What If You Are A "narcissist"?

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

Many frightening articles have been written and are circulating on the Internet about narcissistic, cold narcissists, about bloodthirsty abusers, about unpredictable border guards who will forever remain eccentric teenagers …, and this one who writes books is definitely a schizoid, and that one is a programmer, probably he is autistic.

Labels hung on those who are different can ruin life and aggravate the already tangled relationships of people that they are looking for answers to their questions on various resources. For me, it all reminds me of a "witch hunt."

So which personality can be considered "narcissistic"?

Calling someone a "narcissist" is unethical. It is customary to say “narcissistic personality”, “person of narcissistic orientation”, “narcissistic accentuation of character”.

In psychology and psychiatry, excessive narcissism is considered a serious personality dysfunction or personality disorder. This disorder is listed in the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders). People with an overly narcissistic orientation have vanity, overestimated self-importance, selfishness, or simply narcissism.

One of the greatest modern psychoanalysts, Otto Kernberg, in his book "Borderline conditions and pathological narcissism" identifies three types of narcissism - normal infantile narcissism, normal mature narcissism and pathological narcissism. People with pathological narcissism tend to be contemptuous of others and constantly demonstrate their own superiority and achievements ("Radio I") in the absence of empathy and interest in others.

According to Isidore From, a narcissistic person is one who is unable to maintain an intimate relationship, one who is anxious about healthy confluence. People with a narcissistic orientation find it extremely difficult to trust the world around them, they are unable to accept what comes from outside and does not correspond to his idea, that is, everything that he does not know. They cannot utter the word "We" and feel what it is like to be able to reunite with someone. This is the main tragedy of narcissistic personalities.

They seek psychotherapeutic help because they suffer from loneliness, because they lose relationships with family and friends. It is difficult for them to receive sexual pleasure, because there is another with whom they will have to merge. And this is scary. It is also difficult for them to sign up for therapy, because this is a kind of request for help, and due to the narcissistic characteristics, exposure of their problem areas can be regarded as humiliation.

Today, narcissism is an epidemic that has hit the world. And almost every person is infected in one form or another with this virus.

Narcissism has its roots in deep childhood. Each person has their own unique scenario of the origin of their narcissistic suffering. But to summarize, there are several lines.

The first is when the child has a mother who takes good care of him, but they had to leave before the child was ready for this. For example, at the age of 10 months he was placed in the care of his grandmother because his mother went to work, or parting for a long time due to the fact that one of them ends up in the hospital, or the delivery of the child to a nursery … Yes, there are others adults, but they are strangers. To be saved, the child creates a psychological wall between himself and the other to prevent any pain from intimacy. After all, if you become attached, they can betray, leave.

Second, the child never had a caring and loving mother (most likely, she was physically present, but she herself was in depression or other difficult circumstances, without the resources or skills to be a “good” mother). And the child, having not survived the experience of childhood, is forced to immediately become an adult and protect himself from the outside world. To survive, he is forced to spend much more energy on self-defense than on seeking close contact with others. This pattern of behavior has features of autism. It is extremely difficult for such a person to show himself to the world. From the outside, this may seem arrogant.

The third line is when overly protective and controlling parents expect their child to match their ideal image (even if their child is far over 16 years old). Parents support in the child what they dreamed of in childhood themselves, the rest - they attack. And they demand from him to be what they think is right, rewarding admiration for meeting their expectations and mercilessly punishing, shaming or rejecting if the child shows "initiative". The parent's eyes are not a source of light and support, but narrow spotlights aimed at the child and controlling his every step, even if this step is only in the child's mind. When a child grows up under such supervision, then he develops the habit of looking at himself evaluatively, as his parents once did. Even if no one is watching him, his "all-seeing eye" is watching him and does not allow him to relax even for a second. Those parts of their personality and desires that are not approved by their parents are perceived by the child as ugly and disgusting. And then the child loses touch with his nature and tries to live in accordance with the imposed stereotypes. Panic attacks, eating disorders are also manifestations of a narcissistic type of behavior.

If we summarize all of the above and say in the words of Isidor From's student, gestalt therapist Bertram Müller, “narcissistic orientation is a creative adaptation to the unpleasant experience of being too close to a significant other person. This experience shaped, step by step, specific adaptive skills that led to narcissism in order to maintain a distance between the child and significant others. Developing narcissistic personality traits was a healthy decision during childhood.

What should you do if you are narcissistic?

