Number 6: “You Couldn’t Live Without Me for More Than a Few Minutes”
You couldn’t live without me for more than a few minutes. What happened? This one is cruel, and it is meant to land like a punch. It’s not sarcasm; it’s a carefully chosen sentence meant to trigger all the insecurities they helped create. They made you dependent, then mocked you for being exactly that. The irony is, they are the ones who cannot survive without someone orbiting around them, like my mother.
They need constant attention, emotional reactions, and someone to mirror back their importance. But instead of confronting their dependency, they project it onto you, and they do it in a way that makes you feel pathetic for even needing anything. If this line hurts, it’s because it’s meant to.
It is designed to drag you back into shame, so that you forget how far you’ve come, so that you pause your progress, so that you start thinking, “Maybe, maybe you aren’t strong enough to be on your own.” But the fact that they had to say it at all means they see how strong you are becoming, and that scares them more than they will ever admit.
Number 7: “You Don’t Need to Burden Yourself with Earning Money”
You don’t need to burden yourself with earning money. This doesn’t come from love; it comes from calculation. My father said it to me. The narcissist doesn’t want a financially empowered partner or child; they want a dependent one. The moment you start talking about your ambitions, goals, or your income, they start downplaying it as unnecessary. They frame it as them taking care of you, but in reality, they are laying the groundwork for financial control.
Money means choices, right? Money means freedom, and someone who has both cannot be controlled. That’s what they know, and that’s what they’re trying to prevent. They want you to stay in the role of someone who needs them to survive. Because once you have your own, you will see how little they were giving.
It’s not about easing your burden; it’s about making sure you do not develop the resources to leave. This is how they strip you of agency without raising their voice, and it works silently until one day you realize your entire life revolves around someone who sees your independence as a threat, not as a win.
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