Asklemmy

Okay...here it goes.

My ex was someone that took pleasure in manipulating and hurting others. She got a kick out of having control. This meant that the more she could use people, the happier she was with herself and life. That would play out in really odd events that would take someone time to place into patterns. It’s something that she learned in her family, and she had a clinical mental health degree and practice, so she was raised and trained to be this way like Mozart was raised and trained to be a composer. Anyway, the more she could get away with and the crazier, the better.

Her specific style is what’s called a covert narcissist. These are people that act like a poor little victim to prey on helpful people. They have an elaborate sob story and hunt for people that are extra caring. She then slowly presents as a scared person that is looking for someone to just give her a chance. She would be an amazing person if people would just stop abusing her (all her family and friends are mean to her), and someone would believe in and give her a chance. Of course, this comes with the understanding that she will be “scared” from time to time and runaway. At the same time, since she is seemingly being so vulnerable, her victims share vulnerabilities also. This allows her to pretend to be very similar to her victims in a strategy called mirroring. Mix this with a lot of love and praise up front (called love-bombing), and her victims think they’ve found their best friend or soulmate. The vulnerable info the victim provides also serves as a person-specific guide on how manipulate her victims because she knows what to do to reward and punish. She uses an intermittent reward-punishment schedule to addict her victims to her in an emotional connection called a trauma-bond. She did this not only with me, but also friends and family. I saw her slowly do it in real time. There is no one that was left unharmed by her sociopathy.

Slowly, she isolates her victims using smear campaigns and gaslighting. Eventually, her victims are alone with no one else to help them come to reality, and the real abuse begins until she gets bored of them, grooms a new victim, and discards the last one. You can look all this up with a simple Google search or on YouTube by searching covert narcissist. It’s pretty sad that people like this exist because they cause a lot of suffering, especially among helpful and caring people. Anyone that’s dated a covert narcissist will let you know. Just ask around or look up some relevant forums. It’s a breaking field in mental health right now.

So what does this have to do with her nasty ass? It’s a game to her. She likes getting away with things because of the rush. To her, wiping her shit on the blanket was a power move. In her head, she thought, “I’m so great, that I can wipe my nasty ass with this blanket and get away with it. That’s how wonderful and powerful I am.” Slowly, I started catching on to her bullshit because she inadvertently would tell on herself to get admiration. She would brag about doing horrible things to others, but paint it as if she were the victim. It was weird because I had to put the pieces together throughout long spans of time. For example, remember that these people are ALWAYS a victim, she would complain about how horrible her ex-boyfriend was because he had OCD, and while driving, needed frequent reassurance that he didn’t run over someone and leave them abandoned to die. She would talk about what an asshole he was for asking her for reassurance while driving. At other times, she would brag about how she got him to drive her places so she could get drunk while he stayed sober as DD. One time, she “accidentally” cheated on him because he was "so mean," he spent the night with a childhood friend that was visiting from out of town. She was invited to spend the night with them, but she really wanted to party and get drunk instead, so he gave her a ride to the party and picked her up afterward. Yes, the same boyfriend that had that issue with driving is being asked to drive her drunk ass around while she cheats on him. While on the way back from the party, she was so upset with him for spending time with his friend, that she would exacerbate his OCD symptoms by asking, “What was that noise?” and “Did you run over something? We should turn around to check.” After hearing enough of these poor-her stories, I started to realize that she was encouraging his mental health issues, not helping them. She was purposefully making him go insane for the power trip and so that he wouldn’t catch on to her abuse. Imagine this type of behavior pervasive throughout every aspect of a relationship. Consider that this is what she decided to share with me. She definitely underplayed her role, made him look a lot worse, and there are countless horrible stories she would never acknowledge occurred. And just to remind you again, she was a trained mental health clinician. She knew exactly what she was doing.

I have so many of these stories, that I could write volumes of them. People like her don't stick out up front because it takes a while to catch on since the info comes out slowly and spread out across time. It's only once they do something so audacious that their victim starts to wonder and consider the possibility of abuse, then seek professional support to make sense of it. We're talking a Netflix documentary level of madness.

It’s sad that there are people that live their lives like this, but like I said, she’s legitimately 100% deranged. There is no sense in trying to understand the reason for it because reason has nothing to do with it. It's a morbid curiosity of life as long as you are not in its path. If you are, then it is a hell only survivors can understand. Stories will never do it justice. Some people spend the rest of their lives recovering from that trauma after the relationship. Some people are so terrified or trapped that they can't escape their abusers. Shout out to all my narcissistic abuse survivors out there! And especially to the ones that are secretly trapped in one. I know you guys exist, I believe you, and I feel the biggest of feelings for you. I love you all ❤️