Boredomatitsfinest wrote: ↑Fri May 24, 2019 1:24 pm
Alright so, narc theory just for shits. Here we go.
I don’t think it’s necessary to go in depth about Ellie’s possible narcissism and all of the supporting ‘evidence’, as that’s pretty much already been discussed to death here. So, without discounting that possibility, I want to offer an alternate perspective.
I’ve picked up on a lot of instances where Ellie seems very....meek? in the way she communicates with Jared. Sometimes it’s like she’s scared to assert herself, say how she really feels or as if she’s being careful not to make him mad. Now, obviously she knows she’s being filmed so the behavior could just be because she doesn’t want to be seen in a negative light. But, it has made me think twice.
I began to question if, maybe the narc in the relationship is Jared. Because, when you’re in a long term relationship with a narc, you can start to display a lotttt of the same behaviors/mannerisms as Ellie. Clearly Ellie is an insecure woman. And when you put together her insecurity and naive/uneducated disposition, it would make her easy to manipulate, aka the ideal target for a narc. Especially someone coming from a family who would allow them to date a 20 something year old man, at only 17 years old - a 17 year old with no real sense of self, at that. If you think about it:
• Not only was it Jared who wanted to start vlogging in the first place (meanwhile, Ellie has expressed several times that she doesn’t really like vlogging), he is also the one who edits. Meaning he has full control over how each of them are portrayed.
• He’s pretty dang full of himself, LOVES attention and goes out of his way to be the center of it on an absurdly regular basis.
• Yes, he does seem to dote on Ellie and ‘spoil’ her often. But, if you notice, it’s often when Ellie seems to be in a pissy mood. We don’t know what goes on between them off camera, but it would make sense if that’s a form of his manipulation. And/or, he just does it to support his ‘good husband’ image.
• It’s hard to spot, but I’ve noticed more than several instances of him either being passive aggressive (the time he got his hair cut by someone else and rubbed it in Ellie’s face was an obvious one), or condescending (he’s pretty good about masking it with his words, but you can often tell by his body language).
• Honestly, every time he turns on the water works, it has always felt like a forced act to me. Like, when he would go out of his way to film himself crying and being all preachy. Seems like nothing but character support, and attention seeking imo.
• This is a really gross one...but, narcs and incest is a big thing. We’ve always talked about how creepy Jared gets with the whole Ellie/Jennifer look alike situation. And Jennifer has always struck me as uncomfortable with Jared. (But it could just be that she’s uncomfortable on camera, of course.)
• Could Ellie’s highs and lows have anything to do with whichever point in the narc abuse cycle their relationship is in? (Personally, my N relationship did that to me and I had no idea before I became aware I was being abused and emotionally manipulated.) I wonder if her highs and lows can be traced back to any correlation with how they were doing with views. Aka, upsetting Jared.
There’s probably more that I’m forgetting, and this post is more than long enough as is...lol. Obviously nothing I mentioned is conclusive. And, hell, for all we know, both of them could be narcs (Jared being the smarter, more covert one), OR, maybe they really are the ‘nice’ people they present themselves to be and neither of them are. I just think it’s interesting to speculate/discuss.
