Why the narcissist chose us?
Whether we are a codependents who want to please people or an empath who wants to fix,
our natural personalities can often attract the narcissists.
Both personality types offer great sources of supply to the narc.
Empaths are highly sensitive to emotions which makes for a vulnerable target easy to exploit.
And their naturally caring nature will easily fall for the narc’s victimhood stories,
falsely believing that we can ‘fix the broken person’ back to happiness.
The victims are strategically chosen by the narcissist to be their main source of supply.
Empaths also choose to see the good in people and will often give the narcissist the benefit of the doubt.
But this quality actually enables the narcissist to continue their deceiving and abusive ways.
People that have never experienced unconditional love, kindness or validation from parents or care givers growing up,
are highly susceptible to this form of manipulation.
With having no other love to compare it to, we can often settle for these types of unhealthy relationships believing ‘this must be what love is’.
And especially if we are accustomed to being treated this way as a child in the family dynamic.
When our childhood traumas have not been healed, we can become people pleasers or have a need to want to fix broken people.
So, once we are in a narcissistic relationship our natural personalities can keep us stuck either wanting to please or wanting to fix the narcissist.
Doctor Ramani explains that people who have attachment or avoidant styles created from past childhood traumas are more vulnerable to trauma bonding as an adult.
I can totally agree with this statement as I feel I fall under the avoidant style category.
Doctor Ramani’s YouTube video on trauma bonding gives great insight from her view as a Licensed Clinical Psychologist.
And if you have never heard of her, I definitely recommend you learn from all her YouTube videos.
Devaluing continued…
The narcissist continues to declare their love whilst exploiting and abusing the victim at the same time.
Thus, getting what they want over and over.
Whilst the victim never gets any of their needs met in return.
Over time, the victim begins to confuse the abuse with love, and the chains of the trauma bond are locked in place.
The victim is now in the ‘low’ phase from all the abuse and having dispensed so much of their energy for the narcissist’s needs.
They can feel mentally, spiritually and emotionally weak, and left in a state of mental and physical anguish and exhaustion.
This is when the narcissist will often bread crumb the victim with small amounts of effort or attention.
But because the victim has been so energetically depleted, the bread crumbing feels like the biggest high that they have long been yearning for.
The small amount of ‘bread crumbing’ can feel like we have been given ‘a whole loaf of bread’, when we are trauma bonded.
And we cannot see it for the tiny crumb it actually is.
The feeling becomes like a drug addiction.
The highs are really euphoric and the lows are deeply distressful.
Just like nicotine addiction, our mind and body get used to living this way.
And that is why it can feel so difficult to break the trauma bond.
It is an addiction and like all other addictions, it is an endless cycle of highs and lows.
In time, there will be less highs and more lows, with the lows becoming more and more abusive over time.
And just like any other drug addiction, it is difficult to break the habit.
For some readers reading this; it may sound totally insane that anyone would want to stay in these relationships.
However, it is like how a non-smoker would think towards being a smoker.
The obvious facts does sound and appear truly insane.
But for many of us, the feelings that these toxic relationships give, are the same feelings we grew up with in our childhood.
That familiar feeling of what we had learnt about what love was, from our parents or primary caregivers.
No body would wish that feeling on anybody.
But when it is all you know, it can be easy to accept.
