The laundry has been sitting in the dryer for three days. Seriously, leaving stuff in the dryer and forgetting about it is my super power. I glanced at the dryer door this morning as I was letting the dogs out, and thought… “I should do something with that.” But, I mean, it’s just extra sheets. I could press the “tumble” button again to get the wrinkles out, or I could just accept they’d only get wrinkled by living in the basket on the floor of my bedroom for another week or so until I had the energy to fold it all.
I chose neither. I sat in the back yard and watched the dogs and thought about narcissists instead. Because nothing pairs better with a basket of lukewarm pillowcases than a deep, shuddering dive into the mechanics of human wreckage! I mean, we all know people who have the personality of lukewarm pillowcases, so…. I guess it connects? ::shrugs::
We talk about narcissism like it’s a personality quirk—like being a Gemini or someone who unironically enjoys kale. But when you’ve been in the blast radius of a real narcissist, you know it’s not a quirk. It’s a precision-engineered vacuum cleaner designed to suck the strength out of your self-worth and leave you wondering if you’re actually the one who forgot how to be a person.
It’s an odd thing, isn’t it? The way someone can enter your life like a parade—all confetti and high-fives—and leave it looking like a scorched-earth war zone. I bet you that most, if not all of us would say, “yeah, I know a narcissist, but I’d never, like, get close to one. They’re so obviously toxic!” But really? Secretly? We’ve all had one glom onto our light and try to snuff it out or take it for their own. We’ve all been the person who’s sat up one day and looked at someone in our lives and thought… how did I get here?
What is UP with that? How does it happen?
The Sparkly Trap: The Love Bombing Phase
Every narcissist starts as a miracle. That’s the kicker. They don’t walk in with a flashing sign that says “I will eventually make you feel like a sentient pile of garbage.” No, they walk in with a mirror. They look at you and they see exactly what you’re missing—that little hole in your heart that’s shaped like “validation” or “being seen”—and they fill it with high-octane premium sunshine.
They call it love bombing, and that’s what it feels like. They keep bombarding you and bombarding you with love bomb after love bomb. They laugh at your jokes like you’re Tig Notaro. They listen to your childhood trauma like it’s an unreleased Taylor Swift album. You think, Finally, someone gets it. Someone sees the messy, weird, slightly frayed version of me and thinks I’m a masterpiece. Someone is finally looking into those dark corners of my heart and the sunlight they’re bringing with them is burning away the cobwebs.
But here’s the thing about the sun: if it gets too close, it’s not warming you anymore; it’s prepping you for the rotisserie. That initial “soulmate” energy is just the reconnaissance phase. They aren’t falling in love with you; they are taking inventory of what they can take, use, or kick by the wayside just for fun. They’re checking your locks, testing your fences and boundaries. They’re like a master thief scouting the world’s most important bank, trying to see how to get in and what they can take.
The Slow Fade and the Pivot: Not a Musical Number I Care to Partner Dance To
Eventually, the parade ends. The confetti is just trash on the sidewalk, and you’re standing there with a broom, wondering where the music went. This is where the manipulation gets crafty. It’s not a sudden slap; it’s a slow leak. Not a bang, but a whimper.
It starts with a joke at your expense that feels just a little too sharp. “Oh, you care about [insert thing]? I didn’t think anyone was still into that. Well, you always went your own way.” One time, my Stepmonster said to me with her whole face, “did you wear that to school today? All day? Did anyone laugh at you?” … I never wore that outfit again, and it was one of the first skirt and top combos I bought with my own earned allowance.
Or the time I took someone to Sams with me so they could see what the deal was and if they wanted a membership. They watched me put a case of toilet paper in my cart, one of those big box/bags that’s like five four-packs wrapped together. “Who could possibly use that much toilet paper?” they asked, in a tone that clearly said I must have some sort of physical/butt problem. I just looked at them. I live in the middle of nowhere, in a state that can get shut down for a week or longer if there’s a hurricane. I know from experience of living rurally earlier in my life that it’s just fucking smart to buy that much toilet paper. And yet I spent about a year after they said that feeling like an idiot for buying that much toilet paper at once. Did I? Did I use too much toilet paper? I started paying attention to how many sheets I was using and how often I had to change the roll and oh my god, was there something wrong with me? Then Covid hit and not only did I have toilet paper when it was impossible to find, but I was able to keep three or four friends stocked with toilet paper as well. So, fuck that friend.
Anyway!
Suddenly, the things you thought they understood about you become “problems.” Your enthusiasm for everything is now “dramatic.” Your boundaries are “selfishness.” Your need for basic human reciprocity is “being needy.” It’s the ultimate bait-and-switch. They spend months – years! – building a pedestal for you just so they can watch the look on your face when they kick it out from under your feet.
And the goal? The goal is never to actually fix anything between you, be it friendship or lovers or whatever. The goal is to make you so small that you can fit inside their pocket. They want you to feel like everything you shared with them, everything you thought they saw and were still here for, that not only were you an imbecile for sharing it, you were an absolute idiot for even having those dark corners to begin with. That sunlight they turned on you? If you start to glow on your own, you’re a threat. If you have an opinion that doesn’t align with their current narrative, you’re “crazy.”
The Gaslight: There’s a Reason London Moved to Electricity
We use the word “gaslighting” a lot these days. Some people probably use the word and don’t even really know what it means. True gaslighting is mysterious dark art. It’s like magic, gone wrong. It’s when someone looks you in the eye and tells you the sky is green until you actually start thinking people who say the sky is blue are straight-up fools.
