Narcissistic and Sociopathic Abuse Survivors Community Group
This is a S.O.N.S.A. Group - Survivors of Narcissistic and Sociopathic Abuse. People who have Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) and/or Antisocial Personality Disorder (APD) create relationships of inevitable harm. This group is for those who are recovering from such relationships.
I was involved in a relationship with a narcissist some years ago .. I escaped after two years and have not looked back!
However, my current partner of two years is starting to display some rather worrying traits, and I don't know if it's hyper vigilance on my part or whether I'm actually dealing with a another anti social.
Some of the red flags I have seen so far are :
1. Competiveness - He turns everything into a competition. We might be watching a game show and he literally competes with me on answering the questions, and is quite smug if he gets them right and I don't .. it's becoming tedious.
2. Undermining achievements - I've worked hard these past few weeks to lose weight, I have now gone down a dress size and am inspired to continue, and he supports me by saying 'the first few weeks are easy, the weight just drops off'. When I called him out on this, he did a classic gas lighting manoeuvre and said I had misunderstood what he meant.
3. Nitpicking - Everything from the food I cook, to what music I lsten to comes under his scrutiny. This is someone who is in his mid 40's and still lives at home wth his parents, his mother still does his washing and cooks his meals. He has never stood on his own two feet, and yet he feels qualified to criticise with authority on just about every subject in life.
4. Omnipotency - His opinion is the only one that matters in the whole WORLD .. everyone else's is wrong!
5. Egotistical - He turns every conversation towards himself and his 'very limited' life experiences .. often repeating the same stories over and over again (yawn) .. I've taken to shutting him down by telling him he's already told me but it doesn't stop him.
6. Lazy - He's incredibly lazy, and is always late even for work. He's been in the same job for 18 years and has not progressed onto tasks with more responsibility, but he talks like the place would fall apart without him!
7. The silent treatment - He is a reserved type of person so his weapon of choice is the silent treatment. He once threatened suicide when I told him I would leave.
8. Rudeness - He will contradict me in front of people, and seems to get pleasure from publicly correcting my mistakes. He has done this in front of my family members even ... my brother was unimpressed and thought it was rude and inappropriate.
I could go on ... rest assured I fully intend to dump him in the coming weeks ... thankfully, I started to unravel my emotions from the relationship as soon as the red flags started to appear, and I've cut down the amount of time we spend together. I've stopped having sex with him and have told him several times that things really don't seem to be working out, and he's clinging on for dear life despite my obvious loss of interest.
Does it sound like I've bagged myself another anti-social?? .. If so, then getting rid of him may not be an easy feat at all!
He made a comment about my weight last week (I quote: 'You weren't exactly thin when I met you' after I tried to tell him that he made me feel unmotivated and drained, and have gained a considerable amount of weight since I met him. I asked him out of interest if his ex had gained any weight during their relationship - I was stunned when he said 'about eight stone' .. he then said 'her being anorexic was far from healthy' .. he then got defensive and said 'are you blaming me for your weight gain?'
Last night we were talking, and I brought up his comment, and he flat out denied saying it - even accused me of making things up. He said he would never say such a thing to anyone, and that I must of heard him wrong, then stormed off in a angry mood - refusing to talk about it anymore!
He DEFINITELY said it .. whether he chooses to remember or not! And I know we all say stuff in anger that we don't mean. if he'd acknowledged it, it really wouldn't have been a big deal But denying it made me start to second guess myself, maybe I had got it wrong after all I thought! But after thinking about it more deeply - he's either genuinely forgotten or he's lying and too much of a coward to own up to it.
I told him I'd mentioned it to my brother and his reaction quickly escalated - it was like he cared more about what others might think of him than the actual damage caused by such a comment. He convinced me that I'd got it wrong and made me promise I'd explain as much to my brother .. but I haven't got it wrong .. he did say it! - I don't know how to get him to admit it though! He's a liar plain and simple.