The third personality disorder in the Cluster B set is Narcissism. I know this is long, but well worth taking the time to read.
Almost everyone has some narcissistic traits, but being conceited,
argumentative, or selfish sometimes (or even all the time) doesn't amount to a
personality disorder.
Narcissistic Personality
Disorder is a long-term pattern of abnormal thinking, feeling, and behavior
in many different situations. The traits on this page will seem
peculiar or
disturbing when someone acts this way --
i.e., you will know that something is not right, and contact with narcissists
may make you feel bad about yourself. It's not unusual for narcissists to be
outstanding in their field of work. But these are the successful people who have
a history of alienating colleagues, co-workers, employees, students, clients,
and customers -- people go away mad or sad after close contact with
narcissists.
This is a compilation of observations I've made from various people I've known
well for many years. Most of these traits apply to all of the narcissists I've
known, but that doesn't mean that they'll all apply to the narcissists you know.
My narcissists are all high-functioning -- that is, they've maintained gainful
employment, marriages and family life -- and there may certainly be narcissistic
traits that I haven't observed among the narcissists I've known. You can go
directly to my
full commentary on narcissists' traits or
you can select what you're most interested in from the
pink
box below. Narcissicism is a personality disorder and that means that
narcissists' personalities aren't organized in a way that makes sense to most
people, so the notes below do not necessarily go in the order I've listed them
or in any order at all. Interaction with narcissists is confusing, even
bewildering -- their reasons for what they do are not the same as normal
reasons. In fact, treating them like normal people (e.g., appealing to their
better nature, as in "Please have a heart," or giving them the chance to
apologize and make amends) will make matters worse with a narcissist.
[For general discussion of cognition, affectivity, interpersonal functioning,
and impulse control in
personality disorders and
NPD. It's also interesting to compare these traits
below with
characteristics of normal six-year-olds.]
The most telling thing that narcissists do is
contradict themselves. They will do this virtually
in the same sentence, without even stopping to take a breath. It can be trivial
(e.g., about what they want for lunch) or it can be serious (e.g., about whether
or not they love you). When you ask them which one they mean, they'll deny ever
saying the first one, though it may literally have been only seconds since they
said it -- really, how could you think they'd ever have said
that?
You need to have your head examined! They will contradict FACTS. They will lie
to you about things that you did together. They will misquote you to yourself.
If you disagree with them, they'll say you're lying, making stuff up, or are
crazy. [At this point, if you're like me, you sort of panic and want to talk to
anyone who will listen about what is going on: this is a healthy reaction; it's
a reality check ("who's the crazy one here?"); that you're confused by the
narcissist's contrariness, that you turn to another person to help you keep your
bearings, that you know something is seriously wrong and worry that it might be
you are all signs that you are not a narcissist]. NOTE: Normal people can behave
irrationally under emotional stress -- be confused, deny things they know, get
sort of paranoid, want to be babied when they're in pain. But normal people
recover pretty much within an hour or two or a day or two, and, with normal
people, your expressions of love and concern for their welfare will be taken to
heart. They will be stabilized by your emotional and moral support. Not so with
narcissists -- the surest way I know of to get a crushing blow to your heart is
to tell a narcissist you love her or him. They will respond with a nasty power
move, such as telling you to do things entirely their way or else be banished
from them for ever.
^
If you're like me, you get into disputes with narcissists over
their casual dishonesty and
cruelty to other
people. Trying to reform narcissists by reasoning with them or by appealing to
their better nature is about as effective as spitting in the ocean. What you see
is what you get: they have no better nature. The fundamental problem here is
that narcissists lack empathy.
Lacking empathy is a profound disturbance
to the narcissist's thinking (cognition) and feeling (affectivity). Even when
very intelligent, narcissists can't reason well. One I've worked with closely
does something I characterize as "analysis by eggbeater." They don't understand
the meaning of what people say and they don't grasp the meaning of the written
word either -- because so much of the meaning of anything we say depends on
context and affect, narcissists (lacking empathy and thus lacking both context
and affect) hear only the words. (Discussions with narcissists can be really
weird and disconcerting; they seem to think that using some of the same words
means that they are following a line of conversation or reasoning. Thus, they
will go off on tangents and irrelevancies, apparently in the blithe delusion
that they understand what others are talking about.) And, frankly, they don't
hear all the words, either. They can pay attention only to stuff that has them
in it. This is not merely a bad habit -- it's a cognitive deficiency.
