The rain that evening lay across the city like a delicate veil. Each drop fell with weight, as if descending not from the sky but from the sky’s own sighs. The streets of New York could not bear the sorrow of the heavens; water pooling along the sidewalks had dissolved even the shadows. People huddled beneath umbrellas, heads lowered, struggling to keep pace with the city’s relentless rhythm. Yet everyone walking in the rain was, in truth, fleeing a little from themselves: avoiding each other’s gaze, refusing to brush against one another’s wounds.
When I stepped into the bookshop, the little bell above the door rang out like a startled bird. Inside, warmth embraced me—not merely the heat from the radiator, but the warmth carried by the scent of pages, the hush of the shelves, the stories long hidden within the bindings of old books. The rhythm of the rain outside wove itself into the silence within, creating an invisible music: the fine drip at the window dancing with the whispers of hands turning pages.
I moved along the shelves. Each book was like a human face: some furrowed, some mournful, some beguiling. As my fingers drifted across the covers, it felt as though I brushed the shoulders of thousands of unfamiliar souls. Books were the most patient witnesses of time; even when abandoned in corners, they did not fall silent—they waited. I thought to myself: Sometimes when a person believes they are unloved, they are in truth only like a book waiting to be read.
And at that moment, in the midst of the crowd, I saw a center of silence: Margaret.
I noticed her not by her voice, nor by her gaze, but by the way her presence subdued every other sound in the room. She wore a long, dark gray coat. Her hair, touched by the damp of rain, fell in soft ripples, a few strands drifting across her forehead. In her face was a fragility—yet not accidental, as though it were a jewel borne with deliberate care. In her eyes lingered the shadow of a secret, freshly heard but never spoken.
She lifted a book into her hand. Her fingers glided over the cover as though caressing it. At the edge of her lips appeared the faintest curve, as if she were whispering privately to the book. Then, unhurriedly, she set it back upon the shelf. Yet this was no ordinary gesture of return; it was a graceful choreography of refusal. As the book slipped from her hands, it carried the finality of someone excised from her life.
I paused. Watching her, I realized that every movement Margaret made was steeped in meaning. Her silence was louder than the words of ordinary people.
I walked slowly between the shelves. As I drew nearer, her scent reached me: faintly woody, tinged with the dust of an old library, and cooled with the freshness of earth after rain. Standing beside her, she did not turn toward me. Her eyes still wandered among the spines of the books, yet within the depth of her gaze there was a subtle vibration, a quiet acknowledgment of my presence.
I gathered the courage to speak:
“Is it a good choice?”
She tilted her head slightly, and without shifting her eyes, replied in a voice both soft and assured:
“This author’s language is beautiful… but too certain of itself.”
That sentence left a trace upon me—light, yet as sharp as a blade. Her tone was wrapped in delicacy, but its content was a judgment that placed value. As I heard her critique, I mistook it for tenderness. Yet in truth, it was a sign of superiority: a fine refusal hidden within finesse.
Scientific Note: Covert narcissism can cloak itself in gentleness and fragility, yet beneath that surface lie comments that belittle or devalue the other. Because the tone is soft, the sharpness of the criticism often goes unnoticed; the recipient may mistake delicacy for compassion.
(Heinz Kohut – The Analysis of the Self, 1971)
In that moment, I surrendered to Margaret’s refinement. Her words did not strike me as the ordinary sentences of an ordinary mouth; they felt more like whispers seeping through the crack of a hidden door. I found myself drawn into that whisper.
Light, glancing off the edge of the shelves, shimmered across the book covers in the dim evening, as though they were slowly breathing. For a moment, I thought I could hear the rustle of an ancient forest hidden within the paper fibers: the wind drifting from the edge of one sentence to the next, carrying outward the coolness tucked between the letters. The silence within was eloquent; the rain outside, a narrator. The city was like a thin notebook opened to the sky, and the rain seemed to inscribe the same syllable upon every line.
Behind the counter, the elderly bookseller looked over his small, round glasses and smiled. His smile was not weary, but carried a serenity that had made peace with its weariness. The solid thud of the cash drawer closing announced the ritual this shop had repeated for years: what was exchanged here was never just books; it was time itself—borrowed and returned by the hands of another reader.
A few people wandered among the shelves, moving as if they shared the same dream, never colliding. Each gaze was turned inward toward a private ache. Perhaps this was why books exist: to stitch a soft covering for the quiet wounds within us. When a cover opens, the stitches come undone, and the ache is no longer alone. “Healing,” I thought, “is sometimes nothing more than finding a shared metaphor.”
I saw Margaret again: at the far end of the shelf, her head slightly inclined, her gaze devoted to a book as though greeting an old friend from afar. The geometry her features formed with the light resembled an equation balanced between excitement and sorrow. As I watched her, I realized Margaret’s posture carried dignity; yet her dignity was kin to a quiet superiority: neither ostentation nor shyness, but a distance held like a guard. Within that distance lay an invisible ruler, silently measuring our words.
