“It would be easier if it were for nothing,” says someone close to my husband.
I say: “I know.”
“Everyone could see it then,” they say.
My husband is still fooling the world. But he no longer deceives those close to him. This revelation began even before he was diagnosed as lacking empathy and suffering from narcissistic personality disorder. What’s even more shocking is that he falls on the end of the narcissistic spectrum.
However, my husband goes largely unnoticed by society.
Unfortunately, narcissists play it well.
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It’s one of the things that makes spotting a narcissist so difficult.
This is also what makes someone who loves a narcissist and falls prey to him feel crazy.
My narcissistic husband seems normal.
He navigates daily life with narcissistic finesse. He speaks like a normal person. He walks like a normal person. He interacts socially like any normal person. Holds a job as a normal person. The outside world is no wiser to the narcissist lurking within.
I completely understand what this person is trying to tell me.
It would be easier if my husband was down for nothing.
No one will miss it. Community alarms will go off. There will be screams of “Danger, Will Robinson!” The audience will realize that something is off. There is something unhealthy or right about this person.
It will be painful but it will be easier to understand.
There are two clear and distinct sides to this person.
No one will be fooled.
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No one would be surprised to believe otherwise. No one will think you are crazy. No one will insist that you were wrong. No one will question it. No one will wonder why there is a risk in staying in a relationship with this person.
They will believe you.
They will see harm and danger.
They will tell you that this is unhealthy.
A person who constantly falls and gets lost does not play well in reality. They cannot hide for long. Someone in the outside world will see them or suspect them.
The narcissist is a contradiction.
The narcissist does not live in reality but plays well in it.
It is one of their most frightening traits.
There are several reasons why the average person may not be able to spot a narcissist.
The narcissist lives in only one world. The world of the narcissist. It creates a distorted perception of reality because narcissists cannot see outside their world or into another world. The narcissist survives with his superficial charm. They ask about your world but they don’t care about it.
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The people narcissists attach themselves to are there to make their world go around.
This is why those close to the narcissist see their disorder as abusive.
These are the people who can easily anger the narcissist because while they think they share the narcissist’s world, they only inhabit it. Anything they can do that the narcissist doesn’t agree with or thinks is offensive to them will expose the narcissist’s wrath.
#Anger is what brings the narcissist out of hiding.
This is why the narcissist is invisible to the average person.
Even now, after all the narcissistic abuse and prolonged and excessive divorce, I marvel at the narcissist who seems normal. I still feel confused and disturbed by this paradox. The abnormality is disguised as normal.
I remember that when I see my ex-husband now, even though I’m no longer fooled by him.
He navigates daily life with narcissistic finesse. He speaks like a normal person. He walks like a normal person. He interacts socially like any normal person. Holds a job as a normal person. The outside world is no wiser to the narcissist lurking within.
The narcissist plays it well.
