The image of wading out to sea and simply, gently ceasing to exist has been one that's appealed to my mother for a very long time. So has the concept of actively commiting suicide, generally with medication (although most experts on NPD suggest that narcissists are the last people to ever make good on such threats; while they like to fantasize about everyone crying at their funeral, they then realize that once they're gone, the fun's over for them, so they stick around). But when a friend of hers (who, later spurned by my mother and understandably seeking support, contacted me by phone last month) told me that my mom had updated her suicide fantasy scenario yet again, even I was impressed.
Now it goes something like this: "...wade out into the water, cease to exist, die. But damn! Isn't my luck just so awful that I bet a bunch of sharks would come by and devour my remains. Nobody would find me..."
So in other words, going off to die isn't enough. Leaving people behind to wonder about it all isn't enough. Ending all of her alleged misery isn't really even the point. The point is: if those killjoy sharks deprive you of that last chance to make the ultimate dramatic gesture --- the dead body floating in on the tide --- well, why even bother with killing yourself? Better to hang on and get more attention that way.
1 comment:
Narcissists, while expressing what could be seen as a supreme self-centeredness, actually experience a 'lack of self'. It strikes me that both the images of 'ceasing to exist'by dissolving and 'being devoured by sharks' so that the are not even any 'remains' or proof of your prior existence are wonderfully graphic illustrations of that inner terror of feeling one doesn't exist. All the drama and fol-der-al are an attempt to experience oneself as REAL. With N's - ALL THE LIGHTS ARE BLAZING BUT NO ONE IS AT HOME. MG
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