My Story

Believe it or not, I am often asked about my story. But I don't tell it. There are several reasons, but here are the two most important ones.

First, most of the narcissits I know, or have known, or know about, are probably still alive. Even these creeps have a right to privacy. Plus, innocent people associated with them could be damaged by publically exposing them. Besides, that isn't the purpose of this site.

And neither is telling my own story. I see nothing wrong with such a blog or website, but that isn't what this one is for. It's stated purpose is it's stated purpose - nothing more, nothing less, and I write under my real name.

Yet there is no reason to keep secret that my father was a malignant narcissist. He died a few years ago.

I was called over to be there when the coroner and priest arrived. I felt nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Yet, strange it seemed that his body sitting there in the chair where he died, looked human in death. I responded to that.

In fact, for some strange reason, everyone else got up and walked out of the room. Like they forgot it was there. Like it was something to just leave laying around.

I dare say that I was the only atheist on the premises, the only who had hated this man on the premises, and yet the only one with enough respect for the presence of a dead person's body to sit respectfully with it until the undertaker took it away.

Respect - you know, that something he never had for anyone he wasn't scared of.

Finally the priest got around to saying something to Frank's offspring. "Well, we know we don't have to worry about where your father is now," he said, "because surely he is in Heaven."

That almost did it. I'm normally a thoughtful person, but I nearly lost it this time. Before I knew it, I was giving that priest a wondering double-take and had my mouth half open with these words on my tongue:

"Frank is just lucky there is no God, father, because otherwise he'd be getting his ass singed about now."

But I caught them. The man was dead, this was somebody else's house, and I didn't have to correct the fool in black, who thinks he knows enough to judge people just from the way they act in a pew.

But that's what happens when somebody tries to steal my past by imposing a false history on my life: you are going to hear me ANSWER your falsehood with the truth about Frank loud and clear.

Otherwise, I never have anything to say about the guy.

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The Narcissist's Script

We've all seen children play "Pretend." Often one child really likes to take charge and direct the action, stamping her foot when the others don't pretend the way she wants them to, "No! You're not supposed to do THAT! You're supposed to do THIS!"

This is essentially what a narcissist does whenever you aren't playing along with his or her game of pretend. In it the narcissist is a god and you are bug. You must play the part. When you don't, narcissists get obnoxious to herd your behavior the direction they want.

Manipulation.

Whenever you don't play the part of an insignificant bug compared to him or her. Whenever you act like their equal or like you deserve some consideration.

Translation: "No! You're not supposed to THAT!"

Taking Warning Signs Seriously

In my last post, I mentioned a glaring sign of narcissism, or at least of some serious mental problem. It's one you can't miss. It jumps out at you.

But it doesn't happen every day. You may know a person casually for years without ever seeing them react to something in such an off-the-wall way.

Also, when we do observe such behavior in others, because it seems like something that couldn't really have happened, we tend to mentally turn our backs on it and act like it didn't happen.

That's a big mistake. At the very least, tuck the memory away for future reference. Don't just blow it off. You may think that some misunderstanding you're unaware of is possible that could explain it. Fine. In fact it's good to be skeptical and not jump to conclusions about people. Just don't blow off strange behavior.

The best mental health advice I ever saw (sorry I can't remember what website it's on) is to just stay away from mentally unhealthy people.

That's a bit simplistic, because we can't just abandon people we're bound to in some way. Besides, since we understand family members so well, there is no risk in closeness to one who may be mentally ill - unless they're a predator, like a narcissist. On the other hand, since a working relationship is so limited, there is also nothing to worry about in a strictly working relationship with someone like this - again, unless they're a predator.

But we sure don't need purely social friendships with people who may be mentally ill. We don't know them that well, often not nearly as well as we think we do. What goes on in their heads is a mystery to us. So, it's best to keep the relationship with that person cordial but at arm's length.

And, if you suspect that he or she is a predator, it's best to stay far away.

Dissimulation

Dissimulation. It's an unusal word, but I think it's the only word that exactly describes the narcissist's tactic to con people. He or she dis-simulates their true self. They act like the antithesis of what they are.

At Sanctuary for the Abused, we get an example of what I mean in the child molester:

Some tell people they think child molesters should be shot, while others work very hard to present themselves as a concerned citizen and pillar of the community.

Which reminds me of a wise man (Jesus of Nazareth) who said that people who perform good works to be seen doing them deserve no credit for them.

Why do child molesters do this? To Block the Kick in case any child tells on them.

How better to dissmulate a child molester than to make sure everyone hears you expressing outrage about "those people" who molest children? Better yet, put it on thick by becoming an activist against child abuse in your community. Yell a lot about how you think child molesters should be shot.

Laughing up your sleeve the whole time.

Indeed, what better disguise is there for a child molester than the habit of a priest who gets to be called "father"?

Dissimulation. It isn't brilliant: a six-year-old is smart enough to think of and play this trick. It's just so low that it comes in under most people's radar.

I give another example of dissimulation in this account of the narcissist who put on an extravangant show of love for her dying mother -- only to show her true colors when nobody was around to see how she treated her dying mother.

Remember the day when you found out about NPD?

I'm posting this as an immediate reaction to the most recent comment offered here, though many comments have had the same impact. They remind me of my own astonishment when I "discovered NPD." I too had always been conditioned and trained to think that making anything of the irrational, impossible, and abusive behavior of certain people was "overreacting." I had long accepted that.

I'll never forget the day I discovered that my instincts had been correct -- that it wasn't just a normal person's idiosyncracies and that there was nothing wrong with me for not being able to just take it.

In fact some of the things this person had recently done were so bizarre, seeing was NOT believing it.

