You won't consider what a nightmare certain trips with the narcissist can be when you first meet them. Instead, you'll be sold the dream; the idea that everything you do together will be a fairytale.
I'm told time and time again by all of you that this is simply not the case, and I want to expand on that today. There are 4 places where your trip with a narcissist is going to go wrong, no matter what lengths you go to, to stay afloat.
Your life will be made miserable by the right setting, audience, and pressure on you. The narcissist knows exactly what they're doing, so listen up and prepare yourselves.
The mistake was thinking it'd be a fun trip
Oh boy, and that is a tough mistake to make, but so common with people who deal daily with narcissists.
"I thought it'd be a nice trip. I had no reason to believe he was going to behave the way he did, treat me the way I was treated, and to make out like everything was my fault."
"He made my life hell on the way to my family event. I was told I couldn't do anything right, and that nobody would love me. As soon as we got there, he'd charmed everyone within five minutes of arriving, and I had to sit there and endure this pretence until we left and he yelled at me in the car all the way home."
Two different clients' stories, both with the same thing in common:
They both knew what it was like to take a trip with a narcissist and have it all go wrong.
With narcissists, they do not like anything upstaging them. Trips are usually big, right? They're exciting and new and shiny, and the narcissist is not in comparison, but the problem really is that they're comparing themselves with a trip in the first place.
You leave to go, and you're unaware that you're heading into a battlefield the narcissist has set up for you.
Whether they pull you aside, or call you out in front of people, you hear the narcissist say:
"You always do this."
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"Why are you being this way?"
"I'm just kidding. Why do you have to make everything such a big deal?"
"Stop making a scene. You're embarrassing yourself."
See? You're the issue. What are your choices? You're on the trip, you don't want to make it worse, and so you smile and do your best to act normally.
The question is:
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Why should you have to act at all?
1The table at the restaurant
Here we go, going in strong at number one!
A restaurant is like a playground to a narcissist. They love to walk in and feel as though they own the place, and by you trailing in behind them (as you always will), you get seated and are stuck with their company for the next few hours.
You're in a room with people you don't know, where there is always a certain vibe. People are enjoying themselves, chatting quietly, and whatever the narcissist does is not supposed to get your volume levels rising. That's why it's a brilliant environment for narcissists to make sure everything goes wrong for you.
You can't leave without it looking like a dramatic exit. You can't cry because everyone will then be looking at you. You're pinned in for the entirety, and the narcissist knows it.
And so it begins, right? They criticize you to no end, and even the serving staff.
The food will be too this, or not enough that. Whatever you order gets dismissed, or you're told is gross.
They will use that opportunity to start a conversation with you about everything that's wrong with you, or everything that you're not.
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Of course, they smile and deliver their cruel, cutting words naturally so nobody around them suspects, but you know. You're hearing it all, and you're tolerating it with a forced smile and a thudding heart.
If you get home and raise the topic, you're blamed for overreacting or ruining the evening.
2Long journeys or road trips
Cars… a place of nightmares for victims of narcissistic abuse.
As a client of mine once eloquently put it:
"A car is an enclosed space! It's like being trapped with the one person you're trying constantly to get away from!"
She's right, there is no exit all the while that car is moving, or you're on any form of transport with them.
Long road trips need you to get to your destination, so you're equally as locked in if you're in that situation, too.
"We need to talk."
You hear those words, you're travelling at 70mph along the freeway, and you know you're in it for the long haul. The trip doesn't appeal to you any more, but it's too late to take it back; you're on the road.
Your position in that passenger seat is, as a client once told me, "The worst place to be." You can't even call someone to vent or chat about life because you have a constant pair of ears right next to you wanting to know every word you're saying.
If you have to endure any kind of long journey with a narcissist, please remember that the only good thing about it will be the music, the snacks, and the gas station breaks. Other than that, you'd better lock in for one hell of a terrible time.
3Any event involving work
Work is the best performance stage for any narcissist; they love to take you along to any work event as their prop, too.
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Your job is to:
- Be quiet.
- Stay small.
- Don't outshine them.
- Don't have too many opinions.
- Agree with the narcissist.
- Laugh when they make jokes.
- Don't get any more attention than the narcissist gets.
Whether you like it or not, you are a part of the narcissist's image here, and you'll never be able to do everything right. The whole night will instead be about you having to, yet again, walk on eggshells.
4The family gathering
Oh boy, what a place to keep 'til last.
And this is the painful truth:
It doesn't matter what place the gathering is, it only matters that there is a gathering at all.
The narcissist doesn't want to go. They complain about the attendees.
They complain to you that they feel unwell. They bitch and moan about their brother or father who are both 'toxic' (the irony).
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You drive all the way there having to listen to them moan about why they even have to go in the first place, and when you get there and are greeted with the smiles of relatives, all you want to do is curl up and take a nap.
Instead, you have to paint on a smile and pretend everything's okay, when it's not.
People then start asking you what's wrong. You're not yourself. You're quiet.
You look tired. The narcissist agrees, and tells people that you're stressed and snappy lately.
See how it all works out for them?
