Narcissistic personality disorder is defined as: a disorder in which a person has an inflated sense of self-importance.
“Narcissistic personality disorder is found more commonly in men. The cause is unknown but likely involves a combination of genetic and environmental factors. Symptoms include an excessive need for admiration, disregard for others’ feelings, an inability to handle any criticism, and a sense of entitlement. The disorder needs to be diagnosed by a professional. Treatment involves talk therapy.”
It is no secret that society values and adores men in a way perfectly tailored to them, all while destroying its women emotionally, mentally, & physically. This is not an essay on how women should hate men or to incite a riot of “not all men” and “you choose shitty men to date” from the male audience.
I completely agree. Women should not hate men, not all men are shitty and I do, in fact, choose shitty men to date. On the flip side of that coin, it is fact that women should be cautious of men, a majority of men are shitty, and shitty men choose to date me as well. And why do you think that is? Society has failed men and women alike, but chooses to sacrifice women in the name of love, as the blood required to be shed.
Narcissism is a condition, a way of being, that men have been graciously raised in. Take away the medical jargon and you have the simple definition of a man….or a small child: an excessive need for admiration, disregard for others’ feelings, an inability to handle any criticism, and a sense of entitlement. Gasp. Cue the anger, cue the fragile male ego, cue the “victim” mentality. Not all men are narcissist, but no one can deny that all men are permitted the chance, the option, to become, live, and succeed as narcissists.
Women know this, we recognize this, and we still choose these men. Society has raised women in this way of being, beginning with men that are excused from fatherhood. Through fathers that are emotionally distant or altogether absent, fathers who beat mothers knowing they are physically weaker, fathers who embrace misogyny and teach their daughters the same. And just like men learn to replace their mothers for wives, women learn to replace shitty fathers for shitty lovers.
It has been almost two years since I broke up with my narcissistic ex. I ended the relationship and decided to keep quiet about the situation; I deleted photos, blocked him, removed every trace of him, and moved on. In that moment, I decided to swallow my pain, the betrayal, the memories, and my side of the story. I decided to be graceful with my departure with no desire to expose his mistakes, the cheating, or his narcissistic behavior; erasing him from my life and hoping he would do the same in the name of healing. And then, after a conversation with a friend on the reasons women keep quiet about sexual assaults until years later, I realized the grave mistake in my actions; the mistake many women make in “keeping quiet” and “extending empathy” in situations where they have been blatantly hurt by men.
You see, the worst thing you could do to a narcissist is forget them. Ignore them and that is like a call to action for a narcissist. Like a moth to a flame, surely enough, he came looking for me; his mother, his wife, his free emotional labor, the stroke to his ego and the hole to stick his dick in. He flew cross country to “talk it out”, sent voicemails at 2 am, mailed letters/drawings to my parent’s house, texted paragraphs on paragraphs of his excuses, created an entire Instagram account of love poems, subtweeted me, stalked my Instagram stories through his own and fake accounts, wrote about me in a newsletter he sent out to friends, and the list goes on. I was shocked at the amount of effort coming from someone who, in our relationship, rarely went to these extremes to show me commitment, security, or adoration. This story is not new and, if anything, it’s a cliché in the lives of women.
“Wow, he really cares about you”
“At least he is trying to win you back”
“He is putting in effort and you shut him down”
“Women are always asking for more”
Damn straight. Women deserve more. I deserve more. He cheated on me. Plain and simple. No man or woman can deny the hurt from a betrayal like cheating. His displays of love or affection or effort or whatever you would like to call it were ways of stroking his own ego, coddling his own mistakes, and avoiding accountability for his actions. He wanted admiration for these grand efforts. He disregarded my feelings of wanting space/time away from the relationship. He lashed out at me for calling him out on who he really was in the relationship and how he selfishly benefited from me. He wrapped his narcissism in a nice box and pinned a bow on it called “I am entitled to you”.
For a moment, flip the narrative and a woman acting in this way would be deemed crazy or obsessive or (my favorite) a hoe for cheating. Cheat on a man and all hell breaks loose; the strike to a man’s ego is an unforgivable mistake. Yet, women are expected, required, and pressured to forgive a strike to her ego. They are seen as a bitch for calling him out, heartless for not giving him the benefit of the doubt, and bitter for telling her side of the story.
