Is your partner a narcissist?
Is your partner a narcissist? You may not know how to tell, but even worse, you may be thinking thatyou are the crazy one. Narcissists work hard to distort our reality to make their reality feel safer.
So what is a narcissist? Someone who preens in front of the mirror all day in admiration? NOT! Ask yourself this: is your partner intensely angered by anything that seems to suggest that he or she might have a flaw? Narcissists will do anything, including brutalizing their own family, to maintain their own feeling that others see them as without any flaws. And, narcissists have extreme and illogical sensitivities, sometimes connecting the most minute observations with their intense fears of being seen as flawed. Narcissists will strain every muscle to meet their own “flawless” image, and demean or destroy anyone or anything who casts any doubt on this image. If you see this dynamic in your partner, family member, coworker, or friend, you are very probably dealing with a narcissist.
For many of us, struggling to live with this kind of abusive partner, the first handhold we need to grasp is that we are not crazy.
They Spin our Reality: Disordered people can’t deal with the reality of their behaviors. On some level they realize how hurtful they are, yet accepting this major flaw in themselves is just too painful. So disordered abusers spin our reality to make theirs less painful. One of the most common defense mechanism they use is projection. In projection, a characteristic of themselves that they find just too painful to accept is projected onto us. And the most frequently projected characteristic is mental illness. “I’m not a narcissist. You’re the crazy one.” Another common and difficult defense mechanism is blame shifting. It’s your fault this happened because blah, blah blah blah…
After a while it becomes hard to distinguish what is real from what is being projected and what is being distorted. We begin to doubt our reality and question whether we’re the crazy ones, or whether our disordered SO’s (significant others) are really right about what they say.
The truth is, THEY’RE NOT RIGHT. But they feel better when they can get us to carry the burden of their illness and their behavior.
What’s more, disordered people hide their problems very effectively. They seek to present a very together appearance, hiding their disease from most people. People suffering from narcissistic personality disorder respond with extreme defensive actions to events which they feel threaten their perception as special and privileged.
Alcohol is the ‘Ego’s Elixir’ because it blocks any information that contradicts a positive self-image. It lets the drinker experience self-approval, even self-inflation while at the same time, because alcohol impairs perception and thought, it limits awareness of all the reasons to feel insignificant. Alcohol makes us feel good about ourselves, which reinforces its addictiveness, especially in people who need to always feel good about themselves.
Researchers find that certain behaviours are almost universally present in alcoholics and other addicts. Such people are commonly impatient, impulsive, immature and self-deceptive, with a false sense of control. They are intolerant of negative emotions, have a sense of entitlement and grandiosity, andjustify their behaviour by denial, rationalization andminimization. They have a tendency toward antisocial behaviour, self-centredness, showing off, a lack of self-controland concern for others. They are charming but superficial,gregarious, exploitative, impulsive and undisciplined. This ‘alcoholic’ personality has many of the elements of narcissistic or even psychopathic personalities
If we believe we are superior and wonderful, we cannot bear any indication of the contrary. When we are driven to avoid awareness of our shortcomings we might well seek to escape self-awareness and attempt to stop unwanted thoughts about our less than perfect selves by focusing narrowly on some physical sensation (such as drinking). In such a way, we can reduce our attention and thinking to a minimum, narrow our perception of time, and suppress emotion. Alcohol is so often used to escape self-awareness because it effectively impairs thought and concentrates attention on the present.
Most people mistakenly believe that childhood trauma causes addictions and so are sympathetic and tolerant and do not hold the addict responsible for their ‘illness’. But most alcoholics have no special trauma in their lives. It is estimated that no more than 30% of alcoholism is caused by external influences. Substance use and abuse is something people consciously decide to do, it is a choice to escape reality rather than face it.
Those closest to the alcoholic usually assume that if alcohol could be eliminated then everything would be fine but addiction is often only a symptom of personality. Even if the alcoholic gives up drinking there is often no huge improvement in his behaviour because the narcissism that drove the addiction is still there.
