LONELINESS OF THE NARCISSUS. GREAT VOIDNESS OF SENSE EXISTENCE

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

Does anyone need me? Am I interesting? Am I good enough to be, to exist in this world? The narcissist has no answer to all these questions, and this is due to the fact that he has problems with identity

Do you hear such a message from society - “You will be good if you are successful! Become the proud owner of an expensive car, house, apartment, watch, clothes and then you will enter a decent society. Everything you want will be yours! The most important thing is to realize your needs and desires, the whole world was created for you, and other people, this is an opportunity for their realization. Use, consume, enjoy. Who are you if you do not have the attributes of power, strength, prosperity? Jonah. Nobody. Nothing. Be selfish. Love yourself and show no love for your neighbor.

Kindness? Honesty? Sincerity? - This is a good tale for the "plebeians".

Perhaps the trend associated with the growth of narcissistic traits is associated with the morality that prevails in society. The criteria generated by the economic model, which provides answers to the questions - "What is good and what is bad?"

A girl in the third grade hears from a friend that something is not the right brand you are wearing. You buy goods in the wrong stores. You don't match!

Here is the conflict between "I want" and "You have to." The child's “I” is against society, the collective, the reference group. Who wants to be a stranger? White crow? Will you have enough strength? For a long time?

Day after day, society is advancing on your self. You are making concessions. Learn to forget yourself and fit in. Years later, the realization comes - not mine, not that, I don't want to. And then the question "Who am I?" Will become a lump in front of you. How can I find myself, among a stranger. How to return to the state "in what the mother gave birth"? How can I learn to appreciate what is already in me? Your uniqueness?

In order to return to your roots, you need the Other (s). Without this condition, I have nowhere to manifest. In the true presence of another, one's boundaries are clearer. Its content, which manifests itself in response.

In one group where I was a member, one of the participants asked - “Why do you react to me like that? I was joking to her - Look at yourself, what you are (this was said with a deliberately dismissive intonation). Participant in tears. She - "So and …" significant people for her believed. The accidental intervention raised the issue of self-esteem, self-worth.

Alfried Langle describes “self-determination as being by myself with a sense of inner agreement and with the permission given to oneself to be so, despite all the differences from others. I am different from You and I am not ashamed of it. I am a Jew, Arab, Ukrainian, Russian, Moldovan - and I'm OK with that. I grew up in a poor family and I accept it. I say to myself, I am sad and wanted something else, but this is so. I accept your otherness, and you accept mine. At the same time, I feel and understand your value as an individual, and you are mine.

In order to take place as a person, we need to get an experience:

• Respect for personal boundaries. The border is understood as the invisible feature that you set for another or others. What and to whom do you allow to do or say in relation to yourself. Have you had any experience of respectful attitude to bodily boundaries, spatial, social, intellectual? Was there no abuse or use of force to the detriment? Have you got the experience to independently dispose of your body, the right to establish and maintain contact with other people when you want to, and to get out of communication? The answers to these questions suggest how traumatic or supportive and developmental your experience was.

• Fair treatment. Did your parents or significant other accept your strengths and weaknesses? Have you been ridiculed, humiliated, humiliated? Can you claim that you have received sufficient development assistance? Are achievements and successes encouraged?
• Recognition of value by others. Goethe said: "When we perceive a person as he is, we make him worse; but when we perceive a person as he should be, we move him towards what he can be."

What will happen to you if, before facing Others, you received the experience of devaluation, manipulation, deception, humiliation and pain? When were your ideas and the fact of your existence assessed as insignificant, carrying a minimum of potential and meaning? If your kindness and love met aggression, hatred? You felt your own loss, insignificance. You were looking for and are looking for ways to substantiate the meaning and value of your existence. You are expected to wander around the world in search of an answer to the question “Who am I? What is my value and meaning? as well as constant disappointment in the answers, because they do not find internal confirmation.

Photographer: Sayaka Maruyama Model: Lovisa Ingman

The role theory of Jacob Levi Moreno describes Narcissism, as underdevelopment, deficiency of roles. A role is a behavioral response to a life situation in which other persons or objects are present. At the level of mental roles, the narcissist has an undeveloped capacity for love, empathy, empathy. At the social level of role development, the tragedy of the narcissist is that, in contact with another, he experiences either his greatness or insignificance. It is not enough for him just to be close to another. He acts as if the other is not there at all. He feels his psychic boundaries and strangers.

For example, in the tale of the New Dress of the King, the fact of the reign was not enough; confirmation of status in the form of processions and exquisite outfits was also needed.

“- He's naked! - finally shouted all the people.

And the king felt uneasy: it seemed to him that the people were right, but he thought to himself: "We must endure the procession to the end."

And he spoke even more stately, and the chamberlains followed him, carrying a train that was not there."

The barrel in which narcissus stores the confirmation of recognition is bottomless, so the poor suffer from jealousy, envy, feeling a constant lack of warmth and intimacy. The problem is that intimacy is taken for granted, and therefore devoid of any value. Consequently, there is no support, there is no one that could be identified, defined as its constant quality - the core of the personality. Everything is subject to inner doubts and criticism. The search for support outside leads to the fact that the husband, wife, children, housing, work are confirmations of the status and value of the narcissist. And only, someone or something from this list ceases to correspond to his stereotypes about "correct" leads him to suffering and despondency.

He does not love others, since he does not love himself first of all. The other person acts as a way for a temporary and imaginary sense of self-worth. In another, he loves what emphasizes his value. Compliment and praise give the narcissist a sense of happiness.

Psychotherapy with a narcissist can be aimed at cultivating identity, helping the client in finding his own “I”, forming boundaries in contact with another, cultivating and forming mental and social roles that allow you to see and feel the other next to you.

If you are interested in a topic - read the section Questions to a psychologist: Narcissus diagnosis