Narcissism is based on an inflated “false self”, which has
developed as a result of a developmental arrest in childhood. As a child,
he/she withdrew inwards and resorted to grandiose fantasies of being superior,
special, perfectly loved, self sufficient and self important.
This was to cover
the vulnerability, self doubt and worthlessness that was at his/her core.
To keep his
grandiose “false self” alive in his mind and his fears of abandonment at bay,
he/she is in constant search for sources of narcissistic supply,
an abundant “fan club”, which will supply him/her with positive attention,
adulation and appreciation, and if that is not possible, fear from others will
suffice.
The more damage
he/she sustained in childhood, the larger the grandiosity and the more severe
the Narcissism, and the more donations are desperately needed from others to
keep propping up the fantasy self. Emotional pain dominates his/her internal
landscape. He/she may project arrogance and charisma, but underneath he/she
feels unworthy.
It is a constant and
exhausting endeavour as he/she continually seeks to manipulate others to give
him/her the required fix. He/she will do anything to get it, and won’t let
people’s feelings or the truth get in the way.
To keep this all
going internally, he/she uses a combination of 6 defense mechanisms
1. Splitting
is the first one. This means he/she fails to regard anyone, including
himself/herself, as a composite of good and bad. Instead, he/she sees everyone
as either “all good” or “all bad”. He/she, of course is “all good”, and you as
the partner begin by being “all good” which has him/her idealising
you, and internalising you to support his/her grandiosity, but as soon as you
fail to do this, you become “all bad” and he/she immediately devalues you,
with the resulting punishment in various forms metered out to you.
2.
Dissociation & altered perception. Narcissists often recall
things very differently from healthy people, or fail to recall things at all if
they don’t resonate with his/her superiority.
3.
Rationalisation is the assertion that a flaw doesn’t exist, or
if it does, it isn’t the Narcissists. (“There is nothing wrong with me. I
never have problems”) These rationalisations can be very convoluted and
obscure, as they often fly in the face of observable facts.
4.
Projection is the curious strategy whereby the Narcissist is
subconsciously aware of what he/she is in fact doing himself, but projects
it onto you, with the result that you then get blamed for exactly what he/she
is doing himself/herself, and he/she casts himself/herself as the blameless
victim.
5. Denial
is simply the assertion that something is not so, when ordinary
observation or common sense confirms that it is in fact true. Anything that
doesn’t reinforce his/her grandiose image will be denied. The Emperor has no
clothes and he can’t be told.
6. Blame
shifting is whathappens when the Narcissist insists there is nothing
possibly wrong with him/her, so all the blame must be attributed to you or
everyone else in the world.
How
did you become a willing victim? Why you?
If you find yourself
in a relationship with a Narcissist, at some stage you might wonder why
you? What does this say about you, your tolerance for pain and your
sanity?
It is true that
there is a particular kind of person that finds themself with a Narcissist, at
least often well beyond the first indication that there is an underlying
nastiness in him.
The kind of person
who seems to unwittingly attract a Narcissist is someone who has what I call a “Sacrificial
Self”, (which has also been referred to as Co-dependent or compliant
or a deflated false self). This means you may have a tendency to
unnecessarily attribute blame to yourself in situations when you haven’t done
anything wrong.
In Transactional
Analysis terms, a Narcissist’s underlying Life position is I’m Ok,
You’re Not OK, whereas a Sacrificial’s underlying Life Position
is I’m Not OK, You’re OK.
How Can I tell if I am a Sacrificial
Self?
Here again, it is
important to understand that there are varying degrees of this kind of Self, as
there are with a Narcissistic self.
A
Sacrificial person is characterised by:
1. A deflated False
self
2. Your feelings are
often numbed, and you are not always aware of them in the moment
3. You experience a
lack of awareness of your own needs.
4. You also are not
good at knowing what your real wants are.
5. You often feel
guilt and shame for not being able to meet people’s needs
6. Your loved ones
withdrawing their love, or threatening to withdraw it, triggers a lot of
anxiety in you
7. You are often not
truly in touch with your own deeper truth
8. You can often
prefer to live in a fantasy where you believe your partner truly loves you,
even though much of the evidence can show you the contrary
9. You have
experienced poor self esteem over your life
10. You are not
always able to see where your boundaries should and shouldn’t be
11. You are not
often able to assertively stand up to those you love
12. You can at times
feel a vague sense of depression and emptiness
13. You can lack a
sense of a healthy entitlement in your relationships
14. You can often
feel frustrated and dissatisfied with your life
15. There are times
when you feel your life has no meaning
16. You have an
underlying belief that I must sacrifice myself to survive in a relationship
17. In a
relationship, you may be responsive and reactive to your partner, rather than
proactive
18. You excessively
blame yourself in your relationship
19. You often have
the underlying sense that if something is going right for you at the moment, it
probably won’t last.
20. You tend to take
more than your fair share of responsibility in a relationship, to make it
better and improve it.
Interestingly and
importantly, a Sacrificial’s profile is less defended that the Narcissist, and
less destructive to others, and therefore closer to achieving a healthy
relationship, if you can gain true insight into what is happening and what is
going wrong in your relationships and be able to develop a stronger identity
and boundaries.
If this is you,
during your childhood, as you were developing your real self and identity as an
individual, your mother or father may have been challenged by your emerging
separate self. It often happens that she or her was a Narcissist. So whenever
you expressed your real feelings, needs or wants, you were abandoned,
criticised or blamed. Often, your relationship with your parent was set up so
that you took responsibility for meeting your parents’ needs, rather than
she/he meeting your needs.
So you learned that
in order to survive and experience any form of love and attention, you had to
abandon yourself and “toe the line”.
As a result your
individual identity may have been severely compromised.