Narcissists pay attention only to themselves and stuff that affects them
personally. However, since they don't know what other people are doing,
narcissists can't judge what will affect them personally and seem never to learn
that when they cause trouble they will get trouble back. They won't take other
people's feelings into consideration and so they overlook the fact that other
people will react with feeling when abused or exploited and that most people get
really pissed off by being lied to or lied about.
^
Narcissists
lack a mature
conscience and seem to be restrained only by fear of being punished
or of damaging their reputations -- though, again, this can be obscure to casual
observation if you don't know what they think their reputations are, and what
they believe others think of them may be way out of touch with reality [see
remarks on
John Cheever elsewhere on this page]. Their
moral intelligence is about at the level of a bright five- or six-year-old; the
only rules they recognize are things that have been specifically required,
permitted, prohibited, or disapproved of by authority figures they know
personally. Anyhow, narcissists can't be counted on not to do something
just because it's wrong, illegal, or will hurt someone, as long as
they think that they can get away with it or that you can't stop them or punish
them (i.e., they don't care what you think unless they're afraid of you).
^
Narcissists are
envious and
competitive in ways that are hard to understand. For instance, one I
knew once became incensed over an article published in a national magazine --
not for its content exactly, but because
she could have written something
just as good. Maybe she could have -- she hadn't, but that little lapse on her
part was beside the point to her. They are constantly comparing themselves (and
whatever they feel belongs to them, such as their children and furniture) to
other people. Narcissists feel that, unless they are better than anyone else,
they are worse than everybody in the whole world.
^
Narcissists are generally
contemptuous of others. This seems to spring, at
base, from their general lack of empathy, and it comes out as (at best) a
dismissive attitude towards other people's feelings, wishes, needs, concerns,
standards, property, work, etc. It is also connected to their overall
negative outlook on life.
^
Narcissists are (a)
extremely
sensitive to personal criticism and (b)
extremely critical of other people. They think that
they must
be seen as perfect or superior or infallible, next to
god-like (if not actually divine, then sitting on the right hand of God) -- or
else they are worthless. There's no middle ground of ordinary normal humanity
for narcissists. They can't tolerate the least disagreement. In fact, if you
say, "Please don't do that again -- it hurts," narcissists will turn around and
do it again
harder to prove that they were right the first time; their
reasoning seems to be something like "I am a good person and can do no wrong;
therefore, I didn't hurt you and you are lying about it now..." -- sorry, folks,
I get lost after that. Anyhow, narcissists are habitually cruel in little ways,
as well as big ones, because they're paying attention to their fantasy and not
to you, but the bruises on you are REAL, not in your imagination. Thus, no
matter how gently you suggest that they might do better to change their ways or
get some help, they will react in one of two equally horrible ways: they will
attack or they will withdraw. Be wary of wandering into this dragon's cave --
narcissists will say ANYTHING, they will trash anyone in their own
self-justification, and then they will expect the immediate restoration of the
status quo. They will attack you (sometimes physically) and spew a load of bile,
insult, abuse, contempt, threats, etc., and then -- well, it's kind of like they
had indigestion and the vicious tirade worked like a burp: "There. Now I feel
better. Where were we?" They feel better, so they expect you to feel better,
too. They will say you are nothing, worthless, and turn around immediately and
say that they love you. When you object to this kind of treatment, they will
say, "You just have to accept me the way I am. (God made me this way, so God
loves me even if you are too stupid to understand how special I am.)" Accepting
them as they are (and staying away from them entirely) is excellent advice. The
other "punishment" narcissists mete out is banishing you from their glorious
presence -- this can turn into a farce, since by this point you are probably
praying to be rescued, "Dear God! How do I get out of this?" The narcissist
expects that you will be devastated by the withdrawal of her/his divine
attention, so that after a while -- a few weeks or months (i.e., the next time
the narcissist needs to use you for something) -- the narcissist will expect you
to have learned your lesson and be eager to return to the fold. If you have
learned your lesson, you won't answer that call. They can't see that they have a
problem; it's always somebody else who has the problem and needs to change.
