 "The sadistic narcissist perceives himself as Godlike, ruthless and devoid of scruples, capricious and unfathomable, emotionless and non-sexual, omniscient, omnipotent and omni-present, a plague, a devastation, an inescapable verdict." - Sam Vaknin
Contents:
1.) Introduction - Narcissistic Personality Disorder 2.) Rational Narcissism aka Achievement-Based Narcissism 3.) The Birth of the Narcopath 4.) Dealing With A Narcopath 5.) In Closing / Relevant Reading
1.) Introduction - Narcissistic Personality Disorder:
All people with narcissistic personality disorder are narcissists, but not all narcissists
have a personality disorder. A dose of narcissism is good, for it improves one's effectiveness by amplifying their self-love, confidence and boldness. However, it seems to be a common misconception that the promotion of narcissism is tantamount to the promotion of narcissistic personality disorder. This is false, and nought but an ignorant layman's understanding of narcissism fallaciously manifesting as a false equivalence.
Narcissistic personality disorder is a coping mechanism developed in childhood to deal with neglect, rejection or cruelty (eg: bullying) from one's parents. Narcissistic personality disorder is superlative to the nth degree, the most extreme version of narcissism, rather than the healthy self-assured confidence that comes as a by-product of talent and achievement.
Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) is a childhood developmental disorder that is ingrained into the child by the inability of a parent to reward their child's behaviours and accomplishments. Everything the child does is scrutinised and rejected, the child is constantly berated and denied their basic need for love.
The child's accomplishments are typically deemed insufficient, for example if the child achieves a perfect score or comes first place, say in a race or on a school paper, the result is expected rather than rewarded. In a narcopath's childhood, achievement was met by indifference and anything other than exceptionalism was met by emotional abuse. The excellence is expected, but the parental approval and joy quintessential to such achievements is absent.
This is further exacerbated when the narcopath has a sibling who is incessantly rewarded whilst they are incessantly punished, this is narcopathy on the part of the parent exercising this behaviour and is a narcissistic strategy known as triangulation. What sets the NPD apart from the narcissist is that the rejection caused by the parent at a young age leaves them incapable of forming pair-bonds, this inability to pair-bond from there on becomes an empathy disorder dressed up in ego.
2.) Rational Narcissism aka Achievement-Based Narcissism:
Achievement-based narcissism is distinct from narcissistic personality disorder in much the way stoicism is distinct from psychopathy. Although a stoic and a psychopath may both seem cold, one can pair bond and the other cannot. Likewise, despite the NPD and narcissist both demonstrating much ego, one can pair bond and the other cannot.
Successful people with the self-esteem that comes with it, are to one degree or another, narcissistic. And it is precisely this which distinguishes them from NPDs, they are narcissistic by degree - not in totality. If one attained a ridiculous amount of success, it is feasible they could become as narcissistic as the NPD - but this is uncommon and thus unrepresentative of achievement-based narcissism.
Unlike the NPD, your typical narcissist does not deify themselves as infallible, indubitable or indissoluble, but rather, they see themselves as above average, superior. And if they earn more than most people, are smarter than most people, and are in better health than most people, is this not true? Narcissism and elitism go hand in hand, for narcissism is a natural byproduct of success.
Much unlike the NPD, the successful are narcissistic because they have worked hard, and by the trial of their mettle they have achieved. NPDs are delusional individuals who deified themselves to cope with the onslaught of emotional abuse they received from their parents in childhood. Already now you should be beginning to understand the different shades of narcissism; you have the tangibly successful who are narcissistic by recognition of their superiority, and the delusionally damaged who have lived in a self-inculcated fantasy since youth.
Achievement-based narcissism is healthy and comes from a positive place, whilst narcissistic personality disorder is a coping mechanism born from a negative place. Unlike the achievement-based narcissist, the NPD is oft sadistic. The power that comes from sadistic exploitation is quick and dirty junk food for the insatiable vacuum that represents the NPD's horrible childhood. Where the child developed NPD out of powerlessness, their adult form takes this to the opposite extent, intent on domination and the feeling of omnipotence that come from having total control over another.
People like to use "narcissist" as an insult, but know this - not all narcissism is equal. Some is healthy, born of superior performance and achievement, the other is dysfunctional, born of a terrible childhood. To combine these distinctions under one umbrella would be to disingenuously misrepresent the nature of narcissism, and anybody interested in narcissism would as such do well to ingrain this distinction into their cranium.
3.) The Birth of The Narcopath:
The NPD constructs a false sense of self to counteract the heartbreaking treatment they received from their parent. In truth the NPD is a victim, but a dangerous one at that. It is unwise to show the NPD the pity and sympathy customarily doted to a victim, for the NPD will see this as weakness and exploit it duly.
The vacuum left by unbetrothed love in the NPD's formative years is insatiable and unfillable. NPDs tend to be the offspring of other NPDs, or individuals with affective empathy disorders (of which there is a numerous and colourful range of diagnoses). Any love or sympathy the NPD receives as an adult serves merely as a form of ego validation, it is not sentimentally received or appreciated in the way the empath intended.
