They are not free; they live in a prison of their own lies. Freedom isn’t just about doing whatever you want; real freedom is the ability to be honest with yourself. It’s to look at your own darkness, your shadow, and not run from it. To take off the mask and still feel worthy. It is peace, self-acceptance, and inner stillness.
A narcissist will never know that kind of freedom because they are trapped in a lie they built themselves. They spend their entire lives performing, pretending, and projecting. They create a false identity, polish it, protect it, and force everyone around them to believe in it.
But the thing about pretending is that being someone else all the time is exhausting. It’s a cage. They live in constant fear of being exposed; they have to monitor what people think, what people say, and how they feel. They have to manipulate reality just to survive inside their fake version of it. Every time the truth comes close to breaking through, they panic. That’s why they lash out, gaslight, and rewrite the past. They do not just lie to you; they lie to themselves constantly.
But no matter how much they try to control the narrative, they cannot escape the truth: they are not who they pretend to be. And that truth haunts them. It shows up at night when they are alone, in the form of shame they cannot name. It shows up in their compulsive need to dominate every space because deep down, they feel like a fraud. They call it strength, but it is fear. They call it control, but it is panic. They call it independence, but they can’t live without people to feed off.
They are not free; they are bound, tied up in their own web of lies, wounded ego, and fake self-worth. And the most tragic part is they chose this. They chose the mask over healing, the performance over honesty, the illusion over love. So while they may walk around acting all superior, what they are actually doing is carrying an invisible prison on their back—a prison built out of secrets, shame, and denial.
That is why, no matter how far they travel, how much they gain, or how high they rise, they never escape. Because the prison is not outside; it is inside. Only truth can open that door, but they will never walk through it, will they? Because freedom requires humility, and that is the one thing a narcissist cannot fake and cannot genuinely experience.
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