Therapies work at all only when the individual wants to change and, though
narcissists hate their real selves, they don't want to change -- they want the
world to change.
And they criticize, gripe, and complain
about almost everything and almost everyone almost all the time.
There are usually a favored few whom narcissists regard as absolutely above
reproach, even for egregious misconduct or actual crime, and about whom they
won't brook the slightest criticism. These are people the narcissists are
terrified of, though they'll tell you that what they feel is love and respect;
apparently they don't know the difference between fear and love. Narcissists
just get worse and worse as they grow older; their parents and other authority
figures that they've feared die off, and there's less and less outside influence
to keep them in check.
^
Narcissists are hostile and ferocious in reaction, but they are
generally
passive and lacking in initiative.
They don't start stuff -- they don't reach out. Remember this when they turn and
rend you! They will complain about the same things for years on end, but only
rarely do anything to change what dissatisfies them so badly.
^
Narcissists are
naive and
vulnerable, pathetic really, no matter how arrogant and forceful their words or
demeanor. They have pretty good reasons for their paranoia and cynicism, their
sneakiness, evasiveness, prevarications. This is the one I get suckered on. They
are so out of touch with other people and what goes on around them that they are
very susceptible to exploitation. On the other hand, they're so inattentive, and
so disconnected from what other people are up to, that they don't recognize when
someone is taking advantage of them.
^
Narcissists are
grandiose.
They live in an artificial self invented from fantasies of absolute or perfect
power, genius, beauty, etc. Normal people's fantasies of themselves, their
wishful thinking, take the form of stories -- these stories often come from
movies or TV, or from things they've read or that were read to them as children.
They involve a plot, heroic activity or great accomplishments or adventure:
normal people see themselves in action, however preposterous or even impossible
that action may be -- they see themselves doing things that earn them honor,
glory, love, riches, fame, and they see these fantasy selves as personal
potentials, however tenuous, something they'd do if they didn't have to go to
school or go to work, if they had the time and the money.
As Freud said
of narcissists, these people act like they're in love with themselves. And they
are in love with an ideal image of themselves -- or they want you to be in love
with their pretend self, it's hard to tell just what's going on. Like anyone in
love, their attention and energy are drawn to the beloved and away from everyday
practicalities. Narcissists' fantasies are static -- they've fallen in love with
an image in a mirror or, more accurately, in a pool of water, so that movement
causes the image to dissolve into ripples; to see the adored reflection they
must remain perfectly still. Narcissists' fantasies are tableaux or scenes,
stage sets; narcissists are hung up on a particular picture that they think
reflects their true selves (as opposed to the real self -- warts and all).
Narcissists don't see themselves doing anything except being adored, and they
don't see anyone else doing anything except adoring them. Moreover, they don't
see these images as potentials that they
may some day be able to live
out, if they get lucky or everything goes right: they see these pictures as the
real way they want to be seen right now (which is not the same as saying they
think these pictures are the way they really are right now, but that is another
story to be discussed elsewhere). Sometimes narcissistic fantasies are
spectacularly grandiose -- imagining themselves as Jesus or a saint or hero or
deity depicted in art -- but just as often the fantasies of narcissists are
mediocre and vulgar, concocted from illustrations in popular magazines,
sensational novels, comic books even. These artificial self fantasies are also
static in time, going back unchanged to early adolescence or even to childhood;
the narcissists' self-images don't change with time, so that you will find, for
instance, female narcissists clinging to retro styles, still living the picture
of the perfect woman of 1945 or 1965 as depicted in
The Ladies' Home
Journal or
Seventeen or
Vogue of that era, and male
narcissists still hung up on images of comic-book or ripping adventure heroes
from their youth. Though narcissists like pictures rather than stories, they
like still pictures, not moving ones, so they don't base their fantasies on
movies or TV.
