Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited

Excerpts from the Archives
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Narcissism List

Part 6 cont.

7.  Narcissists and Group Therapy

Narcissists are notoriously unsuitable for group activities of ANY kind, let alone group therapy. They immediately size up others as potential sources of narcissistic supply - or potential competitors for such. They idealize the first (suppliers) and devalue the latter (competitors). This, obviously, is not very conducive to group therapy.

Moreover, the dynamic of the group is bound to reflect the combined dynamics of its members. Narcissists are individualists. They regard coalitions with disdain and contempt. The need to resort to coalitions is perceived by them to be humiliating and degrading (a contemptible weakness). Thus, the group is likely to fluctuate between short term, very small size, coalitions (undermined by "superiority" and contempt) and outbreaks (acting outs) of rage and coercion.

8. Degrees of Narcissism

Pathological narcissism occurs in varying degrees and its culmination is "full criteria NPD" - a narcissist who responds to all the criteria in the DSM IV.

There is a story about Buddha. He was walking with his disciples and saw a butterfly. "Are we the butterfly's dream" - he asked his disciples. Put differently by others, the question became: "are we dreaming that we are awake?". My life is like a long dream (or nightmare) interrupted by short awakenings (only one or two hitherto). I am not sure whether I am the subject of my dream or whether my dream is dreamt by me. This is an existential fog which is difficult to penetrate.

Recent research discovered that NPDs are less ego-syntonic than thought before. In other words, they don't feel that great most of the time and even have something like a conscience. The way to make a narcissist respond to your wish is to present it  either as an intellectual challenge (no cerebral narcissist can resist that) - or as a plea for help. YOU are in need of help and you ask your omnipotent, omniscient narcissist to help you. Make it that something is wrong with YOU (you feel bad, you want to understand him or, better still, yourself) and you need his help and collaboration (for instance, in going to marital therapy). Narcissists are very easy to dupe because they constantly try to dupe others. The most gullible and suggestible people on earth are con-artists. Living in a world of lie is bi-directional, the liar loses his grip on reality at least as much as the person being lied to.

Narcissists of ALL shades can usually control their behavior and actions. They simply don't want to, they regard it as a waste of their precious time, a degradation. The narcissist feels both superior and entitled - regardless of his real gifts or achievements. To narcissists, all others are their inferiors, their slaves, there to cater to their needs and make their existence seamless, flowing and smooth. The narcissist feels cosmically significant and he must be accorded the conditions needed for him to realize his talents and to successfully complete his mission (which changes fluidly and of which he has no clue except that it has to do with brilliance and ideal something).

What narcissists CANNOT control is the void in their midst, the emotional black hole, the fact that they don't know what it is like to be human (they lack empathy). As a result, they are awkward, tactless, painful, taciturn, and abrasive.

9. Narcissism and Evil (2)

Narcissists are "evil" in an absent-minded, indifferent manner. It is not that they occupy Transylvanian castles, or plot to gorge on the blood of the innocent. They wound and hurt as a by-product of their firm belief  that they are unique, that they deserve more and better, that they should not be subjected to other people's laws and should no be consumed by the mundane. Others to them are mere pawns, tools in the cosmically significant chessboard of their lives. In other words: dispensable. Narcissists are addicted to the narcissistic supply provided by crowds and by exerting authority. Narcissism drives the narcissistically afflicted to achievements. In their pursuit of narcissistic supply, narcissists will do anything - even benefit humanity.

10. Why do Narcissists Exist?

No one knows if there is a genetic propensity or predisposition to becoming a narcissist. But one asks "why do they exist at all".

  There are two possibilities:

1. That narcissists are mutations, "wrong" results in the on-going experiment of evolution. But this is unlikely because if this were the case - according to the laws of evolution - they would have disappeared a long time ago (being as maladapted as they appear to be).

2. That narcissists are a required ingredient in the brew of humanity's survival. That they fulfill some function. For instance: maybe ambition is a derivative of a narcissistic urge to be famous and to impact humanity and history.

To some extent narcissism thrives more easily and is accepted more readily in societies with a specific profile. This is Lasch's main thesis regarding the American society (see: http://narcissism.cjb.net/lasch.html).

My solution is different and more humane: educate people to beware of narcissists. Safe sex prevents AIDS or minimizes its prevalence. A Safe Emotions Regime (if you fall in love perhaps you love to fall - that is if you fall in love too fast and too indiscriminately). Teach people how to identify narcissists, how to cope with them, how to avoid them, how to divorce them. This is also a more practical approach.

11. I am Very Sad

I am very sad most of the time if I am not busy. It is not the superficial sadness of satiated people after a good meal. It is not the existential threat of depression. It is a foggy haze, a curtain behind which everything looks yellow and aged, liked crumpled, liver-stained photos. When my ex-wife left me (I was in jail), all my defenses fell apart and I FELT - for the first time in my life I felt in color. I wanted to die, the pain was so consuming, so all-pervasive. But instead of dying, I wrote dozens of very emotional short stories which won prizes and praises. It spilled over into another book and then I felt the walls closing in again, like living through a film scrolled backwards. I ossified in stages: first a hand, a leg, my neck. Like a perverse Galathea, I went from life to stone, a speechless Pygmalion. I was emotionless again, my world in shades of gray as before, with only dim memories of colour. In those last minutes of emotional sanity, I wrote "Malignant Self Love", engulfed by the harrowing realization that I am dying once more.

Did you see the play "The White Mouse"? A retarded person is transformed into a genius under the influence of a miraculous substance. When the influence wanes, he reverts to idiocy but with the added cruelty of KNOWING it. In "Awakenings" by Sachs, patients are awakened after decades of disease- induced lethargy only to discover that they are receding again into the same sculpture-like state. I felt that way and I  wanted to leave a testimonial behind. This testimony is my book.

12. The Narcissistic Hunt

Your friend didn't "go" from any phase to any other phase. He didn't change at all. He was simply pretending, lying, putting on his best face to get you hooked. For some reason, you represented narcissistic supply to him. It was crucial for him to get his supply from you - so he set out to do it. Narcissists are relentless exterminators when it comes to obtaining supply. Deep inside they are misanthropes and, if men, mostly misogynists. They hate the fact that they are dependent on others for sustenance, that they stand to crumble if not supplied properly, that they are mere reflections. They resent it. So, they are critical, contemptuous, insulting, and lack any empathy. BUT when they are out to get you, they can be the MOST charming, stunning, captivating, wonderfully-sensitive things. It is THE great deception. And you are not the first person to fall prey to it - nor, I am afraid, the last one. OF COURSE he lost all interest to you. Why should he invest his scarce and cosmically significant resources in a has- been source of supply?

And THIS is the victimization process. This sudden loss of interest, respect, "love", sensitivity and compassion. The transparentization of the "meaningful" other. The dawning and shocking realization that you have been used and ab-used and mis-used, that you were no better than any domestic appliance to him. Becoming an object is what drives the victims to near insanity.

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