Love versus idealization—the trap that masquerades as devotion. Friend, if you’ve come here with a heart still heavy, if the wounds still ache from what the narcissist inflicted, let me say this first: I see you. I hear you. That pain is real. The confusion is real. The despair is very real. And yet, what’s more important is this: The clarity you’re about to walk into is just as real and far more powerful.
Let’s not dress it up or tiptoe around it. We need to talk plainly, soul to soul. So let’s ask the question that so many are too afraid to speak aloud: How did it happen? How did love get tangled up in that kind of darkness? Let’s be honest. You didn’t fall in love with the narcissist because love—real love—doesn’t pull you under like a riptide. It doesn’t leave you breathless, broken, or bewildered. Real love doesn’t begin with a fall; it begins with awareness, with recognition, with spirit aligning to spirit. Love is built, not stumbled into. And that word “fall”—doesn’t it sound like something painful, something out of control?
When we don’t fall in love, we walk toward it, open-eyed and rooted in truth. So, what happened? What really happened when the narcissist walked into your life? You met that force in a moment of misalignment. Maybe you were nursing old wounds. Maybe your sense of worth had been chipped away. Maybe you hadn’t yet come home to your own heart. And in that moment, vulnerable and wide open, the narcissist showed up with a mask made of everything you ever wanted to see: tenderness, attention, intensity. But it wasn’t love. It was a mirror, a lie, an illusion crafted with expert skill. And you, wanting to believe, looked into it and saw what you hoped was real. What you felt wasn’t love; it was idealization. It was obsession dressed up like intimacy.
And the narcissist played the part well, reflecting your dreams back to you like moonlight on a still pond. But that reflection wasn’t rooted in substance; it was vapor, smoke—a trick of the light. Friend, listen: Love is not an obsession. Love doesn’t demand your spirit in exchange for crumbs. Love doesn’t feed on confusion; it nourishes. It heals. It walks beside you, not above you. And love—true love—grows. It invests. It deepens. It multiplies the more you give.
That’s why I don’t say we spend time with those we love; we invest. Because when you spend, something is used up. But when you invest, it grows, it yields, it flourishes. So if your time with the narcissist left you drained, anxious, and smaller than you were, understand this: You weren’t in love. You were caught in a spiritual counterfeit. You were sowing into a field that could never bear fruit.
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