Even if you’ve never studied psychology, you’ve likely heard of the giants of psychiatry and psychology, Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. Personally, I prefer Jung because I love two concepts from his theory: synchronicity and the concept of archetypes. Today, I’m going to focus on the latter, and one archetype in particular, the shadow. While we’re often ashamed of our dark side or even unaware of it, we can’t help but acknowledge that we have it when we’re in a relationship with a narcissist. So, what is the shadow and how does it relate to narcissists?
Carl Jung defined the shadow as something that embodies everything we refuse to acknowledge and accept about ourselves. It’s a hidden, repressed, or suppressed part of our personality that we consciously or unconsciously try to deny and feel guilty about. Unfortunately, the shadow always rears its ugly head despite our best efforts. This is especially evident in our relationships with narcissists.
Relationships with narcissists are always great at first because narcissists will do literally anything to impress and upset us. They will be brave, seductive, loving, attentive, cheerful, and playful, showering us with affection. Sooner or later we will come to the conclusion that they are the embodiment of our Prince Charming. Unfortunately, the golden period in a relationship with a narcissist does not last forever. It does not gradually diminish. As a rule, it changes overnight from the golden period to the darker period. Why does this happen? For a very simple reason: we want to become more emotionally close and intimate with the narcissist. We start to play with their old wounds and want to help them and save them in some way. For them, we become too controlling because they hate being analyzed and seen as weak and imperfect. Therefore, they start to withdraw, pay less attention to us, ignore our calls, refuse to open up, and become colder and more distant. Suddenly, our Prince Charming turns into the Dark Knight. This, of course, leaves us stunned, confused, insecure, rejected, unloved, and deeply sad. We want the narcissist back. We don’t want to be abandoned and are willing to do whatever it takes to bring them back into our loving arms. We are desperate to save the relationship.
The problem, however, is that narcissists refuse to respond to our efforts and view our efforts as pathetic creeps. As a result, they become vicious, punitive, and even more rejecting. The more we try, the more they make us feel like a laughingstock. What was once a love affair quickly turns into a power struggle. And since narcissists often act in an unscrupulous manner when trying to protect and defend themselves, we too begin to use everything we can to fight back and retaliate.
We then spiral into a cycle of hatred and despair, and the responses the narcissist elicits from us are horrific. We say and do things we never thought possible. We engage in destructive behavior and find ourselves wondering, “What made me do that? That’s not me.” No, that’s not our true self. That’s our shadow, our dark side that only comes to life when we’re in a life-or-death situation. In a destructive narcissistic relationship, we’re really faced with the question of survival, how to maintain our sanity and emotional stability in turbulent circumstances. Narcissists know exactly which buttons to push to upset us, lure us back, make us feel special—and the next minute we feel worthless. They excel at getting us to jump through hoops, fueling them with narcissistic fuel, leaving us exhausted and empty. But this game drains us physically and emotionally. One minute we’re so happy with them, the next minute they’re beating us to the ground. The cycle repeats itself over and over again. It’s natural to temporarily explode and act out in a highly inappropriate way. Then we often feel shame, guilt, self-loathing, anger, anxiety, inadequacy, and envy. Because we’ve always been taught to suppress the shadow, we don’t know how to deal with these reactions and emotions. Therefore, they control us and our behavior. However, not everything is as negative as it may seem.
Humans feel positive and negative emotions, and we have a positive side and a negative side to our personality, but we don’t particularly like to admit it. Because we are told that negative emotions should not be expressed, because they are socially unacceptable, we sometimes ignore them so much that we suppress them completely. However, this does not make them go away, but rather they start to eat us up from the inside. Therefore, it is useless to pretend that we do not have a dark side. One of the bright spots in relationships with narcissists is that they make us aware of our shadow, which is made up of unwanted negative thoughts and feelings. Once we become aware of something, we can recognize it and acknowledge that we have it, and learn how to express it in a positive and non-destructive way. Once the shadow stops scaring and controlling us, we can grow and develop as a person as well.
