The Discard Phase Is An Illusion

You have been discarded by the narcissist, but please do not take this personally. It has everything to do with them and almost nothing to do with you. Once you start confronting them and making it difficult for them to obtain supply, you become a lost cause. They look for you in someone else. When they find a new source, often they will try to make this new source look like you, dress or act like you. 

The new source doesn't know what they are really about. They are experiencing the love bombing phase with the narcissist, so they assume that they have met this amazing person, just as you did when you first met them. The narcissist is excited to have found this new source of supply. 

A person who has boundaries, energy, self worth and self esteem. This is attractive to the narcissist in the beginning. They just want to destroy those boundaries, use up all of their energy and destroy their self worth and self esteem. The narcissist used up all of your energy, destroyed your self worth and self esteem, so now you are no longer of any use to them. They will blame you for always being tired or never wanting to do anything. You might have become insecure about your looks or your abilities. Maybe you have avoided talking to them. The narcissist will blame you for all of this, even though they were the root cause of it all. They made you feel tired by constantly abusing and manipulating you, draining you of your energy. 

They made you feel insecure about your looks and your abilities by constantly devaluing and degrading you. Giving you put downs or backhanded compliments. You avoided talking to them because they use conversations as a way to emotionally abuse you. The narcissist will not acknowledge any of this. It is too painful for them to admit any faults or mistakes. They are emotionally immature, shame-based people. They are not going to accept responsibility or accountability for anything that they have done. This is something that they have learned from childhood, where they would make a fault or mistake and their parent would take the blame. They didn't have to take responsibility or accountability for anything that they did wrong when they were children. Or if they did, they would just avoid that parent and spend time with their other parent instead. This was their way of dodging any responsibility for their actions. As the narcissist grew older, they learned to adapt this to adulthood. 

They will often have a primary source and a secondary source. When the primary source tries to confront them and hold them accountable for their actions, they will leave them to go and spend time with the secondary source. The narcissist hasn't really discarded you. They have left because you are no longer meeting their needs. You are making it difficult for them to obtain narcissistic supply. So they will go and find someone else who doesn't know what they are really about. It makes it easy for them to obtain supply. Whatever it was they were getting from you, they will get from someone else without any arguments or disagreements. Without being held accountable for what they did to you. But the narcissist hasn't discarded you. 

If you were willing to offer those same things to the narcissist again... Whether it's your attention, validation, approval, admiration, money, material things, affection or anything else... The narcissist would come back. But they know that you see through their bullshit, they know that you know what they are really about. They know that if they come back to you, you are going to confront them and try to make them accountable for their actions or behaviors. 

This is something the narcissist cannot deal with. They are shame-based individuals, doing whatever they can to avoid shame. The last thing they want to do is to confront those emotions. If they were willing to do that, they would never have left you. They left because you were no longer meeting their needs, but also because they were running from the shame of what they did wrong to you. If you were not going to confront them, sometimes their shame can make them abuse you even more. It's like a projection of their own self hatred and anger towards themselves. But the discard phase is an illusion. Because they would come back if you were willing to give them whatever it is they need without consequences, without them having to be held accountable for their actions or behaviors. 

They wait some time until they think that you have forgotten about what they did to you or you are no longer mad at them. Then they will come back and try to get their needs met by you again. This can happen days, weeks, months, sometimes even years after the discard phase. I saw a statistic somewhere that said they hoover seven times on average before the relationship is completely over. And that's usually when the victim decides it's over. 

The narcissist will keep coming back, as long as they know that they can still get their needs met by you. You have the power to decide when this is over. Narcissists do not take anything that they do seriously. They only take whatever anyone else does, that affects them, seriously. So if they leave you to be with someone else, it's nothing, it's not a big deal. It's a game to them. It doesn't matter what is happening to you, what you are going through... To them it's still a game of getting what they want and not being found out. When the narcissist was a child, they were never held accountable for their actions or behaviors. So anything that happens to you, that's your fault. It doesn't matter if you are depressed or you've just taken your own life. 

The narcissist will not take anything you do seriously, unless it is a direct attack on them. Because they were never held accountable for their actions or behaviors as a child. Their parent always took the blame. So anything that they do to you, no matter how extreme it may be, it's your fault. Just know that the narcissist will return again, if they believe that you have forgotten about what they did to you or you are no longer mad. If they believe that they can get their needs met by you again, without being held accountable for their actions or behaviors, they will. They will just come back and love-bomb you again, like nothing ever happened. This is why they don't give you closure in the discard phase, it makes it easier for them to come back since they have never been held accountable for anything that they've done. The discard phase really is an illusion. 

But you have to remember what you experienced with the narcissist. All of the pain and suffering. You need to discard them and you have the power to do that. To go completely no contact with them. No contact is not a game, it is not temporary. It is a conscious decision to remove the toxic trash from your life and rebuild your self worth, self esteem, self assurance, self belief and self respect. You gave the narcissist everything you had. Your love, affection, energy... maybe money and material things... Your attention, validation, approval and admiration of them. And all you got in return was abuse, manipulation and disrespect. 

You now have the opportunity to make a decision in your life. Ask yourself, is this the standard I would expect from a relationship? Is this fulfilling my needs? Is this serving me? Is this making me feel good? If the answer is no, you are not in a healthy, loving or fulfilling relationship. I highly recommend going no contact and starting your healing journey.