You must not disappoint me.
You must not inconvenience me.
You must recognize all of my expectations as reasonable.
You must, at all times, accommodate me.
You must recognize my “special needs” (special in an important, not disabled, sense); and must always satisfy them.
You must be glad for my good moods, and understand and tolerate my bad, nasty ones.
You must see my anger, rage and contempt as always arising for justifiable reasons.
You must make tireless efforts to placate me when you’ve upset me.
You must appreciate that my comfort supercedes yours and everyone else’s.
You must find what interests me, interesting; and you must convey your interest.
You willingly assume responsibility for my happiness, and blame for my discontent.
You must never oppose or defy me.
You must always know what I want without my having to ask; and you must always communicate what you want without my having to ask.
You must recognize that double-standards are unacceptable, except when they’re mine (in which case they’re not double-standards, just differently applied standards).
You must stop shoving the word “reciprocity” in my face. Reciprocity means that both of us do what I want and need.
You appreciate at all times my importance and significance, or I’ll find someone who will.
You recognize that, even though we’re both “tired” at the end of the day, my fatigue is ten times more valid than yours, and so you cut me ten times more slack than I cut you.
You worry about your accountability to me, and I’ll worry about my accountability to God.
You find that everything I say makes sense (and therefore brooks no opposition).
You appreciate that your value to me is proportionate to how good you make me look, and feel.
You somehow sustain yourself as an alluring sexual object to me, or I license myself to satisfy that demand elsewhere.
You may have noticed that what underlies all of these commandments is an inflated sense of entitlement (the attitude at the heart of narcissism). I look forward to your feedback and to your adding creatively, and from your own insights, to my assuredly uncomprehensive list.
(This article is copyrighted (c) 2009 by Steve Becker, LCSW.)
Donna- and OxDrover
Thank you for that advice -and your welcomes…
The actual event took place in December 07 – and it took me until Jan 09 to be able to actually attend the DV counseling that had been offered to me… I have done so much reading and learning and work with my therapist – and I am in no hurry to finish this process – I am finally able to enjoy being home alone without anxiety.
I have had to install and alarm and I have multiple restraining orders as he is a danger to me – I received a Tarasoff warning roughly in September of last year – he has been in jail well over 15 times since the precipitating event and I have and to 5150 him as well (he has gone completely insane over the last 3 years – he has had 3 stays in a hospital of 2 weeks in the last 14 months and yet the judge keeps allowing him to bail out for very low amounts – he is on a No Bail hold currently with a court date next week – one July 22 and a second trial possibly in August – so yes – I am definitely taking time to concentrate on me and heal myself. It has been a living hell and I could not face it for a long time as I felt so defective and it took me a long long time to see that I am not defective – just uneducated. That in fact I am the good person I try to be – I simply grew up in a family that taught me to tolerate tremendous amounts of abuse and I have a high tolerance for others quirks – without in the past having the ability to differentiate between harmless quirks and signs of narcissism or psychopathy.
This particluar relationship came after a marriage that if you can imagine was psychologically far more destructive to me and I see clearly I married my mother and then dated (may as well have ben a marriage) my father. Yikes!
Thank you again for the welcomes! And a Happy 4th to all.
Breckgirl, you do not sound even a little bit defective or uneducated. You sound amazing.
‘That in fact I am the good person I try to be – I simply grew up in a family that taught me to tolerate tremendous amounts of abuse and I have a high tolerance for others quirks – without in the past having the ability to differentiate between harmless quirks and signs of narcissism or psychopathy.’ wow. x
Breckgirl:
’That in fact I am the good person I try to be – I simply grew up in a family that taught me to tolerate tremendous amounts of abuse and I have a high tolerance for others quirks – without in the past having the ability to differentiate between harmless quirks and signs of narcissism or psychopathy.’
Amen, sister. Amen.
I grew up in a similar family. Extreme emotional and physical abuse were the norm. Looking back, I now realize that even as a young kid “walking on eggshells” was the norm. I never knew anything different.
S taught me a bitter and hard lesson — that I deserved not to be in an abusive relationship and that I didn’t have the energy to continue to live my life walking on eg gshells. I have wasted over 50 years of my life putting up with a long string of abusive people — from my parents to S.
Now? Some days I wonder how I ever lived like that. Other days I wonder how I lived through that. At the end of the day all I know is that I will not live one more day like that ever again.
Amen from me too.
Hmm…
Your list brings home to me that the soociopath, psychopath and nonspecific cluster B I knew all were narcissistic. They where just N + criminal, N + sadistic and N + mind bogglingly disorienting, respectively.
I wonder how I can use this insight. Thanks Steve.
Oh Steve and All,
A MILLION huge hugs and thanks for the laughs and tears this article and subsequent posts brought to me.
“You somehow sustain yourself as an alluring sexual object to me, or I license myself to satisfy that demand elsewhere.”
As in (almost a direct quote): ‘You don’t walk very sexy when you get up in the middle of the night to go pee’. I had NO idea at the time this was his little hint at why he was soon to sleep with 3 other women in one week!
“You must recognize that double-standards are unacceptable, except when they’re mine (in which case they’re not double-standards, just differently applied standards).”
As in (another almost quote): ‘Every time we (past partners) have agreed to the rules of polyamory, they have broken the rules and cheated’ WTF?
“You must stop shoving the word “reciprocity” in my face. Reciprocity means that both of us do what I want and need.”
As in (blah, blah, blah): ‘why do you need so much rest on the weekend? We’re ALWAYS having to take time for you to rest and get ready for your work week…..what about what I want to do?’
This is from a guy with no job, who is spending all my money, and wants to stay up all night partying and screwing on the weekends. POOR baby.
And Breckgirl (Matt), I SO understand the childhood etiologies of abuse tolerance. They do make us prime meat for the abusers, what with our psyches being all wired up for the weird and damaging negative excitement brought on by these types.
Welcome Breckgirl! This is one generous and loving bit of cyberspace. I am glad you found your way here.
To the N/S/P: YOU must not confuse ME with YOU!
Slimone: I loved the “You don’t walk very sexy….”
That is SO like them. You feel constantly judged!
I’m with my husband now and feel very loved. And when I say “oh sorry, I look a mess” he says things like “Sweetie, you could never look like a mess to me.”
In my above post, I took ownership of my traits that let me get hurt….but always remember, without a bad guy, we wouldn’t have gotten hurt either! The bad guy is the REAL problem, not our vulnerabilities, but we do learn to protect ourselves.(I know, I’m like a broken record on that)
Yet it is reassuring to know that if he tried that crap today, it would not work. I can still get triggered by things, but I don’t act on it and I realize it is happening.
Progress….been two years for me.
I read that for a narc, dumping someone is given as much thought as they give to a backhanded slap to get a fly off their face.
Commandment:
You shall make no demands of me EVER.
If you are stupid enough to show me that you truly love me, you can’t expect me to resist hurting you.
HAPPY FORTH OF JULY to us all – hope our X’s step on a hot sparkler.
henry:
I would prefer that my S sit on a hot sparkler.
Henry – ROFL –
makes me remember the year we did illegal fireworks (okay yes I did willingly participate-) and when the police came to the door he made me answer while he hid in the kitchen.
Actually shockingly he manned up and walked around the corner as I was trying to handle it as gracefully as possible and he took responsibility – I almost fell over in utter shock (and relief) from that than I was from the police coming to the door. (The fine is $5,000.00 for lighting them off).