Grandiosity can take various forms -- a narcissistic woman
may believe herself to be the very model of perfect womanhood, the standard by
which all others are measured, and she will try to force her daughters
to be
just like her, she will not be able to cope with daughters who are taller or
shorter than she is, fatter or thinner, who have bigger or smaller feet,
breasts, teeth, who have different favorite colors than hers, etc. Narcissistic
men can be infatuated with their own looks, too, (witness
John Cheever, for instance;
Almost Perfect) but are more likely than women
to get hung up on their intelligence or the importance of their work -- doesn't
matter what the work is, if he's doing it, by definition it's more important
than anything you could possibly do. Narcissists I've known also have odd
religious ideas, in particular
believing that they are God's special favorites somehow; God loves them, so they
are exempted from ordinary rules and obligations: God loves them and wants them
to be the way they are, so they can do anything they feel like -- though, note,
the narcissist's God has much harsher rules for everyone else, including
you. [Many readers have questions about narcissism and religion. Here is
an interesting article on the Web:
"Narcissism Goes to
Church: Encountering Evangelical Worship" by Monte Wilson. "Modern American
Christianity is filled with the spirit of narcissism. We are in love with
ourselves and evaluate churches, ministers and truth-claims based upon how they
make us feel about ourselves. If the church makes me feel wanted, it is a good
church. If the minister makes me feel good about myself, he is a terrific guy.
If the proffered truth supports my self-esteem, it is, thereby, verified."]
[More on
grandiosity.]
^
Narcissists have
little sense of
humor. They don't get jokes, not even the funny papers or simple
riddles, and they don't make jokes, except for sarcastic cracks and the lamest
puns. This is because, lacking empathy, they don't get the context and affect of
words or actions, and jokes, humor, comedy depend entirely on context and
affect. They specialize in sarcasm about others and mistake it for wit, but, in
my experience, narcissists are entirely incapable of irony -- thus, I've been
chagrinned more than once to discover that something I'd taken as an intentional
pose or humorous put-on was, in fact, something the narcissist was totally
serious about. Which is to say that they come mighty close to parody in their
pretensions and pretending, so that they can be very funny without knowing it,
but you'd better not let on that you think so. [Interestingly, this is the only
trait on this list about which there seems to be any controversy. Maybe I've
just been unlucky! I've known narcissists who'll make fun of others, repeat
jokes they've heard others laugh at, and laugh at jokes when others laugh, but
knowing how to make people laugh is not necessarily the same as having a sense
of humor.]
^
Narcissists have a
weird sense of
time. It's more or less like they are not aware that the passage of
time changes things, or maybe they just aren't aware of time's passing at all.
Years can pass without touching narcissists. Narcissists often look, or think
they look, significantly younger than they are; this youthful appearance is a
point of pride to them, and some will emphasize it by either preserving the
styles of their golden youth or following the styles of people the age they feel
they "really" are. That their faces don't show their chronological age is a good
sign that they haven't been living real lives with real life's wear and tear on
the looks of normal people. The narcissists' years have passed without touching
them. Bear in mind that narcissistic adults have had decades of not being in
synch with the times or with other people, so that by now they are really out of
it. Sometimes it just seems like they have a highly selective memory -- which,
of course, they do, sort of; they pay attention only to what has their name in
it in the first place, so after 30 or 40 years, you shouldn't be surprised to
hear a narcissist say something like, "Didn't the Beatles have a couple of hit
songs while we were in high school?" or to suddenly discover that the narcissist
doesn't know that M&M's have little m's on them or that smallpox was
eradicated over 20 years ago. They are not being ironic: they really don't know.
They were off in their own little world of fantastic perfection. On the other
hand, as far as I've seen, all that stuff really is in there, but is accessible
only intermittently or unpredictably. Narcissists ordinarily have spotty
memories, with huge and odd gaps in their recollections; they may say that they
don't remember their childhoods, etc., and apparently most of the time they
don't. But they will have sudden accesses of memory, triggered by God knows
what, when they remember details, everybody's names, what people were wearing,
why the people in that picture from 1950 are standing the way they are, what the
weather was like, etc. -- in other words, every once in a while, their memories
will be normal. But don't count on it.
