Narcissists' lack of object constancy

One thing that makes me really mad is the narcissist's inability to comprehend a world view where everything isn't black or white, all or nothing.

I work really hard to manage the family property by myself, doing all the yardwork year after year. The narcissist won't help and throws tantrums and calls me names if I ask her to help out. And every time she sees one dead plant she declares that "all our plants are dead." Even annuals that die at the end of their season are declared failures because she can't see that they are covered in seeds so we will have more flowers next year.

I had a successful year in the garden and only lost one small tree to circumstances out of my control. The narcissist saw that dead tree and then stood in a yard full of trees and said "I can't believe all our expensive trees are dead." It makes me want to scream and tear her face off because she never sees the positive results of my hard work.

Her tiny brain is so limited that when she is looking at one dead plant she can't simultaneously believe that there are plants alive less than a foot away. This is the kind of thinking that makes narcissists say you always or never do something when it isn't true. This is the type of people who promote racism and hate crimes. If you substitute a person for the plant in this scenario, you see why if narcissists see something they don't like in one person, they will say that an entire ethic group or minority are evil based on one specimen.

I know the narcissist has a cognitive handicap and her false statements do not diminish my achievements but it still pisses me off that she has to constantly declare "all" our plants dead when there are literally hundreds of live plants that she photographs to show off on social media to pretend she has a posh life. Grrrrr!

Perhaps I should explain what I meant by object constancy. It refers to how a narcissist cannot understand that one object can have good and bad qualities at the same time. That's why they idealize or demonize you instead of having an accurate idea of a your real qualities. When I first read this, so many things im my life made sense.

The narcissist in my family is quick to denounce things at the first hitch. If you offend her once, she forgets every nice thing you ever did. If one part of the house needs maintenance, she declares the entire house a piece of junk and talks about burning it down even though we don't have anywhere else to live. She will be happy with a new car one day and on the second day say it was a lemon and she was cheated (it's the quick version how they flip flop in their view of personal relationships).

And the way she denounces the garden is because she can't understand that there is a cycle of growth and dormancy, and generations of plants that are born, produce offspring, and die. She cannot understand that there isn't a garden in the world that hasn't had a plant die. To a narcissist 1 failure and 99 successes amount to 100% failure. Just as one flaw in an otherwise good person makes them 100% evil in the narcissist's eyes. I have been trying to grow thicker skin and accept that she cannot see the world accurately or logically and her words mean nothing. She tends to drop the "all our plants are dead" bomb when I'm in a good mood and not expecting it so it catches me off guard and ruins my sense of accomplishment.

Yep looks like she is annoying. I have many narcissistic and sociopathic traits, but I dont think I am like that.

Why u keep contact with person? Is your boss or something ?

I am so sorry you live like this, tending the garden but not being tended you yourself in your relationship. There's something so poignant & symbolic about the garden, the young trees alive and the annuals passing away no matter what humans do, that being their nature. Like the annuals, we only have one life. To me, Object Constancy is what babies learn playing peek a boo, but which damaged adults ( like me) struggle with: that when someone is physically gone, they still keep you in mind and you still keep them in mind. I think of the cruel way you are treated as " splitting" .

Sadly, often the kind of thinking you are talking about is taught to someone. It is also something actually taught in school where a student is expected to feel good about getting everything right and feeling bad about whatever they did not get right. People often handed back tests and papers marked with red that can send a message to a young mind "your work is not good enough it's all ruined now with these red marks".

It's important that when you come across this kind of individual you are getting from them what they were actually taught to think. It could have come from a parent or from teachers they experienced while they were trying to learn.

Yeh,some people do not have a clue about how certain things are done,but portray themselves as"I know it all".I have such a person in my life who even tells the name of plants wrong.Apparently he considered himself an expert in gardening.I like gardening.I dared to correct this guy once or twice.Later I found out certain plants were dead.I showed him proudly the Jacko lantern that I was growing in my backyard and told him I wanted to carve my homegrown pumpkins for decorating my front porch.Two days later I went to check on my pumpkins and found out that the branches carrying fruits on them were severed???????There is absolutely no way to communicate with this people normally.They are toxic .

It's a family member I can't avoid for complicated reasons. She's being a real ***** today again. I can't say anything random without her accusing me of spending money which she doesn't even have the right tp control. She has a perverse way of twisting everything I say. Like if I say I saw a new product on a website or there's something nice down the road, she goes into a rant about me spending money we dont have as of talking and thinking actually costs money. That's why she's such a ***** about the garden. If a plant dies, she sees it was wasted money. When plants grow well she sees it as a natural course of events and doesn't believe it's because I spent years looking after the bloody plants.

