- How can we spot narcissism in ourselves and others?
First of all a narcissist does not admit, or has a very strong tendency not to admit being wrong. A person who suffers from narcissism will have a much higher opinion of themselves than they should realistically speaking. He may even expect to be recognized and respected by others beyond his social status. He always associates with people who are successful or who are positively rated, associating their status with his own. He is inclined to consider himself superior to others. Very often seeks the attention and validation of others, even when his role is that of the timid victim. They feel entitled to always do things to their advantage and tend to be extremely controlling. They manipulate and induce feelings of guilt in their relationship partners, without feeling sorry for themselves. He has a very low capacity for empathy, others are always peripheral to his interests. Incapable of unconditional love, can’t give without being able to quantify the investment based on a vested interest. They experience a constant state of dissatisfaction in all the relationships they have, ultimately no one lives up to their standards. Often has short, intense relationships that lack depth, and are incapable of real, authentic connection. From an erotic point of view, narcissists are either sensual or intellectual. The former are always showing off their bodies, expecting validation and attention based on their physical features, while the intellectuals show off by displaying their intellect and parading their accumulated knowledge in a defiant and perhaps even tiring way. I would like to mention that when I refer to the narcissistic erotic aspects, I am not talking primarily about the sexual act which aims at bodily union, no! In this case, the eros is perverted and aimed at the narcissist’s egocentric fantasies. What makes this erotic scenario perverse is the fact that the narcissist is the initiator of the fantasy, meaning that he is the one who seeks satisfaction, but he is also the object of his desire. More precisely, the inflation of his ego together with the illusion of his omnipotent greatness, validated by the gaze of others, is what erotically excites a narcissist. Beyond the arrogance that accompanies specific self-entitlement, a narcissist will also have problems with envy. He feels that the approval and attention given to others deprives him of what is rightfully his, and if someone else gets these things, he will not get enough of what he wants. So when they feel overshadowed by others they can become very jealous, either that others surpass them in their material capital, superior status, accomplishments, etc.
- Varieties of narcissists:
2.1 The Spoiled:
This first narcissistic subtype is none other than that spoiled child whose parents are loaded with money, but the spoiled brat can also come from simple families, families that don’t sit on suitcases of money. They don’t care about others, they crush them under their ambitions and treat them like objects. They are unable to be sympathetic to other people’s problems, being profoundly lacking in empathy. Their relationships are deeply unbalanced, taking all they can from them and offering little in return. Not capable of real, authentic connections, they are often deserted even by family, friends or partners because their interactions with them are predominantly abusive and toxic.
2.2 The addict
The addict is the perfect helpless victim. He does not take care of himself and expects others to take care of him. He is constantly demanding and tires those around him with his own problems that need to be solved. He becomes tiresome to those in his community because he does not respect the time and needs of others. Others inevitably come to see them as a burden, a powerless and hypocritical person who parades their powerlessness and expects others to always come to their rescue.
2.3 The Impulsive one
This is the most chaotic of the three subtypes. He starts various activities but fails to see them through to the end, always being drawn into other mirages and possibilities. He fails to perform to the level of his abilities, his results are beyond the expectations he creates. The shame that gives rise to the narcissistic defense mechanism becomes acute, due to his multiple failures, and the feeling of incompetence becomes very strong. He feels that he lacks meaning and direction because he lives chaotically and disorganized. Although discipline may be a solution, the impulsive is not able to do things systematically. They are prone to addictions and other time-consuming vices. He is recurrently confronted with intense fits of rage, causing others to avoid him, or even push him away.
- How is a narcissist born?
We live in an imperfect world and trauma is not an option. Each of us experiences traumatic events at different levels, events that expose our powerlessness and reflect our fragility in the world. But as we learn from the book by psychoanalyst Symington. Neville, Narcissism: A New Theory, this self-centered attitude is a choice and not a destiny. Consciously or unconsciously, the child often chooses the narcissistic option in the face of suffering, chooses to disconnect from what is alive in his life, from what can hurt him and thereby harm him. [2]
Isolation and loneliness, together with exclusion are stressors that very often lead to self-annihilation of connection with one’s own self, and then inevitably to the rejection of connection with others.
Comforting the child superficially, without real emotional nurturing, also often results in the development of narcissism. There is no point in having all your childish fantasy wishes fulfilled, be it toys, trips or even appetites, if your inner needs, those for connection and intimacy, are neglected or even canceled.
Manipulation by attachment figures or perhaps using children in an abusive manner to fulfill certain emotional needs of the parents (sexual or emotional incest, taking on responsibilities that were not meant for you as a child, etc.) So your emotional needs were never recognized and met, or very little, so you never learned to recognize them in yourself and then meet them in a responsible way.
Result-dependent appreciation and rejection in the face of failure often leads to the construction of a narcissistic delusion based on omnipotence and self-sufficiency.
Conflicting messages or double standards from parents can also cause a child to retreat into narcissism, thus managing to avoid feelings of helplessness and the desire to rely on parents, to depend on them for security and protection.