She lifted another book into her hand. This time the light spilling across the glossy cover fell upon it like a red slash. Her fingers moved over it as if examining a wound; then her brows drew together slightly. When she set the book back, her palm slid slowly along the spine. That gesture was not a push, but the art of dismissal. It was as though the title upon the cover, in that instant, had lost all authority within her.
I drew close and took another book from the same shelf. On its cover was the image of a dim lamp set into the night—caught between solitude and light, much like this shop itself. Sometimes our language speaks in place of our feelings, I thought, and sometimes our feelings fall silent in place of our language. In the aesthetics of silence, Margaret was a master. Instead of declaring what had wounded her, she clung to the nobility of having been wounded: the cold poise of those who carry sorrow as if it were an accessory.
It was I who had first opened the conversation: when I asked, “Is it a good choice?” I had been surprised by the contradiction between the gentleness of her reply and the cool judgment it carried within. Now Margaret continued in that same soft register:
“When a book demands too much from its reader, it becomes mute,” she said. “At times it speaks with a brazen confidence; it diminishes the reader’s share.”
Her words were piercing, yet her selection was flawless. Her critique was less a denial than a measurement: as if it were not the book but the reader who was lacking. The reader’s share. The phrase embedded itself in me. Speaking with her, I realized what was asked of me was not simple approval but alignment: an attunement that reached into my tone, my rhythm, even my breath.
Scientific Note: The tendency to swiftly align oneself with another—mirroring gesture, tone, and rhythm—can sometimes arise from empathic sensitivity, and at other times from a strategic bid to enter the other’s “frame.” The outsized weight of early judgments and first impressions is described by the halo effect and by “thin-slice” decision-making.
(Edward L. Thorndike – “The Constant Error in Psychological Ratings,” 1920; Nalini Ambady – Thin-Slice Judgments, 1992)
“What would you suggest?” I asked, still holding one of the books by the author she had just dismissed. As her eyes turned to me, she attached to the edge of her gaze a subtle refinement:
“Not a suggestion,” she said, “a warning: Sometimes writing seeks to dismantle the reader’s inner roof. If your roof is not strong, rain is beautiful; it favors the leak.”
Half the sentence was poetry; the other half, judgment cloaked in measure. In her mind, how strong was the reader’s roof—my roof? I did not voice the question; one falls silent where one senses the risk of breaking. Yet silence does not confirm the other—it only allows you to hear your own echo.
On one of the shelves, volumes on narrative theory were neatly lined up. As I read the back of one, Margaret said quietly, “I have read that before. A voice too certain of itself.” This time she was speaking not of the author’s self-assurance but of the book’s very voice. I felt the need to weigh each of my words carefully; if I stepped one pace further without knowing where my own voice stood within her cosmos, it seemed I might cross a line.
Yet there are times when a line is not a boundary but a ceremony—you pass through, and beyond it lies another realm. With Margaret, every line was a rite.
Scientific Note: In covert narcissism, criticism often arrives cloaked in moral delicacy. The judgment is delivered without the overt “I know best,” yet still seizes control of the relationship’s frame. The listener, mistaking such refinement for compassion, may confuse compliance with virtue.
(Otto Kernberg – Borderline Conditions and Pathological Narcissism, 1975; DSM-5 – criteria for Narcissistic Personality Disorder)
From the copper cezve at the counter rose the fragrance of freshly brewed coffee. The bookseller poured it carefully into small paper cups; in this shop, warmth seemed to have been thought through in every detail. When I took my cup, the heat spreading into my fingers was like a sentence settling into me—first subtle, then distinct, then enduring. Margaret took a cup as well, but instead of sipping, she held it to her lips and inhaled, as if she needed the scent to persuade her first.
“On rainy days,” I asked, “do books feel heavier to us?”
“Rain,” Margaret replied, “brings down the invisible dust. Not the books—we grow heavier. Heaviness is the side effect of clarity.”
Again, one of her quicksilver aphorisms: the kind of sentence one longs to share in, yet cannot quite place. It hung in the air like a delicate cord: if you grasped it, you were drawn inward; if you let it fall, you seemed uncouth.
Scientific Note: Ambiguous or high-uncertainty expressions compel the listener toward self-interpretation. The gaps intentionally left by the speaker are filled with the listener’s own meaning, resolving a kind of cognitive dissonance. Often, the perceived worth of the relationship becomes justified through this act of filling.
(Leon Festinger – Cognitive Dissonance, 1957)
We took seats at a small table near the window. Beyond the glass, the streetlamp traced halos upon the rain, as if each drop were living both the beginning and end of a brief life at once. At last, Margaret touched her cup. After a sip, her lips stirred as if to amend her earlier statement:
“What I meant was not the burden of the writing, but sometimes the burden of the writer.”
Whose burden? Mine? A small warning light flickered within me. In the city, ambulance sirens sometimes wail from afar—you hear them without knowing their destination. That siren was now inside me: distant, uncertain, but keeping me alert.