I remember once, years ago, being told—with absolute, calm certainty—that a conversation I vividly remembered never happened. “I never said that,” they said, with a look of genuine pity. “I think you’re just stressed. Your memory has been so spotty lately. Are you okay? Maybe you should talk to someone.”
That “Maybe you should talk to someone” is the chef’s kiss of manipulation. It’s the “I’m hurting you for your own good” defense. It makes you feel like you’re losing your grip on reality, and once you lose that, you have to rely on their version of the truth. You become a passenger in your own brain, and they’re at the wheel, driving 90 mph toward a cliff while telling you that you’re actually parked in a flowery meadow.
It makes you feel worthless because it strips away your trust in yourself. And let me tell you, when you don’t trust your own eyes, your own ears, or your own heart, you are very, very easy to control. You become a ghost haunting your own life, apologizing for the rattling chains.
The “All About Me” Gravity Well: Don’t Drop Any Pennies, There are no Wishes Here
Narcissists have their own internal physics. They are the center of the universe, and everyone else is just space debris caught in their orbit. The people around them aren’t even important enough to be moons – they’re just the occasional cast-off from a comet, if even that big. If they’re happy, you’d better be throwing a party. If they’re sad, the world must stop turning. If they hurt you, it’s actually your fault because look what you made them do? They wouldn’t have to do that if you’d just listened the first time. And god forbid if you actually at some point stated a feeling that really did make them feel guilty – it’s the equivalent to slapping them across the face with a gauntlet and shit is really gonna go down, now.
The sheer exhaustion of maintaining their ego is like trying to fill a bucket with a hole in the bottom using a teaspoon. You pour in your empathy, your time, your money, your sanity—and the bucket is still empty. Because a narcissist doesn’t want love; they want supply. They don’t want your empathy, they want your energy. They don’t want a partner; they want a fan club. And let me tell you from experience, that shit is exhausting. You can run your own battery down to zero every day trying to maintain the ego of a narcissist. To zero.
And the moment you stop clapping for them? The moment you say, “Hey, I’m actually really hurting right now and I need you to be a person for five minutes”? That’s when the mask slips. The fun, lively ray of sunshine person you thought you knew is suddenly a stranger with cold eyes who looks at you like you’re a broken appliance they’re considering throwing on the curb.
Why We Stay (and Why We Break): Maybe it’s Just a Stage
People ask, “Why didn’t you just leave?” which is a great question to ask someone who hasn’t been systematically dismantled over a period of years. It’s like asking a building why it didn’t just walk away from the wrecking ball.
You stay because you’re waiting for the person from the “love bombing” phase to come back. You keep thinking maybe they’re just going through something, and as soon as they figure their shit out, thing’s will be back to the way they were. You think if you just fold the laundry better, or lose five pounds, or learn to communicate “correctly,” the miracle will return. You become a detective of your own misery, looking for clues on how to be “good enough” for someone who is fundamentally incapable of seeing anyone but themselves.
But here’s the radical, ugly, hopeful truth: you will never be enough for a narcissist, because “enough” doesn’t exist in their vocabulary. You could give them the moon on a silver platter, and they’d complain that it’s too cold not made of the right kind of green cheese.
The Resilience of the “Hot Mess”
So, what do we do? We, the weary, the survivors, the people who are currently waking up at 3:15 every morning and feeling the weight of every unkind word ever spoken to us?
Become Eliza, baby, and put yourself back in the narrative.
Looking out at the beautiful sunrise and listening to the sounds of birdsong, I still feel the echoes of those voices years gone telling me I’m too much, or not enough, or fundamentally flawed. But then I look at my dogs, who are both chewing on opposite ends of a tree branch with a level of joy and singlemindedness that reminds me of how I feel when I get into a good handbuilding zone, and I realize that the world is still full of small beauties. Large beauties, too, but finding the smaller ones feels like more of a win because what if it had been unseen? Like I have sometimes been unseen?
The narcissist’s greatest weapon is making you believe you are unlovable without them. But the truth is, you were a whole-ass person before they arrived, and you are a whole (if slightly cracked) person now that they’re gone—or now that you’re seeing them for who they really are.
Recovery from a narcissist isn’t a straight line. It’s a messy, zig-zagging crawl through the mud. Some days I feel like a warrior queen, and some days I’m just a woman who cried because she ran out of coffee creamer. Both are okay. Both are honest. (Note to self: add coffee creamer to the grocery list.)
The Small Beauty of Being “Too Much”: They Can Fucking Go Find Less
If a narcissist told you that you’re “too much,” take it as a compliment. It means you have a soul that couldn’t be contained by their narrow, selfish walls. It means you have a fire that they couldn’t put out, no matter how much gaslighting they did and no matter how hard they tried to grind you down.
Are you tired? Some days I am so, so tired. It’s been a long few years for a lot of us, personal things exacerbated by this glowing orange narcissist we have at the helm of our increasingly erratic ship of a country. But there is a tiny, stubborn spark of hope in my chest that refuses to go out. It’s the spark that says, I am allowed to exist. I am allowed to be messy. I am allowed to have a version of reality that doesn’t require someone else’s permission. And I hope you feel that spark, too. You can light your spark off my fire, if you want. I promise I won’t gaslight you about it later.
Later today, I might actually fold the extra sheets and pillowcases. Or I might just let it sit there for another few days until it’s time to do another load.
Either way, the sky isn’t green. It’s a light, wintry morning, beautiful blue, and I can see it just fine.
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The image I used for this is Vanity, by Auguste Toulmouche, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
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