Lovebombing: Infatuated with Your Idealized Image (EXCERPT) | Vaknin Talks

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You fall in love with yourself.

When you fall in love with a narcissist, you are actually falling in love with your idealized self.

For many people, this is the first time they experience self-love. They are able to experience self-love for the first time through the agency of the narcissist, because the narcissist projects onto them a version of themselves to which finally they are capable of loving.

And this is the whole of mirrors.

The narcissist does not exist. The narcissism is not about existence, it's about absence. The narcissist is an entity of absence. So he's not there. There's nobody there. There's nobody home but you. You're talking to yourself. You're looking at yourself. You're falling in love with yourself.

And it is possible to say goodbye to someone you love with all the heartbreak.

How do you say goodbye to yourself? And that's why people stay. They stay because the narcissist had made them infatuated with themselves through his eyes.

And he's a master at this.

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