A final aspect worth mentioning is the cultivation throughout childhood of the feeling that you only deserve attention when you behave in a special way. When you manifest the values that your inclusion space cultivates. This can give you a privileged status in the social structure of which you are a part, but the feeling of uniqueness can eventually become chronic in a negative sense. For example, in a family of musicians, a child who is musically gifted may receive much more encouragement and feel more important than the rest of his siblings who do not display the same level of ability. In some situations, this extra attention and validation from parents can have very negative consequences for a child’s emotional development.
- How can you help a narcissist by being in a relationship with him?
Identify what the narcissist values and use those things to restrict his freedom. A narcissistic person can’t bear to feel ashamed, so he is always using the things he values and that he thinks he possesses to hide his feelings of inferiority behind them. If you understand what is his Mamona, that value, that richness, in which he puts his trust, you will be able to understand what is his fragility and what makes him feel vulnerable. The narcissist needs a psychological support for what he is experiencing, so he develops fantasies where he contemplates his own greatness, a consistent illusion in which he feels unconstrained, omnipotent and absolutely free, in the sense that the limits of ordinary people do not apply to him. If you understand this gilded mask behind which he hides his hard face, you will be able above all to defend yourself from his humiliation. In the sense that he will always try to have a relationship of power with you, he will always try to prove to you that what he has is superior and that by the very fact that you do not have that valuable thing, you are inferior to him. You will be able to see through his drama and his lies and instead of being ashamed of his contempt for you, have the courage and strength to reflect to him his emptiness and insecurity and perhaps even feel pity for all this illusory parade of glitter. Secondly, if your narcissistic relationship partner, begins to become aware of his narcissism, all the more so, will you be able to help and warn him when he begins to fall back into this pattern.
To be able to help a narcissist you need to know who you are, to make your narcissistic partner very aware that it is not you who needs him, it is really him who needs you, for he is the one who is living a lie. So if you choose to stay in the relationship, it’s out of pity for the harm he’s doing to himself through his narcissism, and in no way because you feel inferior to him and need to be overwhelmed by his greatness. But for a narcissistic person to respect you, you need to make your limits very clear to him, and these limits must be non-negotiable. He will need to understand that there will be concrete consequences and sanctions if he does not respect your values. So you need to think about these issues and then communicate them very concretely.
Another very important aspect is that you need to be empathic, this man is in a lot of pain, but he has a very unhealthy way of managing his emotional discomfort. He is not able to understand other people’s emotions and is obsessed with what is happening to him. Therefore, don’t try to tell him how you feel but rather make him understand the consequences of his actions for the status of your relationship. A narcissist will only change when he gradually begins to realize the value that you have as a person and that his actions affect you as well, and this can have very serious consequences for him too. By becoming aware of your value through the limits of the relationship he has with you, gradually the illusion of his own self-sufficiency will be weakened. If his self-sufficiency weakens, then his self has the chance to become more authentic, that is, more real and more assumed within the relationships where he exists. But this can only take place when the narcissist understands dependence on others in a healthy way, meaning that he begins to practice interdependence. Neither counter-dependence, which implies that he does not need anyone, nor dependence, in the sense that he is the victim of his powerlessness, so he abandons himself without any limits into the arms of his family, society, God, etc., and then blames them for his failures, nor codependence, which implies an oscillation between the two, but interdependence. Nothing other than the fact that personal life is the gift of receiving and giving further. We are a link in a long generation of people, so even if we are unique individuals, we belong to a community that integrates and includes us in a larger unity, where uniqueness is interwoven with identity.
Be prepared for denials, passive-aggressive reactions, anger, and other ways in which the narcissist will try to regain his sense of self-righteousness and the illusion of superiority. Prepare yourself and arm yourself with patience, I say this because I know how narcissistic I can be so many times when confronted with my character flaws. Brace yourself and be tough, because even if your relationship partner assumes their own narcissism and related flaws, breaking out of these behavioral patterns is a process. Be prepared!
One last point worth mentioning is: that if you don’t have a partner, in the end, it’s better to give up. Nobody can be helped if they don’t want to be helped, nobody changes if they don’t want to change. Beware of the savior syndrome, because this role also has deeply narcissistic elements. Codependency and narcissism are interlinked, but maybe we will talk more about that in the future.
- Self-treatment for those who feel narcissistic…
The main problem for a narcissist is motivation. In order to break out of your narcissistic pattern you need to understand all the benefits and costs of this behavior you have developed over time. The motivation for developing narcissism is simple to recognize. You don’t want to realize your own lack of control, it’s too painful. Feeling ashamed always implies a sense of humiliation in the face of your lack of power, the fact that you cannot control others so that they will consider you valuable. This state is too painful for a narcissist, because in this case, it is tantamount to self-annihilation, to the fear of death. As a narcissist, you see only apparent benefits in this behavior, because your lies protect you from your fundamental pain, but in reality, all these actions also bring costs to others. Costs that later become costs to you. It’s useless to think yourself great and superior if you remain alone because your greatness will end up being just a mute echo, a monologue mechanically repeated in a void. No one will see you, because everyone will inevitably get bored of your lies. Because in the end, even those who love you, those who truly love you, will leave you. They have chosen to love you not because you truly gave them something, something they once needed, but perhaps they have loved you because they saw beauty in you, beyond the shallowness and the lies. But human love is limited, tired of your lies and accusations, they will leave you, even they will inevitably leave you. This will happen not because they don’t love you, but because it is too painful to watch you destroy yourself, and also to give you the relational resources to further destroy yourself would be a lack of love. There is no love without truth, so they will give you the space to seek or rather let the truth find you. So in practical terms, what can you do?
