's like saying to a woman with an abusive partner "Just leave! Save yourself the trouble." Yes they probably will end up leaving eventually, but it tends to be a long drawn out process where the abuse gets worse before she reaches that tipping point.

Usually narcs are very good at inviting sympathy even without a pseudo-diagnosis. Just my experience, of course others' may differ, but I found once I understood that it was easier to detach from the sympathy, because I could see what was behind that little boy lost act I kept getting stuck in.

"Usually narcs are very good at inviting sympathy even without a pseudo-diagnosis"

Indeed they do and I have seen recent direct evidence of same. They use people for their own ends and treat people like dirt. Many weak enabler friends get tangled up with narcissists and are used accordingly.

Apart from anything else many, many narcissists do not ever get clinically assessed because they do not feel their own behaviour is at all wrong in any way, shape or form. They regard therapy as a competitive sport and assume they are just as skilled or even more skilled than the therapist. Narcissists, even if they do get any therapy sessions, would need years of therapy. They also need a therapist who can see through the narcissist’s charming exterior and who won’t get beaten down by the narcissist’s constant criticism of their therapy methods.

Are narcs one dimensional ? Besides the long list of bad traits they possess can they ever have genuine good traits ? Can they be very kind, caring and generous for example ?

weak? strong? There's no weak or strong, narcs target our basic humanity, regardless whether we're 'weak' or 'strong'.

It's taking apart the basic tenets of 'basic humanity' that is the major challenge when trying to make sense of the effects of a narc. Because a narc doesn't have any. This, I think, is a huge challenge to average people - a challenge to compute. I think it is this that causes perhaps some of the greatest distress: trying to absorb how anyone could do/say the heinous things narcs do.

BadBalding, as you say, it is good to uphold strong boundaries; to focus on us rather than them (though I think in the initial stages of recovery it is essential to focus on them in order to make some sense of what has happened) and you outline potentially awkward social interactions. You say you 'don't care' when people don't understand what you are doing when they may consider you OTT in your responses. I suppose I do care - not about their opinion but my social standing. As we've seen on here, people make assumptions.

They fake kind, caring and generous to make them look good - often big time, known as 'wonderful' people. They are master mimics.

Inviting sympathy sums up the ones I've met. I've never got caught up with the typical arrogant big head , I don't like that sort of character anyway. The ones I've got caught up with are the snivelling victims. If your a nice compassionate person , a caretaker , you can easily be suckered in. Everyone picks on them , someone has it in for them. Sheesh. Get the violin out.

When your caught up with someone like this I don't think you can skip to the end. There is no end , they don't want it to end , and in some ways we keep at it because we want to be wrong. Once your in and they've connected the mental hose it's hard to get out. Really hard. Standard guilt doesn't touch it. They can make you suicidal with their mind fucks. It does something awful to your soul.

But once you recognise it and you know what to look out for you can skip straight to the end with new people. Many people feel uncomfortable with these types but don't want to be rude. As the article says , they start testing immediately . That's enough , there doesn't have to be anything else. Skip to the end , just get away from them. The trick is not to get involved in the first place.

Eg weird narcy testing - how much do you earn?
Me. Blank stare. Exit.
The end.

Ah, I'm just reading your link, BadBalding.

Just got to the point where the article says, I cannot stress enough the value of finding a good therapist who specializes in personality disorders.

I've put it in bold because imo it is essential. Therapists jump immediately to the next point the article makes re Beyond this, there are certain traits within YOURSELF that you can learn to recognize and work on, that will help you to reconstruct boundaries to protect yourself.

The article stresses that order: to address our traits but within an understanding of the traits of the personality disordered individual (who has fucked us over).

Place marking because I'm going out, but there's some good stuff on this thread. Thanks springy for alerting me to it.
Off for a long walk in the frosty forest, attempting to heal my soul.

I've found this thread very interesting. You could perfectly describe my F with all these traits. Everyone thinks he is the most wonderful, charming, interesting, funny man. It's only those closest to him who get to see the real him - selfish, resentful to anyone who doesn't do or believe exactly what he does to the point of extreme anger, constant EA and at time PA. And yet he always seems to manage to make everyone believe it is their fault, he never claims any responsibility and is always the victim. Years after an episode of PA I actually apologised to try to heal over the remaining cracks. He accepted my apology, to this day I've never received one.

I've spent years blaming myself, especially the past 18 months since the latest episode when I went NC, and it really does help to read that there are others like him and that it isn't necessarily all my fault as I've been led to believe my entire life. Looking back now I can see that he started with me long before I thought.

It makes sense that no matter what I've tried to improve and repair our relationship has never worked and actually, although I've been beating myself up about it, going NC might have been the best thing to do. I've just read BadBalding's link, I definitely think I have a lot of things to work through and areas to improve myself. Thank you all for some great information, it has certainly helped me understand a lot of things.

When I went NC with my other sister a few years ago...this is what happened....she homed in 4 close friends of mine and told them the most ridiculous stories about how she was ostracized, victimized etc and we were all jealous of her as she "was the most like our Mum" who had just tragically died suddenly at 62....she also went thru intensely private minutiae of our Mother's will with them.

