A Review of "Narcissists Suck" By a Reader

This is from the comments section written by a reader of this blog. I am posting it on the front page as a "review" of the content of this blog for those who are new here. What can you learn if you dive into the blog's archives? Here is one reader's description of what they've learned. I have taken the liberty of spelling out the abbreviations [in brackets] for the benefit of those not familiar with the vernacular. Otherwise the comment appears in its original form. Thanks, again, Another Anonymous, for taking the time to describe what you've learned here. God bless.

Invaluable things I've learned here:

I found your blog when I was searching for info on dealing with trouble I was having with some people in my life. At the time, I thought I knew pretty much about N's (I had a 'classic' NM [narcissist mother], and N-ex [narcissist ex-spouse], I had already read many books on the topic). The only problem, I thought N's were pretty rare. That was the impression I had gotten.

The big picture really eluded me until I came here. For instance, it NEVER occurred to me that there might be more N's in my FOO [family of origin], despite my difficulty with them, or amongst the people I had thought of as "difficult" friends, past and present. Or, why, as an acon [adult child of a narcissist], I might have had so many "difficult" friends in the first place! Nothing I read in other places gave me quite the understanding about how N's are attracted to "primed" victims, and how they carefully avoid people raised with healthy boundaries. They do not randomly strike. And I had no idea that they often occur in multiples in families, over generations, centered around each generation's designated supply/human sacrifices.

I began to understand how I had been thoroughly and unwittingly trained to act in a way that made me basically the "perfect friend" to the personality disordered. This gave me a new lens through which to view many events and incidents from the past which had long puzzled me and that I had often replayed again and again in mind with no resolution. Now, they made "sense". I always wondered why some friendships I had were so "easy"! Now I knew those were simply the friendships I had with normal people. What seemed to be as "easy" or unusually "low maintenance", was actually JUST NORMAL. THAT IS ALL. Long accustomed to around-the-clock drama from others, I had no idea.

And importantly, how UNCANNILY SIMILAR experiences with N's really were, down to the most bizarre sounding incidents! (bathroom barging N's anyone?) The baffling and powerful N's became demystified. Now I see them as fear-driven caricatures, all with pretty much the same bags of tricks. Same shit, different smell. I am no longer impressed.

Your blog also put into perspective the many "frieNdships" that I had had in the past that I had long felt confused guilt and shame over ending. The more the puzzle pieces fell into place, I realized I had indeed been cutting out N's who had been attracted to me mainly as pre-trained NS [narcissist supply]. Thank you, no more guilt or confusion over having had been able to make healthy decisions about parasitical people in my life.

Another thing that helped tremendously has been being able to make the clear distinction between an "enabler" and a deceived victim. Boy was I sick of books that quietly (or not) suggested there was something wrong with ME (i.e. "co-dependent") simply because I was once brainwashed into going through life experiencing N ABUSE AS NORMAL. Others calling us co-dependant is wrong and insulting. Believe me, the moment I knew what was what - I ESCAPED TOO! I was just one of many people trapped by the lies of N's who simply need nothing more then CLEAR INFORMATION to order make the choice to leave! That is NOT "co-dependent", that is a hostage trapped by lies. Thank you for putting clear no-nonsense info out for the public.

I have appreciated and respected perhaps most of all your unswerving "take no prisoners" stance, as well as your unstinting use of the taboo word "evil", due to the premeditation, strategizing, and post-abuse covering up that N's do. Thank you. Whenever I felt re-swayed by the lure of the N koolaid, and the very natural desire to want it all to be some kind of bad dream I could wake up from, I could get a REAL wake up call here. The kind of wake up I really needed:

Covert MN [malignant narcissist] abuse is NOT a bad dream, it is real. But we CAN "wake up" from it, but only in one way: by seeing it for what it REALLY is, and seeing them for who they really are. Not appealing, not easy, and most certainly not what "they" want. It is the hard road. The bad dream we lived is THEIR world of lies, but we have the option to wake up to OUR OWN TRUTH: the world of truth inside us that can never be destroyed by others, only obscured. It is awakened by outside knowledge.

Thank you Anna, for more then I can write here. For passing on your truth, so we could wake ourselves up out of this nightmare into the world of our own possibility. Knowledge is truly power, and knowledge strips the power from deceivers.

And a thank you to all the amazing commenters! I have never ceased being amazed by the uncanny similarities, it proves the N's are not the unique people they think... It has helped me so much in so many ways.

Good luck to you Anna, and everyone else here too!

Sincerely,

Another Anonymous