5.1 Make a list of the pros and cons of not accepting others’ limits.
From this, you will find your motivation, and the why for the change. Write down all the reasons why it is worth making the change: the pain you feel, the risk of being dumped, the suffering you cause to those you care about. Write down the negative consequences that have already happened in your life and those that may happen in the future. Be aware (if necessary) of your lack of patience and the fact that this is the reason why you cannot achieve your long-term goals,
5.2 Make a list of all your excuses (the excuses you tell yourself and others when you don’t respect others’ boundaries)
Others exaggerate, others are way too weak, others aren’t X enough, others don’t do Y, others don’t know Z. Resist these excuses and accept that it all starts with you. Being aware of them will make it easier to maintain the process of change.
5.3 Develop empathy
This is probably the central element that combats narcissism. Empathy, as the dictionary [2] tells us, is our affective intuition, which allows us to be receptive to reality. In the case of narcissism, this emotional aptitude becomes undeveloped, and this for a very simple reason: in order to be self-sufficient, it is necessary to ignore the other. Seek to intentionally cultivate this skill, even if it seems mechanical at first, even if it feels fake, it is exactly what you need to transcend your narcissism. So: fake it till you make it!
5.4 Seek support and feedback.
Allow yourself to be seen and seek accountability for your progress, otherwise you’ll lock yourself back into your lies and deepen your bitterness. You need others, you cannot do it alone! Learning how to be in relationships even if you feel weak, to be the one who is helped not the one others need, can be very humbling for a narcissist, that’s because it triggers back trauma, but in this case it’s exactly what you need. But truth and love alone can dissolve the lie that makes you feel shame when you are the one who receives.
5.5 Make a list of your self-discipline tasks.
Prioritize these problems according to boredom. Start working on the least boring ones and move up the hierarchy. When you’re narcissistic you hate delaying your gratification, and that’s because you’ve simply been using illusions to get satisfaction and not investing step by step in reality to build lasting and meaningful results. It’s painful to admit it but that’s where you start! Recognize it and then start setting realistic goals one day at a time.
5.6 Make a list of your tasks for your addiction problems.
Know concretely what your addictions are and what you have to do about them, and then work through them one by one, according to the level of difficulty. Take things slowly, from small to big. You will gain self-efficacy and self-confidence that you can solve your own problems.
5.7 Accept the middle way.
Narcissism means emotional childishness. So your thinking is black and white in terms of fulfilling your needs. If someone doesn’t admire you, you feel worthless, if you don’t get attention, it means you’re unworthy, if you get a “No”, you consider yourself rejected. Understand that there is a middle way in meeting needs. You can get what you need even if it’s not perfect, without overdoing it. Recognize your predisposition to dramatization and fatalism and learn to detach yourself from unrealistic expectations. This takes time, but as you become more authentic, and a sense of a healthy self grows within you, the need to get exactly what you want gradually diminishes.
5.8 You need to feel your vulnerable inner child.
Narcissism, in some cases, arises as a form of counterattack to some unfulfilled emotional needs. Only when you find and embrace your inner child you will fully understand that you don’t need narcissistic manifestations to fulfill your needs. Accepting your own wounds, standing with your pain, and choosing love over contempt and hatred for what you have seen as weakness in yourself in the past is the path to freedom and emotional maturity. It does not matter that you have been rejected, humiliated, betrayed, controlled, abused, etc; it is not what has been done to you that defines who you really are. Even if what you feel is the exact reverse, once you accept what has been done to you, choose to forgive those who have hurt you and yourself for allowing yourself to be defined by that hurt, acceptance and love can begin to do their healing work.
- Conclusion:
Narcissism isn’t just about those toxic individuals, those sinister characters that everyone wants to run away from, narcissism is a spectrum, a continuum I might say. Each one of us develops it to a greater or lesser extent, and that is because we are not strong enough to have the emotional force to be able to stand up to our shame, to do so without inevitably becoming tyrannical or submissive. We all need to discover those aspects of our lives where we are still self-focused and therefore unable to accept our lack of control. So then, after realizing how blinded we have been by our vanity, we can be empowered to forgive and forgive ourselves, because love alone covers it all. Narcissism hides your shame from yourself, but with it your neighbor from you, and with him the possibility of love. Let yourself be seen as you are and shame will disappear. Let yourself be seen, and God, who is love, will atone for and cover all that you think makes you repulsive. For the very things that make you feel ashamed and hide are the very things that He has come to heal through love….
Bibliography:
[1] Symington. Neville Narcissism: A New Theory (1993), editura Karnac Books
[3] Narcissism – the risk of the need to be special and how to cure a narcissist in a relationship
