The enabler will show up in your life when you’re going through a major crisis, when you’re trying to get a hold of your reality, and when you want someone to tell you, “I’m so sorry that happened to you. You didn’t deserve that.” When you need a shoulder to cry on, they will pretend to understand you. They will say the same things as you and pretend to see the narcissist in the same light, just to make you think both of you are on the same page. Why? Because they want to get information. They want to fill their buckets with loads of supply so they can shower the narcissist with all of it. They want to get ready for the major ego boost they’ll get from the narcissist once they successfully please them.
Who becomes the sacrificial lamb? You. You give them all the information that makes you vulnerable, and you lose in a way with the narcissist because now they know it all. Maybe they know about your new location, your new phone number, or your plans. They have a lot of ammo to use against you. That’s why they’re dangerous—because you don’t see them as an enemy. You see them as your friend, hardly knowing that this is your biggest foe.
Take my sister, for example—the only person I trusted in my family. Why? Because she had been through the same trauma, the same experience. So, in the early years of my healing and no contact, I believed she was the one who truly got it. When on the phone with me, she would pretend to listen, give me advice, and say, “I support you; you do you—it’s okay,” and whatnot. But then, behind my back, she would take their side, act like a neutral bystander who had nothing to do with me, and just dump information like, “Oh, he said this, he said that,” without any context—just to fuel the fire and make them angrier toward me. My father, mother, and sister would group together, sit, and talk about me nonstop. The face she showed me was nowhere to be found when she joined that group, sat with them, and lied about me.
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