Yeah, the thing with the babies is object permanance which is very similar to object constancy. It's a bit scary when you say humans are annuals. I think we are more like perennials becuase we tend to live a long time but even perennials have limited lifespans because nothing lasts forever. Narcissists probably can't accept that because the truth about the world scares them. If they know every life is limited they would feel pressure to make the most of it instead of making themselves and everyone else miserable during our only chance to live. Maybe that's why they treat every loss or failure as a bit unnatural mistake and has to find someone to blame for it.

Yeah. I can see that it sort of came from a parent who spoiled her. She hates him now and would never admit to being like him but I see her saying things he said as if they her own opinions and acting more and more like him. And they both do this thing where they yell at someone or hit someone and say the It's not their fault because the victim "made" them do it. It's sad for her, but I'm so sick of it. I've been trying to keep in mind that story about scorpion sphaving to sting because it's their nature and remember I will probably get stung every time I encounter her and try not to take it personally.

He cut off your pumpkins on purpose? Some people just can't bear to see others succeed. The person I'm dealing with always says that everything I do will definitely fail. There's this thing I've done hundreds of times for the family business. Every time I'm about to start doing it, she says I will fail and clients will sue us. When the project succeeds, she forgets that she tried to stop me doing it and gloats that our company is the best in the field. Then she opposes the next project and predicts 100% failure until it's complete and the cycle goes on and on. She doesn't seem to have the ability to learn or remember anything positive I've done. But she's very quick for forget anything bad she did. When I get recognition from other people, she says it was rigged or unfair as if her world will collapse if I'm not dumber than she is.

Was the pumpkin guy your neighbor? He reminds me of an old guy I met who thought he was an expert in everything and wouldn't stop telling me what to do with my garden and my personal life. If he didn't like a certain plant, he'd tell me to get rid of it. He even told me not to landscape some land I owned when I didn't ask his opinion. When I didn't listen he said he knew best what was good for me. But he's not my family so I threw him out of my life. I felt bad for him because he seemed lonely and really clingy but then he sent this email out of the blue saying all my life choices were wrong and that I had made a huge mistake not letting him be a part of my life. I like how you seem to think like me about gardening. Maybe we should be friends.

The pumpkin guy was a member of my extended family,who lived in our town and visited us.His wife was a very nice and compassionate woman.I liked her. In the beginning I never doubted this guy.When ever I corrected him casually in a normal conversation,things would happen.When he told me it's a peony,I corrected him that it was Camellia shrub and peonies are underground tubers.He said wow squash.......I told him.....no,that's Jacko lantern pumpkin.He said look daylily......I corrected him...no,that's Asiatic lily.Things like that.I never meant to contradict or put him down.I was just giving him the correct info.And he never showed anger ,so I took some time to figure out and put two and two together after many incidents like this.The plants were found dead the next day.You know the pumpkin story already.Phew....I know it is exhausting to deal these people.

Yeah, it is exhausting. I'm so angry today because I have to take care of things she buys and refuses to help clean or maintain. When I ask her to help, she gives me the cold shoulder for days or weeks as if I am a bad person for asking her to help out as she should.

Thanks for explaining about the pumpkin guy. I was curious about what happened. He seems like an insecure know-it-all. I hope he's out of your life now. The guy I mentioned who kept telling me what to do; there were some serious accidents and incidents after I ignored him and he said I was making a huge mistake rejecting his advice. I did wonder briefly if he could have sabotaged my property but it seemed to extreme and coincidental and the guy was really old he was inlikely to habe trespassed without me knowing. The timing was just odd. In your case it does seem like he takes revenge for slights to his ego and as a relative he had access to your garden. So sorry about your plants. It's awful losing your work like that.

Maybe next time grow something really poisonous to touch and correct him when he talks about it? Just kidding. :P

Maybe I should grow poison ivy.LOL.just kidding.I am really sorry for the tough situation you are facing.I learned a lesson with this garden incidents.They still like to visit me because they have a very good time in my home .I do like his wife she is sweet but I avoid and make excuses when they want to visit.I felt like he is punishing me for being a good host.So now they visit once in a while and I make sure to talk very less with the guy.

I am an avid gardener, I love to garden, and can my produce, and my narcissist husband loves to rip my plants out of the ground and cut my fruit tree down, just to spite the fact that I may show success.

