When you Love a Narcissist

I like to tend to reserve this song for my bad days. I mean those terrible, darkness-filled days where all you feel is empty. I believe that it is okay to let yourself feel emotions to prevent them from spilling over onto other people. It's a hard lesson I have learned in this life. Especially while being inside a mental hospital this past year. It's hard not to bleed on people who didn't cut you, especially while you're still healing from your own wounds. I learned that lesson very loudly and proudly this year.

Halsey has been an artist that I have loved since my back within my high school days. Specifically, I started falling in love with her when the song Colours first became extremely popular. But this song speaks to me on a whole other level. Her abusive relationship with G-Eazy is pretty well known by followers of pop music. (I really try not to follow any trends. I like to try to express my own individuality.) But this song just speaks for itself, but when you analyze the words a little closer, it just breaks every single piece of me after recovering from abuse.

Found you when your heart was broke . I filled your cup until it overflowed. Took it so far to keep you close. I was afraid to leave you on your own.

The opening line speaks to me in such a deep way. Filling someone's love cup until yours happens to run dry is a sign of an unhealthy, one-sided relationship.

I said I'd catch you if you fall and if they laugh, then fuck 'em all. And then I got you off your knees , put you right back on your feet .. just so you could take advantage of me.

The next stanza opens up a lot of feelings for me in a rather personal way. That's how a toxic relationship is supposed to work. Normally, when you're in a healthy and caring relationship, you don't have to completely wear yourself out, giving them absolutely everything. You don't have to throw every single thing about yourself to please another human being, you really don't. You should be in support of your partner, not against them. When there is too much one-sidedness in a relationship, it honestly makes the giver look like a fool in the end.

Feeling like someone has taken advantage of you in a selfish way when you know that you are giving it your all, is a hard thing to go through. I watched a friend struggle with her partner after going through my own grief about my toxic relationship. And I just tried to model my own life differently because of how I felt, watching her own relationship fall apart the same way mine did.

Gave love 'bout a hundred tries (hundred tries) . Just running from the demons in your mind . Then I took yours and made 'em mine (made 'em mine) . I didn't notice 'cause my love was blind...

This part gets to my heart a lot deeper than I'd like to admit. There is a reason why I am trying to write this post out very carefully though. Because of how deeply this song has impacted me. My own mother used to talk about my ex-partner's OCD. Now when I reflect back, I know it was one of his own anxiety ticks and triggers. Narcissistic abuse was a selfish thing for me to experience. Unless you have really experienced this form of abuse, you are able to struggle to explain yourself from time to time. Unless you have experienced it, you don't truly understand what it's like. You can forgive yourself for holding those people accountable, you really can. Eventually.

Said I'd catch you if you fall . And if they laugh, then fuck 'em all . And then I got you off your knees , put you right back on your feet . Just so you can take advantage of me.

This whole stanza feels powerful to me. After begging someone to change their ways for years, and attempting to inspire them to be a better person, broke into itty bitty pieces. I full-heartedly acknowledge the power that "putting someone back on their feet" can hold. Especially with my own experiences. Sometimes your pride can stand in the way of a healthy relationship, for a really long time. That's a hard lesson to learn. And come back from.

Tell me how's it feel sittin' up there . Feeling so high but too far away to hold me . You know I'm the one who put you up there . Name in the sky ; Does it ever get lonely? Thinking you could live without me.

When you allow yourself to hold someone up on a pedestal, it can make you feel like a garbage human being.

I allowed myself to make fun of a person for singing this song in a different setting, and I truly felt like shit because I used to very proudly proclaim that "this was my song" for a very long while until I realized how deeply that could impact another person. Belittling someone never feels fucking good, it really doesn't. I became painfully aware of that after the fact.

Baby, I'm the one who put you up there . I don't know why, yeah . You don't have to say just what you did . I already know (I know) I had to go and find out from them.

Figuring out how someone harmed you through someone else is one of the worst experiences to go through. Someone once told me that my partner was cheating on me while I was pregnant. That broke my heart in a million ways possible. It still haunts me to this day. The pregnancy caused more damage to our relationship than it should have. Bar none, that conversation with that woman back then that he had reached out to means more to me than it should have, because of the relationship that I was living inside of. I had felt trapped back then. I feel differently about that part of one of my abusive relationships.

The song Without Me by Halsey is so much more important to me than I can give myself credit for. I know I do not include every line of this song. But I do know this, toxic relationships can exist, I know that. I am painfully aware of that fact in complete honesty. You get to allow yourself for feeling stupid. You get to define the way the abuse shapes you. I learned that lesson at a very painfully costly price. I love this song, even if I am not a full die, a hard fan of the artist completely.

Chloe Rose Violet