Re: A paladin of PSSD hurt me to death
Posted: Wed Sep 28, 2022 8:03 am
i am appalled at what i can find already written in entire articles because it describes resoundingly well what happened. and i have spent months trying to piece together piece by piece doing a lot on my own (but not entirely thank goodness). and i am still stunned at articles like the one i paste below written by a psychotherapist.
I could underline it entirely but I underline some really resounding parts that say what happened.
[To summarize in a few lines: he from the end of last year to the beginning of this year was always ready to respond to my messages, involved me on his own initiative in so many things, filled me with encouragement (not directly romantic messages but plausible deniability, as he did with other women as well), this after i had expressed feelings to him for a couple of years at least. so at the beginning of this year i expressed increasing feelings in response to this sort of love bombing on his part. so much so that I felt confused, frustrated, and distressed, and he did nothing to calm me down or give me reality tips. at one point I decided on my own initiative to try to distance myself BECAUSE I WAS SUFFERING and even told him that he had never done anything wrong to me (haha!...). then, when after 3 weeks of feeling terribly confused and distressed I wrote him back for some clarity, his GHOSTING came. ]
LOVE BOMBING: SEDUCTION AND MANIPULATION
Love bombing is a psychological technique used by narcissistic personalities to emotionally manipulate people. The Narcissist to exert his control initially fills his love object, his victim, with attention, praise and admiration. He does this through loving attitudes to win her trust, friendship, affection and finally her love. Through love bombing, that is, tight and continuous seduction, the narcissist tries to leverage the emotional needs and psychological frailties of the victim. Love bombing includes all those moves and strategies of illusory love for the purpose of enacting real psycho-emotional plagiarism.
When the narcissist is certain that his target has been emotionally "hooked" and has it"trapped," he modifies his strategy. He becomes less available, becomes more distant, cold, and may even abruptly terminate the relationship without explanation (ghosting).
The seduced person finds herself confused and distressed. Rejection, sudden abandonment trigger unresolved childhood traumas, obsessive thoughts and addictive behavior in the victim, all centered on trying to win back the love bomber's affection.
Throughout the deceptive conquest phase, the narcissist presents himself as an ideal partner, the soul mate with whom there is a special understanding, the person with whom one can feel deeply resonant. Representing just the ideal, it is easy to give him, in good faith, unconditional trust. In reality, the love bomber is just hunting for prey and conquest a way to feed his sense of importance and experience suggestive power.
The narcissist can grasp the deepest needs and use them "in a mirror" to such an extent that it is difficult for anyone to remain indifferent. He makes the wooed feel unique, desired, special. He uses "target" words, that is, just what one wants to hear; he shows himself to be sweet, caring, loving, kind, trustworthy and morally upright. This mode encourages the object of seduction to open up, to share dreams and wishes for the future, which the manipulator listens carefully to use that information later.
In essence, a narcissist is adept at understanding the vulnerabilities of others and, through love bombing tactics, getting into the good graces of his victims by displaying a false self.
This process is very rapid. The emotional manipulator knows that he cannot lie for long and can be unmasked so the speed of his seductive process is essential.
This is why we speak of love bombing even though in all of this there are no feelings or falling in love at all except for the victim.
The manipulated seduction process can be summarized in 5 steps:
- Seduction: the victim is courted, praised, flattered and admired;
Isolation: the victim is isolated from family and friends so that the relationship is exclusive and no one can intervene in the manipulative mechanism enacted.
- Control: blind love causes the victim to depend on the manipulator and do what is asked of them having full confidence in the idyllic love they experienced in the previous stages.
- Confusion: the manipulator reinforces the dependence the victim begins to have on him strong from the trust created. He creates confusion in the reconstruction of facts and events, distorts reality in order to put doubts and feed the victim's insecurities.
- Guilt: to doubts and insecurity the narcissist adds emotional instability by assigning blame and responsibility to the victim when things go wrong. The victim often feels uncomfortable and inadequate.
But why does someone creep so far into a person's life to delude them by playing on their weaknesses and hopes and then abruptly and cruelly snatch their dream away without any explanation or warning? The answer is that there are pathological people who are incapable of feeling empathy and caring for others. The narcissist focuses entirely on his own self-interests and is incapable of putting himself "in the shoes" of others. If in addition to the ability to sense what others need, not only on the level of words to be spoken and sterile actions to be performed, but also on the level of emotional experiences, he would not cause so much suffering.
A healthy person has no reason to engage in manipulation or to carry on a relationship in this way. On the other hand, the manipulator carefully selects the people with whom to establish this kind of dynamic; these are usually people who are lacking in affection or particularly in need of a strong figure on whom to depend. Therefore, when the victim finds herself alone and abandoned for no reason she will try everything to get back the seemingly perfect lost relationship. The victim usually feels guilty about the incident and tries to identify limitations or flaws in herself to justify the breakup of the relationship (I am not worthy enough to be loved, I did something wrong...).
In truth, the victim is never at fault for anything. The moment the manipulator is certain that he has aroused important and deep feelings in the 'love object' he loses interest and the decline of the relationship begins.
A manipulative narcissist never really has any interest in creating an emotional relationship; he or she just wants to feel at the center of someone's world. The unconscious goal is to feed one's ego, to fill a deep insecurity of which he himself is unaware, making the other feel small and dependent.
Because the narcissist's emotions are superficial he does not care about the pain he causes; he looks at the pain and desperate gestures the victim makes to mend the relationship as a confirmation of how important and powerful he is. This feeds his ego. It is difficult to react with indifference to a narcissist who abandons but perhaps this is the only reaction that might still arouse some interest in him. Certainly impossible to implement when one is very emotionally involved and not clear that one is inside a psychological game with a "lose-lose" ending.