I am sorry to hear your struggles with a narcissist. My husband is a narcissist; for a day I will be the most amazing thing in the world in his eyes then at the drop of a hat I will become his target. A target to drill all his hate at. Any small weakness he can find he will attack and describe how worthless and pathetic I am until he brings me to my knees. I try to avoid defending myself as it only makes the blows stronger. Narcissist will attack their targets for any reason, from dying plants to some idea they have made up in their head. The goal is to put their target below them to keep them in their shadow and never let them feel they have the right to stand tall. It isn't because the plant died or the fact that I didn't cook the perfect burger , it is about the attack, the need to keep us doubting ourselves, and not allowing us to feel any since of pride.

I'm sorry to hear of your struggles with a Narcissist.

((( safe hugs )))

I'm sorry to hear of all your struggles with those who have narcissism.

(((safe hugs)))

My mother is of the covert/vulnerable narcissist kind. Her other children (my half-siblings) say that she has that "martyr complex." My mom comes off as really sweet, but she's also a pathological helper who takes pride in "sacrificing" her own pleasures by helping out everyone else. She abandoned her previous husband's children because, when they were around 10 years old or younger (there were 5 kids at the time), they reported to me and others that she asked them who they'd rather live with - their father/her husband or her. She divorced her ex-husband because he cheated on her with her own sister/my aunt/her children's aunt. My mother played the victim role (instead of being a mother with joint custody) by saying that no one loved her, not even her kids. While it does sound sad, she neglected her children's emotional needs.

Then comes along another guy, my father, who was abusive but kind at other times (that is, when he wasn't drinking). My mother and father met after my mother sought fortune-telling advice from my father's mother (my paternal grandmother). My mother stayed with her abusive second husband (my father) and played the role of sacrificial helper and victim from beatings. My mother hardly had time to show us children any affection; she had to take care of her husband/my dad. My father, as abusive as he was, showed me more affection than my mother - mind you, not always the right kind of affection, but sometimes.

Then flash forward to today, and my mother finds me to be a disgrace and shame to the family because I wound up being disabled. She reminded me about that a month before my 45th birthday. I told her that what she said hurt, but she went off to compare me to every other family member who is successful, including my sister. Those she's ridden off like me, including one or maybe two of her five previous children (my half-siblings), eventually died of premature causes (disease- and accident-related). I'm not sure if she had even attended their funerals, as that would have been something I remembered, but I didn't. Then again, I have DID and PTSD, so my memory isn't that great.

Narcissistic injuries occur when a person isn't able to get their needs met as children, and somehow something is engrained in their personalities or whatever that they need to heal those narcissistic injuries by being the best, or being the center of attention, or being in control and therefore controlling, or putting others down so that they look all smart and in control, or trashing other people when they are perceived as "embarrassments to them." They need their narcissistic supply, and when things get boring to them, or when they see something they can shoot down (like your plants, or like me - the disabled, black sheep of the family), they will because it pseudo-heals their narcissitic injuries and feeds their narcissistic supply. They crave attention - even if it is negative attention, and they are cunning at getting reactions out of people. They exaggerate and lie sometimes, and they lack empathy, even if they may feel it a little more than those with ASPD. They feel empathy when it makes them look good to feel it.

There are also the communal narcissists who appear to be all loving, caring, helping, and community-oriented, only, they feed their narcissistic supply by being admired by the flock of their church (for example), or being admired as the founder of some helpful charity organization or being admired as some doctor, researcher, hero, rescuer, etc. They want to be the "good" people of the earth, the ones who are praised like gods or intelligent healers. When they don't get the attention they need, they wind up being depressed and/or taking risks to make them famous again. They may even go to extremes by saying that everyone else is a heathen, evil, sick, mentally ill, blasphemous, etc., especially if they lose their narcissistic supply of attention and praise.

There are many differnt types of narcissistic traits in all of us, but for those who are truly narcissistic, they cannot stand to see themselves as anything but good and/or the best and/or in control of everyone else. They don't care about hurting someone else because what matters is that they feel good. Whomever enabled them in childhood taught them that they were the only important thing that mattered. Whomever created such repeated narcissistic wounding, especially during early childhood, taught the person to hunger and crave for the attention they should have received properly during childhood. Their swinging from satisfaction with narcissistic supply to dissatisfaction with a lack of narcissistic supply is the Dr. Jekyll (good) and Mr. Hyde (bad) we see in them. The more they try to cover up the Mr. Hyde in themselves (the bad person they never want to feel or perceive within themselves), the more they try to work at being the best Dr. Jekyll they can be, even at the expense of others. Little do they know that their strivings to be Dr. Jekyll only bring out more of the Mr. Hyde in them - at least to those who feel their pain.

Narcissistic abusers who harm children, harm significant others, harm friends, and harm peers do a lot of psychological damage. They even cunningly attempt to make their victims out to be the narcissist, so as to cover their own lies up. They're great at gaslighting, playing mind games, brainwashing, and wit. They prey on those whom they appear "easy" and "controllable."

