It's New Year's Eve and I was thinking about this blog while having a quiet moment to ponder life. I thought of those of you who've inquired as to why I stopped blogging. When I signed off I did so because I felt I'd said all I had to say on the subject. I still feel that way. My philosophy has always been to shut up and sit down if I didn't have anything to say that is worth saying. I ran to the end of my knowledge and experience on the subject and decided to not belabor my points.
Is the subject of narcissism, malignant narcissism specifically, actually finite? I can say a definitive yes to answer my own question.
Why?
Here is the simple answer: evil is finite.
Think about it.
Evil is the antithesis to creative power. It is in opposition to life, to love. It destroys. It doesn't build up. It implodes and extinguishes itself when it can no longer survive parasitically on life, on truth. When reality can no longer be denied then evil perishes in the flames of its own lies.
So as we enter a new year I hope each of you will come to the conclusion that you've given enough of your life to the evil, self-serving ends of the malignant narcissist. If you've educated yourself on Evil Personality Disorder, don't dwell there. Let the finiteness of their evil fizzle away from lack of attention on your part. Celebrate life. We celebrate life by living it. We can only be said to be living life if we are living in reality. Reality and truth are synonymous. Yes, sometimes reality sucks, but to live in lies never ends well. Choose truth over lies even when truth is painful. Because truth is eternal. Lies are finite.
None of what I'm saying is exhorting you to live for yourself. That, too, is finite. Think carefully on this: the narcissist lives for themselves. It is their all-consuming care for only themselves that destroys their relationships, their own lives, their minds. To live fully is to live in love. And love lives for others. Look outward and serve (but don't serve evil!) Look upward and give thanks.
Showing posts with label Concept of Evil. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Concept of Evil. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 31, 2014
Friday, September 25, 2009
Malignant Narcissism: A Brief Overview
Update: I'm moving this post up so it'll show on the front page. It seems a good idea to have it front and center for those who are new to this blog and/or the subject of malignant narcissism.
What is narcissism? Is it a simple case of being kinda self-involved? Is it just the human condition? This post will focus on the big picture of what this blog is about. Consider it orientation for people who are new to the subject and new to this blog.
This blog is about malignant narcissism which is another name for NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder as its called in the bible of psychiatry, the DSM-IV.) This isn't a blog about people who have a few narcissistic traits because that would mean talking about everyone on the planet. I'm not interested in throwing the whole planet into one box because it would render it a useless classification.
It is understandable that people who are unfamiliar with the terms "malignant narcissism" or "NPD" to not really know how completely different of an animal is being discussed here than the average human being. This blog isn't about assholes or debutantes. It is very possible to be a jerk or to be a self-focused princess and not have the disorder of NPD. If you label anyone who irritates or annoys you as a narcissist then you don't have a grasp of what this character disorder really is.
Every human being is bent to one degree or other toward selfishness. So to define NPD as "being selfish" is not a definition that makes any sense because it would just be statement about the whole human race that wouldn't help anyone identify the problem of human evil. Some people say that all humans struggle against being selfish and so are quick to state that we are all narcissists. Not so fast. The label is important because we are trying to identify a certain sub-set. There is a specific definition here that is important to grasp if you're going to be able to deal with the problems that proceed from calculated and predatory human evil which is at the root of the definition of malignant narcissism.
Let's look at the statement above, "...all humans struggle against being selfish." No, they don't. THAT is what this blog is about. The ones who don't struggle against their selfish urges. It is about those human beings who long ago gave up any struggle against their lusts, their selfish entitlement attitude, their demands, their need to control others. Some, I believe, have never put up a real fight against their own selfish demands. Malignant narcissism usually manifests at a very young age even though it never becomes an official diagnosis until adulthood because this is how the grand poo-bahs of psychology play the game of labeling.
There is a creature that exists in human form that has become distinctly different than those of us who do struggle against selfishness. In a very deliberate and conscious way these people have made a decision to not fight against their selfish impulses. They have embraced them. They have found ways to completely justify them. They are quite proud of their freedom to do anything they want to anyone they want. They may be quietly smug about it or openly boastful; nevertheless, they're proud of their ability to get their way.
They see themselves as set apart from mere humanity. They distance themselves from the human race by setting themselves apart from and above them. They do this by word and by action. They even usurp the very throne of God Himself as they position themselves as god over all they survey. They reserve to themselves the right to define reality to all in their domain. All this results in the train of woe that follows from the human embodiment of evil.
I make no apologies for referring to malignant narcissists as a "creature" or any other dehumanizing term I may use from time to time. I didn't dehumanize them. They do it to themselves. I'm just agreeing with them that they aren't like the rest of us...only, when I say it, I mean it in the most disparaging way unlike the narcissist who pretends himself apart from all the rest of humanity as proof of his superiority.
The outgrowth of the mental state of malignant narcissists as described above are very predictable and legion but it can be boiled down to some consistent traits seen among all who've dedicated themselves to human evil. I have covered these traits at length on this blog. I'll try to revisit some of these predictable behaviors and attitudes of the malignant narcissist in brief.
All malignant narcissists are cases of arrested development.
They are perpetually living in a mindset of a young child. The age when a child is old enough to know the difference between right and wrong but very willing to do wrong if they think they won't get caught. Like a child, they feel entitled to whatever they want. Like a child, they recreate reality to suit their fantasy about themselves and the world around them. Like a child, they want all attention focused on them. But, unlike a child, the narcissist is not subject to being molded and shaped by authority figures or reality. The narcissist is determined (read here, conscious choice) to remain a child whereas most children are driven by a desire to grow up. Children are childish and there is no crime in that. I'm not pathologizing childhood. I'm highlighting that malignant narcissists are pathological children.
This state of being leads to the other realities about malignant narcissists which are all characterized by being pathological excess of whatever we're talking about:
The narcissist has a pathological need for all attention in every context he finds himself in.
It is so pathological that if you get any attention he is obsessed by the need to take it away from you because he imagines that if you get any that it is an unsurvivable diminution of this precious commodity for him.
This is attached to his transcendent sense of entitlement.
If he wants something then, in his mind, it belongs by native right to him. And because he wants every shred of human attention, warmth, regard, consideration, that means you can't have any. This is at the very bedrock of the narcissist's motivations. The need to have it all means he must take what you have. It makes you a target of his malevolent intent. It is the fountainhead of his ill will toward all others.
The malignant narcissist's pathological need to have it all leads to his existence of being pathologically envious.
In other words, the most pernicious, pervasive and all-consuming state of being covetous. This translates to him envying anything you have or are. So, picture a human being utterly possessed of a pathological need for all the attention and all good things which flow from human relationships and you have the framework for understanding the next identifying feature of the Malignant Narcissist Creature...
The malignant narcissist is a predatory animal.
He stalks his prey. He must do so because his malevolent intent is absolute and would frighten away any source of his supply if the target could easily discern his implacable nature and insatiable lusts and his intent to feed. So the narcissist transforms himself. He is an adept at making and wearing masks. He thrives on appearances. He is short on substance. People who are easily taken in by appearances and short on wisdom to discern substance are easy targets.
The malignant narcissist is a chameleon.
This is why so many people have a problem identifying what a narcissist is. To the superficial view malignant narcissists can appear to widely differ from each other. This narcissist here is a sophisticate with excellent worldly tastes, vast charm and a following of admirers. That narcissist over there is an unemployed alcoholic who lives off his wife or parents, abuses animals and his children, and hasn't amounted to more than a pile of shit his whole life. But both of these widely disparate appearances are adaptations to environment, I.Q., accident of birth such as physical beauty, advantages such as education, sex, etc. It is important to understand the chameleon-like adaptations all narcissists are capable of and not be fooled by these adaptations to miss the substance of what they are: a pathological mess of predatory urges that feeds off of the people around them.
How an individual narcissist presents himself or herself can cause huge variations in how a malignant narcissist appears to others, but make no mistake, these basic characteristics will be found in any of them. Both the charming sophisticate narcissist and the alcoholic loser are pursuing their favored forms of "narcissistic supply.", another term for the attention "drug" that every malignant narcissist junkie is pursuing his every waking moment. How they go about it looks very different, but in principle they are after the same thing.
All malignant narcissists are parasitical.
They need people around them from whom they can steal what they need. Their need for people is desperate, yet their desperate need presents a conundrum for them. Their need for people runs counter to their even more desperate need to not appear like they need anything from anyone, especially you! Never forget, they are gods in their own estimation which means that even while they steal, demand or extort what they need from you they will trash you for giving it. The more they need you the more you will be subjected to their loathing. It is paradoxical unless you understand what the hell is really going on. Which is what I'm describing for you now.
Stay focused on the narcissist as parasite. Because the malignant narcissist is a complete failure in the moral realm they must attach to sources of virtue. This is because no lie can exist without the truth. Evil can't exist without some appearance of good. How does the narcissist wear an appearance of virtue? Most commonly he surrounds himself with those who possess real virtue. The close proximity makes it easy for the malignant narcissist to steal virtue for his own image. Does the narcissist need to feel powerful? He may prop himself up or feed on those who have real power if he is lucky enough to sidle up to them, or he will surround himself with people who are weak so he can feel powerful by controlling them.
OR the narcissist can steal virtue and substance from her profession or from belonging to certain clubs or organizations or charities. Service professions are very attractive to malignant narcissists. So is religion. As is Motherhood. An example: the narcissist can get herself close to her prey of choice by her choice of profession. Does she like to seduce young boys? She may decide to become a teacher. She attaches herself parasitically to the profession's high claim of being concerned about the education of young people. Who would suspect she is not a teacher because of the usual reasons? By association everyone assumes a certain amount of goodwill and character due to her choice of job. This is her cover to then commence her predation of her favorite flavor of attention. She has parasitically attached herself to the good name of teacher. She is stealing virtue she doesn't possess so as to better reach her prey.
In every situation the parasitical narcissist is preening himself.
He needs a mirror to accomplish his acts of preening. That mirror is you. He plays to his mirrors. He poses in front of his mirrors to get the desired reflection back. When you show looks of interest, admiration, fear, concern, he is basking in his reflected self. His insubstantial self. A construct of reality he has created out of thin air. But see? He needs YOU to accomplish this. He needs you to hold up the mirror for him. But he isn't looking at you. He is only interested in his own reflection in your face. You don't exist as a person to him. You're a means to his end. The parasite takes what he needs with no thought or benefit going to the host. If you cease giving him what he wants he will move on to a better host. He is completely heedless of his tremendous and all-consuming need of people to accomplish this act of reflection. His preening is an extension of his parasitical lifestyle, yet he is unable to comprehend this.
We are only objects to the narcissist.
He can't comprehend it because he has transmogrified all the rest of us into objects. We have no needs that he must enter into his consideration. He is first and only in everything. He refuses (again, conscious choice) to see your humanity and the basic rights that come along with that humanity. You are nothing more than a tool in his hand, a pawn in his game, an object for his use. When done, he casts you aside as so much used toilet paper. People who believe the narcissist loves them are tragically naive and deceived. The narcissist has vast reservoirs of love, compassion and concern, but not one tiny bit of those things can be diverted from himself. He loves himself so utterly and completely there is no room for anyone else in his affections. The malignant narcissist is absolutely incapable of the true emotion of love for any other human being. Period. If you doubt me you will continue to suffer under the heartless tyranny of these blood-suckers. You can never successfully deal with a narcissist if you believe he loves you in any real way. He NEEDS you. But need is not love. His need is the need that will take and take and take with no concern as to whether his taking is killing you.
Even if you've not been in close contact with a malignant narcissist, with a little imagination you can follow these descriptions to some of their outcomes. All of those outcomes are attended with ill will. Not one motivation of the narcissist is concerned with anyone else's well-being. This is what makes them dangerous and evil. They are unsafe for human interaction. Do they see themselves as dangerous and evil? Very unlikely. Some do. Most don't. Remember that they have justified themselves on every point. The evil they perpetrate is most times seen by them as their righteous cause. They have turned evil into good and black into white. This is easy enough to accomplish for someone who has for a lifetime tinkered with reality as much as those around them have allowed.
As you can hopefully see by now, malignant narcissism isn't about everyday variety selfishness. I'll use the word again here, it is pathological selfishness. It is a selfishness that will destroy anything that gets in its way.
When I decided to start a blog and needed to pick a name for it I chose Narcissists Suck for a reason. It wasn't a flippancy. My nom de plume is that of a vampire slayer. Again, not a flippant choice. The primary meaning of this blog's title is a succinct statement of truth about all narcissists -- they suck the life out of their victims. Plus, I did really like the dual meaning of the title. The other meaning being the more casual statement of, "damn, these people SUCK."
Human evil is not of recent advent. It has been a part of human existence for as long as humans have existed. Some of the evidence of this fact is found in the many legends of evil of which the Vampire bears some startling correlations to what we know about malignant narcissism. Of course, there is no one definition or legend of vampires but there are some persistent themes. I'll list a few for your perusal.
The ability to hypnotize and/or charm their potential victims.
Light destroys them. (Light is analogous to truth.)
They are shape-shifters.
They are predatory. Especially of family and neighbors where they lived before they became "undead."
They can only exist by draining the blood, life-force, of their prey.
Despite their human appearance they aren't really human.
They can infect others with their vampirism.
Great powers of persuasion.
Hard to kill. Even starvation won't kill it though it will render them somewhat insane. (Think here of the narcissist deprived of sources of supply. It won't end up in a converted narcissist; crazy, yes, converted, no. They will survive until they find a fresh victim.)
This isn't an exhaustive list, but it is enough to supply the point that legends of vampirism find their close counterpart in the malignant narcissist. This blog is intended to be the sunlight that destroys these vampiric blood-suckers. Shine the light of truth on who they are and what they do and find them scattering to the dark corners of their lairs. At the very least, the sunlight dispels the hypnotic hold of the vampire on his victims and helps them get free.
Thus concludes my attempt at an overview of malignant narcissism which is the focus of this blog. There are plenty of annoying and petty people out there. That isn't what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about those humans who've embraced evil that stalks its own kind as prey. The most scary aspect of this kind of evil is that is will suck the life blood out of its own young. The children of narcissists are the ones who've seen what evil really is. The narcissist disguises himself when in public view. It is behind closed doors that the fangs come out. Pity the children. Save them if you can.
What is narcissism? Is it a simple case of being kinda self-involved? Is it just the human condition? This post will focus on the big picture of what this blog is about. Consider it orientation for people who are new to the subject and new to this blog.
This blog is about malignant narcissism which is another name for NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder as its called in the bible of psychiatry, the DSM-IV.) This isn't a blog about people who have a few narcissistic traits because that would mean talking about everyone on the planet. I'm not interested in throwing the whole planet into one box because it would render it a useless classification.
It is understandable that people who are unfamiliar with the terms "malignant narcissism" or "NPD" to not really know how completely different of an animal is being discussed here than the average human being. This blog isn't about assholes or debutantes. It is very possible to be a jerk or to be a self-focused princess and not have the disorder of NPD. If you label anyone who irritates or annoys you as a narcissist then you don't have a grasp of what this character disorder really is.
Every human being is bent to one degree or other toward selfishness. So to define NPD as "being selfish" is not a definition that makes any sense because it would just be statement about the whole human race that wouldn't help anyone identify the problem of human evil. Some people say that all humans struggle against being selfish and so are quick to state that we are all narcissists. Not so fast. The label is important because we are trying to identify a certain sub-set. There is a specific definition here that is important to grasp if you're going to be able to deal with the problems that proceed from calculated and predatory human evil which is at the root of the definition of malignant narcissism.