Even as I write this, I feel an automatic reaction emerging from within; my body goes into autopilot and my mind starts to think:
“What is the point of calling him out?”
“Now you just seem bitter and hung up on this”
“You should be the bigger person, keep quiet, and let it go”
These are exactly the responses I have been conditioned to think. Because of my silence, I have perpetuated his narcissism and continued to allow him control over my feelings. He has been able to freely paint a different narrative and romanticize a relationship that only benefited him. Society wants me to fear my own voice as a woman. It wants me to disregard the immensity of my feelings and hurt. It wants me to write myself off as “being too dramatic/angry/sensitive”. It forces me to excuse him as a “human” who “makes mistakes like everyone else”. A voice within me says “who are you to judge when you are not perfect either?” This voice is called empathy and it has been forced down women’s throats for far too long. Where has empathy ever gotten women? Does it get us promotions? Does it prevent us from getting hurt? Does it fulfill our wants and desires? Does is pay us?!
I admire Megan Thee Stallion entirely; from her i-don’t-give-a-fuck attitude to her rap verses calling for the empowerment of women, but even she can fall prey to society’s conditioning. When I first heard the story in the media, a gut feeling, one that women know far too well, told me that the story was going to be turned against her; whatever had happened, she was somehow going to be the one to blame, the one to be sacrificed in the name of passivity.
Megan Thee Stallion was shot in both her feet which could have led to major damage, possibly leaving her without the ability to walk. She decided not to press charges on the man who shot her and to remain quiet publicly about her side of the story. She wanted to extend empathy to a situation, save a Black man from a racist system intent on killing him, and grant the benefit of the doubt to someone she considered a friend. Unfortunately, this allowed her perpetrator to spin the narrative entirely. In contrast, he was intent on winning public admiration through releasing an album about the situation, gaining both notoriety and a profit. Disregarding her feelings and physical wounds, he made her out to be the “jealous and crazy one” and took control over the story through his entitlement. Where was the empathy for her being shot? Who is taking care of a Black woman from a society intent on exploiting her? Where was the benefit of the doubt for Megan?
This is the same old, tired story for women. Regardless of race, regardless of cultural differences, regardless if you are a celebrity like Megan Thee Stallion or a regular, degular, shmegular woman like me. Women lose again and again when we choose silence and empathy. Aren’t we tired of losing so much?
In my own situation, I will not sit here and deny any wrongdoing because I am an adult. I have been forced to be a grown woman for longer than I can even recall. I have traumas and insecurities that I allow into my relationships at times. I make mistakes and my poor choice in partners has been my own doing. I chose to love someone else more than I loved myself and that is my fault entirely. I made a god out of another human and willingly sacrificed myself for him. No one forced me to do any of it. I chose a shitty partner and I take accountability for my mistakes because unlike men, I have not been granted any other option.
To all of this I say, women must speak, we have to speak if we want things to change. We must use our voices in the same boisterous and entitled way men do. We have to leave our hearts, our fear of being crucified, our insecurities of being judged at the door in the same way that men do. I am not saying to detach from our emotions, which I think is what makes us phenomenal, but instead exist among society in a new way. Enter meeting rooms prepared for pushback, walk on the street looking ahead and unashamed, keep eye contact with men instead of looking away, and tell our stories, full of all the “crazy and drama and sensitivity”.
We have to take accountability for the ways in which we have also perpetuated this narcissistic behavior from men and control the misogyny we allow in our lives. Women have no control over being raped and assaulted, over being grossly underpaid and denied a seat at the table, but we do have control over speaking up about our experiences. We can decide to stop buying into our past traumas and feeding our insecurities. We can choose to end the cycle of being quiet and empathetic. We can stop granting the benefit of the doubt to men who are blatantly unwilling to rise above their narcissistic conditioning.
Far too many women have been sacrificed in the name of keeping quiet and being the bigger person. Let us decide to tell.
