Narcissistic-types

From Flying Free 

A friend wrote:
I've been watching Les Carter, a counselor, on YouTube, talk about trying to have a relationship with the narcissistic-type person. He makes the point that a narcissistic-type person will not be honest about who they really are or what they really feel.

Everything they do is more transactional than relational, having objectives and goals in mind to accomplish. And their objectives and goals usually involve maintaining a certain persona and maintaining a certain amount of power and control in order to accomplish their objectives and goals.

They aren't listening or watching or interacting or connecting with people at a level of awareness or curiosity for everyone's identity and gifts and purposes, which they might cooperate with if they were "awake" to others.

A narcissistic-type person often likes and "loves", or dislikes and hates you according to whether or not and how much you will affirm and acquiesce to their persona and plans. They make life very unpleasant if you differ or disagree or delineate from them. You will likely be shamed or guilted or devalued or dismissed - in body language or direct words or slander behind your back.

You learn it is not emotionally or psychologically or physically or reputationally safe to be yourself, to share your thinking or feeling, or to act on these around an n-type person. You feel you often have to "hide" yourself for your own safety, or even for the safety of children or of others around you. This is a way an n-type person sometimes punishes you and makes you think twice about the cost to yourself or innocent others if you choose to stand in who you are and what you believe to be in Christ.

You pray for wisdom! You realize that hiding yourself, and being coerced into "smiling" and being "appreciative" and "grateful" and "reasonable" and going along with the narcissistic-type person damages your own and others' conscience and self-respect. And it enables and entitles a narcissistic-type person to go on self-deceived and/or disrespecting others.

Sometimes the mental and emotional stress of keeping self and others safe in heart and soul and body from a narcissistic-type person, causes the person around the n-type person just to disassociate fro their own real thoughts and feelings. They need a break from the weariness of the continual mental and emotional games and work necessary to keep "safe."

And, during this wearying work, you may have hoped or dared to search for some spark of enduring humanity in the narcissistic-type person, some human connection and sanity. They you get tricked by them only "mimicking" humanity! Time and behavior revealed they were working only to get what they wanted - not to really care about another who is made-in-the-image-of-God.

Long story short, it's very difficult, if not impossible, to live an up-front and honest life, a non-anxious, non-guarded, non-calculated life with a narcissistic-type person.

And this is heartbreaking for the people around an n-type person...and for the n-type person themself...so, if a person with narcissism has to feel to heal, maybe separation can crack the hard shell of pretense that years of trying to love and connect hasn't.

But whether separation helps an n-type or not, I think it may help to be able to live more honestly, in  a way where there is no need to stuff away feeling and ability to participate in a less encumbered way in sharing the Lord...or is it sometimes God's will to go down in flames right in a hard place with flying arrows and personality-twisting manipulations all around? Separation may not stop the attack of the enemy. It may increase attacks and hurt to others, and continue until death.

I confess, I imagine a freedom in separation from an n-type person...and it isn't just for righteous reasons...probably really dreaming of feeling free of the wearying mental work of always being guarded...and being free of being in an environment where a significant person doesn't even really know you or want to know you. But, still, they keep maintaining a superficial or shallow connection of "lunch dates" and talk about "deep topics" that still avoid personal-ness. It's insidious, covert craziness. Dreaming of freedom from it is torturous...for I fear freedom may not be really freedom, but would bring worse trouble for innocent ones.