Less than 8% of alcoholics (or other addicts) ever recover. They suffer from the delusion that unlike other people, they can avoid reality. They believe they can continue to drink without ever having to suffer adverse consequences. A neighbour of mine who drank a bottle of whiskey a day was shocked and surprised to learn she had cirrhosis of the liver—‘I never thought this would happen to me’ she told me.
Most alcoholics don’t believe they should have to endure anything they don’t want to, or that they need ever deny themselves anything. Addiction is deluded self-indulgence, a magicalescape into a fantasy land of intoxication, euphoria, peace and comfort, which the addict believes should be the normal state of existence for him. Unfortunately, addiction stunts emotional growth and the age at which a person begins to abuse drugs or alcohol is the age at which their development becomes stuck, which further lessens the likelihood of insight into their problem.
So that the narcissist can think he seems grand, he must make you seem insignificant by comparison. This is why malignant narcissists act as though it would kill them to compliment you, to thank you for anything, to tell you they love you, to listen to you, to say they’re sorry for something, to give you credit for being right about anything, to put their arm around you, to take an interest in anything you do … and let’s just cut to the chase: they act like it would kill them give you one bit of gratification. They won’t even look at you: they pay more attention to a fly on the wall.
They gotta have it all, you see. Nobody ever taught them to share.
But treating you like you’re nothing is just one of many ways they act out their fantasy that they are so grand that you are dirt under their feet. So, look out. Delusions of grandeur are hard to maintain and are constantly challenged by reality.
For example, do you have a fine reputation? Look out, that threatens the narcissist’s delusion that he is the greatest, so he’ll have to fix that fine reputation of yours. Do you excel at something? Look out, that threatens the narcissist’s delusion that he is the greatest, so he’ll have to sabotage your work. Do you have an outstanding personal virtue? Look out, that threatens the narcissist’s delusion that he is the greatest, so he’ll have to drag your virtue through the mud, attributing it to himself while he portrays it in you as a vice.
But treating others like nothing and destroying them aren’t the only ways narcissists act out their fantasy and maintain their delusions of grandeur. Those delusions evaporate without constant reinforcement, so a malignant narcissist needs to prove he’s God Almighty by trampling someone about as frequently as most other predators need to make a kill.
It’s just more of the same. So that the narcissist can think he seems grand, he must crush you like a bug underfoot. Therefore, if you are down and out, look out, you’re going to get kicked. Can he get away with abusing you behind closed doors? Look out. And if you try to complain, you’ll be sorry, because he’ll have the whole world conned ahead of time into viewing you as the malicious one who’s imagining things.
Whether by choice or not, malignant narcissists are able to do this because they have no human feeling whatsoever for anyone. Except themselves: they have very, very tender feelings for themselves. But none for anyone else, not even their own children. They view human beings as objects, tools, to exploit for their gratification, to perfect that image of theirs that they are so obsessed with.
For, like a child of three, he doesn’t relate to other people: he treats you like a screw driver there for him to use or abuse for his sake. He disregards the consequences to you, because he refuses to grow up and know that there is a thinking, feeling person inside other people and that they exist for their own sakes, not his. So your rights and feelings and welfare are no of consideration to him whatsoever. He’ll break you just lightly as he’d stomp an ant.
Never forget that for a moment. Forgetting it is as dangerous as walking into a hungry tiger’s cage forgetting that he is predator.
Unless they are so powerful they needn’t hide what they are, they go to great lengths to portray themselves as the very opposite of what they are. They are pathological liars who tell bizarre lies. They often react to things in a bizarre way that makes you pinch yourself. Yet despite these warning signs that there is something wrong with them, and despite the mental maturity level of a little child before the Age of Reason, they almost always pass for normal.
One-to-three in every 20 people you meet are malignant narcissists. If they sucker you into getting too close and then rip your guts out, it isn’t because of anything you did or anything about you they don’t like: it’s just because you were there and vulnerable (unable to defend yourself).