While Margaret gathered the leaflets at the edge of the table, she read the title aloud: “Author of the Month.” A thin smile curved her lips.
“Fame,” she said, “rots a writer’s courage to write for themselves.”
It was clear she bore a grievance with fame. Perhaps she was right; or perhaps this was her way of standing before the throne by pulling another down from it. Her sentence carried both the nobility of renunciation and the shadow of superiority. I realized that what I was reading was not merely her words, but the posture they carried.
Scientific Note: The swing between idealization and devaluation voiced by the same speaker is a hallmark of narcissistic defenses. While morally diminishing a value, the speaker places themselves upon a morally superior plane, thereby structuring a covert hierarchy of power in the relationship.
(George E. Vaillant – Ego Mechanisms of Defense, 1992; Heinz Kohut – self-psychology)
I caught the bookseller’s gaze. “May I help you?” he asked gently. Margaret inclined her head with elegance and whispered, “No, thank you.” Even in her whisper there was a commanding note: a courteous command. I did not find it strange; within the rhythm of the city, polite orders conceal themselves more easily than coarse courtesies.
On the table lay an open magazine. At the margin of an interview a line had been scribbled: “Good literature trusts the reader.” I held the sentence out to Margaret; her eyes drifted over the words I had underlined with my finger, passing across them like a heavy cloud.
“Trust,” she said, “begins with the reader’s trust in themselves.”
The words seemed to caress a truth, yet they carried a hidden weight: If you fail to understand, the deficiency lies in you.
Scientific Note: When a measure framed in terms of “content” swiftly shifts into one of “self-worth,” the message begins to strike at the listener’s sense of identity. This exposes the other to feelings of inadequacy. Those with fragile self-esteem or vulnerable self-concepts are especially prone to internalize such shifts, showing a stronger tendency toward compliance.
(Joshua D. Miller & W. Keith Campbell – Narcissism and the Self, 2011; DSM-5 – Narcissistic Personality Disorder)
Outside, the rain quickened. The drops struck the paving stones grain by grain, while inside, time seemed to slow. Margaret’s shadow stretched across the window; the shadow was more eloquent than her face. For a moment I longed to speak to it: What are you hiding? The shadow gave no answer, yet it kept its depth.
We walked the edges of conversation. “For me,” Margaret said, “a sentence is not a conclusion but a ceremony. You pass through it, and in passing, you cast off your old garments.” Her sentences, too, were ceremonial; yet the ritual gravity of her words was often mistaken for proof. As her speech grew more exalted, to challenge her began to feel like a breach of decorum.
Scientific Note: Highly rhetorical, ritualized discourse raises the listener’s threshold of critique. The interlocutor comes to perceive objection as a threat to the relationship itself, inclining them toward silence. This silence in turn strengthens the speaker’s control of the frame.
(Robert Cialdini – Influence, 1984; research on social influence and framing)
The bell above the door rang once more as another customer entered. A young woman, wiping rain from her hair, asked, “Where is the literature section?” Before the bookseller could answer, Margaret extended her hand slightly and pointed with a smile. She was not the host of this place, yet she knew the house’s language well. The gratitude in the young woman’s reply sparked a fleeting glimmer in Margaret’s eyes: the quiet pride of one who knows her place.
I thought of an essay I had written. As I listened to Margaret’s sentences, the shadows of my own words seemed to shrink. Perhaps she is right, I told myself; perhaps my roof is weak. In forming the thought, I felt as though I was approaching healing: instead of clinging to vindication, I was choosing correction. Yet another voice whispered: Or is this only the voice of someone too easily convinced of their own insufficiency?
Scientific Note: To adopt an adverse self-judgment under the guise of “growth” can, in certain relational contexts, become an internalized form of devaluation. This pattern is especially pronounced in those with fragile self-esteem and anxious attachment styles.
(John Bowlby – attachment theory; Roy F. Baumeister – self-esteem and the negativity bias, 2001)
“Do you like this author?” I asked, referring to the book she had just deemed “too self-assured.”
“Like?” she repeated. “Love blinds a reader for a time. I prefer to remain awake while I read.”
“Wakefulness,” I said, “often brings fatigue.”
“Yes,” she replied, “but fatigue sharpens the fire of love.”
Our dialogue felt like a chess match: the pieces sliding without sound, yet with each move the ground belonged a little more to her.
She rose slowly, pulled an essay collection from the shelf, and handed it to me. “In this one,” she said, “the writer leaves space for the reader.” The remark was gentle, yet in comparison to the book I had been holding, it established an implicit superiority: Not that one; this one. Her approval shaped direction. If you followed it, the current carried you along with tender persuasion; if you resisted, you seemed graceless upon the shore.
Scientific Note: Selective approval and selective devaluation quietly set the norms of a relationship. The addressee begins to adjust their behavior according to the flow of approval; over time, this dynamic can nurture a cycle of variable reinforcement.