Let's look at the statement above, "...all humans struggle against being selfish." No, they don't. THAT is what this blog is about. The ones who don't struggle against their selfish urges. It is about those human beings who long ago gave up any struggle against their lusts, their selfish entitlement attitude, their demands, their need to control others. Some, I believe, have never put up a real fight against their own selfish demands. Malignant narcissism usually manifests at a very young age even though it never becomes an official diagnosis until adulthood because this is how the grand poo-bahs of psychology play the game of labeling.
There is a creature that exists in human form that has become distinctly different than those of us who do struggle against selfishness. In a very deliberate and conscious way these people have made a decision to not fight against their selfish impulses. They have embraced them. They have found ways to completely justify them. They are quite proud of their freedom to do anything they want to anyone they want. They may be quietly smug about it or openly boastful; nevertheless, they're proud of their ability to get their way.
They see themselves as set apart from mere humanity. They distance themselves from the human race by setting themselves apart from and above them. They do this by word and by action. They even usurp the very throne of God Himself as they position themselves as god over all they survey. They reserve to themselves the right to define reality to all in their domain. All this results in the train of woe that follows from the human embodiment of evil.
I make no apologies for referring to malignant narcissists as a "creature" or any other dehumanizing term I may use from time to time. I didn't dehumanize them. They do it to themselves. I'm just agreeing with them that they aren't like the rest of us...only, when I say it, I mean it in the most disparaging way unlike the narcissist who pretends himself apart from all the rest of humanity as proof of his superiority.
The outgrowth of the mental state of malignant narcissists as described above are very predictable and legion but it can be boiled down to some consistent traits seen among all who've dedicated themselves to human evil. I have covered these traits at length on this blog. I'll try to revisit some of these predictable behaviors and attitudes of the malignant narcissist in brief.
All malignant narcissists are cases of arrested development.
They are perpetually living in a mindset of a young child. The age when a child is old enough to know the difference between right and wrong but very willing to do wrong if they think they won't get caught. Like a child, they feel entitled to whatever they want. Like a child, they recreate reality to suit their fantasy about themselves and the world around them. Like a child, they want all attention focused on them. But, unlike a child, the narcissist is not subject to being molded and shaped by authority figures or reality. The narcissist is determined (read here, conscious choice) to remain a child whereas most children are driven by a desire to grow up. Children are childish and there is no crime in that. I'm not pathologizing childhood. I'm highlighting that malignant narcissists are pathological children.
This state of being leads to the other realities about malignant narcissists which are all characterized by being pathological excess of whatever we're talking about:
The narcissist has a pathological need for all attention in every context he finds himself in.
It is so pathological that if you get any attention he is obsessed by the need to take it away from you because he imagines that if you get any that it is an unsurvivable diminution of this precious commodity for him.
This is attached to his transcendent sense of entitlement.
If he wants something then, in his mind, it belongs by native right to him. And because he wants every shred of human attention, warmth, regard, consideration, that means you can't have any. This is at the very bedrock of the narcissist's motivations. The need to have it all means he must take what you have. It makes you a target of his malevolent intent. It is the fountainhead of his ill will toward all others.
The malignant narcissist's pathological need to have it all leads to his existence of being pathologically envious.
In other words, the most pernicious, pervasive and all-consuming state of being covetous. This translates to him envying anything you have or are. So, picture a human being utterly possessed of a pathological need for all the attention and all good things which flow from human relationships and you have the framework for understanding the next identifying feature of the Malignant Narcissist Creature...
The malignant narcissist is a predatory animal.
He stalks his prey. He must do so because his malevolent intent is absolute and would frighten away any source of his supply if the target could easily discern his implacable nature and insatiable lusts and his intent to feed. So the narcissist transforms himself. He is an adept at making and wearing masks. He thrives on appearances. He is short on substance. People who are easily taken in by appearances and short on wisdom to discern substance are easy targets.
The malignant narcissist is a chameleon.
This is why so many people have a problem identifying what a narcissist is. To the superficial view malignant narcissists can appear to widely differ from each other. This narcissist here is a sophisticate with excellent worldly tastes, vast charm and a following of admirers. That narcissist over there is an unemployed alcoholic who lives off his wife or parents, abuses animals and his children, and hasn't amounted to more than a pile of shit his whole life. But both of these widely disparate appearances are adaptations to environment, I.Q., accident of birth such as physical beauty, advantages such as education, sex, etc. It is important to understand the chameleon-like adaptations all narcissists are capable of and not be fooled by these adaptations to miss the substance of what they are: a pathological mess of predatory urges that feeds off of the people around them.
How an individual narcissist presents himself or herself can cause huge variations in how a malignant narcissist appears to others, but make no mistake, these basic characteristics will be found in any of them. Both the charming sophisticate narcissist and the alcoholic loser are pursuing their favored forms of "narcissistic supply.", another term for the attention "drug" that every malignant narcissist junkie is pursuing his every waking moment. How they go about it looks very different, but in principle they are after the same thing.
All malignant narcissists are parasitical.
They need people around them from whom they can steal what they need. Their need for people is desperate, yet their desperate need presents a conundrum for them. Their need for people runs counter to their even more desperate need to not appear like they need anything from anyone, especially you! Never forget, they are gods in their own estimation which means that even while they steal, demand or extort what they need from you they will trash you for giving it. The more they need you the more you will be subjected to their loathing. It is paradoxical unless you understand what the hell is really going on. Which is what I'm describing for you now.
Stay focused on the narcissist as parasite. Because the malignant narcissist is a complete failure in the moral realm they must attach to sources of virtue. This is because no lie can exist without the truth. Evil can't exist without some appearance of good. How does the narcissist wear an appearance of virtue? Most commonly he surrounds himself with those who possess real virtue. The close proximity makes it easy for the malignant narcissist to steal virtue for his own image. Does the narcissist need to feel powerful? He may prop himself up or feed on those who have real power if he is lucky enough to sidle up to them, or he will surround himself with people who are weak so he can feel powerful by controlling them.
OR the narcissist can steal virtue and substance from her profession or from belonging to certain clubs or organizations or charities. Service professions are very attractive to malignant narcissists. So is religion. As is Motherhood. An example: the narcissist can get herself close to her prey of choice by her choice of profession. Does she like to seduce young boys? She may decide to become a teacher. She attaches herself parasitically to the profession's high claim of being concerned about the education of young people. Who would suspect she is not a teacher because of the usual reasons? By association everyone assumes a certain amount of goodwill and character due to her choice of job. This is her cover to then commence her predation of her favorite flavor of attention. She has parasitically attached herself to the good name of teacher. She is stealing virtue she doesn't possess so as to better reach her prey.
In every situation the parasitical narcissist is preening himself.
He needs a mirror to accomplish his acts of preening. That mirror is you. He plays to his mirrors. He poses in front of his mirrors to get the desired reflection back. When you show looks of interest, admiration, fear, concern, he is basking in his reflected self. His insubstantial self. A construct of reality he has created out of thin air. But see? He needs YOU to accomplish this. He needs you to hold up the mirror for him. But he isn't looking at you. He is only interested in his own reflection in your face. You don't exist as a person to him. You're a means to his end. The parasite takes what he needs with no thought or benefit going to the host. If you cease giving him what he wants he will move on to a better host. He is completely heedless of his tremendous and all-consuming need of people to accomplish this act of reflection. His preening is an extension of his parasitical lifestyle, yet he is unable to comprehend this.
We are only objects to the narcissist.
He can't comprehend it because he has transmogrified all the rest of us into objects. We have no needs that he must enter into his consideration. He is first and only in everything. He refuses (again, conscious choice) to see your humanity and the basic rights that come along with that humanity. You are nothing more than a tool in his hand, a pawn in his game, an object for his use. When done, he casts you aside as so much used toilet paper. People who believe the narcissist loves them are tragically naive and deceived. The narcissist has vast reservoirs of love, compassion and concern, but not one tiny bit of those things can be diverted from himself. He loves himself so utterly and completely there is no room for anyone else in his affections. The malignant narcissist is absolutely incapable of the true emotion of love for any other human being. Period. If you doubt me you will continue to suffer under the heartless tyranny of these blood-suckers. You can never successfully deal with a narcissist if you believe he loves you in any real way. He NEEDS you. But need is not love. His need is the need that will take and take and take with no concern as to whether his taking is killing you.
Even if you've not been in close contact with a malignant narcissist, with a little imagination you can follow these descriptions to some of their outcomes. All of those outcomes are attended with ill will. Not one motivation of the narcissist is concerned with anyone else's well-being. This is what makes them dangerous and evil. They are unsafe for human interaction. Do they see themselves as dangerous and evil? Very unlikely. Some do. Most don't. Remember that they have justified themselves on every point. The evil they perpetrate is most times seen by them as their righteous cause. They have turned evil into good and black into white. This is easy enough to accomplish for someone who has for a lifetime tinkered with reality as much as those around them have allowed.
As you can hopefully see by now, malignant narcissism isn't about everyday variety selfishness. I'll use the word again here, it is pathological selfishness. It is a selfishness that will destroy anything that gets in its way.
When I decided to start a blog and needed to pick a name for it I chose Narcissists Suck for a reason. It wasn't a flippancy. My nom de plume is that of a vampire slayer. Again, not a flippant choice. The primary meaning of this blog's title is a succinct statement of truth about all narcissists -- they suck the life out of their victims. Plus, I did really like the dual meaning of the title. The other meaning being the more casual statement of, "damn, these people SUCK."
Human evil is not of recent advent. It has been a part of human existence for as long as humans have existed. Some of the evidence of this fact is found in the many legends of evil of which the Vampire bears some startling correlations to what we know about malignant narcissism. Of course, there is no one definition or legend of vampires but there are some persistent themes. I'll list a few for your perusal.
The ability to hypnotize and/or charm their potential victims.
Light destroys them. (Light is analogous to truth.)
They are shape-shifters.
They are predatory. Especially of family and neighbors where they lived before they became "undead."
They can only exist by draining the blood, life-force, of their prey.
Despite their human appearance they aren't really human.
They can infect others with their vampirism.
Great powers of persuasion.
Hard to kill. Even starvation won't kill it though it will render them somewhat insane. (Think here of the narcissist deprived of sources of supply. It won't end up in a converted narcissist; crazy, yes, converted, no. They will survive until they find a fresh victim.)
This isn't an exhaustive list, but it is enough to supply the point that legends of vampirism find their close counterpart in the malignant narcissist. This blog is intended to be the sunlight that destroys these vampiric blood-suckers. Shine the light of truth on who they are and what they do and find them scattering to the dark corners of their lairs. At the very least, the sunlight dispels the hypnotic hold of the vampire on his victims and helps them get free.
Thus concludes my attempt at an overview of malignant narcissism which is the focus of this blog. There are plenty of annoying and petty people out there. That isn't what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about those humans who've embraced evil that stalks its own kind as prey. The most scary aspect of this kind of evil is that is will suck the life blood out of its own young. The children of narcissists are the ones who've seen what evil really is. The narcissist disguises himself when in public view. It is behind closed doors that the fangs come out. Pity the children. Save them if you can.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Controlling others vs. Self Control
A universal trait of malignant narcissists and every other version of evil person is their need to control you. Not themselves. You. This trait of the evil is so universal that you must put it in the red flag category.
It is quite possible to not be a malignant narcissist and still find yourself trying to control other people. If you recognize that you can be controlling then it is time to rein yourself in. I would recommend other people to see it as a red flag in your behavior too regardless of the fact that you don't demonstrate yourself to be a malignant narcissist. Trying to control other autonomous human beings is weakness not strength. It always lends itself toward evil outcomes. It is morally wrong.
In contrast with the evil who try to control everyone (and everything) in their sphere is that of the person with self-control. When you observe how someone interacts with you do you see them exerting consistent self-control in their own lives? Or are they mostly focused on controlling their external world including you? Those with genuine self-control do not try to control others.
There are some who make some high profession of having self-control yet who are actually very controlling of others. What gives with that? How can you know if it is a red flag in that person?
I'll make my case by using my own mother as an example. We'll call this, "The Time My Mother Got it Right".
One of my mother's soundtracks which she implanted in my head at a young age, so young that I don't know exactly when I started hearing it, goes like this, "If you find yourself controlling others then you know who is controlling you." This was the opening line for her little sermonette on how it is the devil who is the one controlling you if you are a person who enjoys controlling others as it is his nature to control. Wow. She got that one right. Who better to know "the devil made me do it" than a handmistress of the devil himself! If you don't believe in a being such as the devil then all you have to do is insert the word 'evil' where you see the word 'who' and you get the same result. "If you find yourself controlling others then you know evil is controlling you."
My mother lectured on this subject very often. Not just to her own children but to anyone who happened to be under her control at the time. This leads us into the very first red flag of eight for narcissism listed by Kathy Krajco which I promised I was going to re-post here on my blog. Here we go.
Since narcissists are such expert con artists, how do you spot them? By not judging by appearances. Or reputation.
A specific behavior, such as being haughty, inconsiderate, or ignoring someone, can occur in widely varying contexts. So, it can be done for many reasons, not just narcissistic reasons. Nonetheless, there are few behaviors so unique to persons suffering from NPD that they should serve as red flags.
Here are eight red flags:
I used to give people who made a show of religiousness, kindness, caring, or any other goodness the benefit of the doubt. I am really sorry I didn't listen to my common sense that doing things to be seen doing them is fraud, not just adultery. I don't expect you to take my word for it, but this is what my life has taught me: anyone putting on the goody-two-shoes act a little too thick I get away from, because I know they're just using it as make-up to cover a zit.
In other words, they're dis-simulating their true selves. The aim is to carve out a false image that is the antithesis -- negative -- of their true selves. It's a work of art, not the real thing.
The truly good, kind, and caring do good to do it, not to be seen doing it. And the difference between them and show-offs is obvious. "What Makes Narcissists Tick" page 75
Again, I want you to look at the contrast of a person who is controlling of others and the person who is self-controlled. The Bible exhortations for self-control are many. Paul listed self-control as one of the evidences of God's spirit working in your life. Peter had something to say on it too, "Knowing God leads to self-control..." 2 Peter 1:5. So, my mother was right. If someone demonstrates a pattern of consistent behavior of being controlling of others it means that a spirit altogether opposite of God's spirit is actuating them.
Christians would do well to remember this because far too often Christians can justify to themselves that controlling others for some higher cause is right and good. Being a Christian gives you no license to control others. You have enough to do in just controlling yourself. If you let yourself become distracted from the internal work of self-control you will, inevitably, try to control others. Just because you see yourself as a Christian in no way diminishes the evil that proceeds from trying to force your way onto others. Even if your intentions are good. Even if you have a Bible injunction to wave in their faces. It is one thing to instruct others in truth and another thing altogether to try to force them into doing what you want or what you think is right. Don't confuse a preacher's good work of "instruction in righteousness" with being controlling. The two are not synonymous. Instruction is a world apart from trying to force the will of another through deception, manipulation, punishment, etc.
It is fair to state that the less self-control a person exerts in their own life the more likely it is that person will try to control their world by controlling YOU. We all yearn for control. It is a natural bent of human nature to try to control our external world. This includes circumstances, people and even material things. This need to control our environment often leads to trying to control others because it is easier than controlling oneself. The hardest thing of all is self-control. Look at the narcissist for proof of that. I have asserted in another blog post that the evil course is the easy course. The path of least resistance is the downward course that our selfish desires take. Self-control is like paddling upstream against our very nature. The narcissist is determined to take the luge run to hell which means you see very little self-control exerted by them. As I've stated in yet another, and more recent, post -- they only exert enough self-control to keep from getting caught in their crimes. Though they can get careless and forget to control themselves when they should in order to keep their evil from being perceived. This limited use of self-control is unworthy of praise or commendation.
