Beneath the Surface
As someone who has experienced narcissistic abuse, I once came across a statement attributed to a therapist suggesting that those who truly need therapy rarely seek it—their victims do.
At first glance, it sounds true.
But it is also deeply incomplete.
What I want to make clear in this post is this: the real issue does not live at the level of roles, but at the level of pain.
Whether we call someone a victim or an abuser, an empath or a narcissist, suffering is present in both individuals.
It simply takes different forms.
After a prolonged immersion in what felt like the deep recesses of purgatory, I began to see relationships differently. More precisely, instead of focusing only on what happens at the surface, I started looking beneath it. If healing is to occur, we must be willing to examine the empath–narcissist dynamic from a deeper perspective—not as a moral dichotomy, but as a psychological and emotional system.
Healing doesn’t happen on the level of labels, but on the level of suffering in both individuals.
On the surface, the pattern appears obvious: one person inflicts pain, the other receives it. Yet during my own healing process, I noticed that this dynamic does not exist solely within romantic relationships. It repeats itself across many forms of interaction. The intensity may vary, but the pattern persists along a spectrum.
My understanding is this: whether we consciously manage ourselves or not, unresolved emotional material will continue to recreate the same relational dynamics. The issue, then, is not limited to the empath–narcissist or victim–abuser labels. Something deeper is at work—something beneath the surface that keeps replicating itself. And because of that, both sides of the dynamic require attention and healing.
As someone who identified as the empath—the one consistently on the receiving end of pain—I was struck by a difficult realization: the very same unprocessed emotional material within me was binding me to people who occupied the opposite end of that spectrum. The pain we carry inside corresponds to the pain that sustains the dynamic.
Removing oneself from such situations is a crucial step. But it is not enough. Disengagement alone does not heal the underlying wound, nor does it guarantee the ability to form a healthy partnership in the future. For this reason, all participants in this dynamic—regardless of the role they play—require an equal commitment to healing.