(B. F. Skinner – reinforcement; Richard S. Bychawski – research on social reinforcement)
Outside, the rain paused for a moment and then began again. The bookseller laid an old doormat before the shop’s door. Margaret walked to the threshold and looked out at the rain; she gazed not at her reflection in the glass but at the body of the rain itself, as if she might reach out and touch its shoulder. “Some rains,” she said, “open within a person.”
Perhaps that is why, while speaking with her, I felt a window open inside me—the rain had entered. Rain is an element that cleanses and crystallizes; yet it also exposes the leak. When you discover your leak through someone else’s words, you may for a time feel gratitude toward them. Gratitude often belongs to truth; sometimes it belongs to the frame.
Scientific Note: Gratitude is a powerful binder of relationships; yet when gratitude becomes a tool for framing, it strengthens power asymmetry. Under the influence of indebtedness, one may begin to internalize the norms of the other.
(Robert Cialdini – principle of reciprocity; social influence literature)
As we returned to the table, she drew a small notebook from her bag—thin, cream-colored pages. In the corner of one she scribbled a line; then she lifted her head, as though what she had written also belonged to me. “Words,” she said, “sometimes envy one another.”
“Which envies which?” I asked.
“The first envies the last,” she replied, “and the last envies the place of the first.”
I smiled. The sentence was not only a literary play but also a rehearsal: a word that wished to keep its place—and beside it, I who wished to keep mine.
Scientific Note: Aesthetic games about the nature of dialogue can serve as subtle instruments of frame dominance. The more a person believes themselves part of “the game,” the more the question of who owns its rules fades from sight.
(Erving Goffman – The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, 1956; theories of interaction rituals)
That evening, when we stepped out of the bookshop, the streetlamps carried softened halos along with the rain. I followed Margaret’s steps; she was one of those who knew the art of passing without letting her feet touch the puddles. A small keychain dangled from the edge of her bag, swaying like a plumb line, steadying her center of gravity with each stride.
The city’s sounds—distant sirens, the sharp hiss of brakes, the slam of a closing door—gathered into an invisible orchestra. And I wondered: in that orchestra, which instrument was I? Was Margaret the conductor?
The question reverberated inside me; then I chose silence. For sometimes when one holds a question quiet, the answer finds its own rhythm.
Silence, in certain relationships, functions as a means of self-regulation—not to transform the other, but to lend predictability to one’s own nervous system. Later, this forms the foundation of what is called the “gray rock” strategy.
(Dialectical Behavior Therapy – emotion regulation skills; Marsha Linehan, 1993)
As the rain grew heavier, the bookseller locked the door from within. The bell trembled softly one last time—like a small accent placed upon the period of a sentence. That night, I was carried not by words but by tones. And tones endure longer than meanings: people forget what was said, but remember how it was spoken.
As I followed Margaret with my eyes, a sentence pressed heavily inside me: “Beside her I want to be right, not good.” Truth does not beg for approval; yet the allure of approval shines brighter than truth. And here lay the line: right, or radiant?
Walking beneath the rain, I saw halos glimmer around my reflection in the puddles. Perhaps it was the halo effect of that evening; or perhaps only a small jest the rain had played upon me.
Scientific Note: The tendency to compress a striking figure’s many traits into a single positive or negative impression—the halo effect—can sway our judgments disproportionately.
(Edward L. Thorndike – “The Halo Effect,” 1920)
That night, when I reached home, the rhythm of the rain tapping against my window was still in harmony with the bell of the shop. I opened my notebook and wrote: “Is her delicacy sharp enough to take me away from myself?” Beneath the sentence I placed a small mark; it glowed in the darkness like a trace of phosphor. Then I sent the line to no one—for some sentences are not meant to be spoken, but written to remain inside.
Scientific Note: The distinction between inner speech and shared speech—when a person refrains from releasing their thoughts into the open loop in order to preserve equilibrium—can serve as a protective mechanism of self-regulation.
(James Gross – emotion regulation theory, 1998)
A Painting in the Museum
In the high-ceilinged halls of the Whitney Museum, footsteps echoed as if each visitor were stamping a seal to remind themselves of their own existence. The coldness of the concrete collided with the sharp heat of the spotlights; the paintings hung on the walls breathed quietly between these two extremes. Wandering through the museum was not like walking within time but beside it: each work carried the heartbeat of an era, while at the same time standing bare within this very moment.
Margaret stood before the navy wall, gazing at the red stain in the very center of the canvas. There were almost no figures in the painting; only dark tones, layers of blue laid on thick, and in the middle a red mark that seemed to have suddenly burst open. Margaret’s eyes grew heavy upon that red.
“Some reds do not scream,” she said. “They only let the heart bleed quietly.”
Her words were like a brief note added beneath a painting: not explaining the image itself, but inviting the viewer toward another window. Standing beside her, I felt that this sentence was in fact a description of herself. Margaret did not scream either; her voice was hushed, her tone soft, yet at the edge of her gaze there was a sharpness that quietly wounded the heart.