Let me point out at this juncture that my mother demonstrates a few compulsive behaviors that resemble OCD. In her case, and I will assert that in ALL cases of narcissism, this is an extension of the desire to control her world. Her external world. It is not an extreme version of self-control. It is an extreme version of trying to control the external world. Don't be fooled by the narcissist's OCD as being some manifestion of rigorous self-control. It is not. My mother actually uses her compulsive behaviors as some kind of proof of her being self-controlled. Like a grand act of self-flaggellation equals the quiet act of self-control. Austerity doesn't necessarily equate to self-control. It is usually a substitute for it. OCD in the narcissist is an outgrowth of their fear and is the attempt to convince themselves they are in control of their world.
You get a two-fer today. Two red flags of narcissism. Number one: Being controlling of others is a central hallmark of the evil and must be considered a red flag even in someone you would not necessarily think is a narcissist. Number two: Slathering on a high profession of goodness is a sign of someone hiding the opposite. In my mother's case the two behaviors coincide in a most interesting manner. She used the one to hide the other to great effect on me (and others) for many, many years. I finally had to stop believing the high profession because it was constantly clashing with her consistent behaviors.
If you can give yourself permission to always believe the actions over the words you will save yourself so much trouble. It is a piece of hard-earned advice that I give on this blog many times over which, if people only took that one piece to heart, would save themselves a world of hurt.
It is quite possible to not be a malignant narcissist and still find yourself trying to control other people. If you recognize that you can be controlling then it is time to rein yourself in. I would recommend other people to see it as a red flag in your behavior too regardless of the fact that you don't demonstrate yourself to be a malignant narcissist. Trying to control other autonomous human beings is weakness not strength. It always lends itself toward evil outcomes. It is morally wrong.
In contrast with the evil who try to control everyone (and everything) in their sphere is that of the person with self-control. When you observe how someone interacts with you do you see them exerting consistent self-control in their own lives? Or are they mostly focused on controlling their external world including you? Those with genuine self-control do not try to control others.
There are some who make some high profession of having self-control yet who are actually very controlling of others. What gives with that? How can you know if it is a red flag in that person?
I'll make my case by using my own mother as an example. We'll call this, "The Time My Mother Got it Right".
One of my mother's soundtracks which she implanted in my head at a young age, so young that I don't know exactly when I started hearing it, goes like this, "If you find yourself controlling others then you know who is controlling you." This was the opening line for her little sermonette on how it is the devil who is the one controlling you if you are a person who enjoys controlling others as it is his nature to control. Wow. She got that one right. Who better to know "the devil made me do it" than a handmistress of the devil himself! If you don't believe in a being such as the devil then all you have to do is insert the word 'evil' where you see the word 'who' and you get the same result. "If you find yourself controlling others then you know evil is controlling you."
My mother lectured on this subject very often. Not just to her own children but to anyone who happened to be under her control at the time. This leads us into the very first red flag of eight for narcissism listed by Kathy Krajco which I promised I was going to re-post here on my blog. Here we go.
Red Flags of Narcissism
Since narcissists are such expert con artists, how do you spot them? By not judging by appearances. Or reputation.
A specific behavior, such as being haughty, inconsiderate, or ignoring someone, can occur in widely varying contexts. So, it can be done for many reasons, not just narcissistic reasons. Nonetheless, there are few behaviors so unique to persons suffering from NPD that they should serve as red flags.
Here are eight red flags:
- puts on a conspicuous display of goodness and kindness
- damages the images of most others
- has a history of past upheavals
- is hated for mysterious reasons by people close to them
- exhibits unnatural and perplexing behavior -- backwards reactions to things
- is a control freak, trampling privacy/boundaries
- is extremely self-absorbed
- has a hostile reaction to attention and credit given others
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I interrupt Kathy here to point out that she doesn't claim that this list of red flags is exhaustive. But a short list is quite helpful if you're trying to avoid the malignantly narcissistic people you may run into in your life. She doesn't call them "THE eight red flags". She says, "Here are eight red flags". Yes, there are others. But having this short list in the forefront of your mind will help you weed out 99.9% of narcissists.
Now, Kathy elaborates a bit on the first red flag she has listed and the one I want to call to your attention.
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Shows Off Goodness and KindnessI used to give people who made a show of religiousness, kindness, caring, or any other goodness the benefit of the doubt. I am really sorry I didn't listen to my common sense that doing things to be seen doing them is fraud, not just adultery. I don't expect you to take my word for it, but this is what my life has taught me: anyone putting on the goody-two-shoes act a little too thick I get away from, because I know they're just using it as make-up to cover a zit.
In other words, they're dis-simulating their true selves. The aim is to carve out a false image that is the antithesis -- negative -- of their true selves. It's a work of art, not the real thing.
The truly good, kind, and caring do good to do it, not to be seen doing it. And the difference between them and show-offs is obvious. "What Makes Narcissists Tick" page 75
**************************************
Back to my controlling mother preaching against being controlling. Here is what I now see was going on. Preaching against being controlling was the "goodness" she was slathering onto herself to throw off suspicion about her own controlling behaviors especially since she always put this lecture in a religious context. It was part of her profession of being "above all that" by lecturing frequently on the evils of being controlling. It was very effective. She would also very often say to me, "I'm the least controlling person I know." !!! This was usually stated when there was some overt evidence of her being controlling. She reserved the right to redefine reality for everyone so when she'd say this we'd all go along because it was easier than not going along. We'd been taught to deny reality because she had established herself as the only one really able to define it. All children of narcissists understand what I just said. They've lived it.
Another thing going on with my mother was her insistence on having no competition. She was reserving to herself the right to be controlling and didn't want to have to deal with her underlings getting uppity and trying to control her. Which happened anyway. Her youngest daughter became an adept at manipulating and controlling our mother. The power struggle was fierce between them. But if my mother could convince her underlings that being controlling was evil then she'd have a much more free reign to be the one in ascendency. She was trying to control us by convincing us to not use control of others for ourselves. It was not a sermon based on true conviction in her own soul that being controlling of others is wrong. It was a sermon designed to make sure she was the only one putting the screws to people! No competition allowed! Yet another example of how a narcissist tries to control other people by using their consciences.
My mother's understanding of the most basic characteristic of evil -- that of being controlling of others -- was the knowledge she acquired by practice of the same. Also, she knows enough about Bible truth to condemn herself to all to hell. How is she going to plead ignorance before the Almighty when He asks her why she didn't practice what she preached? We are especially condemned when we know to do right and refuse to. "Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins." James 4:17 NIV
Again, I want you to look at the contrast of a person who is controlling of others and the person who is self-controlled. The Bible exhortations for self-control are many. Paul listed self-control as one of the evidences of God's spirit working in your life. Peter had something to say on it too, "Knowing God leads to self-control..." 2 Peter 1:5. So, my mother was right. If someone demonstrates a pattern of consistent behavior of being controlling of others it means that a spirit altogether opposite of God's spirit is actuating them.
Christians would do well to remember this because far too often Christians can justify to themselves that controlling others for some higher cause is right and good. Being a Christian gives you no license to control others. You have enough to do in just controlling yourself. If you let yourself become distracted from the internal work of self-control you will, inevitably, try to control others. Just because you see yourself as a Christian in no way diminishes the evil that proceeds from trying to force your way onto others. Even if your intentions are good. Even if you have a Bible injunction to wave in their faces. It is one thing to instruct others in truth and another thing altogether to try to force them into doing what you want or what you think is right. Don't confuse a preacher's good work of "instruction in righteousness" with being controlling. The two are not synonymous. Instruction is a world apart from trying to force the will of another through deception, manipulation, punishment, etc.
It is fair to state that the less self-control a person exerts in their own life the more likely it is that person will try to control their world by controlling YOU. We all yearn for control. It is a natural bent of human nature to try to control our external world. This includes circumstances, people and even material things. This need to control our environment often leads to trying to control others because it is easier than controlling oneself. The hardest thing of all is self-control. Look at the narcissist for proof of that. I have asserted in another blog post that the evil course is the easy course. The path of least resistance is the downward course that our selfish desires take. Self-control is like paddling upstream against our very nature. The narcissist is determined to take the luge run to hell which means you see very little self-control exerted by them. As I've stated in yet another, and more recent, post -- they only exert enough self-control to keep from getting caught in their crimes. Though they can get careless and forget to control themselves when they should in order to keep their evil from being perceived. This limited use of self-control is unworthy of praise or commendation.
Let me point out at this juncture that my mother demonstrates a few compulsive behaviors that resemble OCD. In her case, and I will assert that in ALL cases of narcissism, this is an extension of the desire to control her world. Her external world. It is not an extreme version of self-control. It is an extreme version of trying to control the external world. Don't be fooled by the narcissist's OCD as being some manifestion of rigorous self-control. It is not. My mother actually uses her compulsive behaviors as some kind of proof of her being self-controlled. Like a grand act of self-flaggellation equals the quiet act of self-control. Austerity doesn't necessarily equate to self-control. It is usually a substitute for it. OCD in the narcissist is an outgrowth of their fear and is the attempt to convince themselves they are in control of their world.
You get a two-fer today. Two red flags of narcissism. Number one: Being controlling of others is a central hallmark of the evil and must be considered a red flag even in someone you would not necessarily think is a narcissist. Number two: Slathering on a high profession of goodness is a sign of someone hiding the opposite. In my mother's case the two behaviors coincide in a most interesting manner. She used the one to hide the other to great effect on me (and others) for many, many years. I finally had to stop believing the high profession because it was constantly clashing with her consistent behaviors.
If you can give yourself permission to always believe the actions over the words you will save yourself so much trouble. It is a piece of hard-earned advice that I give on this blog many times over which, if people only took that one piece to heart, would save themselves a world of hurt.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
They Hide From Truth Because Their Deeds are Evil
My head has been pulled way out of the subject matter of this blog lately so that is why posting has been minimal. It's just the way it is and there isn't much to be done about it. Consequently, I thought I'd rely on Kathy Krajco for some words for the wise taken from her book.
It's easy to see why. No one wants others to see them as bad. Moreover, that's the kiss of death to a predator, because it's like a repellant that warns potential prey to mistrust and stay away from him. Indeed, if you were a malignant narcissist, what would be your biggest fear?
Exposure, right? You're like a vampire to whom the light of day is lethal. Your greatest fear would be the same as that of any hungry, stalking predator -- exposure.
You'd live in constant fear of people finding out what you are beneath your sheep's clothing, that you go around spreading the most heinous lies about anyone who has a better reputation than you, that the happiness and success of others galls you and makes you set about destroying it, that you just use people for your aggrandizement in a manner that damages them and then just throw them away, that cruelly abusing and bullying people makes you feel high and mighty so that you can't resist a chance to make someone bend over for it or kick someone when they're down, that you want to take away anything others have that you don't have. You'd live in constant fear of others learning the shocking truth about your past exploits. You'd live in constant fear of people getting a whiff of the spirit in which such things are done -- the spirit inside you.
Because you're a destroyer. And no easy prey would venture within a mile of you if they knew what's inside you, would they? Because nothing can cover the smell of the spirit in which such things are done. A whiff of that spirit gives people the Big Chill. They abhor it. Even the most hardened criminals are above doing things as sickening as the things you do.
So, though there is such a thing as an out-of-the-closet narcissist (one who needn't and doesn't hide how bad he is and may even show it off to terrorize those at his mercy), far more often than not, people with NPD take great pains to make sure they have an angel-face and a reputation to match. (Exceptions are those narcissists seeking negative attention in lieu of the other kind.)
Their image is precisely the negative of their true selves. In other words, the false image they create dis-simulates their true self. What Makes Narcissists Tick, pgs. 32-33 by Kathy Krajco.
You know this is true. You've tried to bring just a smidgen of truth to the table with the narcissist and you saw the hissing, spitting and reviling it invoked. The extreme reaction is the narcissist's attempt to get you to drop the holy water before he gets burned. That is not the moment to fumble or drop the truth. Thrust that stake deep into his heart and then put him in the ground. Metaphorically speaking, of course.
Evil is an absence of truth which is why it must attach itself to some semblance of truth in order to exist. Evil is parasitic. It cannot stand alone. Pure lies don't sell. It is the truth that the lie attaches itself to that makes the lie attractive...or at least palatable. The lies of evil need to attach to goodness and truth in order to successfully hide in plain sight. Potential victims must not be warned off by the horrific sight and smell of their villainy. Even though the narcissist despises truth they are dependent on a certain amount of it in order to survive. I tell you this so you are not surprised by the mixture of truth amongst the big lies. Don't throw out truth just because an evil narcissist used it to his own ends either. Keep the baby...throw out the bath water.
Very rarely does evil completely expose itself and rarely is it completely exposed by someone else to everyone else. Knowing this, quit expecting evil to be readily apparent to everyone. Stop being surprised when the malignant spirit manages to successfully hide itself with a great pretense of goodness. Stop expecting evil to expose itself when he has no self-interest in doing so. Never expect evil to play fairly. Expect the greatest villains to hide behind the most impressive shows of sanctimony. You don't have to be religious to be sanctimonious, by the way. Don't make that mistake in logic. Sanctimony is hypocrisy ... and anyone can be a hypocrite whether or not they are a religionist.
“Hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue.” Francois de La Rochefoucauld
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There is an interesting point of religious doctrine on this that has been largely forgotten since the Middle Ages. It is that evil lurks beneath a beautiful exterior. In the vernacular today, we say that Beauty runs skin deep. We see this principle reflected in medieval paintings of the fall of the bad angels. They aren't depicted as ugly demons; they are depicted as beautiful spirits indistinguishable outwardly from the good angels. In other words, malevolence disguises itself with sanctimony.It's easy to see why. No one wants others to see them as bad. Moreover, that's the kiss of death to a predator, because it's like a repellant that warns potential prey to mistrust and stay away from him. Indeed, if you were a malignant narcissist, what would be your biggest fear?
Exposure, right? You're like a vampire to whom the light of day is lethal. Your greatest fear would be the same as that of any hungry, stalking predator -- exposure.
You'd live in constant fear of people finding out what you are beneath your sheep's clothing, that you go around spreading the most heinous lies about anyone who has a better reputation than you, that the happiness and success of others galls you and makes you set about destroying it, that you just use people for your aggrandizement in a manner that damages them and then just throw them away, that cruelly abusing and bullying people makes you feel high and mighty so that you can't resist a chance to make someone bend over for it or kick someone when they're down, that you want to take away anything others have that you don't have. You'd live in constant fear of others learning the shocking truth about your past exploits. You'd live in constant fear of people getting a whiff of the spirit in which such things are done -- the spirit inside you.
Because you're a destroyer. And no easy prey would venture within a mile of you if they knew what's inside you, would they? Because nothing can cover the smell of the spirit in which such things are done. A whiff of that spirit gives people the Big Chill. They abhor it. Even the most hardened criminals are above doing things as sickening as the things you do.
So, though there is such a thing as an out-of-the-closet narcissist (one who needn't and doesn't hide how bad he is and may even show it off to terrorize those at his mercy), far more often than not, people with NPD take great pains to make sure they have an angel-face and a reputation to match. (Exceptions are those narcissists seeking negative attention in lieu of the other kind.)
Their image is precisely the negative of their true selves. In other words, the false image they create dis-simulates their true self. What Makes Narcissists Tick, pgs. 32-33 by Kathy Krajco.
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I decided to reprint this section of her book because the verse in John 3:19-20 has been in my thoughts lately. Her statements above are related:And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.So today's dose of truth and reality is this: Evil must mask itself with good in order for it to make a living. Evil must hide itself by hiding the truth of who and what they are. Therefore, full truth (light) is anathema to evil.For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.
