The Narcissist has many faces

I’ve just been rereading M. Scott Pecks transformative book “People of the Lie”. As usual, something I read before, read again, shifts my thoughts in a new way. Narcissism is an outgrowth of a fundamental inability to deal in truth. And (although Peck does not say this) to the narcissist, people are objects to be used.

This makes sense. A newborn has no other way to relate to the mother. The mother is survival, not a separate being with needs and wants and rights. Not a mere mortal with the odd flaw.

Most of us learn as we develop that the world is not our mother, and, in healthy families (which may not be the majority) that we are all related to many others and they have needs and wants, desires and goals, thoughts and opinions… and we must learn how to make a life in relationship. In reality.

But if the child is too wounded, this process is stunted. In a very few, it never happens. Others in the narcissists garden remain seen/felt to be means to the ends of the wounded child who never grew up. To get what they want, such people adopt tactics. They have many faces.

I’m dealing with the aftermath of the one I’ve written about here, but given my childhood, I’m still not free of this dynamic. So many of my caregivers were people who presented lies. I still get sucked in.

I am presently feeling sucked dry, and must make some changes. (The trauma of the former inhabitant of the garage is not over. My sleep is disrupted. I am drained by the demands still made on me by the current narcissist.) There was euphoria, but not now. Abuse is hard to escape.

But I know this—I don’t quite feel I deserve to be cared for, loved, nurtured. Rats. More work to do. The only person who can do this… is me. This is what’s next.