The shadows the light cast upon the painting also fell across Margaret’s face. For a moment, I saw in her eyes the red stain itself: like a smoldering fire. A strange feeling stirred within me: I was drawn toward her, yet at the same time wanted to hold my distance. Perhaps her allure lay here: a presence that generated attraction and repulsion all at once…
As I stood silently by her side, she turned toward me. Yet her gaze did not quite meet my eyes; it seemed fixed upon an invisible figure behind me. Then, with the faintest smile, she said, “A friend of mine understands this painter far better.”
That sentence fell upon my heart like the red mark at the very center of the painting. It seemed to place at the center not me, but that invisible “friend.” In that moment, the worth of my presence beside her diminished.
Scientific Note: In relationships, constant reference to a third party—using an invisible or real “other” as a means of comparison—is called triangulation in psychology. This method stirs feelings of rivalry in the counterpart and heightens the search for approval.
(otto kernberg – borderline conditions and pathological narcissism, 1975)
Margaret turned her gaze back to the canvas. “By placing the red in the middle, the painter has rendered all the blue layers worthless,” she said. “Sometimes a single detail can eclipse an entire labor.”
At her words I shuddered. For at that moment I thought of my own life: in her eyes, a single sentence of mine—perhaps just a single word—could eclipse all of my effort. And in that instant, I saw myself within the painting. I was the blue layers; a single red word from Margaret’s lips could invalidate them all.
The quiet superiority I had once felt in the bookshop under the rain now confronted me again, this time through the language of art. Margaret’s voice was in fact pronouncing a judgment not upon a painting, but upon me.
We remained silent for a while longer. It is possible to feel alone among a crowd, yet being alone beside her was far deeper. For the essence of loneliness is not silence itself, but the sense that behind that silence lurks another’s hidden judgment.
Scientific Note: In narcissistic personality structures, belittling another’s effort or existence—yet presenting it under the guise of “objective criticism”—is common. This gradually erodes the other’s self-respect and drives them toward seeking validation.
(heinz kohut – the analysis of the self, 1971; DSM-5 – criteria for narcissistic personality disorder)
I kept walking beside Margaret. She looked at another canvas and offered yet another brief remark. Each sentence, cloaked as an art critique, was in fact a proclamation meant to secure her own position. And I, without realizing it, had begun to measure myself against her words.
The heavy silence of the museum hall only magnified the small storm within me. I asked myself: “Is it truly the painting that speaks, or does she merely use the painting as her instrument while speaking to me?”
The red mark still gleamed in Margaret’s eyes. In mine, a new mark was slowly forming: doubt about myself.
Suspended in the center of the hall was a lofty silence. Though surrounded by a crowd, each step, each glance, each breath carried its own echo, never mingling with the others. The museum lights did not merely illuminate the paintings; they positioned them like judges. Each canvas seemed to scrutinize its beholder, pardoning some, belittling others. The one before which Margaret stood was such a canvas: the solitary red mark at its center seemed at once culprit and witness.
Margaret stood beside me in silence, yet her silence created not distance but space. Even in her muteness there was authority. The sentence she had spoken while gazing at the red still rang in my ears: “Some reds do not scream; they only let the heart bleed quietly.” Its aesthetic beauty was mesmerizing; yet beneath its elegance lay a hidden verdict. Her sentences defined not only the object, but also me.
In my eyes, red was a brushstroke; in hers, a wound that bled the heart. At that moment I thought: we may look upon the same thing, but we inhabit entirely different universes. In her universe, everything was sealed in shadow. And the words of the one dwelling within that shadow seemed more enchanting—for they shared no meaning, but hid it within their own echo.
Scientific Note: In narcissistic individuals, interpretations are often made without leaving any share for the other; such remarks serve less to share an experience than to declare one’s own position.
(otto kernberg – borderline conditions and pathological narcissism, 1975)
Rag and Silk
When I sent her one of my texts, I still remember the message that arrived on my phone at midnight:
“I haven’t come across this in years. There is a hidden sea within your lines. You enter it, and you do not wish to leave.”
The warmth of that sentence spread through me; it felt as though a door had opened at the very center of my chest. The silent child who had waited behind the lines I had written for years suddenly felt seen for the first time. Margaret’s words were woven of silk; they were light, soft, and when they touched my skin, they gave me assurance. I told myself: “At last, I am understood.”
But the message that came the next morning bore a different tone:
“There is a brilliance in your writing, yes, but sometimes you are too showy. I think you love yourself too much in your lines.”
In that instant, the silk turned to rags. The text exalted to the skies the night before was belittled the next day. The same writing, the same lines; yet Margaret’s scale was never fixed. Its north was a compass shifting with her moods.
I had become a meteorologist adjusting myself to her weather report. I expanded with her praise and deflated with her criticism. One day silk, the next day rag… And between the two was me: like a piece of fabric constantly being measured.
Scientific Note: This dynamic is known in psychology as the idealization–devaluation cycle. Narcissistic individuals first elevate the other, placing them at the center; then swiftly belittle and devalue them. These oscillations cause the counterpart’s self-esteem to waver.