You know this is true. You've tried to bring just a smidgen of truth to the table with the narcissist and you saw the hissing, spitting and reviling it invoked. The extreme reaction is the narcissist's attempt to get you to drop the holy water before he gets burned. That is not the moment to fumble or drop the truth. Thrust that stake deep into his heart and then put him in the ground. Metaphorically speaking, of course.
Evil is an absence of truth which is why it must attach itself to some semblance of truth in order to exist. Evil is parasitic. It cannot stand alone. Pure lies don't sell. It is the truth that the lie attaches itself to that makes the lie attractive...or at least palatable. The lies of evil need to attach to goodness and truth in order to successfully hide in plain sight. Potential victims must not be warned off by the horrific sight and smell of their villainy. Even though the narcissist despises truth they are dependent on a certain amount of it in order to survive. I tell you this so you are not surprised by the mixture of truth amongst the big lies. Don't throw out truth just because an evil narcissist used it to his own ends either. Keep the baby...throw out the bath water.
Very rarely does evil completely expose itself and rarely is it completely exposed by someone else to everyone else. Knowing this, quit expecting evil to be readily apparent to everyone. Stop being surprised when the malignant spirit manages to successfully hide itself with a great pretense of goodness. Stop expecting evil to expose itself when he has no self-interest in doing so. Never expect evil to play fairly. Expect the greatest villains to hide behind the most impressive shows of sanctimony. You don't have to be religious to be sanctimonious, by the way. Don't make that mistake in logic. Sanctimony is hypocrisy ... and anyone can be a hypocrite whether or not they are a religionist.
“Hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue.” Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Calling Narcissists Evil: Stumbling Block or Life Line?
A question was asked of me in the comments section for my post, "The Perennial Question...Are Narcissists Evil?"
People who are stuck in relationships with narcissists are generally people who have been reluctant to call the narcissist evil. The stumbling block they are dealing with is their own inability to properly label the malevolent force they call "Mom" or "Dad" or "Spouse". There is very little evidence to support a contention that my calling narcissists evil is a stumbling block to individuals who are in a relationship with a narcissist and thereby preventing them from breaking from the narcissist. Truth is, it is their own reluctance to call evil by its right name that is the problem. The problem is not that I am consistently calling narcissists evil. On the other hand there are reams of evidence that many who were previously unable to see the evil of narcissism have found relief and escape from seeing narcissists properly labeled as the evil force they are.
Is it necessary to view the narcissist as evil in order to go no contact? Is just seeing the situation as being a case of incompatibility enough rationale to make an escape? I am sure there are people who can justify leaving a relationship based on simply calling on incompatibility as justification. My blog isn't for those people. They don't need to read what I have to say. In fact, this person is very unlikely to go to Google to type in some search in order to demystify what they've gone through or are going through. They have simply shrugged off the parasite and moved on. No damage done. The person you describe has likely never even seen my blog.
What I've recognized is that some relationships are very hard to extricate from due to societal pressures and ingrained teaching from our earliest moments of sentience. Parents. Children. Siblings. Spouses. Probably in that order. These are the relationships which we find very difficult to terminate based alone on that word "incompatibility". No one distances themselves from their parents by simply citing "incompatibility". It is never that easy.
This means that the person who is being systematically destroyed by a narcissist...usually by a family narcissist...has a daunting task before them. The task is to properly identify what force they have been trying to reckon with all these years. Many of these people have been reluctant to label this force as being "evil" mostly because the narcissist has taught them to see things upside down and inside out, black as white, and evil as good. How many times have family narcissists presented themselves as the embodiment of all that is good? All. The. Time. If someone doesn't call the narcissist's so-called good what it really is...evil...then there is likely little hope of helping the victim out of their victimhood. They will continue on believing that the evil is centered in themselves, that they are the one who is crazy, that they are the problem. You know, all the lies the narcissist has taught them to believe in order that the narcissist can escape accountability.
You don't have to be entangled with a narcissist for very long to get the sense that evil exists. The problem is that you're not quite sure where it resides. This is because the narcissist is careful to project their own evil outward from themselves onto whomever is handy. Likely, YOU. The narcissist is well aware that evil exists in themselves and are desperate to not get pinned down themselves with the very proper label of evil. Here, on my blog, I will put the proper label on the evil doer. I will not mollycoddle anyone by mincing my words. My creed is: never fight reality because reality always wins. The narcissist is the one always fighting reality. We cannot hope to win against the narcissist unless we fixate like a laser beam on reality. It is reality that exposes the narcissist. One of those realities is that what they do and what they are is EVIL.
I am not daunted by people's reluctance to call evil by its right name. I present my case. Blog post by blog post. Definitions, evidence, moral principles. What is very interesting is how many times someone will dismiss evil when it happens to them but can clearly see some act against someone else as being evil. We have been taught (by the narcissist) to minimize the effects of evil behaviors on ourselves, but we will often not minimize evil when it is perpetrated on someone else. This blog is often a place where people can see the evil done to others. With a little extra help they are then able to make the leap, "If that behavior is evil when done to others then it was just as evil when it was done to me!"
In my opinion, based on personal experience, individuals who are 'put off' by calling narcissists evil have their own ulterior motives. There is very likely some behavior in their own lives they are trying to justify, to get away with. A behavior(s) which is destructive to others and aggrandizing to themselves. There is simply too much evidence that the narcissist is evil...as defined both by their intent and behaviors...to dismiss the label out of hand. When someone refuses to properly label what narcissists do and the effects they have on others then I harbor mistrust of that person's agenda. At the very least, I mistrust that person's moral sensibilities.
I am a blood hound set on the scent of the narcissist. I will sniff them out of their hiding place. They always hide under a cloak of goodness. A pretense of righteousness. They get away with their evil by calling their evil good. So, dammit, I will rip their shabby little fig leaves away so you can see the narcissist without their pretended goodness. What you are left with is naked evil. It may be an ugly sight but that isn't my fault. It is the fault of the narcissist for being spiritually, emotionally and mentally twisted and grotesque. It is the fault of the narcissist that they are predatory, cruel, hateful, insatiably coveteous of what you have, and emotionally arrested. I will call evil what it is. Each and every time. If someone is 'put off' by that then I accept that I have nothing for them. I can't be all things to all people and am certainly not trying to be.
This blog is specifically addressing the problem of malignant narcissism. As I've said before, a synonym of 'malignant' is the word evil. Malignant narcissism is destructive and malevolent. People who come here have been injured in some measurable way. Calling things by their right names is essential for identifying the problem and finding a solution to the problem. If someone was able to just cite "incompatibility" as a rationale for leaving the situation do you think they'd need to come to my blog for insight? People who come here are suffering. There is a reason for their suffering and I'm not afraid to name that reason.
Properly identifying evil behaviors and evil people is not a stumbling block. It is a life line. People may refuse to take the life line. That is their choice. I wouldn't throw a string down to a person trapped in a pit and say, "just grab this and you can climb out!" Would I get credit for trying to save that person even though I just threw them a string which is absolutely useless for the task? Not to sane and rational people. No, I will throw that person a knotted rope. They get to choose whether or not to use it. If they don't like my rope they are welcome to stay in the pit. I did my best.
Is it always necessary to view the N as "evil" in order to go no contact? I can see where recognizing evil is beneficial for the victim who is having trouble breaking away from the N. Are there cases of victims who successfully broke away not by defining the N as evil, but just by defining the situation as incompatibility? I ask because some victims, for a variety of reasons, may be reluctant to call the N "evil", and this may be a stumbling block.
People who are stuck in relationships with narcissists are generally people who have been reluctant to call the narcissist evil. The stumbling block they are dealing with is their own inability to properly label the malevolent force they call "Mom" or "Dad" or "Spouse". There is very little evidence to support a contention that my calling narcissists evil is a stumbling block to individuals who are in a relationship with a narcissist and thereby preventing them from breaking from the narcissist. Truth is, it is their own reluctance to call evil by its right name that is the problem. The problem is not that I am consistently calling narcissists evil. On the other hand there are reams of evidence that many who were previously unable to see the evil of narcissism have found relief and escape from seeing narcissists properly labeled as the evil force they are.
Is it necessary to view the narcissist as evil in order to go no contact? Is just seeing the situation as being a case of incompatibility enough rationale to make an escape? I am sure there are people who can justify leaving a relationship based on simply calling on incompatibility as justification. My blog isn't for those people. They don't need to read what I have to say. In fact, this person is very unlikely to go to Google to type in some search in order to demystify what they've gone through or are going through. They have simply shrugged off the parasite and moved on. No damage done. The person you describe has likely never even seen my blog.
What I've recognized is that some relationships are very hard to extricate from due to societal pressures and ingrained teaching from our earliest moments of sentience. Parents. Children. Siblings. Spouses. Probably in that order. These are the relationships which we find very difficult to terminate based alone on that word "incompatibility". No one distances themselves from their parents by simply citing "incompatibility". It is never that easy.
This means that the person who is being systematically destroyed by a narcissist...usually by a family narcissist...has a daunting task before them. The task is to properly identify what force they have been trying to reckon with all these years. Many of these people have been reluctant to label this force as being "evil" mostly because the narcissist has taught them to see things upside down and inside out, black as white, and evil as good. How many times have family narcissists presented themselves as the embodiment of all that is good? All. The. Time. If someone doesn't call the narcissist's so-called good what it really is...evil...then there is likely little hope of helping the victim out of their victimhood. They will continue on believing that the evil is centered in themselves, that they are the one who is crazy, that they are the problem. You know, all the lies the narcissist has taught them to believe in order that the narcissist can escape accountability.
You don't have to be entangled with a narcissist for very long to get the sense that evil exists. The problem is that you're not quite sure where it resides. This is because the narcissist is careful to project their own evil outward from themselves onto whomever is handy. Likely, YOU. The narcissist is well aware that evil exists in themselves and are desperate to not get pinned down themselves with the very proper label of evil. Here, on my blog, I will put the proper label on the evil doer. I will not mollycoddle anyone by mincing my words. My creed is: never fight reality because reality always wins. The narcissist is the one always fighting reality. We cannot hope to win against the narcissist unless we fixate like a laser beam on reality. It is reality that exposes the narcissist. One of those realities is that what they do and what they are is EVIL.
I am not daunted by people's reluctance to call evil by its right name. I present my case. Blog post by blog post. Definitions, evidence, moral principles. What is very interesting is how many times someone will dismiss evil when it happens to them but can clearly see some act against someone else as being evil. We have been taught (by the narcissist) to minimize the effects of evil behaviors on ourselves, but we will often not minimize evil when it is perpetrated on someone else. This blog is often a place where people can see the evil done to others. With a little extra help they are then able to make the leap, "If that behavior is evil when done to others then it was just as evil when it was done to me!"
In my opinion, based on personal experience, individuals who are 'put off' by calling narcissists evil have their own ulterior motives. There is very likely some behavior in their own lives they are trying to justify, to get away with. A behavior(s) which is destructive to others and aggrandizing to themselves. There is simply too much evidence that the narcissist is evil...as defined both by their intent and behaviors...to dismiss the label out of hand. When someone refuses to properly label what narcissists do and the effects they have on others then I harbor mistrust of that person's agenda. At the very least, I mistrust that person's moral sensibilities.
I am a blood hound set on the scent of the narcissist. I will sniff them out of their hiding place. They always hide under a cloak of goodness. A pretense of righteousness. They get away with their evil by calling their evil good. So, dammit, I will rip their shabby little fig leaves away so you can see the narcissist without their pretended goodness. What you are left with is naked evil. It may be an ugly sight but that isn't my fault. It is the fault of the narcissist for being spiritually, emotionally and mentally twisted and grotesque. It is the fault of the narcissist that they are predatory, cruel, hateful, insatiably coveteous of what you have, and emotionally arrested. I will call evil what it is. Each and every time. If someone is 'put off' by that then I accept that I have nothing for them. I can't be all things to all people and am certainly not trying to be.
This blog is specifically addressing the problem of malignant narcissism. As I've said before, a synonym of 'malignant' is the word evil. Malignant narcissism is destructive and malevolent. People who come here have been injured in some measurable way. Calling things by their right names is essential for identifying the problem and finding a solution to the problem. If someone was able to just cite "incompatibility" as a rationale for leaving the situation do you think they'd need to come to my blog for insight? People who come here are suffering. There is a reason for their suffering and I'm not afraid to name that reason.
Properly identifying evil behaviors and evil people is not a stumbling block. It is a life line. People may refuse to take the life line. That is their choice. I wouldn't throw a string down to a person trapped in a pit and say, "just grab this and you can climb out!" Would I get credit for trying to save that person even though I just threw them a string which is absolutely useless for the task? Not to sane and rational people. No, I will throw that person a knotted rope. They get to choose whether or not to use it. If they don't like my rope they are welcome to stay in the pit. I did my best.
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
The Perennial Question...Are Narcissists Evil?
A couple weeks ago when I was looking at various Vaknin statements I ran into, yet again, his argument that it is wrong to think of and describe narcissists as being evil. I saw that others make the same argument based on the (supposed) lack of intention to do evil absolving the narcissist from being evil. At the same time, these apologists for narcissists like to denigrate the intellect of those who think in terms of good and evil, black and white. So I'll return the favor...they have shit for brains.
It makes me a little crazy to read CRAP like this. I decided I would probably blog on this whole argument after I felt I was composed enough to have to deal point by point with the insanity.
I don't have to write it because someone else did. It can be found here. There is probably much more I could say on the subject than this article does but it is good place to start for now.
It makes me a little crazy to read CRAP like this. I decided I would probably blog on this whole argument after I felt I was composed enough to have to deal point by point with the insanity.
I don't have to write it because someone else did. It can be found here. There is probably much more I could say on the subject than this article does but it is good place to start for now.
Sunday, May 04, 2008
An Accurate Measure of Mental Health ISN'T Lack of Anger
It is terribly annoying to me when someone pretends to know my mind better than I do. Likely, the level of annoyance I feel when that happens is due to a heightened sensitivity borne of years of enduring this very thing. I took it uncomplainingly for much of my life. I would either submit to mother's or sister's analysis or quietly reject it without saying much of anything. It didn't do to contradict them because no one is more right than they are when they make a pronouncement. As for my heightened sensitivity. That isn't a bad thing. When someone has clobbered you really good and left a nice big bruise, if someone lightly presses on that bruise you are going to react. Your reaction isn't about you being too sensitive. It is about you having a sore spot pressed on. Just because you react sooner than someone else may to having that spot poked at doesn't mean there is something wrong with you. It means they need to lay off.
It turns out that the two people who knew me least were the ones telling me how I felt and how I thought. Isn't that the way it usually goes? It is ridiculous how often even a stranger will presume to tell you your own mind. I finally caught on to the fact that these two women didn't know me as I approached my forties. It became more and more clear to me that these two women knew so little about me as a person that it was completely laughable that they could think to tell me my own mind.
With narcissists, what suffices as knowledge of you is that they have learned a few of your buttons. With a little trial and error they have divined how to get you to jump when they say jump. This is what they use to pretend to themselves, and to you, that they know you better than you know yourself. They have summarily decided that because they can manipulate you with a few of your fears, or with your decency, they know who you are as a person. Unless you are simply a construct of a few base fears...this can't possibly be true.
