Settling for breadcrumbs will continually leave you starving. My narcissist left me feeling famished for 16 plus years (married for 17 years). No wonder I have such a connection with Winnie the Pooh as my body always felt hungry, just like his.
“I’m rumbly in my tumbly. Time for something sweet.” –Winnie the Pooh
Oh, how I craved for sweetness. Funny thing though, I don’t have a big sweet tooth but the sweetness was one that I needed to fill my soul. You have to feed the hunger or else the hunger will feed you. Sadly, the hunger fed me. I believed I had to be patinet in order to receive my next pot of honey. So I was patient. Too patient.
Winnie the Pooh is far from a narcissist, but my narcissist took this cuddly, compassionate bear’s words and used them to his advantage. The “sweetness” that dropped like breadcrumbs from my narcissist’s mouth was disguised as being decent. Thus, I suppressed all the sadness, heartache and confusion I felt each time breadcrumbs were dropped. “Oh, wow, he is a good guy for doing that. Maybe he’s not so bad afterall.” But little did I know that was his gameplan. And why shouldn’t it have been his gameplan? I fell for it every time!
What had my life become? Mediocre. I became fine living that way. I got accustomed to it. I began looking at things without having any expectations. If things went well, great. If things did not go well, okay fine. I’ll just deal with it. What else can I do?
Those breadcrumbs filled me up just long enough until I could not take it anymore. Then what? Then more breadcrumbs would come to fill my rumbly tumbly leaving me temporarily mediocre once again. It became a revolving door. My narcissist knew just how long those breadcrumbs would last until he would have to do something decent again to refuel me.
The mediocre brewed day in and day out leaving me to question myself and succumb to the game my narcissist played. Time and time again, my narcissist would lie, cheat, steal, be irresponsible, make promises he would not keep and time and time again I would be disappointed. I would wonder what I did wrong to make my narcissist do this. I would question why someone would act this way. I would apologize to others for my narcissist even though I never had anything to do with what had been done (except being married to him!). I would cry myself to sleep and awake the next morning feeling, well … um … you guessed it … mediocre.
But then I thought…
“I am not a medoicre Mom!”
“I am not medoicre in any endeavor I take on!”
“I did not wake up each day to be mediocre!”
“I do not want my fear to condemn me to mediocrity!”
Now what? LET’S DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!
Your narcissist can be your boyfriend/girlfriend, spouse, partner, parent, aunt, uncle, child, boss, co-worker or friend. They come in all shapes and sizes, breeds and colors. Identify if you have a narcissist. Ask yourself why you feel this person is a narcissist. Are you eating their breadcrumbs? Are you feeling mediocre?
It is not “relief” that you feel when the narcissist does something decent. It is conditioning. It is manipulation. It is taking advantage of you and your good nature. STOP. LOOK. LISTEN. Now condition yourself knowing you deserve more than mediocre.
No amount of security is worth the suffering of a mediocre life, tied to a routine that has diminished the spark in your soul. You do not need to resign yourself to mediocrity. Don’t let good enough be good enough.
Narcissist Breadcrumbs – You are disappointed so frequently that you feel relieved when the narcissist does something decent. He’s conditioned you to become grateful for the mediocre.
Please share your stories, thoughts, accomplishments, happiness, strengths, etc. Follow me on QuoteTherapy.com and Instagram at Quote_Therapy_101. I’m rooting for you!
Quote Therapy 101 
I can relate to this. You sit there feeling so low but because they do it so subtly you wonder what you have to feel low about, you replay it over in your head thinking ‘but it’s not that bad’, if you told someone why you were upset you think they wouldn’t understand because surely it’s not that bad but it is, it’s worse than you think you it is because you find yourself making excuses for them and if you dare say anything they have a stack of lies or ‘i did this for you’. This kind of mental abuse can be just as bad, if not worse than any physical abuse but you have nothing to prove it. You hope and you pray that it’s really not that bad like you think it is and that things will get better but it only gets worse and you only lose more of yourself each day. I’ve also been using blogging to deal with and understand my last relationship and to help raise awareness of this where I can because most people don’t realise they’re in a toxic relationship till it gets really bad, so I’m loving reading your posts.
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Subtly is their gameplan. It sneaks it’s way in ever so gently, as the narcissist knows you are wise. But little by little won’t break you all at once. You begin to second guess yourself and then you know what? The narcissist has “won”! You cannot truly explain it to a friend as you’re right, your friend will think you’re crazy. It won’t make sense to them and then it won’t even make sense to you. So you shrug it off like you’ve done so many times in the past as things appear to “get better” at some point. Metal abuse can be more damaging than physical abuse as it is internal. I applaud you for using blogging to help deal with and undertand what you have been through. Writing is definitely a healing vehicle. Thank you so much for coming on my journey with me and sharing your feelings. The more we share, the more we understand, and the more we can make those necessary changes. I’m rooting for you!
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