^
Narcissists are
totally and inflexibly
authoritarian. In other words, they are suck-ups. They want to be
authority figures and, short of that, they want to be associated with authority
figures. In their hearts, they know they can't think well, have no judgment
about what matters, are not connected with the world they inhabit, so they cling
fanatically to the opinions of people they regard as authority figures -- such
as their parents, teachers, doctors, ministers. Where relevant, this may include
scientists or professors or artists, but narcissists stick to people they know
personally, since they aren't engaged enough with the world to get their
authoritative opinions from TV, movies, books or dead geniuses/saints/heroes. If
they get in trouble over some or another opinion they've put forth, they'll
blame the source -- "It was okay with Dr. Somebody," "My father taught me that,"
etc. If you're still thinking of the narcissist as odd-but-normal, this shirking
of responsibility will seem dishonest and craven -- well, it is but it's really
an admission of weakness: they really mean it: they said what they said because
someone they admire or fear said it and they're trying to borrow that person's
strength.
^
Narcissists have
strange work
habits. Normal people work for a goal or a product, even if the goal
is only a paycheck. Normal people measure things by how much they have to spend
(in time, work, energy) to get the desired results. Normal people desire
idleness from time to time, usually wanting as much free time as they can get to
pursue their own thoughts and pleasures and interests. Narcissists work for a
goal, too, but it's a different goal: they want power, authority, adulation.
Lacking empathy, and lacking also context and affect, narcissists don't
understand how people achieve glory and high standing; they think it's all
arbitrary, it's all appearances, it's all who you know. So they try to attach
themselves to people who already have what they want, meanwhile making a great
show of working hard. Narcissists can put in a shocking amount of time to very
little effect. This is partly because they have so little empathy that they
don't know why some work is valued more highly than other work, why some
people's opinions carry more weight than others'. They do know that you're
supposed to work and not be lazy, so they keep themselves occupied. But they are
not invested in the work they do -- whatever they may produce is just something
they have to do to get the admiration and power they crave. Since this is so,
they really don't pay attention to what they're doing, preferring the easiest
thing at every turn, even though they may be constantly occupied, so that
narcissists manage to be workaholics and extremely lazy at the same time.
Narcissists measure the worth of their work
only by how much time they
spend on it, not by what they produce. They want to get an A for Effort.
Narcissists lack empathy, so they don't know what others value or why.
Narcissists tend to value things in quantitative ways and in odd quantities at
that -- they'll tell you how many inches of letters they received, but not how
many letters or from how many correspondents; they know the price of everything
and the value of nothing.
A narcissist may, in fact, hold himself to a
grinding work schedule that gives him something like an addictive high so that,
when wrought up, he can be sort of dazed, giddy, and groggy, making you wonder
if he's drunk or otherwise intoxicated -- now, that's a
real workaholic.
Usually, this excessive busyness appears to be -- and some will even tell you
this -- an attempt to distract themselves from unpleasant or inconvenient
feelings (i.e., it's a manic defense against depression -- and, note, with
narcissists it's inaccurate to use "happy" or "unhappy" because their feelings
are just not that differentiated; "euphoria" or "dysphoria" are as close as they
get to ordinary pleasure or distress) or to make themselves unavailable to
others' emotional needs.
^
Narcissists
feel entitled
to whatever they can take. They expect privileges and indulgences, and they also
feel entitled to exploit other people without any trace of reciprocation.
^
Some narcissists spend extravagantly in order to impress
people, keep up grandiose pretentions, or buy favorable treatment, and some
narcissists overspend, bankrupt themselves, and lose everything. My personal
experience is that narcissists are
stingy, mean, frugal,
niggardly to the point of eccentricity. This is a person who won't
spend $1.50 on a greeting card but will instead send you an advertising flyer
that came with the newspaper. This is a person who will be very conscious of her
appearance but will dress herself and her children in used clothes and other
people's cast-offs. [
Note: Thrift is not in itself a narcissistic trait;
neither is a fondness for old clothes. The important element here is that the
narcissist buys clothes that other people she admires and wishes to emulate have
already picked out, since she has no individual tastes or preferences.]
