Do You Feel You Have to Justify Your Existence?

Clare Lane

5 min readJan 4, 2021

It could be when it comes to essential self-care when ill.

Or it could be simply taking a day off to get your balance back.

That thought that creeps in: ‘I should be doing something.’

So, you drag yourself out of the bed, or off the sofa to do some chores.

Your partner comes back from work, before they’ve even taken off their coat you’re listing all the things you’ve done.

They look back at you, ‘You’re ill, get back to bed. Do you want me to make you a hot drink?’

You’re a little shocked and surprised.

Surely you should get some sort of recognition for all you’ve done? Or else be told that you’ve not done enough? Or that you should have done that other job instead?

This is when you’re justifying your existence.

And it’s got nothing to with the expectations of your partner. All they want is for you to be is well and happy.

This is about your issue.

Actually, let’s be more specific, someone else’s issue that you’ve accepted as a belief.

Somewhere, sometime a narcissist would have made you feel that you have to justify your existence.

It could be that they thought you were lying when you said you were ill. Or that they thought or said that you are lazy, don’t contribute enough to the house, or don’t deserve a day off.

Wherever you picked it up, it’s not YOUR belief.

Whoever made you feel like this, it’s their belief about themselves.

Anyone who lives their life in the shallow vacuous way that a narcissist does, has to justify their existence. Without doing or achieving all the time, they have nothing because these things are all they are.

A narcissist has a deep, deep fear of silence and quiet. They fear in their deepest nightmares that they don’t exist.

Perhaps they didn’t exist for their main caretaker when a child, and it’s something that has infected their whole lives. Whatever their reason, it’s their issue.

So, they ‘become’ only whatever they portray as their image.

It’s all they have.

It’s only skin -deep and this is why it is so important to them. They cling to their image, with the desperation of a drowning man clinging to the wreckage of a ship, because without it they will go down.

Their image is reflected back to them in others.

They don’t ‘see’ other people. They see a reflection in a mirror, of all the things that they value as their image- the people they like. And reflected back the things that they fear about themselves- the people they don’t like.

Without the attention that they get from other people, they are nothing, they don’t exist.

This is why supply (attention) is the number one priority for a narcissist, without it they feel they might die.

So, if they are doing, achieving, busy all the time, they get attention from other people. They are justifying their existence.

If they don’t have a spare moment to sit and reflect, they never need to address their own issues.

As narcissists lack the desire to look at themselves and their actions, they will never take responsibility for their actions.

The very thing that will heal them, is the very thing that they fear the most.

And they will fight tooth and nail to protect their precious and fragile ego.

Therefore, their material possessions become everything to them, they become their identity.

The narcissist’s ego tells them that having more possessions will make them feel better. Their self-worth is tied to having material possessions.

To some narcissists having a big house, a nice car, foreign holidays, buying the latest gadget or designer clothes are more important than their happiness.

They attach so much importance to their possessions or money, hoping that one day these things will fill the black hole that they have inside. (Spoiler: it will never be enough for them.)

This is why narcissists use money as a weapon.

As it means so much to them, they assume it means just as much to other people. Some use it to show ‘love’, all of them use it to manipulate people.

As their image is everything and all they have, they will use every tactic they can to protect it.

So, when the scapegoat reveals the abuse, the narcissist rallies around their forces.

It’s a fight to preserve their image. And they will fight really dirty.

The chances are the narcissistic parent’s scapegoat will have been discredited from birth and the narcissist’s partner since the beginning of the relationship.

Let’s get back to you.

So, it comes down to choice.

You can choose to put down this burden.

It’s not the belief of a higher order because it feels like crap.

It’s not your belief, because it doesn’t feel good.

Stop letting the narcissist infect the rest of your life!

Put it down, let it go, release it, whatever you want to do.

It’s a heavy burden to carry, and one that affects all aspects of our lives.

Our mental and physical health is compromised when we don’t take the time we need.

Our relationships with our loved ones suffer because we continue when we are tired or ill. It makes us snappy and impatient if we don’t take the time we need to rebalance ourselves.

So, the next time you feel yourself justifying your existence, pause, and in that pause make a choice.

This will feel strange for a while, this is a big change. The chances are you’ve lived like this for decades. But any discomfort will be worth it when you see and feel the benefits not just for you but those around you.

Remember:

You have the right to take time to recover if you are sick.

You have the right to rest if you are tired or need/want to rebalance yourself.

You have the right to exist simply because you do exist!

Now kick off your shoes and cozy on down for a Netflix marathon and enjoy it!

If you have any questions please drop me a comment or email me at clarecomebackbrighter@gmail.com.

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