Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited

Excerpts from the Archives
of the
Narcissism List

Part 17 cont.

4. Narcissism as an Adaptive Strategy

Narcissism is an adaptive defence mechanism. I adopted it because it worked. I am not worried at all: the minute it loses its utility, it will vanish. The second its dysfunctional disadvantages outweigh its adaptive advantages - it will hurt badly and I will get rid of it.

This means that the constant hurt that you are experiencing now is the shedding of your defence mechanisms, the transition from the larval stage to a higher order of things.

This persistent feeling of hurt is an alarm signal, telling you that your defence mechanisms are no longer working, that some Trojan horse penetrated your defences, that dysfunction far outweighs function, and that you have to re-adjust your mental jigsaw puzzle.

Defence mechanisms are viruses. They have no genetic material of their own. They infiltrate your cells and make use of YOUR DNA and use YOU for food. Getting rid of them entails a full blown process of DISEASE. Dis-ease. Hurt, pain, temperature, spasms, tears.

This is all in YOU. It has little to do with the real world. Reality is composed of hurtful and joyous things. If you are capable of noticing only the hurtful things - this is because you are using an emotional filter. It is a membrane generated by the slow death of your defence mechanisms, it is scar tissue as your wounds are healing. There is an interim stage where you are no longer in possession of your defences and not yet endowed with your scar tissue. The transparency in between is the filter that makes you see only the bad and the cruel and the shoddy and the shady and the dead.

This is a journey no one can take with you. Part of your healing is to fully assimilate the sad, terrifying realization that we are alone - always, completely and irrevocably. This does not mean that we cannot try to help each other. Nor does it mean that such help can never be effective. On the contrary, the only redeeming feature of human life is our ability to share it through empathy. BUT, it does mean that we must never be dependent. That we must travel our road by ourselves, at our own pace, in accordance with our handicaps and talents, as we deem fit. At the end of this path, only we await ourselves. When we finally meet ourselves, at the end of this course of tortuous obstacles - life begins.  

5. The Zombie Narcissist

We all live lives different from the lives that we could have lived had we made different choices. Another husband, another town, another job - and our lives would have been completely different. This is the stuff of many movies.

Normal people don't know what it is like to be a narcissist. Are they missing anything? Sure they do.

I don't know what it is like to love and empathize. Am I missing anything?

Sure I do.

This is the human predicament. We are finite creatures in an infinitely varied world. 

6. Imitated Empathy

Narcissists are adept at imitating emotions. If narcissistic supply can be obtained by imitating empathy, compassion, caring, and understanding - the narcissist will immediately become THE most empathic, caring, compassionate and understanding person in the world. But he does not genuinely experience any of this.

Of course, it is morally preferable to extract narcissistic supply from others by helping them, caring for them and empathizing with them - then by tormenting them or brutalizing them. It is a discovery I have made for  myself. I implement this new found knowledge. I derive narcissistic supply from my readers and, in return, I do my best to help and express empathy.

Some narcissists indeed have problems with their body. They depersonalize - they do not feel connected to their body or or have wrong body self-perceptions. But many don't. I tend to agree that the first step on the road to self-acceptance and self-love should have to do with he narcissist's body. Self loathing is often "somatized", felt as a physical, or sexual issue by the narcissist. 

7. Narcissism and Self-Loathing

NPD being ALL-pervasive INCORPORATES these attitudes (of self-loathing and self-destruction) gradually as well. Self defeating and self destructive behaviours are INSTRUMENTS in the service of NPD (as is the intellect, for instance).

They might have separate psychodynamic origins, though. Maybe the same phenomena (abuse) gave rise to both the NPD and the self destructive behaviours, but the NPD took over. It is an ORGANIZATIONAL principle. It is a form of (dis)organization of the ENTIRE personality and all behaviours (including self destructive ones) are PART OF the personality (even if it is disordered).

I think that I AM NPD. I have a disordered personality. I AM disordered. The level of organization of my personality is low. There is NOTHING outside my disorder. It colours all my life. In the words of the DSM: it is ALL-PERVASIVE.

You think that I have a personality and that only CERTAIN aspects of it are disordered.

The DSM, of course, supports my contention:

NPD - as defined there - is ALL pervasive. The disorder IS the patient.

ALL my varied reactions to this persistent, cruel, and recurrent abuse have COALESCED into the NPD. It's like a dynamic pattern of reactions - the very definition of the concept of "personality".

I think the differences between love and infatuation are both objective and subjective.

Objective - for instance, in the duration of the relationship. Infatuation is short term. If it last for years, perhaps it is love (or obsession).

Subjective - I think the emphasis in love is much less on the sexual dimensions and more on the emotional and companionship dimensions.

So, I used the word "love" above judiciously. I was referring to very long term relationships. The length of time and the number of tests the relationship withstood do not seem to diminish the uncertainty experienced by the narcissist. He is forever waiting for the axe to fall.  

8. In Pursuit of Narcissistic Supply

Narcissists are forever in pursuit of narcissistic supply. They know no past or future, are not constrained by any behavioural consistency, "rules" of conduct, or moral considerations. You signalled to him that you were a willing source - and he extracted his supply from you. This is a reflex. He would have reacted absolutely the same way to any other source. If what is needed to obtain supply from you is intimations of intimacy - he will employ them liberally.

Reactions that tend to increase your functionality and your awareness of reality (reality test) are healthy. It would be advisable to act to minimize the dissonance and the resulting anxiety and unease. This can be achieved by abandoning him emotionally, as well as physically.  

9. The Deception that is the Narcissist

This is the most prominent "emotion" narcissists experience: the fear of being "exposed". They feel that they are elaborate deceptions, intricate concoctions, stage-plays, movies, facades, Potemkin humans. That any minute, the "real thing", the "real intellectual", the "real person" will come and denude them, reveal to the world what they are: that they are NOT. Non-beings. Willing themselves into delusional existence, the nightmares of deranged inner divinities.

Let me tell you two secrets:

One, there are no "real" things, or people, or intellectuals. You are as real as it gets.

Two, You are so transparent that you do not have to fear exposure.

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