These are people who need labels or trademarks (or other signs of authority) to
distinguish between the real thing and a cheap knock-off or imitation, and so
will substitute something easy and cheap for something precious and dear and
expect nobody else to know the difference, since they can't. These are people
who can tell you how many miles but not how many smiles.
Narcissists are
not only selfish and ungiving -- they seem to have to make a point of
not
giving what they know someone else wants. Thus, for instance, in a "romantic"
relationship, they will want you to do what they want
because they want
it and not because you want it -- and, in fact, if you actually want to do what
they want, then that's too much like sharing and you wreck their fun and they
don't want it anymore. They want to get what they want from you without giving
you what you want from them. Period. If you should happen to want to give what
they want to get, then they'll lose interest in you.
^
Narcissists are
very disappointing as
gift-givers. This is not a trivial consideration in personal
relationships. I've seen narcissistic people sweetly solicit someone's
preferences ("Go ahead -- tell me what you really want"), make a show of paying
attention to the answer ("Don't you think I'm nice?"), and then deliver
something other than what was asked for -- and feel abused and unappreciated
when someone else gets gratitude for fulfilling the very request that the
narcissist evoked in the first place. I've seen this happen often, where
narcissists will go out of their way to stir up other people's expectations and
then go out of their way to disappoint those expectations. It seems like a lot
of pointless work to me.
First, narcissists lack empathy, so they don't
know what you want or like and, evidently, they don't care either; second, they
think their opinions are better and more important than anyone else's, so
they'll give you what they think you ought to want, regardless of what you may
have said when asked what you wanted for your birthday; third, they're stingy
and will give as gifts stuff that's just lying around their house, such as
possessions that they no longer have any use for, or -- in really choice
instances -- return to you something that was yours in the first place. In fact,
as a practical matter, the surest way NOT to get what you want from a narcissist
is to ask for it; your chances are better if you just keep quiet, because every
now and then the narcissist will hit on the right thing by random
accident.
^
It's very hard to have a simple,
uncomplicated good time with a narcissist. Except for odd spells of
heady euphoria unrelated to anything
you can see, their affective range
is mediocre-fake-normal to hell-on-Earth. They will sometimes lie low and be
quiet, actually passive and dependent -- this is as good as it gets with
narcissists. They are incapable of loving conduct towards anyone or anything, so
they do not have the capacity for simple pleasure, beyond the satisfaction of
bodily needs. There is only one way to please a narcissist (and it won't please
you): that is to indulge their every whim, cater to their tiniest impulses, bend
to their views on every little thing. There's only one way to get decent
treatment from narcissists: keep your distance. They can be pretty nice, even
charming,
flirtatious, and
seductive, to strangers, and will flatter you shamelessly if they
want something from you. When you attempt to get close to them in a normal way,
they feel you are putting emotional pressure on them and they withdraw because
you're too demanding. They can be positively fawning and solicitous as long as
they're afraid of you, which is not most people's idea of a real fun
relationship.
I always have the problem that I get fed up and stay away
from THEM long enough to forget
exactly what the trouble was, then
they come around again, and every narcissist I've known actually was quite
lovable about half the time so I try it again. A clue: Run for cover when they
start acting normal, maybe expressing a becoming self-doubt or even
acknowledging some little fault of their own, such as saying they now realize
that they haven't treated you right or that they took advantage of you before.
They're just softening you up for something
really nasty. These people
are geniuses of "Come closer so I can slap you." Except that's not the way they
think about it,
if they think about it -- no, they're thinking,
"Well, maybe you do really care about me, and, if you really care about me, then
maybe you'll
help me with this," only by "help" they mean do the whole
thing, take total responsibility for it, including protecting and defending them
and cleaning up the mess they've already made of it (which they will neglect to
fill you in on because they haven't really been paying attention, have they, so
how would they know??). They will not have considered for one second how much of
your time it will take, how much trouble it may get you into in their behalf,
that they will owe you BIG for this -- no, you're just going to do it all out of
the goodness of your heart, which they are delighted to exploit yet again, and
your virtue will be its own reward: it's
supposed to just tickle you pink
to be offered this generous opportunity of showing how much you love them and/or
how lucky you are to be the servant of such a luminous personage. No lie -- they
think other people do stuff for the same reason they do: to show off, to perform
for an audience. That's one of the reasons they make outrageous demands, put you
on the spot and create scenes in public: they're being
generous --
they're trying to share the spotlight with you by giving you the chance to show
off how absolutely stunningly devoted-to-them you are. It means that they love
you; that's why they're hurt and bewildered when you angrily reject this
invitation.
