Narcissism Understood

• Everyone, to some degree is narcissistic. Most people ‘want the good stuff’ and from a psychological point of view: everything we do is for some emotional ‘payoff’ – in order to feel better about ourselves and life.
• The ultimate quality of healthy narcissism is obtaining self-gratifying results in ways that don’t damage other people, whereas unhealthy narcissism works from the mind-set: “I win, and I don’t care if you lose,” or, “Your loss is my win.” Narcissism is self-absorption coupled with destructive behaviour.
• NPD is a Cluster B mental disorder, and is categorized in this cluster alongside others such as Histrionic Disorder and Borderline Disorder (just to name a couple.)
• Narcissism is known to be a creation of a false self, and therefore the individual will display behaviour that is pathological (not real) in nature. Any individual who is not comfortable within their own skin – therefore disconnected from their ‘inner peace’ – can develop narcissistic characteristics.

How do we deal with inner pain & emotional insecurity?

External factors such as race, class, income, status, or religion place no importance as to whether or not an individual will be narcissistic. It is an ‘inner-self’ issue.

3 Types of people living with inner pain and emotional insecurity:

• The ones that wear a mask, ‘suffer in silence’ and don’t want to burden others,
• The ones that wear a mask, and steal energy from the world to feel better, and
• The ones that take off the mask, take responsibility for their emotions, work on themselves and improve life ‘from the inside out.

No-one is perfect and this is totally understandable! However the damage of narcissism (point two) is extremely evident. It is amazing how many women are in (or have had) relationships with men who are uncommonly narcissistic. There are also many females who are insecure, ‘creating a mask’ and manipulating people (to their detriment) for their own self-benefit.

However, two essential facts stand out:

• Genetically, men tend to act out jealousy, insecurities and vengeance more violently than most women, and women will tend to act more co-dependently and hang onto their dysfunctional partners (regardless of the damage) longer than most men.

• Statistically, women are at greater risk than men for narcissistic abuse.

Essentially women, who are more inclined to be the caretakers of society, will tolerate and hang on to narcissistic relationships more than men will. Women tend to be ‘fixers’, and can feel compelled to ‘sort out’ issues, whereas the average man is not particularly compelled to ‘fix’ a woman who constantly demands attentions and acts in childish, aggressive and immature ways.

Women are also biologically and genetically engineered to have a focus on ‘the one’, and will try to make painful relationships work, whereas men have a greater capacity to think in terms of ‘there are plenty more opportunities available’.