Have you ever wondered if there was something unique that drew the narcissist to you in the first place?  Was it your eyes?  Your smile?  Your hair?  Perhaps it was your laugh or the way you looked that particular day when you first met.  Well, I hate to break it to you but it was none of the above.  Sure, no one wakes up of a morning and says, “Hmmm, I’d like to find someone to share intimacy with to whom I’m not the least bit attracted,” even the emotionally devoid narcissist.  Yes, physical attraction did play a small part but it was not the deciding factor.  The reality is, the narcissist chose you because you are an empath.  “What’s an empath?”

In a nutshell, an empath is someone who can instinctively and intuitively sense another person’s emotional and or psychological state.  While most people have an innate ability to sense another person’s mood to varying degrees, a true empath can know more about you than you can possibly imagine or could ever say in words or would need to.  Empaths don’t just sense your pain, joy, frustration, fear, anxiety…the whole gambit of emotions and emotional states, they can also share in the reality of that state with you.  What do I mean?

I remember one time with my narcissist.  We had spent a wonderful day together but it was getting late and she had to go to work at the college that evening.  She asked me to be there when she got home.  Of course, I happily obliged.  9:15’ish rolled around and she called as she was leaving.  The conversation went something like this,
Me:  “Hey!”
Her:  “Hey…”
Me:  “Babe, what’s wrong?”
Her:  *Complete and utter sobbing and indiscernible words*
I tried to calm her as she drove and was finally able to coax out of her that she’d had an absolutely horrible evening.  The details aren’t important.  She talked between tears as she drove the 45 minutes home.  When she got to the apartment, she pulled herself together enough to walk up the three flights of stairs and make it inside.  I met her at the door.  Once it closed, she fell apart in my arms.  I just held her.  We stood there like that for what seemed an eternity; her crying, me holding her.  I went to let go of her and she held me tighter.  She sobbed into my chest, “Don’t let go.”  I gently pushed her away, knelt and removed the boots from her feet, then led her by the hand to the couch.  I sat down then had her lie down with her head in my lap.  We sat there in the dark, her talking to me, me listening to her as I gently stroked her hair and her face.  Within about 30 minutes, I had her smiling.  Another 15 minutes, she was laughing.  That is just one of a number of very beautiful evenings with her I will always reflect upon with great fondness.

I’m sure you have similar memories with your narcissist.  Moments in time and in the relationship where you not only immediately sensed their emotional upheaval, you also shared in their pain.  They will be one of the many emotional and physical highs we keep talking about that will be interspersed with a multitude of lows.  But let me ask you this, when it came time and you needed the narcissist in that same capacity, were they there for you?  I’m going to venture a guess and say probably not.  Mine sure wasn’t.  In the 4-½ years we spent together, I cannot recall one time she was there for me when I truly needed her.  And you see, that is what was so special about you to your narcissist.  That is what was so special about me to my narcissist.  I cared for her.  We genuinely cared about them, their well-being, their happiness, their health, their hurt, their triumphs and failures, their achievements and shortcomings.  But short of a few hollow words of encouragement, was your narcissist ever truly there for you?

I once asked my narcissist, “If you hadn’t met me when you did, if someone else had met you that same day before me, and listened to you, been understanding of your situation, would you have chosen them, instead?”  She looked at me a little puzzled.  I continued, “I mean, was it me you needed or would anyone have sufficed?”  It won’t take much for you to imagine her reply.  “You were the answer to my prayers.”  Perhaps you asked your narcissist a similar question, hoping to hear that you were the answer to their prayers.  My beautiful friend, I’m sincerely sorry to tell you this but anyone who would have listened or been empathetic enough for your narcissist would have garnered their attention and their affection just the same as you.  I know.  Those are words that hurt.  But they are nonetheless true.

We desperately desire to believe that we were the narcissist’s one special one, that one soul whom they had been seeking their entire life – perhaps they even said those words to you.  I know mine did many times.  But the reality is that we were nothing more than another empath in an endless parade of empaths, or empathetic people, in the narcissist’s life whom the narcissist hand-picked to be their next victim.  So, yes. Perhaps in that regard, we were somewhat unique to them.  But where are they now?  Moved on.  With someone else, telling them the same well-rehearsed series of manipulative lies and deceptive truths, luring them into that inner sanctum for the express purpose of sucking as much positive energy and life out of them before they will also be cast aside just as we were.

If there is any consolation to be taken from this, know that theirs is, and always will be, an empty and hollow existence of shallow relationships built on tactics and surreptitious agendas that are geared to do nothing more than fuel the narcissist’s ego and inflate their false sense of bravado.  Their next source will be sucked dry, just as you were, just as I was, and then cast aside for the next (most likely) secondary source to be promoted to a primary source.  Wash.  Rinse.  Repeat.

So take stock in knowing that you are a single, beautiful soul in an endless sea of apathetic and unfeeling people.  You are quite literally one in a million, maybe ten million.  Yours is the spirit of sensitivity, of knowing the pain of another person with just one look.  Yes, you are indeed unique.  And, unlike the narcissist, yours will one day be a wonderfully amazing life replete with love, joy, and bliss.  So, for now, take all the time you need to recover from your ordeal.  You deserve it.  Take time to search your soul.  Take time to rediscover the amazing gift that is you.  The ravishing, gorgeous, graceful person who is the you that the narcissist saw and had to have all to themselves.  Because, guess what…somewhere out there is another empath who is praying for you to come into their heart and into their life, not just someone to fill a void, an emptiness, as with our narcissist.  They are looking for you.  They are praying to find you.  Heal.  Then go find them.