Humans tend toward considerable complexity. Well, at least, normal humans do. Narcissists are different in this regard. In case you haven't already noticed it, narcissists are very predictable and basic. Nevertheless, each narcissist believes they are supremely unique and, therefore, just supreme. Part of what makes them 'supreme' in their opinion is that they reject the feeling side of themselves. Feelings are 'weak'. Thus begins the process of pretending away their feelings. Denying their existence. To reject the feeling side of one's humanity is going to render you a two-dimensional being. We see this in narcissists. No depth. No humanity. Any complexity they have achieved is simply due to all the lies they construct around themselves.
People too often agree with the narcissist that we are "weak" when we show our emotions, or when we let ourselves feel our emotions. This is a very significant thing that separates us from the narcissist: allowing ourselves to feel our emotions--especially the really big scary emotions. It is because the narcissist refuses to feel his emotions that he has to start pretending his way through life. He pretends to NOT feel what he feels. In pushing away his feelings he loses track of why he behaves like he does. He doesn't see cause and effect. Much of the time he ends up projecting onto you what he is feeling. This allows him to pretend those feelings are outside of himself...and then he attacks those feelings after he lays them onto you. It is safe that way. Introspection and accountability must be avoided at all costs because he is desperately fearful of really knowing who he is. I don't blame him for that...he is a vile creature by now and would have a terribly costly price to pay to own up for what he has done throughout his life.
Feelings are not good or bad in a moral sense. They just are. It is what we do with them that enters the moral sphere. We are accountable for our behaviors. What I have noticed after having lived this long is how often people are ready to instantly condemn you if you feel angry. Anger is one of those emotions considered to be always wrong in many people's estimation. They don't say this outright, but it comes out in how they address you and your anger. You need to get past it. You need to forgive. You need to forget about it. Move on. Etcetera ad nauseum. Never mind that your anger is an appropriate reaction to a gross injustice. Get over it. Why? Because they are uncomfortable with it? How narcissistic of them.
I've talked before about emotions vs. behaviors and how, no matter what our emotions are, we must behave in a moral way. Being angry is not justification for doing wrong by someone else. I am trying to get to something else so I won't go into more detail on this aspect.
What I want to get to is how do you know if you are in a healthy place in your head? How do you know, for yourself, that you are not letting your anger ruin your life?
You have the psychobabblers and do-gooder Christian types clucking their tongues if you happen to show a flash of anger when talking about the narcissist. They immediately assume that you are not progressed yet to a place of 'healing' if, when talking about the evil narcissist and her evil acts perpetrated on your own life (which likely has ongoing effects on your life and is therefore a crime in progress), you dare display your outrage. People are afraid of our anger. Why? One reason is because they are sloppy thinkers. They think that our anger is the problem when the real problem is the monster who inflicts pain every chance they get. Our anger is an appropriate response to their inappropriate behavior. If the tongue-cluckers insist we should not let ourselves feel an appropriate emotion then they are, in reality, insisting we become like the narcissist--pretending our way through life and denying what we feel. I'm not going there for anyone.
What is a much more accurate measurement of your emotional health than whether or not the outrageous acts of a narcissist can cause you to feel appropriate outrage? Ready?
Acceptance.
How do you know if you have come to a place of acceptance?
Acceptance means you have stopped fighting a situation. You have stopped holding to any other alternatives as options.
As for me. I came to a total acceptance of who my mother is going on six years ago now. And, later, of who my sister is and who my father is. I stopped fighting the situation. I stopped believing that they would ever change and treat me fairly. I stopped believing they would stop abusing me. With my acceptance of who they are and what the situation was I was enabled to make better choices. I stopped making decisions based on baseless hope and their faithless promises. I have proven that I've completely accepted reality...which includes the reality of who these people are...by the fact that I've stopped fighting the situation. Nothing proves my acceptance of who they are more than going no contact and maintaining that no contact with no exceptions. I have proven by my behavior where my head is at. I recognize who these people are and that by staying in their lives they could continue to use and abuse me and my family. I therefore resolved on the only course that remained. Removing me and mine from their influence.
If you can allow yourself to admit when another person is dangerous or destructive...then accepting they are what they are is essential if you are going to ever be able to protect yourself from them.
The content of this blog is designed to highlight and underscore what the narcissist is...and what they always will be. If you can come to the point where you see that what is will always be...then you will stop fighting. The savior complex is a demonstration of the non-acceptance of whom the narcissist chooses to be. It is a form of fighting for the reality you want rather than what is. Staying in the 'mob family' with the narcissist as mob boss is another way we refuse to accept what is really going on. Pretending the narcissist can't cause you material as well as emotional and mental harm is a denial of truth. A non-acceptance of what is. I can accurately sum up this blog as my attempt to help others come to the same place of acceptance that I have come to regarding NPD. I outline the various ways I got there in my head.
Accepting reality is the touchstone of mental health.
Consider this. How easy would it be for me to portray myself here as having reached a place of perfect equanimity? How easy would it be for me to not punctuate my writing with words that betray my outrage at evil? Really easy.
I have always been aware that by expressing my anger and hatred toward people with 'evil personality disorder' I would be condemning myself in the eyes of those who choose to think that reaching a zen-like space is proof of having healed. I am willing to be seen as not having progressed to perfect equanimity with evil people. I'll explain why as I go.
It would have been such a simple thing for me to talk about malignant narcissists completely dispassionately. Kind of like the droning of the boring professor in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" where, regardless of the subject matter, I would speak in one tone endlessly. I'm sure many would be impressed with how strong I am to have gotten to where nothing rattles me. I could receive much praise for having perfectly 'healed' from my past. I'm not going for any silly little awards like that because I don't believe perfect calm in the face of evil is a goal to strive for. No matter how many people may praise me for it...I'm all about being real here.
Here's how I see it. If I were to be completely dispassionate in the discussion of destructive narcissism it would send the message to you that I would not be provoked into defending you if I were to witness the injustices of the narcissist you've endured. When you read my justified anger at the bad acts of the narcissist as it has affected me it gives you good reason to believe I would be just as outraged at what you've endured. You sense my empathy when you read my outrage. To display only perfect calmness in the face of overt evil would not convince you that I give a rat's ass about you. I do give a rat's ass. Which most of you 'get' when you read what I have to say. You sense I am one of your champions. You believe I would defend you against the indefensible acts of the narcissist if I were witness to them. You believe that I would not condemn your own justifiable anger at the total injustice of the evil acts of the narcissist. If I give myself permission to express my anger at injustice...surely I would give you the same latitude.
You get to hold onto some of your anger when you hang out here at my blog. I tell you that the anger can be good and constructive if you allow it to motivate you to make smart changes in your life. Anger is just a feeling. It can be destructive or constructive. It all depends on what you do with it. Anger is pain. It indicates that something is wrong in your environment. It is a powerful catalyst. It can either catalyze you to correct the problem...or to compound it. It is the emotional equivalent to resting your hand on a burning hot stove. Your reaction to your hand getting incinerated causes you to react immediately by pulling your hand from the source of the pain. You yelp and pull back. An appropriate reaction to getting burned. Your anger is a useful tool to help you stay away from the burning flame.
What if you have leprosy? What will your reaction to that hot stove be? Non existent. You won't feel a thing. Therefore, you'll lose your hand because you didn't have the ability to know you're getting burned. Think of the leper when someone tells you to get over your anger. Don't let someone convince you must turn yourself into an emotional leper in order to consider yourself "healed" from the abuses of the narcissist. It is important to let yourself feel your anger so you can keep from further injury. Your anger, if recognized and acknowledged, can inform you that you're in some kind of danger or some circumstance that must be corrected. If you remove the feeling part of yourself you will be guaranteed to start losing important parts of yourself. Children born with congenital analgia can't feel pain. The terrible injuries to their little bodies start occurring very early. Their tongues get chewed into hamburger because they can't feel it. They often lose one or both eyes. It is a terrible thing to never feel pain. Don't anesthetize yourself. It is never healthy.
Some memories will always be associated with a feeling of anger. I think that is a good thing. It is what helps us remember that the stove is hot. To have to burn ones hand once is bad enough. What a tragedy it would be if we couldn't allow ourselves to remember the pain of touching a hot stove. To have to touch it again and again...re-injuring ourselves again and again...how sad would that be? The scar tissue would build up and up until our hand was deformed. Retaining at least some level of outrage at the outrageousness of the narcissist can help us remember to stay away, to protect ourselves and those we love. Narcissists would love nothing more than that we erase our feelings of anger and outrage so they can re-perpetrate their crimes against us. In fact, the narcissists I know demand their victims forget the past. What they are really demanding is that we forget our appropriately negative reactions to being used and abused. So, hang onto a bit of that anger so you'll remember to leave these persons alone. Otherwise, you will get burned. Again. To stick around for continual burns by these people only scars you more; it deforms you. If you want to guarantee that you'll never truly heal...then lose your anger and keep the monsters close.
Am I advocating stewing in your anger? No, not at all. Do I stew in anger? Not at all. I have used my anger constructively to make very positive changes in my life. Because I've gone no contact with the family narcissists and their accomplices I have stopped them from continuing their crimes. Without the continual assaults--fresh memories are not being made. (Fresh memories revive old ones.) No contact has allowed the past to fade from my view. My feelings are calm; I have peace. Most of the time I don't think about these people at all. I have a full and rewarding life that occupies my mental, emotional and physical energies. The exception to not thinking about my family of origin is when I blog. For the sake of others who don't know yet how to escape from the predations of family narcissists I will sit down and remember. I will relive past experiences. I will, as I write, sometimes feel anger. Is it the white hot hate and flames of rage that engulf me? Oh, no. Nothing that dramatic. Mostly I feel outrage at the injustice. I have lived most of my life not allowing myself to be outraged at the gross injustices and abuses I have endured. So I let myself feel that outrage when I remember. And because I'm not afraid of that feeling...I feel it...and it passes. In the meantime, I use that feeling constructively by trying to frame words here on my blog for others to read and hopefully be helped by.
Don't condemn yourself for your anger unless you are using your anger to justify hurting someone else. Then damn yourself all to hell. That is always wrong. But to feel anger at the predatory, evil and cruel acts of the narcissist is healthy if you use it to catalyze yourself to make smart decisions for the future. Occasionally being reminded of your anger at these things helps keep you safe. And it helps keep you smart.
Should I ever be perfectly calm when I am staring into the face of evil and injustice? Not if I give a flying fig about humanity. Because I care about others I will never completely relinquish my outrage and anger at evil.
The day I give up my passionate hatred of evil, the day I quit feeling outrage at the outrageous, is the day I quit caring about my fellow man. So be thankful when you sense my anger and outrage. It proves I give a damn.
It turns out that the two people who knew me least were the ones telling me how I felt and how I thought. Isn't that the way it usually goes? It is ridiculous how often even a stranger will presume to tell you your own mind. I finally caught on to the fact that these two women didn't know me as I approached my forties. It became more and more clear to me that these two women knew so little about me as a person that it was completely laughable that they could think to tell me my own mind.
With narcissists, what suffices as knowledge of you is that they have learned a few of your buttons. With a little trial and error they have divined how to get you to jump when they say jump. This is what they use to pretend to themselves, and to you, that they know you better than you know yourself. They have summarily decided that because they can manipulate you with a few of your fears, or with your decency, they know who you are as a person. Unless you are simply a construct of a few base fears...this can't possibly be true.
Humans tend toward considerable complexity. Well, at least, normal humans do. Narcissists are different in this regard. In case you haven't already noticed it, narcissists are very predictable and basic. Nevertheless, each narcissist believes they are supremely unique and, therefore, just supreme. Part of what makes them 'supreme' in their opinion is that they reject the feeling side of themselves. Feelings are 'weak'. Thus begins the process of pretending away their feelings. Denying their existence. To reject the feeling side of one's humanity is going to render you a two-dimensional being. We see this in narcissists. No depth. No humanity. Any complexity they have achieved is simply due to all the lies they construct around themselves.
People too often agree with the narcissist that we are "weak" when we show our emotions, or when we let ourselves feel our emotions. This is a very significant thing that separates us from the narcissist: allowing ourselves to feel our emotions--especially the really big scary emotions. It is because the narcissist refuses to feel his emotions that he has to start pretending his way through life. He pretends to NOT feel what he feels. In pushing away his feelings he loses track of why he behaves like he does. He doesn't see cause and effect. Much of the time he ends up projecting onto you what he is feeling. This allows him to pretend those feelings are outside of himself...and then he attacks those feelings after he lays them onto you. It is safe that way. Introspection and accountability must be avoided at all costs because he is desperately fearful of really knowing who he is. I don't blame him for that...he is a vile creature by now and would have a terribly costly price to pay to own up for what he has done throughout his life.
Feelings are not good or bad in a moral sense. They just are. It is what we do with them that enters the moral sphere. We are accountable for our behaviors. What I have noticed after having lived this long is how often people are ready to instantly condemn you if you feel angry. Anger is one of those emotions considered to be always wrong in many people's estimation. They don't say this outright, but it comes out in how they address you and your anger. You need to get past it. You need to forgive. You need to forget about it. Move on. Etcetera ad nauseum. Never mind that your anger is an appropriate reaction to a gross injustice. Get over it. Why? Because they are uncomfortable with it? How narcissistic of them.
I've talked before about emotions vs. behaviors and how, no matter what our emotions are, we must behave in a moral way. Being angry is not justification for doing wrong by someone else. I am trying to get to something else so I won't go into more detail on this aspect.
What I want to get to is how do you know if you are in a healthy place in your head? How do you know, for yourself, that you are not letting your anger ruin your life?
You have the psychobabblers and do-gooder Christian types clucking their tongues if you happen to show a flash of anger when talking about the narcissist. They immediately assume that you are not progressed yet to a place of 'healing' if, when talking about the evil narcissist and her evil acts perpetrated on your own life (which likely has ongoing effects on your life and is therefore a crime in progress), you dare display your outrage. People are afraid of our anger. Why? One reason is because they are sloppy thinkers. They think that our anger is the problem when the real problem is the monster who inflicts pain every chance they get. Our anger is an appropriate response to their inappropriate behavior. If the tongue-cluckers insist we should not let ourselves feel an appropriate emotion then they are, in reality, insisting we become like the narcissist--pretending our way through life and denying what we feel. I'm not going there for anyone.
What is a much more accurate measurement of your emotional health than whether or not the outrageous acts of a narcissist can cause you to feel appropriate outrage? Ready?
Acceptance.
How do you know if you have come to a place of acceptance?
Acceptance means you have stopped fighting a situation. You have stopped holding to any other alternatives as options.
As for me. I came to a total acceptance of who my mother is going on six years ago now. And, later, of who my sister is and who my father is. I stopped fighting the situation. I stopped believing that they would ever change and treat me fairly. I stopped believing they would stop abusing me. With my acceptance of who they are and what the situation was I was enabled to make better choices. I stopped making decisions based on baseless hope and their faithless promises. I have proven that I've completely accepted reality...which includes the reality of who these people are...by the fact that I've stopped fighting the situation. Nothing proves my acceptance of who they are more than going no contact and maintaining that no contact with no exceptions. I have proven by my behavior where my head is at. I recognize who these people are and that by staying in their lives they could continue to use and abuse me and my family. I therefore resolved on the only course that remained. Removing me and mine from their influence.
If you can allow yourself to admit when another person is dangerous or destructive...then accepting they are what they are is essential if you are going to ever be able to protect yourself from them.
The content of this blog is designed to highlight and underscore what the narcissist is...and what they always will be. If you can come to the point where you see that what is will always be...then you will stop fighting. The savior complex is a demonstration of the non-acceptance of whom the narcissist chooses to be. It is a form of fighting for the reality you want rather than what is. Staying in the 'mob family' with the narcissist as mob boss is another way we refuse to accept what is really going on. Pretending the narcissist can't cause you material as well as emotional and mental harm is a denial of truth. A non-acceptance of what is. I can accurately sum up this blog as my attempt to help others come to the same place of acceptance that I have come to regarding NPD. I outline the various ways I got there in my head.