(otto kernberg – borderline conditions and pathological narcissism, 1975; DSM-5 – narcissistic personality disorder criteria)
There was a spell in Margaret’s praise. Her words stamped upon my lines like a sacred seal. Yet the belittlement that followed shattered that seal, leaving my lines exposed. Nakedness is the heaviest burden for a writer: not the stripping of the work, but of the writer themself.
A voice within me whispered that these fluctuations were not healthy. But another voice had fallen under the enchantment of Margaret’s praise. Sometimes, even knowing that one drinks poisoned wine, one cannot turn their eyes away from its dazzling color. Margaret’s sentences were like that for me: part intoxicating wine, part the headache that turns morning into torment.
One evening, as we walked beneath the streetlamps, among the drifting shadows, she turned to me:
“People may not take you too seriously. There is depth in your writing, but sometimes you remain at the surface.”
Beneath that sentence lay an invisible decree: “I take you seriously; but to others, you are shallow.” This was the double-edged message that bound me to her: savior and judge at once. To regain my worth in her eyes, I felt I must write more, offer more proof.
Scientific Note: In the communication style known as the double bind, messages of approval and rejection are delivered simultaneously. The counterpart cannot discern which to believe; this fuels an endless effort at self-justification.
(gregory bateson – steps to an ecology of mind, 1972)
At times Margaret exalted me in public. At a literary gathering, she turned to my text and said, “Hearing this enriched me.” In that moment, all eyes turned toward me; I felt myself at the center. Yet at the close of the same gathering, she leaned toward my ear and whispered, “Still, you sometimes write too hastily.” Between those two sentences, the pulse of my self-respect shifted violently.
The hands that wrapped me in silk could, with equal speed, turn me to rags. And in this cycle, I found myself unraveling more and more. Her words became a mirror, but not a smooth one; it was a fractured mirror. One day I saw myself magnified in the broken pieces; the next, the same fragments diminished me.
Scientific Note: Those with fragile self-esteem constantly seek to measure their worth through external reflections. In narcissistic dynamics, this binds the counterpart’s sense of value to a “double-sided mirror”: magnification and diminution occur on the same surface.
(heinz kohut – self-psychology, 1971; alice miller – the drama of the gifted child, 1979)
In Margaret’s presence, I began to ask myself: “In whose eyes do I exist? My own, or hers?” And the more I sought the answer in her eyes, the more blurred my own vision became.
One night, I wrote this sentence in my notebook:
“As I am weighed on another’s scale, I forget my own weight.”
During the time I spent with Margaret, I realized her sentences were not mere words; they were the weather reports of her moods. One day sunny, another day clouded. Yet the difference was sharper, more decisive than the ordinary fluctuations of others. For her words defined not only herself, but me as well.
One night, I sent her a short story I had written. The protagonist was someone who, while walking in the rain, fell in love with his own shadow. Margaret replied at midnight:
“Enchanting… I wanted to lose myself in your lines. My heart raced as I read.”
I read that message again and again. My heart seemed tuned to the rhythm of hers. In that instant, I believed not in the power of writing but in Margaret’s approval. For a writer, this is both the greatest reward and the gravest danger.
But the sentence she wrote about the same story the next morning was utterly different:
“Too melodramatic… It feels as though you are trying to force the reader to like you.”
What had been “enchanting” last night became “forced” by morning. And between those two sentences, I lost track of who I was.
Scientific Note: In the idealization–devaluation cycle, the same object (a text, a behavior, a person) is labeled with two extreme values in a short time. This breeds identity confusion in the counterpart and a constant need for self-validation.
(otto kernberg – borderline conditions and pathological narcissism, 1975)
At a gathering, with others at the table, she showered my text with praise: “There is a sea in his sentences; I am still swimming.” All eyes turned toward me; I felt envious glances. For a moment, I truly felt valuable. But when the meeting ended, she leaned to my ear and whispered:
“Still, you search for too much depth; sometimes you remain shallow. Don’t weary people.”
In the same day, the same lines could be both sea and swamp. This inconsistency did not confuse me; rather, it drove me to greater effort. For I thought I must write better to regain her praise.
Scientific Note: Variable rewards reinforce the cycle of dependence. Praise given at intervals triggers dopamine release in the brain; the subsequent devaluation creates a hunger for dopamine. This hunger drives the person back into seeking the reward.
(b.f. skinner – behaviorist psychology, 1957)
In Margaret’s presence, I began drifting away from my own writing. I no longer sought my own voice, but the words that would echo in hers. While writing, Margaret was now in my mind: “Will she like this? Will she find it excessive? Will she wrap me again in silk, or will she cast me down as rag?”
I noted in my journal:
“When I write now, I no longer write for myself, but for her scale.”
And this realization bred fear in me. For writing was like breathing; yet even my breath now seemed bound to her approval.
Scientific Note: In narcissistic relationships, the counterpart begins to lose the boundaries of the self. They prioritize not their own needs and values, but the measures of the narcissistic person. This is called “the externalization of self-worth.”
