Published on 12, July, 2020
I've started a new thread because replies disappear in old/long threads.
Do we attract Narcissists, because we are gullible and vulnerable?
I was going to write a book about my distant cousin ( on my father's side), Miss B who is an extreme example of a sociopath/Narcissist. Here I will give a few examples of my experiences with her in no particular order.
She's not all bad, by being around her and observing her social skills in manipulating other people. I learnt a lot about dealing with people on a day to day basis.
I first met her when she was 16. when she came to our family for a holiday and her extreme traits were visible even then. Such as vindictiveness, never turn the other cheek, lateral thinking in getting your way or your own back ( even if it hurts the innocent), blatant lying, being positive to the point of living in a fantasy world. Greed for money.
In Feb 2005 she came for her fifth visit. At the time I was my mother's full time carer, my father had passed away a couple of years before. She wrote a letter to my mother informing her of her arrival. My mother wrote back twice asking her not to come. It was winter, weather was terrible, we both had flu's and colds, maybe wait till summer!
She came anyway, moved in with suitcases and refused to say why she came or how long she was intending to stay. Just laughed when we asked.
Soon she told us about how her family had persuaded her to take out a mortgage on a flat in a new complex being built. And since they were now part of the EU. Property prices were expected to rise rapidly and she needed £50,000 to pay of the mortgage. Every day she was talking about needing £50,000 to pay off her mortgage.
After two weeks the atmosphere in the house was getting worse and worse. All she talked about was the 50,000 she needed to pay off her mortgage. And accusing us in a temper of 'what kind of family are you!' who won't help!, Yelling at us that if my father was still alive, he would have given her the money by now, and she wouldn't even need to ask.
Shouting at my mother that all she does is sit on her backside all day watching television, getting a pension to live on and other people do everything for her!
We asked her to move out. She refused and told us that it was up to us to find her a job, find her somewhere to live. Pay her rent and all her expenses. Otherwise she won't go.
After a couple of months she left. She and a friend moved into a flat share with two others. She was very very positive on how wonderful life was, how wonderful the flat share was. How great and generous every one of her flat mates were. All, very very positive and over the top flattery!!!!!
A month later, around 10pm she turned up, dishevelled, eyes red. And asked me to pay her monthly rent. It turns out that her flat mates had spent days asking her for her share of the rent. And if she didn't pay up, then her suitcases would be out in the street in the morning
I reminded her how she had told me a month ago how the four of them had agreed to share the flat, the rent and expenses, splitting everything four ways.
She explained that, that she never made an agreement and that was a joke. When she made a verbal agreement to split the rent and bills. She was only joking. That her fellow flatmates were a bunch of nutters with no senses of humour, who couldn't take a joke. And she wouldn't pay a penny for living in that f-__#@ s@#£&hole.
To cut this story short I paid the next three months rent for her. To stop her moving back in with us.
She eventually did a runner from that flat owing several months rent and all bills unpaid. This was repeated several times.
She did move back in with us the following year and that stay was even worse.
Breaking now for breakfast.
Crikey - that sounds like an awful experience. I was going to say that she sounds a little like my sister-in-law, but even she's not that bad. But yes... vindictive, manipulative, deceitful, well-versed in ways of besting people even when they're in the right. If you believe something that she disagrees with, it's not that you simply hold a different point of view. You're just wrong. We've had several nasty fights in the past - for which I've usually ended up apologising, even though she was the instigator. And, of course, that makes me even more vulnerable to her. She can't forgive and forget. She harbours grudges. She's always on the lookout for ways to get her own back, or to justify her standpoint. When I was mum's full-time carer, she was always - whenever she called in - looking for things that I might have done wrong, or that I might have overlooked. There was never any trust that, as a trained carer (whereas all she's ever been is a shop-keeper), I knew precisely what I was doing. She always knew better!
I wonder if we do attract narcissists. I've had relationships with two of them, and each time have been left weakened and more vulnerable afterwards. Each time, too, I've been left feeling like the true culprit. The first one said to me that no one else would ever take up with me because 'you have far too many issues.' The second one refused to accept that my behaviour was in any way a response to hers - even though she was lazy, messy and manipulative. The day she moved in with me, she sat down and said 'Right... these are the ground rules.' I should have backed out right then! But I was in love with her, and she knew it - so I was putty in her hands.
With my sister-in-law, I sensed from the very first day I met her that she was someone I might need to be very careful around. It's an instinct garnered from years of being around bullying people. You get to know the type. You always feel like you're being sized up, assessed: like they're looking for flaws, or for things they can later exploit to their advantage.
It's why I steer clear of other people as much as I can now. Even at work, where I have no choice but to be with others, I'm very wary around my colleagues. And virtually every day, something gets said that ticks me off and, later, gets me obsessing about why I didn't come back at it and make a better pitch for myself. I just can't handle confrontations like that, though. Even if I'm in the right about something, I don't like coming back in case it creates a negative impression of me for the other person - something that they'll then later exploit. It's no wonder I'm a people-pleaser - pleasing everyone, except myself.