I had to somehow clear up this mess by saying to my friends - that is not the real story but I will also not be telling it to you either as it is inappropriate so you will have to trust me on that. 3 friends were fine with that they had only seen the NC sister on that one occassion .....

My oldest friend however (flying monkey?) decided to get into some of refereeing position and every time I met with her she would have another piece of info regarding my sisters treatment/my mother's will etc. They never had a one to one social relationship before - but now were meeting every 2 weeks for coffee.....I would repeatedly have to say to my friend "This topic is out of bounds" " I have asked you not to mention my sister" "I do not want you to share any info from our conversations with my sister".....friend did not respect any of this as info came back from NC sister. Finally after 3 years of NC with sister I shared the details of my marriage breakdown with my oldest friend (shared a thread from here) - her first reaction was to tell me I needed my wise NC sister on board to sort out my marriage issues, that I could not possibly get divorced etc. I have no doubt she would have shared this with my NC sister - I am mortified by that - but I will just have to suck it up and rise above the smug knowing looks from my sister at the family Christmas.

Next my NC sister targeted my MIL. I was hosting the family Christmas and NC sister was invited (we are a huge family and I am not interested in creating rifts) - she refused to come. The next I heard she had arranged to have xmas lunch with my MIL in a local pub. How spookey is that!!

It gets worse...this is when I drew the line had it out with her. My oldest child was being really moody with me one day -- when I pressed him on it he said it was because of what I had done to his auntie...I asked him to tell me more...he told me the ostra, victim, "story" as outlined above - he was v distressed. I told him that this should never have happened to him - this was an adult issue and again it was not appropriate that I tell him the truth/another version. On another occasion when my innocent 2 year old asked her where auntie x was she went into a snappy negative tirade with my 2 year old and told her the ostra, victim story!!

So these narcs can still circle like piranas to attack you from afar.

How awful. And typical. I think it's perfectly normal to not want to air your dirty laundry , but unfortunately they take full advantage of this. To most , your privacy and the lack of your side of the story indicates only one thing. Your guilty. I would tell your son the truth.

Weird narcy testing

" Do you dye your hair to cover grey?" ( our first conversation)

Me " why yes. Let's get married so you can try to completely destroy me as a person".

Not my exact words, but might as well have been.
Live and learn, live and learn.

Something your description is disturbing. I can't imagine how upsetting it would be to have your friend turn into a flying monkey.

Having been stung for maintaining dignity I wouldn't do it again. I would have told friend and mil that sister had some serious issues , one being that she didn't have a nice word to say about anyone. Including them. Did they not find it odd that sister was suddenly interested in them ? People's lack of loyalty is truly astounding.

For once, I'm not getting into perhaps my favourite MN debate but will share a tiny example of how the labelling helps me. There are two above-averagely narcissistic women in my family. Now that I begin every interaction by flattering them, and have worked out great strategies to survive hours of talking about how much better they are than everyone else, this part of my life is infinitely calmer. Had I known about NPD while working for a textbook case, I'd have got out of the job with my sanity intact.
It helps.

That's how I coped with my sister, garlic. Bloody exhausting though. What amazed me is that she never once said, or apparently thought, " Enough about me..."

Never could be enough about her. It was like trying to keep Henry viii happy.

like trying to keep Henry viii happy Yes!

The vulgar boasting and vanity I can just tolerate and manage

• with a rictus grin saying "Good for you!" intermittently in the "Me, Me Me" tirade...

...but it is the tourettes like, snapping, sneering and sniping at every little thing in my life - in front of everyone which is humiliating....it is often done as "a joke" "banter" - so I would look silly/petty if I pulled her on it.

Oh, I do pull them on it now. This is where boundaries come into it :) Asserting my self-respect is a higher priority than being the target of some flying monkey's gossip. Behind my back, they can call me boring/grumpy/whatever, but they're gonna slag me off anyway. They might even be right!

Interesting Garlic - do you have a stock phrase ready for all occasions? I am usually so side swiped that it is next Tuesday before I can even think of an approriate response

Try that then, See You Next Tuesday. That's what they are, after all .

That is so funny - might have to use that as I flounce off!!!

Oh I do relate to the speechlessness in the face of the endless - and stunning - snipes. Which just take your breath away, stun your mind...

I wouldn't keep quiet. She's stunned you into silence for years. Start talking. Tell the story.

Embarrassed? Don't be. It's not you who should cringe with embarrassment.

I've noticed something with these idiots and I wonder if anyone else has noticed the same. They treat you like shit for however long in whatever way. You start to get sick of it , and usually after some vicious incident you decide that the next time they mistreat you , you won't be putting up with it. In fact you look forward to the next incident so you can unleash your rage.

But. It never happens. They. Don't. Do. It. Ever. Again. They know.

Has anyone else experienced this ?

Bad, when my brother senses I'm going to kick back he brings other people into it - turning up at my house unexpectedly with treat for the children, or bringing a friend to important meetings, and taking the opportunity of the 'cover' to take pot shots of the 'when did you stop beating your wife' variety. In the end I told him to stop coming to the house and he manfully told the whole family to demonstrate how crazy I am.

His wife enables him and used to intervene for him but I called her out on it about a year ago and she stopped speaking to me - result! However, she recently started texting me again so I'd like to know what that is all about.