When the narcissist comes offering friendship, understand it isn’t mercy; it’s maintenance. They’re not keeping you near because they care; they’re keeping you tethered because they can’t bear to lose control. As long as you’re within reach, your healing is unfinished. As long as you answer, they still have power. You can’t heal from a stab wound while the knife remains in your back. The wound closes only when the blade is gone.
If this were a healthy soul reaching out, they’d honor your silence. They’d give you the space to breathe, to rebuild. They’d say, “Take all the time you need,” and mean it. But the narcissist doesn’t seek your peace; they seek your usefulness. Their friendship isn’t love; it’s access. It’s a key they keep to your door, hoping to slip in whenever their world collapses again.
When they say, “Let’s stay friends,” what they really mean is, “I’m not done controlling you.” To understand them, you must look past the mask. The narcissist isn’t strong; that’s a performance. Behind that facade lies a hollow cavern where a soul should be. They are driven not by confidence, but by emptiness—an endless hunger for validation. Every compliment, every ounce of your attention becomes oxygen to their fragile sense of existence. Without it, they suffocate.
That’s why they chase control; it’s survival to them. That’s why they crumble when you rise. Your freedom is proof of their failure to own you. And when you shine, when your smile returns and your peace glows, they feel that emptiness burn hotter. Your healing is their mirror, showing them what they’ll never become. So they offer friendship as a leash, a way to keep you circling their orbit.
It’s not connection; it’s surveillance. They need to know you’re not too happy, not too free, not too far beyond their reach. Because your deliverance exposes their delusion. Understand this: their new partner isn’t proof they’ve changed; it’s proof the cycle never ended. What looks like love is just a repeat performance—a fresh mask for the same emptiness.
When they come crying to you about the new one, don’t mistake that for vulnerability; it’s triangulation—an attempt to keep you invested in their endless drama. They’ll say the new person doesn’t understand them, that things aren’t the same. But you already know how that story ends. The curtains always fall. The applause always fades. And the narcissist remains alone, unsatisfied, and unchanged.
So don’t wait for their downfall. Don’t make your freedom depend on their misery. True liberation is revenge; it’s release. Walk away and don’t turn back. Let the past collapse under its own weight while you rise into the light. You’ve escaped what many never do: the endless loop of chaos and control. You’ve broken the spell; they haven’t.
When the messages come, when the number flashes on your screen, when the flying monkeys whisper that they miss you, remember this: silence is your final sermon. You owe no response, no explanation. Block them. Delete the thread. Let their words fall into nothingness. Don’t shoulder what they’ve sown; give that burden back to its maker. Throw that serpent back into the pit from which it slithered.
Your future is not stained by their shadow; it’s radiant, peaceful, and whole. There’s no room for deception in a life that’s healed. No room for the counterfeit version of friendship that seeks to pull you back into bondage. You are not who you were before. You are wiser now. You are luminous now. And someday you’ll look back and realize that wasn’t just survival; it was resurrection.
Sharing is caring!