Accepting reality is the touchstone of mental health.
Consider this. How easy would it be for me to portray myself here as having reached a place of perfect equanimity? How easy would it be for me to not punctuate my writing with words that betray my outrage at evil? Really easy.
I have always been aware that by expressing my anger and hatred toward people with 'evil personality disorder' I would be condemning myself in the eyes of those who choose to think that reaching a zen-like space is proof of having healed. I am willing to be seen as not having progressed to perfect equanimity with evil people. I'll explain why as I go.
It would have been such a simple thing for me to talk about malignant narcissists completely dispassionately. Kind of like the droning of the boring professor in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" where, regardless of the subject matter, I would speak in one tone endlessly. I'm sure many would be impressed with how strong I am to have gotten to where nothing rattles me. I could receive much praise for having perfectly 'healed' from my past. I'm not going for any silly little awards like that because I don't believe perfect calm in the face of evil is a goal to strive for. No matter how many people may praise me for it...I'm all about being real here.
Here's how I see it. If I were to be completely dispassionate in the discussion of destructive narcissism it would send the message to you that I would not be provoked into defending you if I were to witness the injustices of the narcissist you've endured. When you read my justified anger at the bad acts of the narcissist as it has affected me it gives you good reason to believe I would be just as outraged at what you've endured. You sense my empathy when you read my outrage. To display only perfect calmness in the face of overt evil would not convince you that I give a rat's ass about you. I do give a rat's ass. Which most of you 'get' when you read what I have to say. You sense I am one of your champions. You believe I would defend you against the indefensible acts of the narcissist if I were witness to them. You believe that I would not condemn your own justifiable anger at the total injustice of the evil acts of the narcissist. If I give myself permission to express my anger at injustice...surely I would give you the same latitude.
You get to hold onto some of your anger when you hang out here at my blog. I tell you that the anger can be good and constructive if you allow it to motivate you to make smart changes in your life. Anger is just a feeling. It can be destructive or constructive. It all depends on what you do with it. Anger is pain. It indicates that something is wrong in your environment. It is a powerful catalyst. It can either catalyze you to correct the problem...or to compound it. It is the emotional equivalent to resting your hand on a burning hot stove. Your reaction to your hand getting incinerated causes you to react immediately by pulling your hand from the source of the pain. You yelp and pull back. An appropriate reaction to getting burned. Your anger is a useful tool to help you stay away from the burning flame.
What if you have leprosy? What will your reaction to that hot stove be? Non existent. You won't feel a thing. Therefore, you'll lose your hand because you didn't have the ability to know you're getting burned. Think of the leper when someone tells you to get over your anger. Don't let someone convince you must turn yourself into an emotional leper in order to consider yourself "healed" from the abuses of the narcissist. It is important to let yourself feel your anger so you can keep from further injury. Your anger, if recognized and acknowledged, can inform you that you're in some kind of danger or some circumstance that must be corrected. If you remove the feeling part of yourself you will be guaranteed to start losing important parts of yourself. Children born with congenital analgia can't feel pain. The terrible injuries to their little bodies start occurring very early. Their tongues get chewed into hamburger because they can't feel it. They often lose one or both eyes. It is a terrible thing to never feel pain. Don't anesthetize yourself. It is never healthy.
Some memories will always be associated with a feeling of anger. I think that is a good thing. It is what helps us remember that the stove is hot. To have to burn ones hand once is bad enough. What a tragedy it would be if we couldn't allow ourselves to remember the pain of touching a hot stove. To have to touch it again and again...re-injuring ourselves again and again...how sad would that be? The scar tissue would build up and up until our hand was deformed. Retaining at least some level of outrage at the outrageousness of the narcissist can help us remember to stay away, to protect ourselves and those we love. Narcissists would love nothing more than that we erase our feelings of anger and outrage so they can re-perpetrate their crimes against us. In fact, the narcissists I know demand their victims forget the past. What they are really demanding is that we forget our appropriately negative reactions to being used and abused. So, hang onto a bit of that anger so you'll remember to leave these persons alone. Otherwise, you will get burned. Again. To stick around for continual burns by these people only scars you more; it deforms you. If you want to guarantee that you'll never truly heal...then lose your anger and keep the monsters close.
Am I advocating stewing in your anger? No, not at all. Do I stew in anger? Not at all. I have used my anger constructively to make very positive changes in my life. Because I've gone no contact with the family narcissists and their accomplices I have stopped them from continuing their crimes. Without the continual assaults--fresh memories are not being made. (Fresh memories revive old ones.) No contact has allowed the past to fade from my view. My feelings are calm; I have peace. Most of the time I don't think about these people at all. I have a full and rewarding life that occupies my mental, emotional and physical energies. The exception to not thinking about my family of origin is when I blog. For the sake of others who don't know yet how to escape from the predations of family narcissists I will sit down and remember. I will relive past experiences. I will, as I write, sometimes feel anger. Is it the white hot hate and flames of rage that engulf me? Oh, no. Nothing that dramatic. Mostly I feel outrage at the injustice. I have lived most of my life not allowing myself to be outraged at the gross injustices and abuses I have endured. So I let myself feel that outrage when I remember. And because I'm not afraid of that feeling...I feel it...and it passes. In the meantime, I use that feeling constructively by trying to frame words here on my blog for others to read and hopefully be helped by.
Don't condemn yourself for your anger unless you are using your anger to justify hurting someone else. Then damn yourself all to hell. That is always wrong. But to feel anger at the predatory, evil and cruel acts of the narcissist is healthy if you use it to catalyze yourself to make smart decisions for the future. Occasionally being reminded of your anger at these things helps keep you safe. And it helps keep you smart.
Should I ever be perfectly calm when I am staring into the face of evil and injustice? Not if I give a flying fig about humanity. Because I care about others I will never completely relinquish my outrage and anger at evil.
The day I give up my passionate hatred of evil, the day I quit feeling outrage at the outrageous, is the day I quit caring about my fellow man. So be thankful when you sense my anger and outrage. It proves I give a damn.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Angry with a Narcissist? Read On...
If you've done much reading here on my blog you've perhaps noticed that I focus on the "what" not the "why" of malignant narcissism. In other words, I focus more on what they actually do than how they became the way they are.
I am decidedly uninterested in the etiology of malignant narcissism. This is not because I'm an incurious person. This is because I recognize that we can never know to any degree of true certainty all the factors that went into the birth of evil. God refers to the "mystery of iniquity" rather than explain reasons for its existence, therefore it is very unlikely that we finite and mortal beings are better than God at divining the mystery of evil. To explain why evil is is to justify it.
I know that there are those who will disagree with this assertion, but it is true nonetheless. It is impossible to explain how evil came into being without, in some substantive way, lessening it. We assume when something is explained to our satisfaction that we've taken the mystery out of the puzzle. Its not evil...its the result of abuse. Its not evil...they have messed up chemicals in their brains. Its not evil...their genetics are at fault. Any explanation of the etiology of evil must discount the power of choice, free will, and personal responsibility. Period.
You don't have read much of Sam Vaknin's fanciful ideas of what creates a narcissist to see how he relieves himself of responsibility for what he is by his explanations. Mother, society, genetics, abuse, neglect. Never is Sam Vaknin ultimately to blame for choosing to be a parasitic life form. Because he feels he can explain how he, the narcissist, came to be...he doesn't have to believe he is evil. To explain the etiology of evil will, inevitably, explain it away. Who exactly is helped by explaining away evil? Do we actually make evil go away by saying it doesn't exist? Do we change evil doers by not calling them evil? No, we only succeed in making it easier for evil doers to continue their life of crime.
The psychology establishment is a prime example of how explanations for evil have been used to do away with the entire concept that evil even exists. Pretending they have the ability to find a root cause for the problems of people's souls, they have been willing to rationalize even the most base behaviors of humanity into simple, even justifiable, reactions to their circumstances. They must paste the corruption somewhere -- so they lay it on society at large in order to give a pass to the individual in the mis-guided belief that the individual's sense of shame somehow explains why he acts out. This helps no one but the evil doer. Society then has to suffer the predation of evil individuals even while bearing the blame for the evil deeds perpetrated upon it. Society is you and me. Are you really willing to bear this kind of responsibility for the acts of another over which you have no power to stop or persuade from his evil course? I'm not.
Evil behaviors and evil outcomes can become absolutely undeniable in their most egregious manifestations. So undeniable that even the psych community is forced to sometimes admit that evil exists. Yet, even so, they will expend super human efforts to find explanations for the unspeakable. They are so adverse to the idea that human evil exists, and that it is volitional, that they can become extremely creative at finding explanations. It seems that evil in our midst stirs up very powerful emotions in us. Thus, it can cause us to reflexively try to explain it away, at least in part, so we can settle our own internal maelstrom of emotions evoked by evil deeds witnessed or received. Many, especially Christians, try to calm their internal storm by looking for explanations in order to feel pity or compassion for the evil doer. (Notice, again, how we instinctively know that to explain evil will somehow lessen it or reduce its impact on us.) We want to feel good about ourselves, so we try to lessen the culpability of the evil doer so we can settle our own angry feelings. We think that our negative feelings about the evil doer is some kind of condemnation of ourselves rather than the perp. We need to get over that.
It is our discomfort with our own feelings which often drives us to search for a place of "understanding" because we hope that by understanding we will calm the savage seas of our own emotions. For various reasons people feel guilty for having negative feelings. Especially anger. Denying your anger, or trying to subvert it by "understanding" how the malignant narcissist became what they are is not going to get you where you want to go.
Your anger is not wrong. Your anger is a sign that you recognize the crimes which have been committed against you or those you love. Your anger is actually a healthy sign! Anger is an appropriate emotion in the wake of evil or injustice. Negative feelings are not inherently sinful or wrong. Emotions happen. Don't try to escape what you're feeling by denying or pretending it isn't there. Acknowledge it. What you do with your emotions is where right and wrong come into the picture. Obviously, being angry isn't justification for abusing someone or doing wrong ourselves.
I am of the firm opinion that certain things should outrage us. Evil acts should make us angry. It is an appropriate and reasonable response to injustice and malicious acts. It is a sign that you respect yourself (or others) when you rise up in outrage at egregious behavior. Acknowledge what you feel and don't be afraid of your own strong reactions to evil. Negative feelings should serve as a sign telling you that something is seriously out of whack. That is where your fore brain is supposed to come in. Emotions are not intelligent or mature. They are signals sent from primitive places in our brains. So what to do with them? Acknowledge they are what they are. Then, you apply your reasoning ability to the situation. What is the injustice? What can you do to deal with the situation to remove the threat? Is it time to bring in the law? Is it time to remove yourself? Don't be afraid of your strong reactions. Use them to motivate you to change the circumstance. Legally and morally.
Don't get side-tracked by your negative emotions into trying to understand the incomprehensible. You will not help the narcissist by "understanding" how he became malignant. You will not help yourself either. Again, this is because we can hypothesize from here to eternity but never know how evil was born. This is worse than wasted energy. Spending your finite time and energy trying to solve what can't be solved is only going to distract you from finding solutions to present day problems.
Don't fall for what passes for "truth" by the prescribers of false righteousness. They want peace at all costs. They are willing to overlook the crimes of abusers in order to keep things looking good on the surface. They want you to screw yourself by pretending someone didn't injure you, steal from you, slander you, etc. They demand you submit to bad treatment so they don't have to deal with anything as messy as your hurt or angry feelings at having been crapped on and screwed yet again. See what I'm saying? These people who condemn your negative feelings are demanding you put up with being raped. They are demanding your silence. In fact, in a real sense, they are piling on with the narcissist. They don't want to be inconvenienced by your justifiable reactions to evil deeds done to you or yours. Do not give moral weight to the opinions of someone who is only studying their own convenience and therefore willing to subvert justice in the name of a false peace or truce with evil.
Give up your quest to find peace at the cost of honesty. Be honest with yourself about what you feel. Attempts to lessen the guilt of the guilty is an illegitimate way to cope with your negative reactions to them. Accept the truth that a decent person should be angry and outraged at perverted and evil behaviors. Evil people create themselves. They stand before God Himself with no excuses for their evil deeds. He will strip away all their excuses in the final judgment and they will be forced to bear the full guilt for their choices. We should quit trying to be better than God Himself.
I am decidedly uninterested in the etiology of malignant narcissism. This is not because I'm an incurious person. This is because I recognize that we can never know to any degree of true certainty all the factors that went into the birth of evil. God refers to the "mystery of iniquity" rather than explain reasons for its existence, therefore it is very unlikely that we finite and mortal beings are better than God at divining the mystery of evil. To explain why evil is is to justify it.
I know that there are those who will disagree with this assertion, but it is true nonetheless. It is impossible to explain how evil came into being without, in some substantive way, lessening it. We assume when something is explained to our satisfaction that we've taken the mystery out of the puzzle. Its not evil...its the result of abuse. Its not evil...they have messed up chemicals in their brains. Its not evil...their genetics are at fault. Any explanation of the etiology of evil must discount the power of choice, free will, and personal responsibility. Period.
You don't have read much of Sam Vaknin's fanciful ideas of what creates a narcissist to see how he relieves himself of responsibility for what he is by his explanations. Mother, society, genetics, abuse, neglect. Never is Sam Vaknin ultimately to blame for choosing to be a parasitic life form. Because he feels he can explain how he, the narcissist, came to be...he doesn't have to believe he is evil. To explain the etiology of evil will, inevitably, explain it away. Who exactly is helped by explaining away evil? Do we actually make evil go away by saying it doesn't exist? Do we change evil doers by not calling them evil? No, we only succeed in making it easier for evil doers to continue their life of crime.
The psychology establishment is a prime example of how explanations for evil have been used to do away with the entire concept that evil even exists. Pretending they have the ability to find a root cause for the problems of people's souls, they have been willing to rationalize even the most base behaviors of humanity into simple, even justifiable, reactions to their circumstances. They must paste the corruption somewhere -- so they lay it on society at large in order to give a pass to the individual in the mis-guided belief that the individual's sense of shame somehow explains why he acts out. This helps no one but the evil doer. Society then has to suffer the predation of evil individuals even while bearing the blame for the evil deeds perpetrated upon it. Society is you and me. Are you really willing to bear this kind of responsibility for the acts of another over which you have no power to stop or persuade from his evil course? I'm not.
Evil behaviors and evil outcomes can become absolutely undeniable in their most egregious manifestations. So undeniable that even the psych community is forced to sometimes admit that evil exists. Yet, even so, they will expend super human efforts to find explanations for the unspeakable. They are so adverse to the idea that human evil exists, and that it is volitional, that they can become extremely creative at finding explanations. It seems that evil in our midst stirs up very powerful emotions in us. Thus, it can cause us to reflexively try to explain it away, at least in part, so we can settle our own internal maelstrom of emotions evoked by evil deeds witnessed or received. Many, especially Christians, try to calm their internal storm by looking for explanations in order to feel pity or compassion for the evil doer. (Notice, again, how we instinctively know that to explain evil will somehow lessen it or reduce its impact on us.) We want to feel good about ourselves, so we try to lessen the culpability of the evil doer so we can settle our own angry feelings. We think that our negative feelings about the evil doer is some kind of condemnation of ourselves rather than the perp. We need to get over that.
It is our discomfort with our own feelings which often drives us to search for a place of "understanding" because we hope that by understanding we will calm the savage seas of our own emotions. For various reasons people feel guilty for having negative feelings. Especially anger. Denying your anger, or trying to subvert it by "understanding" how the malignant narcissist became what they are is not going to get you where you want to go.