Getting out of a relational dynamic of this magnitude requires a great deal of self-esteem that the victim of love bombing often does not possess. In such a case it is necessary to get help from friends, family and a specialist in personality disorders and unconscious psychological games.
I could underline it entirely but I underline some really resounding parts that say what happened.
[To summarize in a few lines: he from the end of last year to the beginning of this year was always ready to respond to my messages, involved me on his own initiative in so many things, filled me with encouragement (not directly romantic messages but plausible deniability, as he did with other women as well), this after i had expressed feelings to him for a couple of years at least. so at the beginning of this year i expressed increasing feelings in response to this sort of love bombing on his part. so much so that I felt confused, frustrated, and distressed, and he did nothing to calm me down or give me reality tips. at one point I decided on my own initiative to try to distance myself BECAUSE I WAS SUFFERING and even told him that he had never done anything wrong to me (haha!...). then, when after 3 weeks of feeling terribly confused and distressed I wrote him back for some clarity, his GHOSTING came. ]
LOVE BOMBING: SEDUCTION AND MANIPULATION
Love bombing is a psychological technique used by narcissistic personalities to emotionally manipulate people. The Narcissist to exert his control initially fills his love object, his victim, with attention, praise and admiration. He does this through loving attitudes to win her trust, friendship, affection and finally her love. Through love bombing, that is, tight and continuous seduction, the narcissist tries to leverage the emotional needs and psychological frailties of the victim. Love bombing includes all those moves and strategies of illusory love for the purpose of enacting real psycho-emotional plagiarism.
When the narcissist is certain that his target has been emotionally "hooked" and has it"trapped," he modifies his strategy. He becomes less available, becomes more distant, cold, and may even abruptly terminate the relationship without explanation (ghosting).
The seduced person finds herself confused and distressed. Rejection, sudden abandonment trigger unresolved childhood traumas, obsessive thoughts and addictive behavior in the victim, all centered on trying to win back the love bomber's affection.
Throughout the deceptive conquest phase, the narcissist presents himself as an ideal partner, the soul mate with whom there is a special understanding, the person with whom one can feel deeply resonant. Representing just the ideal, it is easy to give him, in good faith, unconditional trust. In reality, the love bomber is just hunting for prey and conquest a way to feed his sense of importance and experience suggestive power.
The narcissist can grasp the deepest needs and use them "in a mirror" to such an extent that it is difficult for anyone to remain indifferent. He makes the wooed feel unique, desired, special. He uses "target" words, that is, just what one wants to hear; he shows himself to be sweet, caring, loving, kind, trustworthy and morally upright. This mode encourages the object of seduction to open up, to share dreams and wishes for the future, which the manipulator listens carefully to use that information later.
In essence, a narcissist is adept at understanding the vulnerabilities of others and, through love bombing tactics, getting into the good graces of his victims by displaying a false self.
This process is very rapid. The emotional manipulator knows that he cannot lie for long and can be unmasked so the speed of his seductive process is essential.
This is why we speak of love bombing even though in all of this there are no feelings or falling in love at all except for the victim.
The manipulated seduction process can be summarized in 5 steps:
- Seduction: the victim is courted, praised, flattered and admired;
Isolation: the victim is isolated from family and friends so that the relationship is exclusive and no one can intervene in the manipulative mechanism enacted.
- Control: blind love causes the victim to depend on the manipulator and do what is asked of them having full confidence in the idyllic love they experienced in the previous stages.
- Confusion: the manipulator reinforces the dependence the victim begins to have on him strong from the trust created. He creates confusion in the reconstruction of facts and events, distorts reality in order to put doubts and feed the victim's insecurities.
- Guilt: to doubts and insecurity the narcissist adds emotional instability by assigning blame and responsibility to the victim when things go wrong. The victim often feels uncomfortable and inadequate.
But why does someone creep so far into a person's life to delude them by playing on their weaknesses and hopes and then abruptly and cruelly snatch their dream away without any explanation or warning? The answer is that there are pathological people who are incapable of feeling empathy and caring for others. The narcissist focuses entirely on his own self-interests and is incapable of putting himself "in the shoes" of others. If in addition to the ability to sense what others need, not only on the level of words to be spoken and sterile actions to be performed, but also on the level of emotional experiences, he would not cause so much suffering.
A healthy person has no reason to engage in manipulation or to carry on a relationship in this way. On the other hand, the manipulator carefully selects the people with whom to establish this kind of dynamic; these are usually people who are lacking in affection or particularly in need of a strong figure on whom to depend. Therefore, when the victim finds herself alone and abandoned for no reason she will try everything to get back the seemingly perfect lost relationship. The victim usually feels guilty about the incident and tries to identify limitations or flaws in herself to justify the breakup of the relationship (I am not worthy enough to be loved, I did something wrong...).
In truth, the victim is never at fault for anything. The moment the manipulator is certain that he has aroused important and deep feelings in the 'love object' he loses interest and the decline of the relationship begins.
A manipulative narcissist never really has any interest in creating an emotional relationship; he or she just wants to feel at the center of someone's world. The unconscious goal is to feed one's ego, to fill a deep insecurity of which he himself is unaware, making the other feel small and dependent.
Because the narcissist's emotions are superficial he does not care about the pain he causes; he looks at the pain and desperate gestures the victim makes to mend the relationship as a confirmation of how important and powerful he is. This feeds his ego. It is difficult to react with indifference to a narcissist who abandons but perhaps this is the only reaction that might still arouse some interest in him. Certainly impossible to implement when one is very emotionally involved and not clear that one is inside a psychological game with a "lose-lose" ending.
Getting out of a relational dynamic of this magnitude requires a great deal of self-esteem that the victim of love bombing often does not possess. In such a case it is necessary to get help from friends, family and a specialist in personality disorders and unconscious psychological games.