^
Appearances are all there is with
narcissists -- and their self-hatred knows no bounds. The most
dramatic example I can think of is from
John Cheever's
journals. Throughout his life he had pursued surreptitious homosexual
activities, being transiently infatuated with young men who reminded him of
himself in his youth, while also living in a superficially settled way as a
married family man, a respected writer with an enviable suburban life, breeding
pedigreed dogs and serving on the vestry of the Episcopal church. When his
secret life (going to New York City for a few days every now and then to pick up
sailors and other beautiful boys for brief flings) came to scandalous light, his
family sought to reassure him by telling him that they'd known about his
homosexual activities for years. Now, a normal person would be ashamed and
embarrassed but also relieved and grateful that scandal, not to mention chronic
emotional and marital infidelity, had not caused his wife and children to reject
and abandon him -- but not the narcissist! Oh, no, Cheever was enraged that they
would ever have thought such a thing of him -- if they really loved him, they'd
have bought his artificial "country squire" persona: they would have seen him as
he wished to be seen: they would have believed his lies without question or
doubt.
^
Narcissists don't volunteer the usual personal information
about themselves, so they may seem
secretive or perhaps
unusually reserved or very jealous of their privacy. All these things
are true, but with the special narcissistic twist that, first, their real life
isn't interesting to them so it doesn't occur to them that it would be
interesting to anyone else and, second, since they have not yet been
transfigured into the Star of the Universe, they're ashamed of their real life.
They feel that their jobs, their friends and families, their homes and
possessions aren't good enough for them, they deserve better.
^
Narcissists not only don't recognize the feelings and autonomy
of others,
they don't recognize their own feelings as
their own. Their feelings are sort of like the weather, atmospheric,
acts of God. The narcissistic think that everyone's having the same feeling as
they are. This means that usually their own pain means nothing to them beyond
the physical discomfort -- it has no affective component. When they do get some
painful affect, they think that God is punishing them -- they think that their
trivial errors are worth God's specific attention to their punishment. If you
try to straighten them out, by telling them that your feelings are different,
beware: their idea of sharing their feelings is to do or say something that
makes you feel the way they're feeling and, as they make a point of not sharing
anything desirable, you can expect something really nasty. The sad fact seems to
be that narcissists feel just as bad about themselves as they make others feel
about them.
^
Narcissists are noted for their
negative,
pessimistic, cynical, or gloomy outlook on life. Sarcasm seems to be
a narcissistic specialty, not to mention spite. Lacking love and pleasure, they
don't have a good reason for anything they do and they think everyone else is
just like them, except they're honest and the rest of us are hypocrites. Nothing
real is ever perfect enough to satisfy them, so are they are constantly
complaining and criticizing -- to the point of verbal abuse and insult.
^
Narcissists are
impulsive.
They undo themselves by behavior that seems oddly stupid for people as
intelligent as they are. Somehow, they don't consider the probable consequences
of their actions. It's not clear to me whether they just expect to get away with
doing anything they feel like at the moment or whether this impulsiveness is
essentially a cognitive shortcoming deriving from the static psychic state with
its distorted perception of time.
^
Narcissists
hate to live
alone. Their inner resources are skimpy, static, and sterile, nothing
interesting or attractive going on in their hearts and minds, so they don't want
to be stuck with themselves. All they have inside is the image of perfection
that, being mere mortals like the rest of us, they will inevitably fall short of
attaining.
^
Feel free to drop me a note
with questions or comments.
©1998-2008 by Joanna M.
Ashmun.
For more informattion visit:www.halcyon.com/jmashmun/npd/traits.html |