Then suddenly, I discovered NPD and saw that seeing was believing, that there ARE people who do that, and that they are crazy and dangerous. I spent the whole day, and long hours into the night, on the web reading about NPD. One description after another wowed me, because it was a perfect description of the way this N in my life behaved. It was like the writer had been there and was telling about HER.

You couldn't just exaggerate a normal person's behavior into NPD, because it's too bizarre and too contrary to the way normal people behave. Normal people react one way to a particular thing, and narcissists react another. There's no mistaking that.

I often think of how many people like us are still out there clueless and NEED to know about NPD.

I wonder if the authorities in the field realize what a stunning and SAVING revelation it is to those of us who suffer the collateral damage of this disease. And I wonder if they realize how much pain and psychological injury narcissists inflict and how many trashed lives, good names, and careers lie in the wreckage that is the wake of a narcisist's path through life.

The Many Faces of a Narcissist

Narcissists project different images on different mirrors.

This is partly because any particular acting job may draw a favorable response from one mirror and an unfavorable response from another. For example, liberal-bashing produces a gratifying reflection in a right-wing mirror, while conservative-bashing produces a gratifying reflection in a left-wing mirror. A goody-two-shoes act looks holy in the eyes of religious hypocrites and the pharisaic, while it looks disgusting in the eyes of true believers and atheists.

Another reason why the narcissist projects different images on different mirrors is because he doesn't dare project the most gratifying image of all — the one his ego gets the biggest boost from — on most mirrors. Moreover, like any set of tools, the different people in his world are useful for different purposes.

A well-known narcissist, Sam Vaknin, explains it this way: he says that a narcissist assesses everyone in his world as a source of what he calls Narcissistic Supply (ego gratification, self-aggrandizement, psychic income — what a narcissistic woman I knew refers to as "sugar," as in "Gimme me some sugar."). It comes in different flavors. Like a bee in search of nectar, he has nothing to do with any "flower" he can't get any from. As for the rest, he determines the most profitable way to tap each one.

So, for example, he exploits a powerful, wealthy, sophisticated, or famous person as a source of Narcissistic Supply in a much different way than he exploits the poor or down-and-out. This is only partly because he doesn't dare treat the former as he treats the latter. It's also partly because the flavor of Narcissistic Supply he can extract from the former is the rare and precious "nectar of the gods." So, he drops their names; he brown-noses and sucks-up to them; he shamelessly, even obsequiously, flatters them and courts their favor; no matter what they do, he finds no fault with them, considering them infallible and above reproach. All to aggrandize himself by association with them.

And so, a narcissist doesn't have two faces, he has multiple faces. Faces he can change as suddenly as a mask. Faces so different they seem like multiple personalities. Each is but his way of exploiting a particular source of Narcissistic Supply.

So, for example, he projects a different image of himself in a church than in a bar. Again for example, the reflection he wants from his co-workers is radically different than the reflection he wants from his spouse and children.

Talking with a Narcissist

I can't be sure of this, but I've found it in two narcississts I knew well: They were terrible at recognizing faces and remembering names. Embarrasingly bad. But both were good at hiding it, so you had to know them well and get lucky to catch them unable to fake it often enough to realize this about them.

The impression I got from both these people is that their mind was going a-mile-a-minute while interracting with you, that they couldn't pay attention to what you were saying because they were too busy thinking of what they were going to say next. Then they'd blurt it before you were even finished, as though unaware that you were in the middle of a sentence. Needless to say, they were always getting what you said screwed up.

This makes sense if you remember that you are just a mirror they're posing before in an interraction. They aren't interested in you or anything you have to say. They are interested only in the image of themselves being reflected by your behavior. You yourself -- your face, your voice, what you say -- gets filtered out like the picture on the wall behind you or background noise out on the street.

If they meet you again tommorrow, they won't recognize you, let alone remember your name. That's how self-absorbed they are.

The Consequences of Pathological Lying

Many people apparantly think that if you just believe your own lies, then they aren't lies!

Is this like that stupid question about a tree falling in a forest without anybody to see or hear it? In that case, some intellectual asks, "Did it fall?"

Yes, numbskull.

And if you believe your own lies, you're not innocent: you're just a double liar.

It takes little thought to see how a head full of lies is not a good thing. The brain is like a computer: garbage in, garbage out. Narcissists recklessly abuse their minds with garbage.

For one thing, a narcissist's need to think nasty lies about the good makes him unknowing of who his friends are and whom to trust. For another thing, his past could catch up with him at any moment, but he's got himself believing he's so special that he can get away with anything forever. So, he gets reckless, living as though his life is lived on a beach, instead of in a jungle where he has made many angry enemies. Also, he loses track of his various and changing versions of things, tripping himself up and confusing himself.

Moreover, you can't habitually force thinking to take tortuous, anti-logical pathways without damaging the brain's ability to think straight. I've known old narcissists. And I think that, as they age, the mind muddles.

Since much of his lying is through abuse of words, over time words melt together and lose their meaning to him. This becomes evident in his speech. For example, you might notice that his vocabulary becomes so limited he calls anything that comes in an envelope a "letter." No big deal? To the contrary, that's a very big deal, because words are what we think with!

He thus sabotages his mind so that, though he isn't senile and has no trace of Alheimer's, (a) he can't think his way out of a paper bag and (b) he cannot speak a five-word sentence without getting stuck at a loss for some common noun or verb that his brain can't come up with.

This is why narcissists really need to get real and stop abusing their minds. Peter Pan must leave Never Never Land and reach the Age of Reason. For his own sake.

Friends don't lie to friends. People who lie to themselves are their own worst enemies.