Why did I attract a narcissist?

Some of you may already know that I married a sociopath and the marriage lasted for 2 decades. But this wasn’t the only narcissist in my orbit by any means. It was only later I realised that I was attracting them out of the woodwork. Friends, work colleagues, acquaintances and it was on repeat. When I had an awareness of this ‘pattern’ I worked on myself with trauma processing tools and thankfully, cleared that susceptibility.

You could say I was a narcissist magnet.

I have done an awful lot of trauma processing and inner work to be able to discuss this in some depth. I am going to explain the ways that I attracted a narcissist sociopath. When I say the word ‘attracted’ I don't want to be misunderstood. I know some of you may be thinking why on God's green earth would I attract this appalling experience? I get this I do. I want you to understand one thing. It was not my fault that this happened to me. If you have lived something similar please know, it wasn’t your fault either.

Knowing all about narcissists doesn’t protect you from narcissists

I didn’t have a clue about narcissists. I really didn’t. On this point, I would like to add that knowing about narcissists is not going to protect you from them either. I know of a couple of very well-known narcissist abuse recovery coaches who have been recently attracting narcissists while being experts in the field. I know psychologists who have attracted them and I know psychologists who are highly narcissistic. So there is something significant happening in you that makes you a match for them. This is really important. Again I say this isn’t your fault. But you can do something about it; just as I did. I am living happily narcissist-free and have been for about 8 years.

Couples therapy for a Narcissist?

When the marriage was entering it’s final year, there had been significant issues and I was desperate to ‘fix’ the unfixable. We had a single session of couples therapy. Looking back I can see that it was remarkable and was the beginning of me getting an awareness of what had been playing out. The therapist was very surgical in her analysis. She described the dynamics, in very clear, unmistakeable terms. She focused on me first and basically reduced me to a tearful wreck. And as she turned to the narc ex and I actually saw he was frightened, which shocked me. He knew he’d met his match and he was about to be exposed.

One of his ‘attractive’ features was he was totally fearless. I later understood this was because he knew he was one of the most, if not the most, frightening person in a room. However, she also pointed out a few things about his childhood. He said, 'everybody got treated like that in those days, (harsh physical punishments) and I said  'no that’s not true'. I explained, ‘my father is of the same generation as yours and the whole family of boys were not treated like that’. She was so direct, but she did me a massive favour.

She said I could help myself and go find out about EFT technique and other holistic energy healings and can work on myself. Speaking to the ex she said I’m not sure about you! If you think this is normal and ok then there’s not a great deal you will want to do about it, is there? Quite extraordinary. 

As a result of this experience, I looked at holistic trauma processing tools and protocols and was able to find just what I was looking for and used them religiously ever since.  You can do the same. You can learn to become your own therapist.

Rough childhood

The problem was I knew I had experienced a troubled childhood and I didn’t realise the full extent until I had travelled quite a long way into my healing journey. So I am able to say now, with certainty, that I was born into a narcissistic family system and the narcissist was my mother. This had the effect of normalising mistreatment for me. I was in effect groomed for narcissistic abuse and I didn’t realise it for so long. She had enmeshed her children, we had no autonomy and no understanding of personal boundaries. She used every tactic in the book. Her abuse of me and my sisters was so covert, it went unnoticed. The typical street angel, home devil scenario. Looking back now though it is obvious to me. I am piecing together memories and events and it creates a picture of sustained covert and not so covert narcissistic abuse of everyone in our family.

It has taken decades to realise all of this fully. And another year of sustained inner work and energy healings to get beyond the triggers and flashbacks.

The ‘attraction’ factor

So that is why I attracted a narcissist. Or why we attracted each other. We had experienced severe early childhood trauma. It may or may not have similarities to your own background. Whatever your background, there is usually significant childhood trauma at the root of this ‘attraction.’ When I started this healing journey, I was very reluctant to label my mother in this way. The loyalty and love that children have, to even abusive parents, is the reason why I was not fully aware of how much abuse and mistreatment I and my sisters had endured in our childhood. 

Like attracts Like?

