15. This Paradoxical List...

Narcissists use EVERYTHING at their disposal (logic included) to further their narcissistic causes.

Narcissists are halls of mirrors. No sense applying logic to them. No sense applying empathy, emotions, straight thinking. It's all useless.

This list is the embodiment of the most ancient logical paradox: a liar who reveals himself as such: "I always lie" is an impossible sentence. It is also the premise of this list.

It is through this crude mechanism that I am trying to help you all, victims of narcissism, cope with your past. I allow you to get close to a narcissist - without being harmed. You re-enact your conflicts and resolve them with a real life narcissist - but without the usual risks. I am burning fire - but behind a glass, safely.

16. The Narcissist as Body Snatcher

The narcissist affects his victims by infiltrating their psyche, by penetrating their defenses. Like a virus, it establishes a new strain within his/her victims. It echoes through them, it talks through them, it walks through them. It is like the invasion of the body snatchers. You should be careful to separate your selves from the narcissist inside you, this alien growth, this spiritual cancer that is the result of living with a narcissist. You should be able to tell apart your real you and the YOU assigned to you by the narcissist. To cope with him/her, the narcissist forces you to "walk on eggshells" and develop a false self of your own. It is nothing as elaborate as his False Self - but it is there, in you, as a result of the trauma and abuse inflicted upon you by the narcissist.

next: Excerpts from the Archives of the Narcissism List Part 6