The Narcissists Weapons – #1 Love Bombing

 

Let’s start with a definition from Psychology Today, Love Bombing: A Narcissist's Secret Weapon.

“Love bombing is the practice of overwhelming someone with signs of adoration and attraction — think flattering comments, tokens of affection, or love notes on the mirror, kitchen table, or windshield, and you’re beginning to get the picture. Its flowers delivered at work with hearts dotting the i’s in your name. It’s texts that increase in frequency as they increase in romantic fervor. It’s surprise appearances designed to manipulate you into spending more time with the bomber — and, not coincidentally, less time with others, or on your own.”

Let me talk plainly about the dangers of being the love ‘bombee’. So if you are seeking love and attention from someone (anyone!) like i was, you will be easily taken in and enchanted by someone who comes into your life and gives you what you have been longing for since as long as you can remember – ‘love’. Trouble is this is not authentic love and you actually are starving for love so just a few scraps here and there will do! Maybe you had an abusive childhood or suffer from lack of self-love or so forth… In my experience not addressing this type of ‘love-lack’ and starvation results in being easy pickings for narc’s who are looking for targets to control, use and abuse and then move onto the next lucky victim.

Narcs can come into your life in many walks of your life – work, family, relationships and community organisations for example. My narc experience has been in all of these but for the sake of this blog i shall focus on one of the narc’s favourite stomping grounds – spiritual circles. They are particularly appealing as they offer the narc a platform for their grandiosity, helps meet their need for power and adoration and it is made yet more attractive as genuine ‘nice’ people are drawn to these circles.

Here’s an example of lovebombing i experienced from a volunteer at Kosmic Fusion called Dallia/Malana. Even though there was no hierarchy and no small groups were to be formed as we worked as one team, Dallia/Malana being a covert malignant narc wanted to be the leader. 

Dallia hooked me in by masquerading as someone who cared about me. She became my closest friend and confidante. She would invite me over for coffee or lunch often to help her with Kosmic Fusion projects or her dance business. i shared everything with her including lifelong struggles to feel loved, my addiction past and suicidal thoughts (past and intermittent at the time). i trusted her completely and thought she was someone to look up to. However, Dallia didn’t care one bit about me, which only came out years later…i was just her play toy. When she was done using me, she put me out with the rubbish. After that it was as though i didn’t exist and she looked right through me when we volunteered together. The thing is i didn’t do anything to deserve that treatment and was left feeling utterly bewildered.

With the discarding and avoiding me tactics with no apparent cause and Dallia/Malana’s ongoing mistreatment towards me, I regrettably left Kosmic Fusion.
In hindsight, I understand the dynamic between a narcissist and their target, and that I hadn’t examined within which was essential in the training I was receiving at the time. I wasn’t ready to look at my own shades and personal wounds which was a key reason for me leaving as well.

 Incredibly fortunately for me, Sree Maa most graciously invited me back and revealed Dallia/Malana as a malignant covert narc to all the volunteers. Sree Maa Shri Ji had given cues and red flags and encouraged us to research about narcissism in 2016 but I had not followed up on this. Sree Maa Shri Ji gave me the closure I so needed and worked gently with me to become free from Dallia/Malana’s harmful control. So where did i go from there? The crucial first step was being aware and learning about narcissism. The next step was looking at myself – what was it about me that made me an easy target? i was the one that was most taken in by Dallia/Malana, out of all the volunteers – i was her ‘pet.’

Sree Maa beautifully explained extensively what narcs were and their behaviours and motives. This helped set me free and Sree Maa also shared about how narcs abuse enablers. This gave me something to work on within myself - to disable that in me which enables narcs. It’s still definitely a work in progress…Thanks most heartfully to Sree Maa who tirelessly helped me to open my eyes to the reality of narcissism and enabling. This was for no benefit to Sree Maa and was lovingly given freely to me and the other volunteers _/i\_<3_/i\_

Jai Shree Swaminarayan _/i\_<3_/i\_