So yeah, if you plant a garden and water it, the flowers will bloom, but some, in the presence of narcissists, will wither from the poison that the narcissist leeches into their soil.

(((safe hugs)))

I'm so sorry that many of you have been abused by unhealed narcissists. If only the narcissist would admit their wrongdoings and seek help to learn how to accept their own Mr. Hydes and thus at least understand how to empathize with others (even if they cannot feel it), then maybe there would be hope. Otherwise, it's a painful struggle to maintain relationships with those with unresolved narcissistic injuries.

I'm sorry you are in such a bad situation. It does make mine seem less severe. And the funny thing is, the tree that the narcissist said was dead came back to life. It just went dormant from stress and resprouted from the roots when the weather got better. I can't believe how many people have narcissists cutting down their trees and damaging plants. My narcissist gets mad because she sees a dead plant as money lost. I hope you will find a way to stop the bullying. My sister also has this obsession with trying to prove that I am less than her and anything I achieve makes her more determined to put me down. Lately she has been trying to convince me that I don't understand English and she gets outraged because her gaslighting doesn't work on me.

If I could make a suggestion though, try not to let the narcissist see that they get you down. If it is possible to hide your feelings when they are attacking, it gives them less gratification. As a kid, I tried not to cry in front of my bullying family and I would get back up as soon as they hit me. I would be so disdainful that adults who hit me and yelled at me walked away feeling like they had been bullied. I know that might not work for everyone, but if you could make the narcissist feel less powerful it makes the situation seem not as bad. I learned from reading articles that trying to reason with a narcissist or explain or defend yourself doesn't work because they lack a normal functioning brain. I started seeing the narcissist I live with as a someone with a toddler IQ who thinks saying something makes it true and try to remember that their lies do not change facts. Things have gotten a bit better once I saw the narcissist in a different light because it took away their power. I hope you get away or that your situation gets better soon. It also help to remember that whatever they say about you is probably how they really feel about themselves.

@Fuzzybear I am willing to bet that as much as your mother puts you down, she is desperateto not let you out of her life. Communal narcissists are annoying as **** and you can always spot them by the way they describe themselves with touchy feely adjectives. One selfish lady I knew, wrote "serving others" as her only interest on her Facebook profile. Such incompetent self promotion makes me laugh whenever I think of it.

When you are with a narcissistic family member,life is really difficult.The lies,gaslighting,manipulation,meanness,underhanded comments,name calling all are insidious. No contact is the only solution.It is again difficult to go no contact if narc is a partner,parent or sibling.Some are able to go no contact,but undoing the effects of narcissistic abuse is monumental task for the victim.My heart goes out for all of you.

So the narcissist just asked me while I was working if I had something in my room. She then rummaged through my clothes and swore amd stormed off.

I decided then that in the future I will just tell her that I don't have stuff that she wants even if I have it. I'm not obligated to be nice or helpful if they can completely ignore social norms. I learned something similar years ago when a boss asked if I had plans in the evening. I said I did not and she demanded that I work an extra shift to cover for her friend. When I refused, she got really nasty so the next time she asked if I had anything planned, I just lied and said I did. It took me years to realized I had to apply the same rule to my narcissistic sister. I need to remember to withhold information to avoid unnecessary uproar. For those of you dealing with other narcissists, don't feel that you have to be the only pne telling the truth. I will always be honest with other people who are honest, but being obligated to be the only truthful person in a relationship with a narcissist will make you an easy target. I wouldn't consider it immoral or sinful to tell little white lies to save yourself from a chronic lying narcissist.

I am so sorry for your turmoil. It is really hard when you feel a need to withhold information from your own sibling or parent.I am so scared to even share details about my visit because it will be broadcasted immediately. That is how the abusers from outside of my family are aware of my visit and create retraumatization for me.I am triggered by just looking at them for a sec.

I'm sorry you still feel tramtized. From these forums, it seems that other people have it a lot worse than me. I'm just angry that life is still unfair and I've been trying to find a new job again which is hard because I live in the middle of nowhere without my own car. Lately, she keeps waking me up by yelling profanity in the hallway and it makes every day start with bad feelings. I have a young dog that she likes to take for walks and show off to people, but if the dog has an accident, she will scream until I get out of bed instead of just cleaning it up. She just said "S***" while I was typing this.I missed so much sleep that I fell asleep in the middle of the day and now I will probably be up all night. Oh well. . . . I need to learn to ignore her, but it's hard when it keeps waking me up.