The Cycle of Abuse Begins on a High

The cycle of idealize, devalue and discard is a pattern of behavior common in the Narcissistic personality disorders.  A narcissist begins by idealizing the new interest in their life They focus all of their attention on acquiring this new desire. After they’ve achieved their goal, they become bored because the chase is over, there is no more challenge and the narcissist blames the object of their desire for their boredom.  They devalue it.  Then they abandon it, discarded as worthless, a broken toy.

The object of desire is not always a person, it can be literally a toy or any other objective he desires. Narcissists only feel alive when they are in pursuit.  But the most fun a narcissist has is the pursuit of another person’s being. This is because the desire is driven by envy, they want to become the rival and force the rival to become like them, and feel what they feel. They know the rival would resist if she knew.  This adds another dimension to the game; the rival must not suspect the reason why she is being pursued.  She must be duped. Idealizing her is how the narcissist does this.

Initially, the narcissist will put the object of their desire on a pedestal  Sometimes they will tell their intended victim, “I WILL PUT YOU ON A PEDESTAL.”  Some psychopaths will admit, “Before I destroy someone I like to take them up really high, so they have further to fall.” They are convinced that this is a clever ploy that only they’ve thought of.  In either case, this is your cue to Gray Rock.  If you run, they will only chase you.

If the victim acquiesces to being idealized, the process of devaluation begins. The narcissist will use various tactics to get their victim to allow them to cross their boundaries.  One tactic is to mirror her and then alternately convince her to mirror them.  This blurs the identities of the narcissist and the victim.

Once the victim has been assimilated into the narcissist, she is presented another mirror, one which depicts her as a powerless and shameful being, weak, a reject.  This is actually a portrait of the narcissist but because their identities were blurred, she assumes responsibility for the shame she is presented with.  She becomes the scapegoat for the narcissist, bearing their shame, she is discarded as being too disgusting.  Then the idealize, devalue and discard cycle is complete.

If the victim manages to clean the shame off, pick herself up and resuscitate her life, the narcissist will reappear and ask her to lunch.  He plans to begin the idealize, devalue and discard cycle anew.