An NPD is a narcopath (a comorbid psychopathic grandiose narcissist), narcopaths do not feel empathy. A narcissist on the other hand merely has an elevated sense of self, a lack of humility if you will, but this alone does not signify an inability to sympathise.
I refer to NPDs as narcopaths, for the absence of empathy customary to the NPD is tantamount to psychopathy, albeit, an egotistical variation on the phenomenon.
The narcopath cannot love for they bare no sentimental appreciation for vulnerability, perceiving only weakness in that which they cannot emote. Like a destructive child they cannot enjoy the flutter of a butterfly, but rather, the butterfly drawing people's attention would anger them, compelling them to crush it.
And yet if you were to tell the narcopath they could not love, you would be met by nothing but narcissistic injury. Indignance, histrionics, victim playing, gaslighting, a grand display of anger where they highlight their best points whilst contrasting them with your worst. The narcopath is not above bringing out their highlight reel and your skeleton closet, making comparisons and trying to deceive you into believing this is an accurate rendition of reality.
The narcopath would deny their inability to love, because to tell a narcopath they are incapable of something is to harm the very pride they subsist on. Narcopaths are broken people due to the mental abuse inflicted on them by their parent(s), yet at the same time they are dangerous people - I will repeat myself for clarity's sake: narcopaths do not sentimentally appreciate sympathy, they desire it only so they can use it as a way to malignantly exploit the sucker naive enough to care.
4.) Dealing With A Narcopath:
Narcopaths are very unemotional and unconcerned with others, their emotion emotional capacity is reserved solely for solipsistic matters. For example, they do not feel concern for others - but rather they become bothered if someone useful to them is unavailable. To be concerned would to emotionally care for the missing person, to be bothered is to be annoyed by the absence of a person - this is a subtle but distinct variation. Narcopaths are emotional people, but only when it comes to themselves.
Typically the narcopath is angry, or feeding their narcissistic supply by ridiculing people. Narcopaths can be pretty funny people, and this makes sense in so much as humour is based upon the ridicule and degradation of an out-group in order to amuse an audience. You will see here on a non-sexual level that this penchant for schadenfreude is a form of soft-sadism (and is typically, likewise mirrored in the bedroom).
Ridicule makes the narcopath feel superior to the out-group, whilst feeding them the validation of the in-group, further bolstering feelings of superiority. Because the narcopath is conflict-seeking rather than conflict averse, they are destructive personalities that feed on the chaos and misery of others, again a manifestation of their latent sadism.
Realise when dealing with a narcopath that everything goes through a filter of ego - this is both the narcopath's greatest strength and weakness - a double-edged sword if you will. The narcopath is psychologically high in attack, but low in defence. Unlike a stoic who is immovable, the narcopath is easily moved - although they will typically attempt to shut you down before you can do to much damage.
If you were to observe one's battlefield with a narcopath, you will see their strategy is to achieve a quick victory by completely overwhelming their adversary. By merit of their high attack they often manage this, although it should be noted this strategy is as much as a form of defence it is an attack, for the narcopath has low defence. If you mirror the narcopath's strategy by overwhelming them, they will lose all sense of sanity and crumble very quickly.
Unlike psychopaths, narcopaths excel at destroying but are inept at enduring, such is their achille's heel, their susceptibility to narcissistic injury. Narcopaths do not respond to reason once the ego fires up, although they have no qualms exploiting yours.
The best way to deal with a narcopath in their manic phase is to insult and undermine them, amplify their thirst for conflict, question their credibility, mock them and generally degrade their very essence. Although this sounds extreme, literally nothing else will allow you to permeate their childish stubbornness.
To get through to them and you must resort to narcissistically injuring them. They won't like you for this, but they probably don't really like you anyway. And although they may not like you for this, they will respect it, and perversely what a narcopath can respect, he can like. If you cannot offend a narcopath, he cannot respect you. This is extreme yet necessary, these individuals at their core are bullies, and the only way to win the respect of a bully is to degrade them.
5.) In Closing / Relevant Reading:
Curious to see how narcissistic you are? You can take this test to get a rough idea. A high narcissism score on this test is not indicative of narcopathy, merely narcissism, but a high narcissism score combined with a high psychopathy score is. This test does not seek to measure sadism, but if you get a high psychopathy and narcissism score, I can infer with 99% confidence you are likewise sadistic.
Do you wish to talk with me and my humble followers on this topic in a private and exclusive space? There are currently 3 slots remaining for entry into the dark triad forum. More slots will be added in time, but if you subscribe after the 29th you will have to wait until early April to get access - access is not instant, but granted between the 3rd and the 6th of each month.
Relevant Books:
Malignant Self-Love: Narcissism Revisited
The Science of Evil: On Empathy and the Origins of Cruelty |
Thursday, February 25, 2016
Understanding Narcissism by Illimitable Men. GOOD DESCRIPTIVE ARTICLE ALTHOUGH NOT THE RESOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM
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