Narcissists and Relationships

Can a narcissist ever get better?

The Narcissistic Personality Disorder is a systemic, all-pervasive condition, very much like pregnancy: either you have it or you don't. Once you have it, you have it day and night, it is an inseparable part of the personality, a recurrent set of behavior patterns.

The victims of the narcissist's abusive conduct resort to fantasies and self-delusions to salve their pain.

Rescue Fantasies

"It is true that he is a chauvinistic narcissist and that his behavior is unacceptable and repulsive. But all he needs is a little love and he will be straightened out. I will rescue him from his misery and misfortune. I will give him the love that he lacked as a child. Then his narcissism will vanish and we will live happily ever after."

There is a reason this idea is listed as a fantasy.  Nothing we do is ever going to cause another person to change!  People change when and if they want to change, and true narcissists have no reason to change when they already think they are perfect in every way!

Loving a Narcissist

I believe in the possibility of loving narcissists if one accepts them unconditionally, in a disillusioned and expectation-free manner.

Narcissists are narcissists. Take them or leave them. Some of them are lovable. Most of them are highly charming and intelligent. The source of the misery of the victims of the narcissist is their disappointment, their disillusionment, their abrupt and tearful realization that they fell in love with an ideal of their own making, a phantasm, an illusion, a fata morgana. This "waking up" is traumatic. The narcissistalways remains the same. It is the victim who changes.

It is true that narcissists present a luring facade but this facade is easy to penetrate. It is inconsistent and too perfect. The cracks are evident from day one but often ignored. There are those who KNOWINGLY and WILLINGLY commit their emotional wings to the burning narcissistic candle.

Narcissists have emotions, very strong ones, so terrifyingly overpowering and negative that they hide them, repress, block and transmute them. They employ a myriad of defense mechanisms to cope with their repressed emotions: projective identification, splitting, projection, intellectualization, rationalization. Any effort to relate to the narcissist emotionally is doomed to failure, alienation and rage. Any attempt to "understand" narcissistic behavior patterns, reactions, or his inner world in emotional terms is equally hopeless. Narcissists should be regarded as a force of nature or an accident waiting to happen.

Narcissists have no interest in emotional or even intellectual stimulation by significant others. Such feedback is perceived as a threat. Significant others in the narcissist's life have very clear roles: you are in his world only to make his world better and that is all. Nothing less but definitely nothing more. Proximity and intimacy breed contempt. A process of devaluation is in full operation throughout the life of the relationship.

It is your job to be a passive witness to the narcissist's past accomplishments, a dispenser of adulation and worship, a punching bag for his rages, a co-dependent, a possession and nothing much more. This is the ungrateful, FULL-TIME, draining job of being the narcissist's significant other.

But humans are not instruments. To regard them as such is to devalue them,to reduce them, to restrict them, to prevent them from realizing their potential. Inevitably, narcissists lose interest in their instruments when they cease to serve the narcissist in his pursuit of glory and fame.

Narcissists can be happily married to submissive, subservient, self-deprecating, echoing, mirroring and indiscriminately supportive spouses. They also do well with masochists. Many a spouse/friend/mate/partner like to BELIEVE that given sufficient time and patience they will be the ones to rid the narcissist of his inner demons. They think that they can "rescue" the narcissist, shield him from his (distorted) self, as it were. The narcissist makes use of this naivete and exploits it to his benefit. The natural protective mechanisms, which are provoked in normal people by love are cold bloodedly used by the narcissist to extract more from his writhing victim.

To cope with him/her, the narcissist forces the people around him to "walk on eggshells". They are scarred and often suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

One can abandon a narcissist but the narcissist is slow to abandon his victims. He is there, lurking, rendering existence unreal, twisting and distorting with no respite, an inner, remorseless voice, lacking in compassion and empathy for its victim. The narcissist is there in spirit long after it had vanished in the flesh. This is the real danger that the victims of the narcissist face: that they become like him, bitter, self-centered, lacking in empathy. This is the last bow of the narcissist, his curtain call.

Narcissistic Tactics

The narcissist tends to surround himself with his inferiors in some respect: intellectually, financially, physically. He limits his interactions with them to the plane of his superiority. This is the safest and fastest way to sustain his grandiose fantasies of omnipotence and omniscience, brilliance, ideal traits, perfection and so on.

Humans are interchangeable and the narcissist does not distinguish one individual from another. To him they are all inanimate elements of "his audience" whose job is to reflect his False Self. This generates a perpetual and permanent cognitive dissonance.

The narcissist despises the very people who sustain his Ego boundaries and functions. He cannot respect people so expressly and clearly inferior to him yet he can never associate with people evidently on his level or superior to him, the risk of narcissistic injury in such associations being too great. Equipped with a fragile Ego, precariously teetering on the brink of narcissistic injury the narcissist prefers the safe route. But he feels contempt for himself and for others for having preferred it.

Some narcissist are also psychopaths (suffer from the Antisocial PD) and/or sadists. Anti-socials don't really enjoy hurting others they simply don't care one way or the other. But sadists do enjoy it. Classical narcissists do not enjoy wounding others but they do enjoy the sensation of unlimited power and the validation of their grandiose fantasies when they do harm others or are in the position to do so.

The Never-ending Story

If a partner feels bad in a relationship, then looking for the exit door sounds like a viable and healthy strategy.

Even the official termination of a relationship with a narcissist is not the end of the affair. The Ex "belongs" to the narcissist. She is an inseparable part of his Pathological Narcissistic Space. This possessive streak survives the physical separation.

