The fluidity of framing exercised by the narcissist is his only toolkit to navigate a treacherous world he cannot trust. “He was never allowed to become therefore he never will.”
As children, we are grounded by attachment to the caregiver and orient ourselves through external object constancy. The conceptualization being that through a dependence on the constancy of our external world we can rely on and trust in it – How regular, healthy people develop.
They are made to feel safe through externally constant variables and implant these objects as such within themselves. All in their efforts to orient within a new world.
This is what is described as the “internal pot of gold.” A repository of faith and confidence, from trust in constancy through love, that pervades as you navigate through challenges in life.
For the narcissist, only an image or virtuality of this repository exists. To maintain it, he must feed it with supply over and over. This is his way of looking for a break in the story, his opportunity for a redemption at constancy; to finally leave on his own terms.
Denied as a child and not afforded a chance to validate the neglect with his primary caregiver he must projectively break this loop, so he does this in the real world. The problem arises when he is confronted with the reality of his predicament in the true face of separation.
Anxiety around abandonment prevents him from following through so he associates with you the devalued image of you in its stead only to realize it was his only source of constancy thus reinvigorating the pangs of anxiety. This is the turmoil that inhabits a narcissist’s world.
Deep sufferers like normal people do the only thing they know – seek the comfort and familiarity of what once was. In this way, they projectively identify hoping for resolution through successful separation only to be challenged by the reality that it’s never forthcoming.