A Sunday Reflection for Survivors
I was the victim of a narcissist.
Their triangulation. Their lies. Their manipulation. Their envy. For a long time, I internalized every cutting word, every calculated betrayal. But through my healing journey, I discovered something that changed everything: the abuse was never about me. It was always about them.
Envy is one of the most silent and destructive engines driving narcissistic behavior. It rarely shows itself openly because the narcissist desperately needs to maintain an illusion of superiority. But beneath that carefully crafted facade, constant comparison and deep-seated resentment fuel many of their most hurtful behaviors.
Understanding this hidden envy can help you, as a survivor, finally stop personalizing the damage. Let me share with you what I’ve learned.
1. They Envy What They Cannot Feel
The narcissist doesn’t just envy your achievements or external successes. What they envy most deeply is your capacity to love, to experience joy, and to feel genuine peace. Seeing someone who is truly fulfilled confronts them with their own inner emptiness—and that is something they simply cannot tolerate.
2. They Envy Your Authenticity
Genuine, consistent, and emotionally free people create tremendous discomfort for narcissists. While they spend their entire lives constructing and maintaining a false image, you simply are who you are—effortlessly. Your natural authenticity is unbearable to them, and they often try to ridicule it or diminish your worth because they can never achieve what comes naturally to you.
3. They Envy Your Happiness—Especially Without Them
Nothing irritates a narcissist more than watching their victim grow, smile, and move forward without them. When they sense your well-being, they react with criticism, sabotage, or cutting remarks. They fabricate lies, gather people around them, gossip to anyone who will listen, and desperately try to paint you as the villain. They become obsessed.
This is not a coincidence. It is envy disguised as contempt.
4. They Envy the Admiration You Receive
The narcissist needs to be the center of attention and to control all validation. When someone receives recognition without their permission—whether at work, within family, or among friends—their sense of rivalry activates. They do not celebrate others’ success. They see it as a threat to their fragile ego.
5. They Envy Your Strength—Even If They Made You Believe You Had None
Here’s your reminder: call your power back.
Stop allowing these delusional individuals to project their insecurities onto you. Everything they have said about you is actually who they truly are—they are literally describing themselves. And believe me, people can see through their lies.
Throwing rocks and hiding their hands is what they do best because their image is everything to them. Meanwhile, you don’t live your life worried about how others perceive you. These individuals have inflated egos, believing they are bigger than the universe itself—when in reality, deep inside, they are deeply insecure people with far too much time on their hands.
The Truth Will Always Reveal Itself
These types of people expose themselves. All you have to do is sit back and watch the show they themselves created. Eventually, their smear campaigns fail. The lies fail. The manipulation tactics fail.
And when that happens, you’ll already be healed, whole, and thriving.
A Message to the Narcissist
And to you—the one who caused the damage—I have something to say:
Please, go heal. Get some help.
Invest your precious time and energy in yourself. You can be everything you’ve ever dreamed of becoming. You can have everything you’ve ever wanted. But it starts with turning your gaze away from their life and focusing on your own journey.
Stop counting their blessings and start watering your own garden.
You are worthy of peace. You are worthy of love. You are worthy of a life free from the shadows you keep creating for yourself. But you have to choose healing over destruction. Growth over envy. Truth over lies.
The person you’ve been trying to tear down? They’re going to be just fine. The question is, will you?
A Message From the Author
Dear Survivor,
If you’re reading this on a quiet Sunday morning, coffee in hand, heart still carrying wounds you didn’t deserve—please hear me when I say: you are not what they said you were.
I know the confusion. I know the sleepless nights spent replaying conversations, wondering what you could have done differently. I know the betrayal that cuts so deep it changes how you see the world. I lived it. I survived it. And I’m still healing from it.
But I want you to know something beautiful: the very qualities that made you a target—your empathy, your love, your authenticity, your light—are the same qualities that will carry you through to the other side. The narcissist saw your gifts and tried to steal them because they could never create them on their own.
You didn’t lose yourself. You just temporarily forgot who you were because someone worked very hard to make you forget. But you’re remembering now. And that’s everything.
This Sunday, may you rest in the truth of who you really are. May you find peace in knowing their behavior was never a reflection of your worth. And may you walk forward into a life so full of light that the shadows of the past can no longer reach you.
With all my love and solidarity,
A Fellow Survivor
