A Letter to a Narcissist: You Are No Longer My Greatest Fear
To My Greatest Delusion,
Growing up, I idolized you. I was fascinated by your confidence, how other people bowed down to you, and how you seemed content with your life. I often think to myself, “Why were we made to be connected in this life?” Now, I see we do have one thing in common. You are scared too. The only difference is, that you never addressed your own trauma and turned into a narcissist. As a narcissist, your fear is masked by a false sense of self, not true confidence. When I fell for this confidence, is when I also fell for the need to impress others, even if it at the expense of my own heart.
As I am writing this now, I am realizing where my uncontrollable and irrational need to “people-please” comes from. Your inconsistency in how you treated me made me feel insecure, and in turn, made me doubt my worth and value. This pattern of inconsistent expression of love resulted in abandonment. For years, and still to this day, I do whatever it takes to try and “win” you back. I don’t communicate my own needs, my boundaries are invisible, and I place your feelings above my own. Unfortunately, this desire to “people-please” has manifested itself into the relationships I have in my personal life. I have now become addicted to the game of winning others over. But I guess it was never about them, was it.
I now understand why I care so much about getting people to like me. The feeling of being wanted, loved, and secure is something I never got from you, so I seek it out in others. This feeling seems unrealistic and foreign to me and is why I settle for the bare minimum. I never understood that this feeling should be a “given” when it comes to relationships. The only thing I was ever “given” was constant judgment and blame.
I have spent my whole life trying to win your approval, respect, and love. No matter what I do, you still reject me, as I am not good enough. I understand now why I take rejection so personal. I am still unable to make one of the most narcissistic, manipulative, and hypocritical people on this planet love me. To me, that feels like a personal failure. However, I now know that the ultimate failure would be letting you have this power over me and impact how I view myself.
As I’ve recently gotten out of a relationship, I noticed how much I let a guy’s opinion of me dictate how I felt about myself. When talking to new guys, I find myself falling for either a previous or future version of them. But most of all, I fall in love with the idea of being loved because I never got that from you. No matter how many times you hurt me, I forgave you. I forgave you because I hoped that you would realize that you did love me. I forgave you because I wanted you to realize that I was not a mistake. My empathy is both my greatest strength and weakness, and narcissists pick up on this like bloodhounds.
I attract broken people, lost people who know that I will bend over backwards to pick up their fallen pieces. No matter how many times this happens, I will do it again and again in hopes that a person realizes they need to take responsibility for their own actions. Now, I have slowly started falling apart and I find myself broken. Who will pick up the pieces this time? I fear someone else will fall victim to having to fix me. The only thing that needs to be broken and fixed is this manipulative cycle.
You have weaved inconsistently in and out of my life at your own convenience. You make me feel like I am the living reason of your misery, like I’m your hell on earth, the cause of all your problems in this world. You believe society has fucked you over, but really you’ve fucked yourself over and dragged me along as collateral damage. Society was never against you. You were only against yourself and you lost to your own tricks and games.
In all aspects of my life I am operating out of fear – fear of rejection, abandonment, and of never being loved or appreciated for being who I am without external validation.
I fear how you will continue to hurt me. I fear how you will have a hold on me even after you die. Most of all, my greatest fear is becoming you.
Despite everything you have put me through, I am not mad at you. Ironically, I’m mad that I don’t hate or resent you. In actuality, I feel sorry for you. I’m sorry that there is a void of love in your life that may never be filled if you continue to hurt people this way. I hope that you can find the answers and clarity you need to address this behavior.
From a young age, you showed me how words can be even more hurtful than actions. However, words can also be used to empower, inspire, and heal. So thank you for showing me how I can use my words to heal and how fear can no longer control my life, my opinions of myself, or how I treat others.
Sincerely,
Your Final Opponent
Featured Image Created by Cassidy Wilson
