u/Happy_Artichoke809

Since I’ve been dealing/ dealt with other narcissists in my life, I’ve started wondering whether this person might also have been a narcissist - which is why I’m posting this and asking for perspectives. Because I felt severely taken advantage of, towards the end I said some angry things, which makes me wonder if I’m narcissistic: please read the whole post, thank you!

I was with someone who, especially in the beginning, was extremely loving, affectionate, and attentive. It felt intense and very close very quickly- he definitely love bombed me. (Some time has thankfully passed since this relationship ended)

At the same time, these things were happening:

• I cooked for him about 6 -8 times a month and let him stay at my place more often while he cooked about twice a month for me. We sort of seeped into this dynamic, partially my fault for continuing this despite no similar effort or making it feel like it’s fine when he should have done at least a little more than he was doing. 

•He also sometimes made me pay for more expensive things or outings and always kept a meticulous watch on when I would pay or forget to pay at a restaurant.

•I always cooked fresh food for him weekly and put lots of effort in the meals and made creative, tasty large meals and dessert while he gave me leftover salad and leftovers regularly.

•Ironically, he still complained about the price of oat milk he bought for me being expensive while doing much less. He thought he was paying more than I was in the relationship !

When he did cook something fresh for me, saying thank you once wasn’t enough. He wanted me to say thank you again.(didn’t happen all the time but it did happen)

•!!He still thought I was using him just because he once fixed my Rollos at the windows or thought he was paying more for things, which was not true, I only twice! during the whole relationship forgot to pay something.

• I also stayed with him despite him having severe impotence issues, and he did not get treatment of any sort. Additionally, I was ironically much more sexually generous than him!

• There were serious red flags of cheating that would make anyone suspicious and I addressed these a few times in a kind and gentle manner. This was too much for him.

• He dumped me from one day to the next when days before he made several future plans, and kept a recent picture of us on the fridge and told me he would make our photo his profile picture on Social Media. He asked me if i still liked him and to please not leave him because he became anxious at my discussions about his fidelity and frantic I would leave him, all while I remained calm and kind. He said he is no longer was interested and was adamant about this. By this time i had fixed his impotency issue, shortly afterwards he dumped me.

•The cherry on the cake? He was consistently jealous for absolutely no reason and asking me monitoring-like questions about what I did on certain days every week, as well as other covert control like questions. When he didn’t know something about what i did he would drill me down with questions.

• !He told me murderers are only people, he joked that he was a dangerous man and had no moral compass, that he knew my passwords by now because he saw me type them, asked me about other passwords and wanted to know who else has access to my keys.

• He repeatedly initiated phone calls with me and always sighed at the very beginning of the call making me question why we are having the call.

• At least 8 times I thought he gaslighted me about trivial things, I started to question my perception of reality repeatedly. This has not occurred in other relationships. Occasional occurrences like this did occur but not like this.

• He consistently talked down to me, like I don’t know much, but in very subtle ways.

All of this happened while he remained very calm, gentle, and affectionate on the surface. That cognitive dissonance made it really hard to process what was actually happening.

I still sometimes question whether I was the one more in the wrong, even though there’s clear evidence of behavior that wasn’t okay.

Toward the end, I became very angry after being abruptly discarded despite all the recent future plans. I said things I strongly regret, and part of me felt very guilty about that. Another part of me felt like I had been pushed to a point and got severely taken advantage of, so I finally let everything out. Making me wonder if that makes me narcissistic? 

So I’m trying to understand: does this pattern sound like he is a narcissist, or something else?

Thank you very much 

(Either she is gaslighting me or she is minimising things to an extreme level and believing it.)

I can’t believe I’m even writing this, but I’ve reached a point where I genuinely don’t know how to process what’s happening anymore

Growing up, my mother repeatedly kept me in harmful environments for the sake of chronically ill family members. She also suffered because of those choices, but there was never a real necessity for it, she could have found another way to take care of them/ send them to a Nursing home.

She also very regularly gaslights me, and seems to believe what she is saying at times. She explodes and gets angry/ shouts all the time over the most small things, so it’s very difficult to deal with her. This was my life dealing with her.

She believed she was doing the right thing for others, while in reality she was putting both herself and me in harm’s way.

Now something happened that feels like a new level.

A few hours ago, I went on a short hike alone and realized that a very intoxicated, unstable-looking man was following me. I texted her about it. Her first response was: “I didn’t know you went hiking.” For context, I’m a woman in my early thirties.

I didn’t reply after that. I wanted to see how she would react, because this matters to me.

Hours passed. She called once. I didn’t answer. Hour passed again, she didn’t follow up.

Later, I called her back. Her explanation was that she didn’t want to be “overbearing” because in the past she used to worry too much-waiting up for me until early morning when I went out to party. People told her not to be overbearing, so now she avoids it.

Her logic is this: if I don’t respond, it means I’m fine. If I call, then there’s a problem. She literally said, she thinks that since she sent her text message and I didn’t reply it means I’m fine!

To me, that makes no sense in a situation where I explicitly said I was being followed by a drunk man. It feels like not taking danger seriously at all.

There’s also another recent example. I had a serious leg injury. At first she said she would help, but then shifted the focus to her own condition and argued with me for 20 minutes. When your daughter is injured, the priority shouldn’t be arguing or redirecting attention to yourself.

I genuinely don’t understand how someone can react this way. It feels extremely selfish and disconnected from the seriousness of these situations, and I don’t know how to make sense of it anymore.

There’s also a pattern of not taking serious situations seriously. We had a cat that became visibly very ill-losing a lot of weight, isolating itself, and clearly not doing well. She kept insisting that it was nothing and that everything was fine. Days later, when it became undeniable, we took the cat to the vet, and shortly after, it died.

Has anyone experienced something similar? How do you deal with this? I keep less contact to her because I know how harmful it is, but in a serious situation I at least thought it would be fine. Little did I know I can’t even depend on her in a dangerous situation.

I often wonder about whether my mother is a narcissist or has some personality disorder- upon hearing that I have a strong injury she first said she would come by and help, followed by how she is now sick and older these days (she does have a serious illness) but it just went on. We kept talking about that and she kept saying how she is sick and I cannot expect much which I find unusual and a lack of empathy to make herself the subject of attention when I’m severely injured, and to have an argument for 20 mins. I would think a normal person would worry about the injured person and not cause a fight.

She also constantly gaslights me, because she cannot admit to being wrong even about the most unusual small things. I also thought it wasn’t the case until I literally would have her tell me something that I could very clearly hear a few mins before, only to tell me she didn’t after, she does this all the time now. Also, when I confront something she will conveniently deny what happened before and only forgets what would go against her in arguments. She never forgets anything else.

For the sake of sick family members, which she could have helped in different ways she allowed us to remain in severely emotionally abusive and harmful situations. She paints herself as a victim, which she really was because she put herself in such a situation but there was no need to go through that. Still, for those family members she went through hell just thinking she’s doing the right thing.

She regularly used my weaknesses against me, even when I was a teenager. She also told me horrible things when she was angry.

She will get triggered by the smallest most mundane things and isn’t afraid to cause a scene in public and say she will leave and go home.

When she gets triggered there is this aggressive tone that is basically talking very loud which turns into shouting and her face shifts and it looks so unpleasant and aggressive, she will get very verbal and will randomly freak out, this happens all the time. She doesn’t see anything wrong with her behaviour, she thinks it’s completely normal and will apologise sometimes for certain things as well as the really harmful situations she put me in.