Narcissistic Trauma And How To Live With It

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

The life of a narcissistic person is organized around the problem of maintaining self-esteem by obtaining confirmation from the people around him. (N. McWilliams)

A person with narcissistic trauma lives his whole life in a state of resentment, because he was not understood, underestimated or overestimated, or lowly appreciated, and / or ignored his existence by close figures of his childhood. This is a child who trusted, but he was betrayed, he wanted to be loved, but was deceived in his hopes and desires, he wanted to be recognized, but it turned out that his existence is not happiness, but a painful, forced punishment for the family, he - the cause of suffering, the shameful "yoke" that the most significant and close person in his life is forced to drag along. A person with a narcissistic trauma is a child who has not been loved.

The environment in which the narcissistically traumatized child grew up was filled with disregard for his needs for love, acceptance, support, or he was used as a beautiful doll that can be displayed when parents need it, or compared with peers, brothers, sisters, in In more severe and cruel circumstances, he was used sexually or as an "analgesic" for his own personal problems.

Andersen's "Ugly Duckling" - this tale, quite vividly presents us the story of the narcissistic trauma of a creature rejected by all, who, however, matured into a beautiful swan, despite all the hardships and humiliations that he had to endure.

In the fairy tale, a happy ending - the hero is reflected in the same beautiful birds, like himself, but in life it is the opposite, the narcissistic traumatized one turns away from everyone, hiding in a cocoon of his own fantasies of greatness … Feeling his vulnerability, he is looking for a special type of activity that will allow him to feel his security through superiority over others. If he manages to ascend to the pinnacle of power, to occupy a high post of leader, director, manager or politician, then he becomes a dictator and a tough moralist. Or, if he has creative abilities, he goes into creativity and there he manifests his rebellion, protest against social rules that restrict his freedom and independence. Classes in esoteric, spiritual practices feed the ideas of omnipotence and become its ideology, but the unconscious does not let you calm down and from time to time sends a "signal" in the form of obsessive thoughts: "I will be punished," I am bad. " Then, in a state of crisis, he devalues or ignores everything he so vehemently sought. Whatever the achievements, in a career, relationships, created connections, friendship, love, everything will be subjected to exile, accusations of deceit, encroachment on independence, use for their own purposes. In moments of despair, the connection with reality is extremely fragile and for some time he balances on the brink of insanity, at the same time during such a period he realizes that he needs help and support, comes to psychotherapy only in a state of complete helplessness. However, even having received support in the form of empathic, sympathetic responses, he is not able to fully open up to the psychotherapist and allow himself to discover his own division into himself “Ideal” and himself “Bad”, since he simply does not know himself “Real”, there is only separate subpersonalities that appear in a situation similar to that first infantile trauma, a situation where he simply did not have any opportunities - emotional, cognitive or physical, defend myself, protect myself and therefore felt a sense of neglect and humiliation … Fragments of your own broken feelings, the most pronounced of which are - shame and envy, which he simply does not know how to express, although they sometimes overwhelm him so much that they pour out only on the closest ones (wife, husband, children), manifest themselves in therapy in relation to the psychotherapist, in the form of delays, veiled under criticism of aggression or sudden withdrawal from therapy, without explanation and gratitude for the support received, in frightening dreams.

A person with narcissistic trauma can be sensitive, vulnerable and highly suspicious in such conditions and circumstances in which the average person does not see the danger and does not feel vulnerable. A narcissistically traumatized person will regard any remark addressed to him as an attack, a "challenge" and, accordingly, a threat to his integrity. For example, a teacher makes a remark to a student about the shortcomings in the diploma project, which causes the student to be aggressive and want to quit the thesis project. Another student gets a four on the exam and goes into hysterics because of the "shame" she is experiencing.

The main sore spots in which narcissistic trauma manifests itself:

• Situations of assessment, criticism, indications of shortcomings, errors;
• Hostility (real or perceived), non-acceptance of his personality, actions, behavior by others, rejection, refusal to recognize his features, significance;
• Any situation that contradicts one's own concept of the Ideal Self: failures, real or imaginary, which "include" defenses against shame and admitting one's own imperfection.

Living with a narcissistic trauma is not easy enough, since a traumatized person lives in a constant series of losses, he is constantly forced to run away from something, defending himself from “bad” work colleagues, husbands, wives, friends, insulting his pride and self-esteem, psychotherapists stepping on the sick "calluses". Each time starting life "from scratch" and each time bumping into "the same rake", the reason for which he, of course, sees, but for the most part, not in himself. He is partly right, of course, he did not want to be traumatized at all, but now it is important to accept that his real, today's life no longer depends on others, at least to the extent that he defines this dependence, today is his life and well-being, or rather, the ability to receive joy from life, relationships, creativity, work depends on the ability to burn out, release pain and open up to a new experience of understanding oneself, others, the world and one's being in it.

The following example of psychoanalytic therapy for a client illustrates the characteristics of the consequences of narcissistic trauma and the results of working with it.

The woman came to therapy when she was about 37 years old, I will call her Valya. Request for work in therapy: understand yourself, "who am I?", Understand your emotional experiences, restless thoughts, learn to control your behavior, realize the causes of your difficulties and sufferings.

