What part of you gets a kick out of making somebody else unhappy?
If you see a person enveloped in sadness, the first thing you might do is comfort or console. Reach out and be there. Be an ear to listen, or a hand to hold.
For those with narcissistic tendencies, none of that empathy exists. Instead, what you find is a person who will thrill at the sight of you sad.
Who will smirk to themselves as you shed a tear.
What could be more toxic than that?!
Let’s find out why they do it.
Let’s Get Emotions Twisted For a Moment…
This isn’t a normal ‘let’s discuss emotions’ moment. I want you to take all the emotions you know, and twist them up into your fist.
Now you can’t tell the difference between them, and they’re all twisted within themselves.
That’s what life is like with a narcissist, only the fist is them; they twist you all the way up, and they love it.
Rule number one with the narcissist, and what adds to that twisting up of emotions, is this:
The sadder you feel, the happier I am.
Why would anybody want to see somebody they care about be sad?
The fact is, your misery does something to the narcissist, something that money cannot buy.
Making You Sad: With or Without Their Company
That sadness will be a priority for them. It’ll be a way they control you, from near or far.
If they’re by your side, or in the next city, there will be ways your emotions will be ruled by their simple existence. Think about all the ways you:
- Get a nasty text from the narcissist.
- Don’t receive a reply from them when you text.
- Get your phone calls rejected by them for no reason.
- Feel your emotions build up so that you can be somewhere random and either fall into a panic attack, or have a huge cry.
- Feel alone.
- Feel down.
- Feel guilty.
- Feel ashamed.
- Feel neglected.
- Feel ignored.
- Feel unwanted.
The narcissist isn’t kidding. They want to do what it takes to ensure you are always slipping away from yourself.
How Time Increases This
It’s a fact that the longer you spend with the narcissist, the more opportunity they have to drag you down and reveal who they really are.
You’re never, ever going to get the real version when you first meet. If you did, it’d be game over, right?
There would be no allure, no pull, no attraction to somebody so soul-ugly.
So they pretend.
And they pretend hard and good.
The longer you’re in their life, the more you’re going to see. The toxicity will ooze out of the narcissist, and you will be left wondering how you got here, and why it’s lasted as long as it has.
Well, I can tell you why – because everything is purposely intermittent.
The joy.
The excitement.
The hope.
Even the sadness you feel is intermittent.
But they still love to see it and always work on extracting it from you.
Jealousy and Triangulation
What’s normal about a person coming between two others, in the hope to separate them and destroy their friendship or relationship?
Nothing.
There’s nothing normal about it.
Yet narcissists seem to do it for fun, without care that it completely ruins the lives of those they meddle with.
What happens when a narcissist triangulates is that they are so desperate to make you sad they will wreck whatever, or whoever makes you happy.
So if you have that close friend, or relative that you love to see and catch up with, they will attempt to damage it.
How do they do this?
- They can tell lies about you to the other person, to slowly alter their opinion of you.
- They might call that person after you’ve argued and try to bring them into it.
- They may argue in front of your friends or family and manipulate it all so that they are the victims, so the people you love side with them, not you.
Why do narcissists triangulate? Well…
- They want attention
- They want to upset you
- They want to make you jealous
- They believe they’re entitled to do what they want
- They need the approval of others
And yes by psychological design, every one of those reasons will alter your own emotional state to a more negative one.
Sadness = Weakness
This is not me talking – this is completely down to the narcissist. I’d be a pretty terrible mental health professional if I thought sadness was a weakness! Let’s get it clear – it’s not.
If anything, it’s a strength. It takes courage to open up and be vulnerable to others.
Courage is something a narcissist doesn’t have, nor can they accrue – hence why they steal your strength from you and turn it into weakness.
They will love watching you inside your little weak box once they’ve boxed you up. Weeping, feeling defenseless, unable to think straight – that’s where the narcissists likes you the most.
What they do with all that emotional gapping is fill it with their own motive.
And that never works to your benefit.
Dependency: The Curse of Attachment
Once you’re in the kind of space that relies on them for pretty much everything, you will naturally fit the mold of the dependent. Dependent people:
- Struggle to set boundaries
- Find it hard being alone
- Fear being rejected
- Need constant reassurance
- Don’t like making decisions
- Lack in self-confidence
- Rely on another person to help them with all of those things
Now you or I might see those issues with another, encouraging them to try new thoughts or ideas. Teach them how to start trusting themselves or supporting them in becoming independent.
Not the narcissist.
The narcissist hates the idea of you coping on your own.
When you’re dependent, you’ll always be in a state of sadness or uncertainty.
Bingo for the narcissist!
Controlling Your Emotions
When your emotions are being controlled, even down to when, where, and how you are sad, trouble is ahead.
You need to then start addressing these habitual processes that drag you further down, creating change.
Narcissists aren’t going to suddenly start treating you any differently unless you present them with an evolved, wiser version of yourself.
I hope these topics help you in achieving that.
If they do, I hope there will be fewer ways for you to fall into their trap of sadness and be tied there.
It’s time to start unclipping yourself and returning to happiness.
