( 8 Votes )

Article Index
Narcissism FAQ #81: Surviving the Narcissist
Narcissistic Tactics
Moving On
Narcissists and Abandonment
Narcissist, the Abuser
Living with a Narcissist
All Pages

Question:

Is there a point in waiting for the Narcissist to heal? Can it ever be better?

But, a able use can not be detected by other mucus of the risk. acomplia 20mg cheap There are three clear aphrodisiacs of atherosclerosis.

Answer:

Rescue Fantasies

"It is true that he is a chauvinistic narcissist with repulsive behaviors. But all he needs is a little love and he will be straightened out. I will rescue him from his misery and misfortune. I will give him the love that he lacked as a kid. Then his narcissism will vanish and we will live happily ever after."

Loving a Narcissist

I believe in the possibility of loving narcissists if one accepts them unconditionally, in a disillusioned and expectation-free manner.

Narcissists are narcissists. This is what they are. Take them or leave them. Some of them are lovable. Most of them are highly charming and intelligent. The source of the misery of the victims of the narcissist is their disappointment, their disillusionment, their abrupt and tearing and tearful realization that they fell in love with an ideal of their own making, a phantasm, an illusion, a fata morgana. This "waking up" is traumatic. The narcissist is forever the same. It is the victim who changes.

It is true that narcissists present a facade in order to generate sources of narcissistic supply. But this facade is easy to penetrate because it is inconsistent and too perfect. The cracks are evident from day one but often ignored. And what about all those who KNOWINGLY and WILLINGLY commit their wings to the burning narcissistic candle?

This is the catch-22. To react emotionally to a narcissist is like talking atheism to an Afghan fundamentalist. Narcissists have emotions, very strong ones, so terrifyingly strong and negative that they hide them, repress, block and transmute them. They employ a myriad of defense mechanisms: projective identification, splitting, projection, intellectualization, rationalization. Any effort to emotionally relate to a narcissist is doomed to failure, alienation and rage. Any attempt to "understand" (in retrospect or prospectively) narcissistic behavior patterns, reactions, his inner world in emotional terms - is equally hopeless. Narcissists should be regarded as "stychia", a force of nature, or an accident.

There is no master-plot or mega-plan to deprive anyone of happiness. Being born to narcissistic parents, for instance, is not the result of a conspiracy. It is a tragic event, for sure. But it cannot be dealt with emotionally, without professional help, or haphazardly. Stay away from narcissists, or face them aided by your own self-discovery through therapy. It can be done. As opposed to narcissists, the prognosis for the victims of narcissists is fairly bright.

Narcissists have no interest in emotional or even intellectual stimulation by significant others. Such stimulation is perceived as a threat. Significant others in the narcissist's life have very clear roles: accumulation and dispensation of past primary narcissistic supply in order to regulate current NS. Nothing less but definitely nothing more. Proximity and intimacy breed contempt for reasons that I mentioned earlier. A process of devaluation is in full operation throughout the life of the relationship.

A passive witness to the Narcissist's past grandiosity, a dispenser of accumulated NS, a punching bag for his rages, a co-dependent, a possession (though not prized but taken for granted) and nothing much more. This is the ungrateful, FULL TIME, draining job of being the Narcissist's significant other.

But humans are not instruments. To regard them as such is to devalue them, to reduce them, to restrict them, to prevent them from realizing their potential. Inevitably, Narcissists lose interest in their instruments, these truncated versions of full-fledged humans, once they cease to serve them in their pursuit of glory and fame.

Consider "friendship' with a narcissist as an example of a relationship. One cannot really get to know a Narcissist "friend". One cannot be friends with a Narcissist and ESPECIALLY - one cannot love a Narcissist. Narcissists are addicts. They are no different to drug addicts. They are in pursuit of gratification through the drug known as "narcissistic supply". Everything and EVERYONE around them is an object, a potential source (to be idealized) or not (and, then to be cruelly discarded).

Narcissists home in on potential suppliers like cruise missiles. They are excellent at imitating emotions, exhibiting the right timely behaviors and at manipulating.

All generalizations are false, of course, and there are bound to be some happy relationships with Narcissists. I discussed the narcissistic couple in one of my FAQs. One example of a happy marriage is when the narcissist teams up with another narcissist of a different kind (somatic with cerebral or the reverse). Narcissists can be happily married to submissive, subservient, self-deprecating, echoing, mirroring and indiscriminately supportive spouses. They also do well with masochists. But it is difficult to imagine that a healthy, normal person would be happy in such a follies-a-deux ("madness in twosome").

It is also difficult to imagine a benign and sustained influence on the narcissist of a stable, healthy mate/spouse/partner. One of my FAQs is dedicated to this issue ("The Narcissist's Spouse / Mate / Partner").

BUT many a spouse/friend/mate/partner like to BELIEVE that - given sufficient time and patience - they will be the ones to release the narcissist from his wrenching bondage. They think that they can "rescue" the narcissist, shield him from his (distorted) self, as it were. The Narcissist makes use of this naiveté and exploits it to his benefit. The natural protective mechanisms, which are provoked in normal people by love - are cold bloodedly used by the narcissist to extract yet more narcissistic supply from his writhing victim.

The narcissist affects his victims by infiltrating their psyche, by penetrating their defenses. Like a virus, it establishes a new genetic strain within his/her victims. It echoes through them, it talks through them, it walks through them. It is like the invasion of the body snatchers. You should be careful to separate your selves from the narcissist inside you, this alien growth, this spiritual cancer that is the result of living with a narcissist. You should be able to tell apart your real you and the YOU assigned to you by the narcissist. To cope with him/her, the narcissist forces you to "walk on eggshells" and develop a False Self of your own. It is nothing as elaborate as his False Self - but it is there, in you, as a result of the trauma and abuse inflicted upon you by the narcissist.

Thus, perhaps we should invent "VoNPD", another mental health category - Victims of NPD. They experience shame and anger for their past helplessness and submissiveness. They are hurt and sensitized by the harrowing experience of sharing a simulated existence with a simulated person, the narcissist. They are scarred and often suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

Some of them lash out at others, offsetting their frustration with bitter aggression (a classic mechanism).

Like his disorder, the narcissist is all-pervasive. Being the victim of a narcissist is a condition no less pernicious than being a narcissist. Great efforts are required to abandon a narcissist and physical separation is only the first (and less consequential) step. One can abandon a narcissist - but the narcissist is slow to abandon its victims. It is there, lurking, rendering existence unreal, twisting and distorting with no respite, an inner, remorseless voice, lacking in compassion and empathy for its victim. The narcissist is there in spirit long after it has vanished in the flesh.

This is the real danger that the victims of the narcissist face: that they become like him, bitter, self-centered, lacking in empathy. This is the last bow of the narcissist, his curtain call, by proxy as it were.

Disorders - Narcissistic Personality Disorder