1. The other side of vanity, pride, is shame. The worst thing for a narcissistic person is to experience this emotion, which paralyzes the rest of the senses and the mind. Narcissistic people have a peculiar allergy to shame, that is, even if the awkwardness, shame, or shame are not yours, then you still get hurt by catching the smell of these emotions in the atmosphere. What if you find yourself in shame and humiliation?

First, know that the person who shames you is usually filled with shame or fear of shame. And you, being supersensitive to this feeling, can get infected from it, so your shame increases.

Second, take a break from talking to the person who hurt you. It's okay if you say you need time to think.

Thirdly, when you are in shame, you lose touch not only with the world, but also with yourself. So take care of yourself. Immediately about the physical body. Open the window, breathe, concentrating on this process. Do yourself a hand and foot massage, return to your body. There is a wonderful exercise that helps you quickly regain your sensitivity: spank yourself with your palms from the top of your head to the tips of your toes. Within a couple of minutes you will feel vibration throughout your body and the return of life.

Next, when you get a feel for your body, try to understand the sensations and feelings that have taken possession of you. And then, gradually, the ability to think will return to you.

They usually return from a state of shock in the following way: body - sensations - feelings - mind.

2. Remove the idealized image from your parents (good or bad, omnipotent or worthless - it doesn't matter). Disconnect from them. Try to consider ordinary people in them, with their own characteristics, who did what was available to them at that time.

Become a good parent for yourself - wrap, iron, pamper yourself. Take it as a practice to treat yourself with love. Learn to forgive yourself. Everyone makes mistakes. This is fine. If a person does something, he inevitably makes mistakes. A canvas of wisdom is created from one's own mistakes. Let it take shape in you and don't beat yourself up for your mistakes. Just tell yourself, "Stop!" and instead of self-destructing or destroying the other, do something more useful. For example, jogging, painting, a contrast shower, or whatever is practically available for you to do.

3. Reaction to criticism and devaluation from another hurts so that you feel as if you are falling into small pieces. This is how a mirror crumbles when a stone is thrown at it. You feel like a complete insignificance. And then all past experience is lost. All the good that is and was, is instantly forgotten.

Being in a resourceful and sustainable state, take the time and write down a list of all your good qualities and achievements in life. Reread this list as often as possible and expand on it.

Ask what the other person means when they say that you are not competent enough or that you are not behaving as you should. And maybe you will hear in the explanation something that does not at all correspond to your dark fantasies about the situation. Acknowledge your dependence on other people, know that you can ask without humiliation.

4. When you interact with other people, you automatically rate them. This one is good, and that one is weak, or greedy, or rude, and that man over there is simply adorable. These are all your projections. Everything that you see in others - in one way or another you have. Assign to yourself the fragility, ordinariness, shyness and other human qualities that you notice in others. Even if you don't like them. Become more holistic. Sometimes, being too persistent, if you know you have it, may be required in asserting your interests and boundaries.

5. Find your true desires and dreams in yourself. Many people, especially those who have enough narcissism, are used to living in such a way as to charm, please, or discourage others. And this means that to live for the sake of the opinions of others. To maintain the "facade".

Go deep into yourself. Get to know yourself and feel your intentionality - the desire and need to move towards something or someone. This inner knowledge will allow you to return to your true nature.

6. Do what gives you the opportunity to feel your physicality. It can be sports, dancing, physical labor, walks in nature, massages and other bodily practices. It is important that excess emotions are transformed into bodily impulses. In this way, you can get rid of the excess potential of negative emotions.

7. Try the practice of connecting with people - a dialogue "from heart to heart": talk about your feelings to someone without losing contact with their eyes. You can immediately try with those with whom you feel safe. Once you master this skill, you will be able to feel more fully connected and connected with another. Normal human contact. It can be a very important meeting place and the feeling of a warm and cozy home that is within you. This feeling can only be obtained in contact with another person.

How does therapy work with narcissism?

If we look at narcissism as a positive trend in human society as a whole, then it is “an attempt to break out of mass culture to a society with more and more creative individual ethical norms and personalities -“artistic personalities”(B. Müller).

What we do in sessions with a client is to recreate his unique style of manifestation and being in the world. This is a long job, where you have to meet with the devaluation of the client himself, me and our work; grieving about what happened and what did not happen; over and over again to help the client to collect the scattered image of him and the world as a whole …

But gradually, session after session, they change both of us, our worlds and the world as a whole. Clients discover in themselves the talents of being in the world that previously slept in them: the vision of beauty and the forms of transmission of this beauty through their unique style (they begin to write poems, prose, paintings, create business projects, live as they were afraid to even dream). This is an exciting process when the client begins to open up and recognize himself, his potential and use it. It is worth all the experiences that we go through with him in therapy.