Surrounded by Kryptonite

Like many kids with a reasonable high IQ coming from cold, emotionless, and abusive upbringings, I carry baggage. There are common traits that many kids from similar or worse backgrounds share. The most famous one of us right now is JD Vance, the less famous ones are friends that I made over the course of my existence either in person or online. Many of these friends are gay and lesbian. Some are not. Most of us are reasonably successful, hold a decent job, but something is off and will always be off.

I am trying to put into words what it could be. This is based on my own observations. A hypothesis that I have not shared with anyone. Until now.

The positive aspect of having this childhood background is the ability to read a room and sense the smallest shifts in emotions and behaviors others show. You see trends much sooner than others. I for example always know what is becoming fashionable in home decor, color choices, before others even realize that a change is coming. I also know where the political landscape is going and can predict cultural shifts quite accurately. I am typically 5 years ahead. The cycle of these shifts is accelerating though, what took 10 years in the past to take hold, sometimes only takes months or a year. It is quite scary.

The same is true for friendship circles. I know why some friends opt out of being with the larger friendship group, I know why they turn more quiet, or why they all over sudden feel more comfortable to share personal stories.

For example, I was able to talk to a gay friend who I met about 12 years ago and suggested to him that he must have had a difficult childhood. He at first was hesitant, but then confided that indeed his real father was violent and his mom luckily was able to divorce when he was a kid, but he grew up fatherless. I have another friend who I felt drawn to and he, too, had a very difficult childhood with many family disasters. My best friend and husband grew up with an alcoholic father and an overbearing if not narcissistic mother. All of us are of superior intelligence, have made successful careers our own, but yet… something is not quite as successful as it could be. We have had troubles finding a reliable partner. And in one shape or another just found another Cluster B we got married to just to end up in divorce. Or we constantly seem to be dealing with narcissistic coworkers. There seems to be no escape.

All of us often have gotten cheated on both sexually and financially by significant others just as much as just people pretending to be friends.

We all have had more than one run in with narcissists and psychopaths at work often making our work miserable enough, so we had to switch jobs even when it was not immediately financially beneficial.

Why is it that narcissists seem to smell us from a mile away and leech on?

Is it that we needed more therapy? That we needed more boundaries? That we have to learn to say the one word “no”?

All of the people I described are setting boundaries regularly. In fact way more often than others. Why is that? All of us need to exclaim that we are setting a boundary way more loudly than others, too. Nearly yelling. As if we do not really believe ourselves well enough that we are setting a boundary. And it is not that I do not mean it when I set boundaries. I indeed follow through with consequences when someone breaks through boundaries I just set. So do my friends.

For the longest time I did not know why I always so loudly and assertively have to set them. People that grew up in good relationships and do not carry the baggage of an abusive and neglected childhood do not demonstrate the same behavior. They never seem to be the target of narcissists or psychopaths. They hardly ever have to loudly exclaim: do not cross this line.

Who does the narcissist pick out of a group?

Me.

JD Vance is a classical example. He is clearly smart, he knows what to do to get ahead, yet, he seems to be stepping into the dumbest traps and says often enough dumb things that get him a bad reputation. My point is, he is easily manipulated. My speculation is the following: He sees the smallest shifts in behavior and tactics of his opponent and immediately understands what is being insinuated. His ability to read between the lines and the ability to sense covert aggression (aka passive aggressiveness) is his Achilles heel.

So he reacts.

And he lets himself be played like a fiddle.

So do I.

So does everyone who feels they can “read minds”, that are a Cassandra, that have learned to see trends before anyone else even knows what is up… It is like they are living in a parallel universe or alternate reality and to the people that live in the normal reality they are overreacting or “too sensitive”.

I do believe that a child growing up in an abusive environment subconsciously picks a path to survive. There are those that protect their wellbeing by anticipating every shift in emotion by seeing the small changes in mimic or gesture. And there are those that choose the path doubling down on the abusive behavior later becoming the Cluster B disordered personality copying from their direct parent lineage. What these two different personality types have in common is that they are able to read the room equally well, but… one sees an opportunity to exploit the other sees a risk that needs to be managed.

When these two get together?

Boom.

The exploiter sees the exploitable person shift their behavior to sustain a positive situation and immediately knows that there is some new supply in the making. I think this is happening at a scale that is not noticeable by others and if so might often be interpreted as some chemistry; in particular when dealing with a man and woman.

I do not think that either party is capable of letting this subconscious positioning go. I think their natural instinct to exploit vs to protect will always win. That is why people like me always feel that they need to set boundaries nearly always in an angry and near-violent fashion.

“Do not cross this line!”

Because for them, the line has been crossed way before anyone else would even have had the ability to notice. They have been fighting boundary violations when everyone else had no clue that a conflict had started.

“Didn’t you notice what he did?”

“Didn’t you notice what he is insinuating?”

“Can’t you read between the lines?”

The answer is simple. Most people cannot read between the lines. The conflict between the narcissist and the victim is starting in a micro cosmos that is invisible to any outsider.

People like me are predestined to be picked by various narcissists over and over. Narcissist have a supply radar that will always put the spotlight on the one person in the room that can be manipulated best. After all, they are vampires trying to feed on the energy of others.

Setting boundaries does not work for most of us. Because by the time you realize you need to set one, it is already very late in the game. And all your boundary setting does is make you look like the aggressor yourself. Successful manipulators always set the trap that way. It is how they gain power.

What are your thoughts?

Do you have a cure?