The Neverending Spin of A Covert Narcissist
You spin me right round baby right round like a record baby..the 80’s one-hit-wonder band Dead or Alive told me how my narcissist could spin me.
I write about covert narcissism, which means I write about spin.
Spin.
Spin is a word used to describe the efforts of campaign managers on behalf of politicians. They “spin” the truth so that no matter what the facts are, their candidate looks good — or at least they don’t look bad. Spin so that whatever happens, the candidate is seen in the best light. All campaign managers must be narcissists — because narcissists can spin like no one else on earth.
Spin is also a state of mental confusion.
Spin is a plunging descent or downward spiral.
Covert narcissists sense that the word “spin” is the deal of a lifetime. Three-for-the price-of-one. They grab all three shades of spin and use them any way they can.
They spin your words. They spin you down. They spin you out of control.
Spin spin spin
Narcissists make sure they’re always perceived in the best light.
They make sure you’re always seen in the worst light.
They discard you after mounting a long, slow, relentless campaign of terror against you, known as devaluation.
When you defend yourself against their escalating attacks, they react with high drama.
They call your acts of self-defense rants.
Spin, spin, spin.
You’re not defending yourself, you’re on a rant.
You’re not a victim of their abuse. They’re a victim of your abuse.
Your measured attempts to put their unaccountable anger and rage into perspective become rants or harangues — crazy monologues directed at the narcissist, and, according to them, unprovoked.
Spin Spin Spin
I would periodically get surfeited with my covert narcissist’s noxious poison and I would feel something break inside me. I would unleash the truth I’d been holding in and holding back for weeks or months as I tried to conform to whatever version of la-la-land he had created that week. I couldn’t uphold his pretend version of reality for one more minute, and I knew it.
I would verbally vomit up the truth in one big chunk. My dogs do something similar — they’ll eat something bad and throw up what looks like a small Yule Log of organic matter onto my carpet.
It made me sick to get it out, but sicker to keep it in.
“You’re a narcissist. You’re an awful human being. You are destroying me.”
I admit, my truth bombs, (or more accurately my truth vomits) weren’t pleasant.
They were born out of fear and outrage. I was terrified — AND over time I became increasingly indignant over the stark injustice of his crimes against me.
There were consequences to his shameshifting.
I was bent and nearly broken beneath the weight of his unfounded blame, his rages, his mind games, his impromptu attacks on innocent lamps and TVs and mirrors and bedside tables — the accumulation of years lost in a single afternoon.
He said it was me.
I was the bad one.
Spin spin spin
Why was I bad? Lots of reasons. But mostly, he asserted in a desperate tone full of immense injury, I thought bad things about him.
Spin Spin Spin
“See? I knew it all along. You think bad things about me. How can I stay with someone who thinks such bad things about me? I love you but you think bad things about me and make me feel bad, I need to be with someone who makes me feel good.”
Never mind that I didn’t start out carpet bombing with these cold, hard facts.
I didn’t get there overnight. I got there after years of his abuse. I got there when I couldn’t even summon my one superpower — denial. He had an affair. I forgave him. He had another affair. That time he left. He bought a new phone and disappeared for two weeks.
Then he came back — After he banged the co-worker he left me for in a $100 hotel room he paid for with my last $100 (it didn’t work out so great. Let’s just say he hadn’t discovered the wonders of Viagra yet).
During the two weeks he was gone, I didn’t once leave my room. My son took care of me. He brought me soup and glasses of apple juice and tucked me in like a child. In a way, I was. I felt small, powerless and stunned.
Years before, I had heard a story on NPR about professional chicken wranglers. These top-tier professionals would grab a chicken by its legs and turn it upside down so quickly it had no idea what was happening.
It would induce a temporary stunned state in the chicken, allowing them to quickly dispatch it and send it on its journey to become the next generation of chicken nuggets.
Chickens are prone to stunning. It’s an evolutionary defense. In the wild, some chickens run from predators. Some hide. A few fight back (a very few — it’s why we eat them. They’re not into revolutionary resistance).
The truly traumatized birds go motionless, as though trying to blend in with the background, a kind of impulsive and self-styled DIY chicken camouflage effort in the name of self-preservation.
For two weeks. I tried to blend in with my bed. A kind of self-styled DIY camouflage effort of my own. The truth is, I FELT STUNNED. I felt upended. I felt like my head had hit a concrete wall. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t comprehend my situation. All I could do was NOT die.
Then he came back.
I was so relieved I forgot to be angry. I immediately picked back up the denial psychosis I had set down. It was right where I had left it.
I tried to act like nothing happened. That was when the real fun began.
It was all my fault.
spin spin spin
He told me every bad thing he ever thought about me — with the volume turned up to 11. He screamed at me with derision and a rage-filled aura of violence that would leave a grown man shaking in his shoes. He raged against me and kept up an ongoing and furious recitation of my flaws. That was the beginning of four years of hate-filled tantrums.
I remembered. I remembered that nothing happened in a vacuum.
I was the bad one. I had a problem. I was out to get him. I was unfair.
Spin, spin spin.
He would talk in circles. He would talk about me and point the finger at me when I tried to tell him it wasn’t right for him to disappear or flirt with other women in front of me.
If I told him how much he hurt me, he would hurt me twice as bad for saying it.
And all the while, I was the bad one.
Spin, spin, spin
Narcissists spin everything. They spin it until they look better and you look worse. However long it takes. They have infinite patience when they’re waiting for supply.
He wouldn’t let me catch my breath. I wasn’t allowed to have one good day.
Sometimes I’d be left alone for a few hours. I’d almost forget to be a quivering pile of misery. He could sense the threat of optimism.
The darkness in him would quickly come to overtake my light.
I found the strength to divorce him when the whole world looked like one grey blur, spinning faster and faster. Weeks passed that felt like seconds. Time expanded and contracted, dizzying and unrelenting.
You spin me right round baby right round like a record baby..the 80’s one-hit-wonder band Dead or Alive told me how my narcissist could spin me.
How he could spin me out spin my world upside down my very own spin doctor.
spin spin spin
Is it over? Has the earth stopped spinning yet? I don’t think it has. I don’t know if it ever will.
I feel the faint nausea of unreality wash over me as my emotional rollercoaster begins to climb, again.
I hang above the ground, uncertain of the sky and without a firm fix on the earth, poised to drop. I feel the flutter of the adrenaline rush as I fall so fast and far that I can feel the slow-motion turn of the earth.
I can feel the earth — spin.
spin spin spin
About the author:
For three decades, I was enmeshed in a marriage with a covert narcissist. Though I eventually divorced him, the lessons I learned about covert narcissism were profound and deeply personal. I hope that my writing serves as a beacon for those still navigating the murky waters of recovery or coming to terms with the haunting realities of covert emotional abuse. I also offer life coaching, specifically tailored to assist victims and survivors of such relationships. My focus is on individuals who I genuinely believe can benefit from my insights and lived experiences. For inquiries, please reach out to [email protected].