Narcissism: The What and How

 


“I don't care what you think unless it is about me.” ― Kurt Cobain

What is narcissism?

I used to think it was simply someone who was full of themselves. We have all been in a group where one person takes over the conversation. No matter what topic gets mentioned that person tells you everything they know about it or steers the conversation back to themselves. Narcissism occurs on a spectrum from low to high. At the low end it might look like our friend who is full of himself. He/She is mildly annoying but we put up with it because they have enough other traits we appreciate. The high end of narcissism is "Narcissistic Personality Disorder" and is destructive, cruel and abusive. And there are all the degrees in between.

Narcissism is a Cluster-B personality disorder. I think the best description is a disordered personality. Unlike other mental health issues the consensus is that this is not mental illness and a person does have the ability to change, if they want to. The "wanting to" seems to be the catch.

Because this is a spectrum, signs of narcissistic personality disorder and the severity of symptoms vary. People with the disorder can have a sense of self importance without reality to back it up, feel special and entitled, require boatloads of admiration, feel superior, look down on others, are jealous and think others are jealous of them, lack empathy, manipulate and tell whatever story that makes them feel good, true or not, without blinking an eye.

But because all of this bravado is like a house built on sand, people with this disorder have a hard time handling anything they perceive as criticism, and they perceive that about any suggestion that doesn't include "yes, you're right". It is at this point you will witness their anger, either overt or passive aggressive.

So how does this disorder come about? All the research indicates that this is a personality style. That being said it seems that we are born with certain aspects of personality. You have probably noticed some babies are easy going and some are skittish. Then life experiences enter the picture, combining nature with nurture. A warm nurturing family can soften difficult personality traits, while the opposite (critical, abusive, neglectful), will make them worse.

Narcissists are not bad people. They are disordered people who can do bad things. What makes this more complicated is that they don't see them selves that way. Deep in the well of their being they have a lot of shame. But that gets capped off away from awareness. So basically they believe their own press and it is unusual for someone with narcissistic personality disorder to recognize the problem, seek help and make changes. That means it is unlikely that our explanations, complaints and attempts to get them to understand our feelings will result in anything but their anger and our frustration. It also means that, for our own well-being, we need to take the focus off of them, and start working inside ourselves. We will talk more about that in another blog.





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