Problematic areas of personal discomfort: conflicts with the boss at work and with people in general, dissatisfaction with professional activities, conflicts with ex-husbands and subsequent divorces, due to the feeling of being "used" by them; fear of “falling down a mountain”, “failing”, “making a mistake”, depressive states, obsessive thoughts “whatever I do, I’ll still be bad”, an inner feeling of “tightness”, emptiness, infertility - “trying to protect my child from mother's pressure”, suicidal thoughts. Feeling of inner duality: “there is an evil, dark, arrogant I and there is a simple, cheerful, benevolent I”.

In the course of therapy, the problematic of denying one's femininity was highlighted, since being a woman means to include parts of the maternal role, which could not be accepted due to a negative relationship with the mother, and since there was a latent feeling of envy towards his position as a “favorite” in relations with his brother. family, there was an unconscious identification with the male role.

In communicating with others and with the psychoanalyst, a conformal style of communication was manifested, a desire to please, adjust, agree in everything, while experiencing internal protest, blocking aggressive impulses that addressed themselves in the form of harming themselves (episodes of alcoholism, self-mutilation) or were projected onto others (anxiety of expectation of punishment, fear of being poorly appreciated). Internal discomfort was compensated for by striving for superiority and setting goals in excess of achieving success in professional activity and passion for the practice of alternative medicine, the main achievement in which was mastering the methods of spiritual perfection, management and control over the needs and capabilities of one's body.

The client's dream after the first few sessions.

“I’m standing on the balcony, I don’t understand what it is holding on to. Very high. It starts to fall down. I think: as I was afraid, so it happens. With my willpower I make you stop the fall. Some girl helps me, holds out a rope or a stick for me to grab onto it...

The dream reflects the client's fear of the fear of being humiliated - the fallen, depressed figure of the psychoanalyst, who, at the same time, acts as a rescuer.

At a later stage of the work, when the transference became obvious, the desire to be "mirrored" began to awaken, that is, to receive praise, reproaches to the analyst, in the dissatisfaction of this need, the memory that mother was always unhappy with her, demanded something, but Valya realized only in the course of therapy that she could not meet these requirements and realized that she was not treated fairly. At the same time, a defensive style of interaction in relationships has developed - manipulation, demonstration of one's "weakness", "helplessness" in order to receive care, affection, attention. In the relationship with the psychoanalyst, this style of receiving love was also manifested - an attempt to meet "expectations" and a simultaneous protest against the rules in the relationship with her, which was expressed in attempts to devalue therapy.

So the client reacted to the offer to pay for the skipping session with resentment and associative memories, like her mother scolded her when she was going to visit her father, with whom her mother was divorced, how she swore when Valya tried on her mother's clothes, insulted her, thereby humiliating her femininity and sexuality. The psychoanalyst's recognition of her feelings in the relationship with the client and the recognition of the adequacy of these feelings in the transference allowed her to accept her experiences without being destroyed by shame. In the course of therapy, the client received a new experience of expressing aggression in a situation of safely accepting these feelings.

In the biography of the client, the following features had their traumatic meaning: the rejecting, negatively evaluating attitude of the mother and chronically unsuccessful attempts to please her, the “cold” behavior of the father, estranged from the family and from the daughter, rivalry for the love of the mother with her brother, all these factors distorted the picture of the vision of oneself and their relationships with others, reflected in emotional instability, limitations in the ways of emotional and behavioral coping in situations of life failures. All activity, vital energy was spent on the struggle against the injustice of attitude towards oneself, defending one's right to be as it is, while losing one's individuality, integrity, trust in the world, being constantly in a state of struggle for one's perfection and independence, at the cost of destroying relations and mental self-destruction.

The turning point in the client's therapy was her discovery of an understanding of the psychoanalyst's imperfection (not omnipotence) without destroying the relationship, which contributed to both personal acceptance of herself and literal acceptance of her mother (they began to live together) and her imperfection. Today Valya is the mother of her adopted daughter, quite happy with her life.

In conclusion, I would like to sketch another small illustration from the memories of another client, let it be Masha, from the actual work with her. Masha told how in kindergarten, in the classroom with creativity, she experienced a feeling of helplessness and humiliation, when the teacher offered the children cross-stitch, the reward for the successful completion of which was: paper "frog" - origami, if the work is not done accurately, "bad" and paper "tulip "-Origami, if the work is done perfectly." Masha with tears in her eyes talked about how she wanted to get a "tulip", but she always received only "frogs", as other girls were praised, but she was ignored.

When I hear such stories, I always think that adults, often, do not have enough in communication with children to make their life happy, and not to hurt them with their exaggerated demands, rejection, abuse, cruel punishments, with which they will have to, then live their whole lives. Just a little patience, attention, empathy, support in their first, childhood endeavors, consolation when they are in pain, restraining their cruel and domineering impulses when they make "mistakes", so that, like an elephant in a china shop, they do not destroy a small, fragile inner the world of an imperfect and such dependent being. But adults are also not ideal and also have the right to make mistakes, if you learn to understand, accept, forgive, then your own imperfection will cease to be so frightening and destructive, because it also has the right to be.