Your anger is not wrong. Your anger is a sign that you recognize the crimes which have been committed against you or those you love. Your anger is actually a healthy sign! Anger is an appropriate emotion in the wake of evil or injustice. Negative feelings are not inherently sinful or wrong. Emotions happen. Don't try to escape what you're feeling by denying or pretending it isn't there. Acknowledge it. What you do with your emotions is where right and wrong come into the picture. Obviously, being angry isn't justification for abusing someone or doing wrong ourselves.
I am of the firm opinion that certain things should outrage us. Evil acts should make us angry. It is an appropriate and reasonable response to injustice and malicious acts. It is a sign that you respect yourself (or others) when you rise up in outrage at egregious behavior. Acknowledge what you feel and don't be afraid of your own strong reactions to evil. Negative feelings should serve as a sign telling you that something is seriously out of whack. That is where your fore brain is supposed to come in. Emotions are not intelligent or mature. They are signals sent from primitive places in our brains. So what to do with them? Acknowledge they are what they are. Then, you apply your reasoning ability to the situation. What is the injustice? What can you do to deal with the situation to remove the threat? Is it time to bring in the law? Is it time to remove yourself? Don't be afraid of your strong reactions. Use them to motivate you to change the circumstance. Legally and morally.
Don't get side-tracked by your negative emotions into trying to understand the incomprehensible. You will not help the narcissist by "understanding" how he became malignant. You will not help yourself either. Again, this is because we can hypothesize from here to eternity but never know how evil was born. This is worse than wasted energy. Spending your finite time and energy trying to solve what can't be solved is only going to distract you from finding solutions to present day problems.
Don't fall for what passes for "truth" by the prescribers of false righteousness. They want peace at all costs. They are willing to overlook the crimes of abusers in order to keep things looking good on the surface. They want you to screw yourself by pretending someone didn't injure you, steal from you, slander you, etc. They demand you submit to bad treatment so they don't have to deal with anything as messy as your hurt or angry feelings at having been crapped on and screwed yet again. See what I'm saying? These people who condemn your negative feelings are demanding you put up with being raped. They are demanding your silence. In fact, in a real sense, they are piling on with the narcissist. They don't want to be inconvenienced by your justifiable reactions to evil deeds done to you or yours. Do not give moral weight to the opinions of someone who is only studying their own convenience and therefore willing to subvert justice in the name of a false peace or truce with evil.
Give up your quest to find peace at the cost of honesty. Be honest with yourself about what you feel. Attempts to lessen the guilt of the guilty is an illegitimate way to cope with your negative reactions to them. Accept the truth that a decent person should be angry and outraged at perverted and evil behaviors. Evil people create themselves. They stand before God Himself with no excuses for their evil deeds. He will strip away all their excuses in the final judgment and they will be forced to bear the full guilt for their choices. We should quit trying to be better than God Himself.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Evil People Don't See Themselves as Evil
Probably one of the more shocking revelations I was confronted with when I started to see my mother with new eyes was how she is, in spirit, an anarchist. I didn't yet know about NPD, but I started to be able to discern the spirit of the anarchist as I began to look at her more objectively. The reason I could see her more objectively was because I was observing her words vs. actions as she dealt with my cousin and her sons.
I have come to see this spirit of anarchy is true of NPD in general as well as with sociopathy and psychopathy. More on that in a moment. The reason this revelation shocked me was that I had been raised from my earliest moments to see my mother as the embodiment of law and order. Nothing like a controlling bitch of a narcissist mother to have a long list of iron-fisted laws for you to conform to. She was an absolute authoritarian so it isn't surprising it took me decades to see the little anarchist hiding underneath her policing uniform.
According to experts like Hare and Samenow it is quite the norm that the character disordered are all for law and order. With a twist. They want law and order to keep you, me and the other guy in line. But when the character disordered want something there is no law that applies to them. They will defy, undermine and shirk the law that applies to whatever thing they want for themselves. They will even encourage others around them to disdain the offending law so they can gain support for their anarchy just so they can have their way.
This was my mother's tack with my cousin's sons. She was holding a hard, unbending line on her own list of absolute laws, but simultaneously, she was teaching them to disregard and even hate the laws of our country and even some of God's laws in order to shape their minds to justify her behaviors...those behaviors which ran counter to law and morality. None of this was done overtly. It was subtle and sneaky. She is good. She is very good. As good as the snake in the Garden of Eden.
Whether or not you've come to see it yet it is certain that the narcissist you deal with has the spirit of the anarchist. This is closely akin to the spirit of tyranny. Do not let the anarchist and tyrant define morality for you. Question everything. Re examine everything you've been taught to think by the narcissist. It is dangerous, and nonsensical, to allow a person who defies law to be the one to create and enforce any law upon your own life. Narcissists are always telling us how our behaviors are wrong, our morals misinformed, whenever those things run counter to the narcissist's agenda. In the context of dealing with a narcissist...always question authority. Theirs. Recognize that they defy law and morality when it suits them and will demand the same of you in order to force you to let them have their way. Do not let any narcissist define for you what right and wrong is. To allow someone without conscience to shape your conscience is beyond absurd.
What follows below is a blog post first printed 6.10.07. This was just before I started getting much more traffic on this site so it is likely many of you haven't read it. It goes along with my thoughts above about the spirit of anarchy that animates evil people.
If you've done much reading here you've noticed that I often label the behavior of narcissists with the word evil. I've attempted to buttress my justification for using that label in various posts by explaining what evil is. I've talked about how the name "malignant narcissist" is describing someone who acts from malignant, i.e. evil, motives.
But do evil people see themselves as evil? Do they set out to do evil? The short answer is no and no.
It is important to realize that evil people do not wake up wondering what evil deed they're going to perpetrate that day. The reality is that a malignant narcissist has a moral compass turned completely inside out. Let me show you an example by quoting a murdering dictator. I'll reveal his identity later in this post:
The "moral" code quoted above is the moral code of every malignant narcissist. This moral code completely justifies any action or motive of the narcissist. They are completely justified, righteous, in their own eyes. I think it is important to realize this fact. When you are dealing with evil you have to understand that the evil one is righteous in their own estimation. Which, of course, translates that you are the one who is evil if you oppose their will.
This upside-down reckoning of moral equations can be disorienting when you are up against it. The upside-down "moralist" is a projection machine. The ugliest aspects of his character will be painted onto you. This is designed to shut you up and force you to conform to his will. He uses it because it works. It works by cleansing him psychologically, and it works by getting you off your moral pins and more apt to concede to his insane world view. If he succeeds in making you feel dirty, you lose the ability to fight him from a moral high ground. For example: if he is a thief and a liar and you are scrupulously honest and fair, first he wipes the dirt of his character onto you by accusing you of being the thief and liar. If he builds enough of a case against you through slander and accusation, you can feel disarmed and may admit defeat. The only way to get along with a malignant narcissist is to always agree with them and always do what they demand. High price for peace.
Just because an evil person lays claim to the moral high ground doesn't make it so. You need to know he feels completely, totally and absolutely justified in whatever he does. What we call evil, he calls righteous and good. I hope by knowing this going in, you will be able to keep from being confused by his gigantic sense of moral certitude. The narcissist doesn't ever question himself. He only questions you and your motives. His actions and motives are pure as the wind-driven snow and beyond questioning. You, on the other hand, are prone to question yourself first. This means you do half the work for the narcissist by putting your own moral understanding in question before you question his. He sees the chink in your moral certitude and drives in the wedge with the deftness borne of much practice.
Always remember: the narcissist is righteous and holy in his own estimation. No, he didn't decide to be evil today. He decided to live by Mao Tse-Tung's moral code. In his world, if you oppose him or fail to show your worshipful regard, YOU are evil.
I have come to see this spirit of anarchy is true of NPD in general as well as with sociopathy and psychopathy. More on that in a moment. The reason this revelation shocked me was that I had been raised from my earliest moments to see my mother as the embodiment of law and order. Nothing like a controlling bitch of a narcissist mother to have a long list of iron-fisted laws for you to conform to. She was an absolute authoritarian so it isn't surprising it took me decades to see the little anarchist hiding underneath her policing uniform.
According to experts like Hare and Samenow it is quite the norm that the character disordered are all for law and order. With a twist. They want law and order to keep you, me and the other guy in line. But when the character disordered want something there is no law that applies to them. They will defy, undermine and shirk the law that applies to whatever thing they want for themselves. They will even encourage others around them to disdain the offending law so they can gain support for their anarchy just so they can have their way.
This was my mother's tack with my cousin's sons. She was holding a hard, unbending line on her own list of absolute laws, but simultaneously, she was teaching them to disregard and even hate the laws of our country and even some of God's laws in order to shape their minds to justify her behaviors...those behaviors which ran counter to law and morality. None of this was done overtly. It was subtle and sneaky. She is good. She is very good. As good as the snake in the Garden of Eden.
Whether or not you've come to see it yet it is certain that the narcissist you deal with has the spirit of the anarchist. This is closely akin to the spirit of tyranny. Do not let the anarchist and tyrant define morality for you. Question everything. Re examine everything you've been taught to think by the narcissist. It is dangerous, and nonsensical, to allow a person who defies law to be the one to create and enforce any law upon your own life. Narcissists are always telling us how our behaviors are wrong, our morals misinformed, whenever those things run counter to the narcissist's agenda. In the context of dealing with a narcissist...always question authority. Theirs. Recognize that they defy law and morality when it suits them and will demand the same of you in order to force you to let them have their way. Do not let any narcissist define for you what right and wrong is. To allow someone without conscience to shape your conscience is beyond absurd.
What follows below is a blog post first printed 6.10.07. This was just before I started getting much more traffic on this site so it is likely many of you haven't read it. It goes along with my thoughts above about the spirit of anarchy that animates evil people.
****************************************************
6.10.2007If you've done much reading here you've noticed that I often label the behavior of narcissists with the word evil. I've attempted to buttress my justification for using that label in various posts by explaining what evil is. I've talked about how the name "malignant narcissist" is describing someone who acts from malignant, i.e. evil, motives.
But do evil people see themselves as evil? Do they set out to do evil? The short answer is no and no.
It is important to realize that evil people do not wake up wondering what evil deed they're going to perpetrate that day. The reality is that a malignant narcissist has a moral compass turned completely inside out. Let me show you an example by quoting a murdering dictator. I'll reveal his identity later in this post:
"I do not agree with the view that to be moral, the motive of one's actions has to be benefiting others. Morality does not have to be defined in relation to others. … People like me want to … satisfy our hearts to the full, and in doing so we automatically have the most valuable moral codes. Of course there are people and objects in the world, but they are all there only for me. … People like me only have a duty to ourselves; we have no duty to other people."Notice how by pronouncement this malignant narcissist manages to completely turn upside down the real definition of morality which relies on an objective standard. The new definition, his definition, completely exonerates him from any objective moral standard. His new and subjective "moral" code stipulates 1) morality is doing what satisfies yourself. 2) all people and objects only exist to be exploited by yourself. 3) the highest moral calling is fulfilling your own desires. From this list it isn't hard to see how the malignant narcissist is an anarchist at heart. They recognize no law but that of their own making. No outside authority exists. Their highest calling is the whim and desire of their base natures. Which is one reason why a malignant narcissist in power is always a deadly force where the rule of law is the whim of the dictator. Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein, etc.
The "moral" code quoted above is the moral code of every malignant narcissist. This moral code completely justifies any action or motive of the narcissist. They are completely justified, righteous, in their own eyes. I think it is important to realize this fact. When you are dealing with evil you have to understand that the evil one is righteous in their own estimation. Which, of course, translates that you are the one who is evil if you oppose their will.
This upside-down reckoning of moral equations can be disorienting when you are up against it. The upside-down "moralist" is a projection machine. The ugliest aspects of his character will be painted onto you. This is designed to shut you up and force you to conform to his will. He uses it because it works. It works by cleansing him psychologically, and it works by getting you off your moral pins and more apt to concede to his insane world view. If he succeeds in making you feel dirty, you lose the ability to fight him from a moral high ground. For example: if he is a thief and a liar and you are scrupulously honest and fair, first he wipes the dirt of his character onto you by accusing you of being the thief and liar. If he builds enough of a case against you through slander and accusation, you can feel disarmed and may admit defeat. The only way to get along with a malignant narcissist is to always agree with them and always do what they demand. High price for peace.
Just because an evil person lays claim to the moral high ground doesn't make it so. You need to know he feels completely, totally and absolutely justified in whatever he does. What we call evil, he calls righteous and good. I hope by knowing this going in, you will be able to keep from being confused by his gigantic sense of moral certitude. The narcissist doesn't ever question himself. He only questions you and your motives. His actions and motives are pure as the wind-driven snow and beyond questioning. You, on the other hand, are prone to question yourself first. This means you do half the work for the narcissist by putting your own moral understanding in question before you question his. He sees the chink in your moral certitude and drives in the wedge with the deftness borne of much practice.
Always remember: the narcissist is righteous and holy in his own estimation. No, he didn't decide to be evil today. He decided to live by Mao Tse-Tung's moral code. In his world, if you oppose him or fail to show your worshipful regard, YOU are evil.
Thursday, February 07, 2008
It is Easy to Be a Narcissist
Because I have long been a student of human nature I have recognized the reality that we are all born very bent toward selfishness. My Christian belief system also informs this view. The Bible is clear that we are all born bent inward, toward self. Understanding that we are all born selfish has motivated me to study how to not be like the malignant narcissists.
Why have I studied how not to be narcissistic? Because we all come standard equipped to be narcissistic, therefore, it is easy to be a narcissist. The basic equipment we are born with is bent toward narcissism, not toward sainthood. The path to being good is rocky, uphill, hard, and often lonely. Why do people admire saints? Because it was easy? Quite the opposite, we know it was hard.
Maybe you haven't come to my conclusions about the nature of human kind, so let's look at it from another angle.
Think about how people in general talk about good behaviors vs. vices. We don't talk about how we are "tempted" to do good. No, we talk about temptations to do vice, to do wrong. If our nature was naturally bent toward being good then we would be enticed and attracted and, dare I say, tempted to deeds of goodness and virtue. When virtue and vice are standing before us we would find ourselves drawn out after virtue if we were naturally bent toward being good. But, no, our language never goes in that direction. We talk about the pull, the attraction, the desire for vice. We talk about doing good as being "character building", which we all know immediately means it is at least a little painful to our natures to be consistently good.
Then there is the reality of young children. Anyone who is honest with what they see in their young ones is acutely aware that children are born barbarians. We have to teach them to be civilized. For example: we know that we don't have to teach little, bitty kids how to lie; we have to teach them not to lie. The ability and desire to lie comes standard equipment on all kids. I love the Mark Twain quote about the second lie he ever told:
I have made the observation on my blog that the evil course is the easy course. It is the path of least resistance to study the easiest course and to only do what comes easy. I have tried to make the point that what comes easy for humanity is vice. The reality is that most of the time the easy path is the path to evil outcomes. Regardless of our motivation when we set out...if we only study our own comfort we will likely end up hurting others and destroying our own happiness if not our own souls.
My corollary to the path to evil is found by taking the easy course is:
Becoming and being a narcissist is a slide on ice.
It is a cinch. It is the most gutless choice you can make. It is the easy, downhill course. It is simply doing what comes naturally. If our human nature is naturally ungood, then following our natural inclinations is going to end up on the road to hell. It requires no courage, no guts, to become a narcissist.
