The Mask Covers a Person With No Face Who Wants to Consume Yours
When you lack a stable identity, your whole personality becomes dominance
I have a student I currently tutor who keeps me up at night. Despite all my healing and awareness, I’ve never been able to turn off my persistent love for those struggling.
I’ve been able to walk away. I’ve been able to heal.
But I haven’t found a way to turn off my heart.
It’s been shattered. It’s been chained. But it’s never stopped thumping.
This is magnified when the person in question is a student.
It’s not just the innate maternal tenderness that I feel for students. It’s that every teenage girl I suspect has ASPD reminds me of the sister I wasn’t able to save.
It’s that every teenage boy I suspect has ASPD reminds me of my first love who died by suicide at 15.
Despite the persistent trauma and targeting I experience from adult narcissists, I actually get along quite well with teenage narcissists. Not all — but a significant amount — treat me with respect and open up to me.
The reason why is simple: I’m an adult who doesn’t shame them who genuinely cares about them, and I understand the dynamics of abuse in their home life.
I set out to be a safe space, as teachers did for me as a child — which saved my life. When you’re raised in dynamics that create Cluster B disorders, it’s tragically rare for the children to experience safe, mature, healed adults.
I’m also excellent at fawning, ego-boosting, and giving very gentle, non-shaming criticism. I was trained to do this as a scapegoat child in a toxic household. It’s instinct, and it’s usually the first sign I’m in the midst of a toxic person — that and a persistent nausea like a carnival ride that won’t stop.
My body has been so brutalized that I pick it up even in the most covert people as a trauma response.
My instinct, also, is a deep, deep LOVE and a yearning to help them so they can feel love too.
Just as I felt for my family.
The student I have now seems somewhat aware of her disorder, though she’s never outright stated that. She’s said things such as, “I think it’s better if people are more narcissistic,” and “Since I was young, I’ve just been innately evil. I’m more attracted to harming people than helping them,” and “I’m afraid I’ll lose myself in love. Someone will have power to hurt me. So when I like someone, I ghost them to make them chase me. I want them to feel unworthy of me and insecure.”