(heinz kohut – self-psychology, 1971)
One night, while walking in the park, she turned to me:
“Sometimes talking with you is pleasant… but sometimes it is tiring. Because you talk too much about yourself.”
That sentence lodged within me. For days I spoke less. Even while writing, I restrained myself. In Margaret’s presence, silence appeared a virtue; yet in truth, my silence was a sign of shrinking within her frame.
Scientific Note: In covert narcissism, accusations of silence and of “excess” force the counterpart to withdraw. This tilts the balance of power in favor of the narcissistic person.
(george simon – in sheep’s clothing, 1996)
Over time, I came to see: Margaret’s praise did not bring me closer to myself; it drew me further away. For each compliment was but preparation for the next belittlement. Thus, even her “silk” carried the shadow of rags.
One evening I wrote in my diary:
“Even when I am wrapped in silk, I can feel the fabric of rag beneath.”
This awareness gave birth to both pain and freedom within me. Pain, from living constantly at the mercy of her scale. Freedom, from realizing that this scale was not mine at all, but merely her game board.
The Orchestration of Silence
After an argument, I did not hear a single word from her for three days. The screen of my phone gleamed with silence. Nothing appeared on the notification bar; yet precisely that absence echoed in the loudest corner of my mind.
At times one is wounded by a word; at times by the absence of a word. Margaret’s silence was not ordinary forgetfulness; it was a conscious withdrawal. Her silence was louder than speech. Each day I checked my screen countless times, and each time I was met with nothingness. That emptiness pressed upon my heart like a stone.
On the evening of the third day, a message appeared on my phone. It was a small, broken line:
“The country awaiting me is rain.”
It was misspelled, incomplete. Yet even its incompleteness I found enchanting. For the smallest sign that comes after absence appears as a gift. After the punishment of silence, a crumb feels like a feast.
Scientific Note: In communication, deliberate silence is one of the most common passive–aggressive strategies of covert narcissism. Silence acts as punishment; the small gesture that follows serves as reward. This “withdraw–give back” cycle produces an addictive effect in the counterpart.
(george simon – in sheep’s clothing, 1996)
Margaret’s silence was not merely a preference, but an orchestra. Silence functioned not like a single instrument, but like an entire symphony. On the first day it was as if only the strings had fallen quiet: tense, expectant. On the second, the percussion too was hushed: the emptiness in my chest grew. By the third day, the silence deepened so profoundly it felt as though the whole orchestra had held its breath at once.
And then… a single line arrived. That line was like the orchestra’s return with one note. I drew breath in pursuit of that note.
One night I wrote in my notebook:
“Her silence is not absence; it is the most elegant form of punishment.”
One evening, when we met face to face, I asked her:
“Why were you silent for three days?”
Without averting her gaze from mine, Margaret answered in a calm voice:
“Sometimes not speaking is truer than anything that could be said.”
On the surface, the sentence bore wisdom. Yet beneath it lay the clear meaning: “My silence was meant to discipline you.” This guise of wisdom was like a silk shawl covering the punishment. I could not accuse her; for silence is not a crime, but appears as a choice.
Scientific Note: In narcissistic communication, silence is presented under the guise of a “reasonable choice.” Thus, when the counterpart voices their discomfort, they feel guilty: “I am too sensitive.”
(heinz kohut – the analysis of the self, 1971)
So too did I feel: too sensitive. Because her silence disturbed me, I felt guilt. As though I had demanded too much, as though I had been excessive. Yet the truth was this: silence had been dealt to me as an invisible punishment.
Margaret’s strongest sentences were the ones she never spoke. Within her silence were hundreds of unsaid insinuations. A look, a hush, a retreat… all became a language of signs. And I lost myself among those signs.
Scientific Note: In psychological literature, “punishment through silence” (silent treatment) is considered one of the most subtle forms of emotional manipulation. It triggers the fear of rejection and strengthens the anxious bond.
(DSM-5 – criteria for narcissistic personality disorder; roy baumeister – self-esteem studies, 2001)
In those days, what I felt was this: my relationship with her was like a piece of music. But its strongest passages were not melodies, but rests. And Margaret stretched, shortened, multiplied those rests at will. My only task in this music was to wait patiently through them.
Yet one evening, as I listened to the rain at my window, a small realization arose within me: “My music should not consist solely of the silences she leaves behind.”
At that moment, another sentence surfaced in my heart:
“Her silence does not have to diminish me; within the silence, I too can find my own voice.”
Silence was Margaret’s sharpest weapon. It was not the lack of words; rather, it was an invisible knife replacing words. Her silence thinned the oxygen in the air, lowered the pressure of the room, made breathing difficult.
Her three days of speechlessness gave rise to different echoes in my mind. The first day, a curiosity tinged with anger: “Why is she silent?” The second day, a longing mixed with anxiety: “Did I make a mistake?” The third, a silence that questioned my very existence: “Perhaps I am too much.”
Thus her silence birthed three different selves within me: the guilty, the waiting, the questioning. The less she spoke, the more I changed.