Thus, the narcissist is likely to respond with rage, seething envy, asense of humiliation and invasion and violent-aggressive urges to an ex's new boyfriend, or new job (to her new life without him). Especially since it implies a "failure" on his part and, thus negates his grandiosity.

But there is a second scenario:

If the narcissist firmly believes (which is very rare) that the ex does not and will never represent any amount, however marginal and residual, of any kind (primary or secondary) of Narcissistic Supply (positive or negative attention) he remains utterly unmoved by anything she does and anyone she may choose to be with.

Narcissists do feel bad about hurting others and about the unsavory course their lives tend to assume. But the narcissist feels bad only when his Supply Sources are threatened because of his behavior or following a major life crisis.

The narcissist equates emotions with weakness. He regards the sentimental and the emotional with contempt. He looks down on the sensitive and the vulnerable. He derides and despises the dependent and the loving. He mocks expressions of compassion and passion. He is devoid of empathy.

The narcissist never looks back, unless and until forced to by life's circumstances.

Abandoning the Narcissist

There is a magic formula. Without constant praise and attention, the narcissist disintegrates, crumbles and shrivels very much as vampires do in horror movies when exposed to sunlight. The minute the partner ceases to supply him with what he needs the narcissist loses all interest in IT.  (I use IT judiciously the narcissist objectifies his partners, he treats them as he would inanimate objects.)

If you wish to sever your relationship with the narcissist, stop providing him with what he needs. Do not adore, admire, approve, applaud, or confirm anything that he does or says. Disagree with his views, belittle him, reduce him to size, compare him to others, tell him that he is not unique, criticize him, make suggestions, offer help. In short, deprive him of his illusion that he is perfect in every way! At the first sign of danger to his inflated, fantastic and grandiose self, he will disappear on you.

Having said that, it might not be necessary for you to do anything at all! Sometimes, the narcissist initiates his own abandonment because of his fear of it. He is so terrified of being emotionally hurt that he would rather "control", "master", or "direct" the potentially destabilizing situation.

The Dynamics of the Relationship

The narcissist lives in a fantasized world of ideal beauty, incomparable (imaginary) achievements, wealth, brilliance and unmitigated success. The narcissist denies his reality constantly. This is what I call the Grandiosity Gap the abyss between his sense of entitlement grounded in his inflated grandiose fantasies and his incommensurate reality and meager accomplishments.

The narcissist's partner is perceived by him to be merely an instrument, an extension of himself. It is inconceivable that blessed by the constant presence of the narcissist such a tool would malfunction. The needs and grievances of the partner are perceived by the narcissist as threats and slights.

The narcissist considers his very presence in the relationship as nourishing and sustaining. He feels entitled to the best others can offer without investing in his relationships.

He projects his own mental illness unto her. Through the intricate mechanism of projective identification he forces her to play an emergent role of "the sick" or "the weak" or "the naive" or "the dumb" or "the no good". What he denies in himself, what he is loath to face in his own personality he attributes to others and molds them to conform to his prejudices against himself.

The narcissist must have the best, the most glamorous, stunning, talented, head turning, mind-boggling spouse in the entire world. Nothing short of this fantasy will do. To compensate for the shortcomings of his real life spouse he invents an idealized figure and relates to it instead.

Then, when reality conflicts too often and too evidently with this figment he reverts to devaluation. His behavior turns on a dime and becomes threatening, demeaning, contemptuous, berating, reprimanding, destructively critical and sadistic or cold, unloving, detached, and "clinical". He punishes his real life spouse for not living up to his fantasy, for "refusing" to be his ideal creation. The narcissist plays a wrathful and demanding God.

Moving On

To preserve one's mental health one must abandon the narcissist. One must move on. Moving on is a process, not a decision or an event. First, one has to acknowledge and accept painful reality. Such acceptance is a volcanic, shattering, agonizing series of nibbling thoughts and strong resistance. Once the battle is won, one can move on to the learning phase.

Learning

We label. We educate ourselves. We compare experiences. We digest. We have insights. Then we decide and we act. This is "to move on". Having gathered sufficient emotional sustenance, knowledge, support and confidence, we face the battlefields of our relationships, fortified and nurtured. This stage characterizes those who do not mourn but fight; do not grieve but replenish their self-esteem; do not hide but seek; do not freeze but move on.

Grieving

Having been betrayed and abused we grieve. We grieve for the image we had of the traitor and abuser the image that was so fleeting and so wrong. We mourn the damage he did to us. We experience the fear of never being able to love or to trust again and we grieve this loss. In one stroke, we lost someone we trusted and even loved, we lost our trusting and loving selves and we lost the trust and love that we felt. Can anything be worse?

The emotional process of grieving has many phases.

At first, we are dumbfounded, shocked, inert, immobile. We play dead to avoid our inner monsters. Then we feel enraged, indignant, rebellious and hateful. Then we accept. Then we cry. And then some of us learn to forgive. And this is called healing.

All stages are absolutely necessary and good for you. It is bad not to rage back, not to shame those who shamed us, to deny, to pretend, to evade. But it is equally bad to get fixated on our rage. Permanent grieving is the perpetuation of our abuse by other means.  By endlessly recreating our harrowing experiences, we unwillingly collaborate with our abuser to perpetuate his or her evil deeds.

It is by moving on that we defeat our abuser, minimizing him and his importance in our lives. It is by loving and by trusting anew that we annul that which was done to us. To forgive is never to forget. But to remember is not necessarily to re-experience.

 

Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited

Narcissism, Pathological Narcissism, The Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), the Narcissist,

and Relationships with Abusive Narcissists and Psychopaths

By: Sam Vaknin, Ph.D.

Tags: Malignant Self Love, Sam Vankin, Narcisissm, Abuse, Recovery, Healing