What It Feels Like

When Someone's Narcissistic Part Puts You in its Crosshairs

The conversation seems friendly at first.

This person has never dealt with me harshly, let alone gaslit me, before.

So I answer their question from my heart and instead of it connecting to their heart, they follow up with yet another probing question.

Okay, maybe I didn’t understand what they were asking. How can I explain my answer more clearly?

I give it my very best attempt at communication, hoping and even expecting to create connection. And still, no heart opening from them. My heart is open. But their questions are feeling more and more like an interrogation.

That’s when my stomach starts to tighten and my breathing becomes shallow.

But as a survivor, I don’t notice that.

Instead, I’m floundering like a drowning person, lost in my own traumatic triggers. My brain floods.

How did I get here? Did I take a wrong turn? Why is it that my best isn’t good enough? Am I really being attacked right now? And if so, why?

Maybe I’m imagining it. I must be overreacting.

Let’s try again. Answer their question with as many reassurances as possible. Make sure they know that they are safe and seen and loved. That ought to help.

But it doesn’t.

They are still coming at me with more and more focus and more and more venom.

What have I done to deserve this? Is that rage and resentment that I sense? How could it be? I don’t have bad blood with this person. None that I am aware of, anyway.

Now he’s telling me that I didn’t hear him correctly. In an ever more stern voice he is ordering me to answer his questions! I keep answering them. But he’s not happy with any of my answers. He seems to think that I’m lying or tricking him.

I feel like I’ve fallen into a trap I cannot escape. I have no idea what is happening. In my triggered space, I only know how to fawn. I don’t have boundaries now. I am just being tossed about like a plaything he is toying with.

He keeps coming at me with what has become a detached demeanor utterly devoid of goodwill or trust.

I now get that I am the enemy.

How did that happen? What have I done? How can I remind him that I’m actually his friend?

I plead with him. Does he know that I love him? Sure, he replies with no emotion or caring at all. It’s as if my love has no meaning to him in his current state.

If I can’t get him to see me as his long-time friend who loves him, what will he do to me?

And it’s not until that moment that I finally realize, he can’t do anything to me. He is not my parent. I am not his child. He is not my husband. He is not my lover. He is my friend and I am an adult woman who can end this relationship anytime she wishes.

But by now, my entire nervous system is a wreck. I feel defeated and demoralized. Worst of all, I feel humiliated by my own trauma.

Why did I allow him to treat me this way?

When will I stop allowing the narcissistic parts of men to ravage my self-confidence and bring me back to the edge of despair?