So in terms of attraction, my vulnerabilities were a match to that of an A-grade narcissist. We both had terrible childhoods. So when people are upset at the ‘like-attracting like’ aspect, this childhood trauma is what we have in common. We were both incredibly needy of love and had been starved of connection, comfort and validation. We both had a yearning for love and feeling significant, cherished and safe. How that manifested was that I had become a people pleaser, appeaser and looking to another more powerful person for connection and validation and feeling powerless.

Trying to recreate a connection to someone who was not capable of feeling or expressing love. It was a repeat of my relationship with my mother. For his part, the ex was also very needy and starving of affection and needing to get significance from sources outside of himself by any means necessary.

The narcissist is a false self

The primary difference was that the narcissist had destroyed his true self identity and created a fake persona (fragile ego and false self) that could only act in ways to get significance and external validation. Manipulation without conscience. This is how they become energised.

In their world, you are either victim or victimiser. There’s no other way. Narcissists can never go inside  to their inner wounding,  they can never retrieve their true self,  it has been destroyed as an adaptation to survive horrific abuse. They have zero self awareness and no desire to go within.

For victims of abuse like I was, we can retrieve our true self-identity. We can reclaim our autonomy and connection to life and all of creation.  The love we have for others, we can now safely offer to ourselves. When we are healed we no longer seek a substitute fake connection to a narcissist or false self. We are no longer a match for a fake self. It takes work, curiosity and awareness. And becoming fearless and dedicated to creatting a good life on purpose.  It's time for you to come to your own rescuer.  Like I came to my own rescue.

Both sides of the same coin

Does this all make sense?

Victims and perpetrators are two sides of the same coin. There is much more I could write about on this issue. If you are reading this I hope that you can be inspired to take to your version of your healing pathway. I was very happy to take up that quest I felt I owed it to my child self to give her some comfort and knowing, it wasn’t because she was unloveable, it wasn’t because there was anything wrong with her, it wasn’t because she was always getting things wrong.  It was because she was betrayed by the person who was supposed to love and cherish her and validate her. I have long since forgiven myself for blaming myself for all of this because children do this to try and make sense of the confusion of abuse. 

'Mummy is supposed to love me, she doesn’t love me, I must be bad'. It’s the reason why we will continue to sabotage our happiness and relationship safety because we are trying to re-write history with the old broken relationship coding and fix them in the here and now. But we are adults and we can use better methods for fixing our lives. We do not need to recreate these broken relationships over and over again

You don’t need a hero, you become your own heroine. You don’t need a hero, you become your own heroine.

The cavalry isn't coming for us

Please understand that none of this is any of your fault at all. But we do have to claim our brokeness and deal with our side and deal our stuff. Healing ourselves is our responsibility. No one will come and do the work for us. It is our job. When I realised that I was as much a part of the issues as the ex, then that’s when I rolled my sleeves up and got on with my healing.

Yes, narcissists do the most despicable things but that is all on them. Blaming them is not going to help get our healing journey started. This may sound harsh but it is said with the best of intentions.  We have to take personal responsibility for ourselves. We were victims for too long. Victims are powerless and stay stuck. They also blame others for everything while not acknowledging their own part. We didn’t know any better. But when we know better we can start doing better. I stress again, it was not our fault.  But healing our wounds is our responsibility

Why does narcissism exist anyway?

This is basically the reason why narcissism exists, I needed to fully know and acknowledge what had happened in my childhood. I wouldn’t have known that without the sociopath ex coming along and breaking me down to this extent. So, if you have ever pondered the question of why narcissism exists at all, it’s for this reason.  It's to break you down so that you can repair and process your own wounding received in childhood.

We can heal, if we learn how

Thankfully, I did let the light in and I am getting to live a beautiful life and attracting wonderful relationships. In working with the parts of myself that felt unloved and unwanted. I discovered that the whole purpose of my experience was to learn to love myself. If you have children, you are genetically coded to love your children. I use this coding to love my inner child. And you can too. If I hadn’t done the work, I’d hate to think where I would be now. It makes me shudder.

If this article resonates with you and you would like to connect to hear more about how I got free from the grips of narcissism, then why not join my high vibe group in FB land here , or why not check out my youtube channel? You can view the latest video upload here.