Scientific Note: In narcissistic dynamics, silence serves a “mirror function.” When the counterpart sees no reflection in the other, they begin to question their own worth. This is linked to the externalization of self-esteem.
(heinz kohut – self-psychology, 1971)
One evening, staring blankly at my phone, I realized: her silence was speaking more than I did. My mind had begun to produce her sentences on its own. “Maybe you are bored now.” “Maybe you are closer to someone else.” “Maybe you are testing me.” The more she kept quiet, the more I spoke for her.
Here lay the true power of silence: without uttering a word, she compelled me to generate thousands of possibilities within myself. And all of them led me to question my own being.
Scientific Note: The “gap-filling tendency” is one of the cognitive biases of the human mind. In states of uncertainty, the person tends to fill in the blanks with negative interpretations. Narcissistic silence manipulates this bias as a tool.
(daniel kahneman – thinking, fast and slow, 2011)
The Ritual of Silence
Margaret’s silence was not merely punitive, but ceremonial. She bore it like a form of “discipline.” When I came face to face with her, she would seal three days of silence with a single brief sentence:
“Sometimes not speaking is the truest answer.”
On the surface, it carried the air of wisdom… but in truth it was no wisdom at all, rather a declaration of superiority. It was the elegant disguise of saying, “I was right, you were wrong.”
In that moment, I had no reply to offer. To question her silence felt as inappropriate as a child asking a teacher, “Why did you give a lesson?” Thus I accepted her silence. And the more I accepted it, the smaller I became.
Scientific Note: In narcissistic relationships, silence is often packaged as moral superiority. In such moments, when the counterpart voices their emotional need, they are made to feel guilt.
(alice miller – The Drama of the Gifted Child, 1979)
A Philosophical Inquiry
One day, as I sat before my window, I thought: Is silence only absence? Or is silence, in truth, another language? Margaret’s silence was teaching me this:
“Even when I do not speak, you go on thinking for me.”
This was the philosophical paradox of silence: the unspoken could prove stronger than the spoken. For the unspoken was open to infinite possibilities. While a single word of hers carried only one meaning, her silence cast thousands of meanings upon me.
And among those thousands of meanings, I became lost.
Scientific Note: The anxiety born of uncertainty leads the human mind toward “hyper-interpretation.” In narcissistic relationships, this intensifies the force of manipulation; the person becomes trapped in a constant effort to guess the other’s intention.
(leon festinger – Theory of Cognitive Dissonance, 1957)
The Moment Silence Was Broken
But one day, the moment arrived when Margaret’s silence lost its power. Once again, she had remained silent for three days and then sent a short sentence. But this time I realized: I was no longer hungry for her words. In her absence, I had discovered another music within myself.
I listened to the rhythm of the rain, I wrote in my notebook, I spoke again with my own words. At that moment I understood: silence was not a punishment inflicted upon me; it could also be a space for me. I could fill the shadow that Margaret’s silence cast upon me with my own light.
At our next meeting, she looked at me and said, “I was silent because you are too sensitive.” I met her eyes and smiled:
“Yes, I am sensitive. But this is not my fault; it is my nature.”
In that instant, her silence became powerless against me. For I now saw her silence not as my deficiency, but as her strategy. And once a strategy is seen, the spell is broken.
Scientific Note: “Mindfulness” is an important step in recognizing cycles of manipulation. To see silence not as a personal deficiency, but as a communication strategy, diminishes its power.
(marsha linehan – Dialectical Behavior Therapy, 1993)
Conclusion; The Redefinition of Silence
Margaret’s silence taught me three things.
First, silence is not only a punishment but also a mirror. In that mirror, I did not see my own face, but the trembling of my shadow. As Jung said, confronting the shadow is the hardest journey of all; for there appear the parts we have rejected, concealed, and lost within the judgments of others.
Second, silence can be used to diminish me. Yet it is also possible to rise from within diminishment. The seed too seems to shrink in the darkness beneath the soil; yet in truth it is putting down roots, preparing for its ascent toward the light within. When I bore the weight of silence not upon my shoulders, but as an instrument of my own transformation, her punishment turned into freedom.
Third, silence returned my own voice to me. When I grew weary of being weighed upon another’s scale, the voice within whispered: “You are the measure of your own essence.” What Jung called individuation was precisely this: to be nourished not by outer approval or judgment, but by the light of the inner center.
I no longer fear silence. For silence is not emptiness; it is the call of the true self echoing in the depths of the void. What lies hidden in silence is not punishment, but the first breath of rebirth.
And Margaret’s silence… yes, it wounded me. But it also nurtured me. For in that silence, I heard not another’s decree, but the melody of my own essence. In that melody, there was neither the narcissist’s shadow nor her scale. Her silence no longer defines me; I define my own voice, my own shadow, my own light.
Silence taught me this: when one is freed from another’s frame, one begins to hear the true rhythm of one’s soul. And that rhythm is pure freedom, needing no judgment at all.
