Why a narc fears abandoment

I think they fear abandonment because they don't have a real self to rely on, like the rest of us do. They are empty inside, and use us to fill the hole. They need their punching bags. They need someone to blame for all their misery. They need a warm hole to put it in when they are horny. They need to USE US. And without us, they have to fall back on themselves. And they don't trust themselves. The lights are on but no one's home. They are parasites without a host. So when you give in to their hoovers, or their threats, you are tacitly agreeing with them that you exist to serve them.

-At the beginning of the "relationship",the ex-Psych professor threatened to leave me if I talked about him behind his back, he even said "I'm going to cut you loose. I've cut lots of people loose." He always dangled abandonment in front of me... yet he couldn't stand it if I hung up on the phone. He'd say "Don't hang up on me!" and his version of a handshake was a grip that wouldn't let go. Yeah, I wonder how he felt when I left town and didn't tell anyone, not even the professors I trusted. I left the city without saying goodbye. -My ex-Narc boss made a BIG DEAL from the get-go with the constant threat of firing. I had barely been there for a couple of weeks, trying to get into the routine, he'd rage at me over trivial things, reduce me to tears, and threaten to fire me. Yeah, what a way to get into good graces with a new employee by raging at them. All I had to do was put a bottle of honey on the counter without wiping the bottom for him to throw an obscenity-filled rant.

Girls, I am having an issue today with this also. I changed my name because I have nosy family memebers. Yeah, ugh today the abondonment is really getting to me. Last night he said "I thought I had someone who wouldn't abandon me." I ignored him of course. Still working on my NC plan. But living with him until it's ready is a killer. I can't eat, sleep, or concentrate! Trust, then verify~

I have to be careful when I read this stuff because It makes me think in a way that I can fix it which I know I cant. It seems so easy like all you need to do is just love them and make them feel safe but its so much deeper than that. This is so deep in their subconscious that they are not even aware of it. Their behaviors are the manifestation of it. Sometimes I think they wonder why they behave like that because on conscious level they are not aware of their fear. Their hideous behavior is part of them and alot of it invouluntary its just like breathing to them. They have abandoned their own soul you cant fix that.

Hey Scoop, The narcissist's greatest fear is abandonment because that would mean someone else had gained control. I've read that they will D&D you if they even sense a hint of abandonment so that they feel THEY have the control. Somewhere down the line someone very important to them, in all likelihood a parent or caregiver, abandoned them in some way (not necessarily left them, but didn't meet their needs when they wanted them, for an extended period of time). The fear registered and they developed a motto of: I will never be abandoned again, even if it means I do the abandoning if I sense it coming, that way at least I maintain control of my fragile self. Just my paraphrase of the experts here!

I guess we are all afraid of it really. We just dont all go round spinning out and causing pain to others becasue of it. We accept rejection, take it on the nose and then pick up again. Narcs do not! http://www.drirene.com/8_nar.htm Quite intersting read... more vankin stuff. I am not too sure why narcs hold grudges, bear venomous revenge, keep returning to open old wounds and play games to continue fishing for supply from old sources? Co-dependents do this too. Though why abadonment is as great a part of narcissism as it is codependency, I am not sure. Both conditions of the mind are obsessed with 'self', but only one of them is pathalogically dangerous. I guess if you 'couple' dangerous' with 'fear of abadonment' then you come up with a very deeply controlling dynamic. The clingy co-dependent just gets more clingy until this alone disables him or her, he/she isolates her self. The narcissist also does this.... but refuses to be destroyed by his isolation... the co -dependant greives and eventually moves on (usually left alone). The narcissist becomes more controlling, more manipulitive, more aggressive, more overtly undable to allow the 'source' to leave. He/she becomes an obsessed with the intensive quest to make the world fall into place, to have the people who are part of that invented world to stay and play there roles, like toys at a 'tea party'. The toys must behave how the narcissist would like them to. But when the 'child's toys' later become real people and do not conform to the 'game', so the level of manipulation must be stepped up. He will ne nice, harder, more aggressive, more obsequious, more polite... kinder even for more time in the fanatsy... That is the why we get the hoovering part of the control, the game-playing drama queen of a narc. I am feeling very sick today. I am enduring it and can even witness it with out the same emotional involvment, and yet it still makes me ill. Narcs dont suffer the shock and fall out of there game playing. Its is not real to them. We suffer because it exhausting and degrading, we are objects and feel like objects, that they cannot let go. They angered becasue they are rejected by us and yet they will not learn that we have rejected them and do not want them. (the game playing makes it confusing to just close down communication, we remain attached and unable to grieve and heal) They are programmed to turn towards the light and crush it. They will selfishly abandon you when they want to, too. BUT... They will come running back everytime they feel lonley or are ill or needy themselves, but as soon as they have replenished by your energy they will have gone, and left you drained and in need yourself, and yet, then you need them, they will be long gone. I have been doing the wrong things and letting my narc take more of me, by getting in a big mess, because of the pain, because financially he is sucking the life out of me, but the best thing we can do is get healthy, reject them, reject them, reject them, and never never let your guard down and be hoovered up for more pain... They look harmless sometimes, smiling, centred, peaceful, kind, but they are wild raging dracuals inside and those times when you get to see it, its frightening isnt it? Please don't forget it so easily, the next time he comes looking to get some supply from you.