Therefore, I hold out no respect and very little compassion for those dedicated to getting their own way all the time, i.e. narcissists. They expend all their compassion on themselves, and themselves only, therefore I feel no need to waste mine on them. I will save compassion for those who are resisting evil, not caving into it. Respect? I have none for the narcissist. What have they accomplished? Why should we admire (the basis of respect) someone who consistently picks out the easiest course? Do we admire heroes because they did something easy? Hardly. We all instinctively know that the heroic requires rising above self-interest and making a monumental effort on someone else's behalf. There is nothing easy about being a hero because it goes against self-interest. We all know in our hearts that going against our own self-interests is what is hard. When does the narcissist go against their self-interests? We can safely assert the answer is never. They are the living anti-thesis of heroism.
Too often, people to look for complicated reasons for why the malignant narcissist has turned predatory and heartless. They seem to do this exercise out of some need to feel compassion for the narcissist's excuse less behaviors. For some reason we seem willing to take on, as a society, the blame for those who have done nothing more than refuse to buck their bent nature. For the most part, it is the pointy-headed "intellectuals" who have come up with this self-flagellating reasoning in order to avoid recognizing that some among us actually choose to become evil. Why is it so repugnant to the modern mind that some people are evil...and they choose to be that way? I think it is because to admit to human evil is to land us right back into the bailiwick of religion. Discussions on the nature of man and the remedies for maladies of the soul are the areas that religion is meant to deal with. Science is ill equipped for dealing with dis-eases of the souls of humanity. A hundred years of psychotherapy have not alleviated the mental and emotional ills of the masses. If anything, the argument can be made that mankind is worse, not better, for the intervention of the priests of psychology.
Hardships do not a narcissist make. Hardships that are overcome and endured make us into better people if we consistently make choices against our naturally selfish inclinations. Nothing like hardship to test our resolve to do good when shit is going down all around us. Too often we assume that the hardship of a bad early childhood explains the creation of the narcissist. This is not true. Far too many people have come out of very difficult childhoods to become decent, loving and largely other-centered rather than self-centered for these circumstances to excuse or explain the narcissist. Hardships test us. They bring out the truth of who we really are. It is not days of ease and prosperity which prove our mettle. How you act and react under pressure is the true measure of your character. Any hardships the narcissist has experienced have revealed their character, not determined it.
Let us be honest with reality. The reality is that the narcissist has consistently and persistently chosen the easiest route. The route that did not go against their nature. They simply followed the stream of human selfishness. If we want to insure that we are different than the narcissist, we must choose to swim upstream against our naturally selfish inclinations. It is never easy to swim against the tide especially if there are rip tides and undercurrents (genetics, for example). But this is why we admire truly good people; we recognize that it is not by accident or ease that a good person became good.
Narcissism -- the course of the coward, the gutless, the morally lazy, the supremely selfish.
Why have I studied how not to be narcissistic? Because we all come standard equipped to be narcissistic, therefore, it is easy to be a narcissist. The basic equipment we are born with is bent toward narcissism, not toward sainthood. The path to being good is rocky, uphill, hard, and often lonely. Why do people admire saints? Because it was easy? Quite the opposite, we know it was hard.
Maybe you haven't come to my conclusions about the nature of human kind, so let's look at it from another angle.
Think about how people in general talk about good behaviors vs. vices. We don't talk about how we are "tempted" to do good. No, we talk about temptations to do vice, to do wrong. If our nature was naturally bent toward being good then we would be enticed and attracted and, dare I say, tempted to deeds of goodness and virtue. When virtue and vice are standing before us we would find ourselves drawn out after virtue if we were naturally bent toward being good. But, no, our language never goes in that direction. We talk about the pull, the attraction, the desire for vice. We talk about doing good as being "character building", which we all know immediately means it is at least a little painful to our natures to be consistently good.
Then there is the reality of young children. Anyone who is honest with what they see in their young ones is acutely aware that children are born barbarians. We have to teach them to be civilized. For example: we know that we don't have to teach little, bitty kids how to lie; we have to teach them not to lie. The ability and desire to lie comes standard equipment on all kids. I love the Mark Twain quote about the second lie he ever told:
I do not remember my first lie, it is too far back; but I remember my second one very well. I was nine days old at the time, and had noticed that if a pin was sticking in me and I advertised it in the usual fashion, I was lovingly petted and coddled and pitied in a most agreeable way and got a ration between meals besides. It was human nature to want to get these riches, and I fell. I lied about the pin–advertising one when there wasn’t any. You would have done it; George Washington did it, anybody would have done it. During the first half of my life I never knew a child that was able to rise above that temptation and keep from telling that lie.In other words, Twain recognized a simple and easily observable truth. We are born liars. He also recognized another truth: We come out of the womb wanting what we want when we want it. Self control, self denial, truth-telling even when scared or caught, delay of self gratification, all are qualities that have to be instilled; they do not come standard equipment for the human race. The thread of civilization is as thin as the current generation's parenting ability. If today's parents are not doing the hard work of civilizing their little barbarians, the break down of civilization follows hard on the heels of this failure. We are not born naturally good. So the struggle and the achievement we have to work toward, to strive after, is that of not following the clamors of our baser selves and making the serious effort it takes to be consistently good. This higher calling is the calling the malignant narcissist rejects at a very early age. If we would be different than they, we have to do the hard work. One of the consistent hallmarks of narcissists is that they lie. They lie often and well. They are also energetic at getting their own way all the time and in their own time. How is this not like the uncivilized baby? Arrested development is the most apt descriptor of the narcissist. What is easier? Remaining a baby, or growing up? The answer is obvious.
I have made the observation on my blog that the evil course is the easy course. It is the path of least resistance to study the easiest course and to only do what comes easy. I have tried to make the point that what comes easy for humanity is vice. The reality is that most of the time the easy path is the path to evil outcomes. Regardless of our motivation when we set out...if we only study our own comfort we will likely end up hurting others and destroying our own happiness if not our own souls.
My corollary to the path to evil is found by taking the easy course is:
Becoming and being a narcissist is a slide on ice.
It is a cinch. It is the most gutless choice you can make. It is the easy, downhill course. It is simply doing what comes naturally. If our human nature is naturally ungood, then following our natural inclinations is going to end up on the road to hell. It requires no courage, no guts, to become a narcissist.
Therefore, I hold out no respect and very little compassion for those dedicated to getting their own way all the time, i.e. narcissists. They expend all their compassion on themselves, and themselves only, therefore I feel no need to waste mine on them. I will save compassion for those who are resisting evil, not caving into it. Respect? I have none for the narcissist. What have they accomplished? Why should we admire (the basis of respect) someone who consistently picks out the easiest course? Do we admire heroes because they did something easy? Hardly. We all instinctively know that the heroic requires rising above self-interest and making a monumental effort on someone else's behalf. There is nothing easy about being a hero because it goes against self-interest. We all know in our hearts that going against our own self-interests is what is hard. When does the narcissist go against their self-interests? We can safely assert the answer is never. They are the living anti-thesis of heroism.
Too often, people to look for complicated reasons for why the malignant narcissist has turned predatory and heartless. They seem to do this exercise out of some need to feel compassion for the narcissist's excuse less behaviors. For some reason we seem willing to take on, as a society, the blame for those who have done nothing more than refuse to buck their bent nature. For the most part, it is the pointy-headed "intellectuals" who have come up with this self-flagellating reasoning in order to avoid recognizing that some among us actually choose to become evil. Why is it so repugnant to the modern mind that some people are evil...and they choose to be that way? I think it is because to admit to human evil is to land us right back into the bailiwick of religion. Discussions on the nature of man and the remedies for maladies of the soul are the areas that religion is meant to deal with. Science is ill equipped for dealing with dis-eases of the souls of humanity. A hundred years of psychotherapy have not alleviated the mental and emotional ills of the masses. If anything, the argument can be made that mankind is worse, not better, for the intervention of the priests of psychology.
Hardships do not a narcissist make. Hardships that are overcome and endured make us into better people if we consistently make choices against our naturally selfish inclinations. Nothing like hardship to test our resolve to do good when shit is going down all around us. Too often we assume that the hardship of a bad early childhood explains the creation of the narcissist. This is not true. Far too many people have come out of very difficult childhoods to become decent, loving and largely other-centered rather than self-centered for these circumstances to excuse or explain the narcissist. Hardships test us. They bring out the truth of who we really are. It is not days of ease and prosperity which prove our mettle. How you act and react under pressure is the true measure of your character. Any hardships the narcissist has experienced have revealed their character, not determined it.
Let us be honest with reality. The reality is that the narcissist has consistently and persistently chosen the easiest route. The route that did not go against their nature. They simply followed the stream of human selfishness. If we want to insure that we are different than the narcissist, we must choose to swim upstream against our naturally selfish inclinations. It is never easy to swim against the tide especially if there are rip tides and undercurrents (genetics, for example). But this is why we admire truly good people; we recognize that it is not by accident or ease that a good person became good.
Narcissism -- the course of the coward, the gutless, the morally lazy, the supremely selfish.
Friday, October 26, 2007
Dancing with the Devil
Yesterday morning I decided to thumb through M. Scott Peck, M.D,'s book, "People of the Lie". It has been more than a couple years since I read his book. A recent comment in an email from one of the readers of my blog made me think it was time for me to refresh my memory on what Peck covers in his book. My eye quickly lighted upon Peck's assertion that adults do not accidentally end up in close relationships with evil people. He uses the term "willing thralldom" and contrasts it with the plight of children who, through no choice of their own, are enslaved to evil parents.
Peck relates his experience with a very disturbed (and disturbing) couple -- Sarah and Hartley. In the context of this story he states:
The bargain was to settle into a type of slavery because his moral laziness and dependency was a larger part of his character than not.
Once we are adults we are no longer helpless as we were as children. This is true for adults: to the extent you've compromised with evil; to the extent you've entered into a truce with evil -- that that extent you yourself are evil. Some part of you is comfortable and "at home" with the evil you've accepted, excused or compromised with.
Contrary to popular theory on relationships that "opposites attract", the reality is "like attracts like". The saying "water seeks its own level" is a recognition of this observable truth. The attraction is not due to a perfect outward likeness that is visually evident and obvious. It is an attraction based on symbiosis. In some way there is a fit. There is a relationship between two (or more) people which is mutually beneficial, or perceived on some level by them as being mutually beneficial.
It is not always possible for someone outside a relationship to know how the two parties are mutually benefiting from the relationship. Outwardly we may conclude we are seeing two opposites. We have to avoid this kind of simplistic acceptance of outward appearances when we observe a relationship between adults who have chosen to be together and who hang together tenaciously. One person may appear to be evil and the other "in thralldom" to the partner's evil. We must accept the reality they are both evil though likely not equally so.
If you, as an adult, try to make yourself believe you must remain in a relationship with someone you know is evil you must ask yourself the question: in what way have I made a deal with the devil? In what way have I compromised my integrity and taken the easy route morally so that I can co-exist with evil? No adult stays "in thralldom" to evil except by a choice of the will. You can wiggle, argue and poo-poo this statement, but it still remains true.
It is observable all throughout human society: we gravitate toward those who are like us. There is a natural tendency for people to associate based on ethnicity, religion, race, educational level, families, etc. Why can we not see that humanity chooses to associate with those who are morally similar?
We see this played out all the time with teenagers. Teens are old enough to figure out a way to do what they want to do. You can guide, shape and shelter your children, but when they reach a certain age they will choose their peers based on their hidden inner life. A kid can look like he is outwardly conforming to expectations, but the real test of the teen character is what associations he chooses because teens have reached an age where they are largely responsible for their choices in friendships. Many parents will refuse to believe that Johnny has fallen in with a "bad crowd" because he chose to. They assume that Johnny was a good boy right up until he was somehow corrupted by some bad kids. The truth is that Johnny felt a resonance with the "bad crowd". Some part of him was attracted to their badness. You have not been privy to Johnny's inner landscape. His private thoughts and fantasies. His desires only heretofore checked by lack of opportunity.
Not all teens pick evil associations. We see many teens choosing good friends. Friends who take their education seriously, who obey their parents, who submit to the rules of parents and school, who choose not to have sex. Just as it is no accident that Johnny picked the bad crowd, the teens who pick good friends did not do so accidentally. They deserve credit for the good choices just as Johnny deserves blame for picking bad friends.
You need to correctly analyze the relationships you are in and the relationships you see around you as it relates to the narcissist. You need to recognize that adults choose their associations. They remain in close association with evil when they themselves have compromised themselves morally. When we let life just carry us along and pretend that we are in a bad relationship because of some vagary of fate we have a sign that we've taken the lazy course. Moral laziness is the path to destruction.
It can be argued that the greatest failing of the evil is their absolute refusal to recognize their own evil. We may be basically decent people with grave moral failings which could be classified as evil because they have damaged ourselves and others. But we distinguish ourselves from the character disordered and evil personalities by being willing to introspect and identify our moral failings, acknowledge those moral failings, make restitution for our bad acts and to turn resolutely from our bad ways. Truly evil people will never allow themselves to see themselves as evil. They will scapegoat all their evil onto someone else to falsely maintain a sense of purity and perfection. When we refuse to scapegoat our bad acts onto someone or something outside ourselves; when we are willing to acknowledge to ourselves that we've compromised with evil; when we resolutely turn from doing the evil we've practiced in the past-- then we can clearly differentiate ourselves from those who are evil.
Don't make excuses for yourself or for others for staying in close relationship with evil people. Recognize the dynamic of symbiosis that is occurring. Unless an adult is physically being held hostage, that adult has a choice as to whether or not to stay in association with an evil character. Knowing this to be true, do not attempt to "rescue" someone who is dancing in lock-step with a narcissist. They must be avoided along with the narcissist because they are morally compromised. Whether due to laziness, psychological dependence, greed, shared power...adults stay in relationship with evil people because they choose to. They feel they have something to gain by the association. Acknowledge to yourself this reality and live accordingly.
Just because someone else has chosen to dance with the devil it doesn't justify you doing the same. Take responsibility for the choices that keep you locked in a tango with evil people. You have no one to blame but yourself if after realizing you're dancing with evil you choose to remain where you are. Once you are willing to own the fact that your own choices have put you where you are, you are much more likely to start making different choices. Remember:
Peck relates his experience with a very disturbed (and disturbing) couple -- Sarah and Hartley. In the context of this story he states:
"We do not become partners to evil by accident. As adults we are not forced by fate to become trapped by an evil power, we set the trap ourselves." pg. 118Referring to Hartley:
"Theoretically he could have just walked away from Sarah. But he had bound himself to her by chains of laziness and dependency, and though titularly an adult, he had settled for the child's impotence. Whenever adults not at gunpoint become victims of evil it is because they have--one way or another--make Hartley's bargain." pg. 119-120
The bargain was to settle into a type of slavery because his moral laziness and dependency was a larger part of his character than not.
"He entered into a submissive relationship with evil precisely because he was partially evil himself." (footnote pg. 118)I'm using Peck to reiterate my previous theme: moral laziness puts us on the path to evil. You can not walk on the evil path without becoming, at least in part, evil yourself.
Once we are adults we are no longer helpless as we were as children. This is true for adults: to the extent you've compromised with evil; to the extent you've entered into a truce with evil -- that that extent you yourself are evil. Some part of you is comfortable and "at home" with the evil you've accepted, excused or compromised with.
Contrary to popular theory on relationships that "opposites attract", the reality is "like attracts like". The saying "water seeks its own level" is a recognition of this observable truth. The attraction is not due to a perfect outward likeness that is visually evident and obvious. It is an attraction based on symbiosis. In some way there is a fit. There is a relationship between two (or more) people which is mutually beneficial, or perceived on some level by them as being mutually beneficial.
It is not always possible for someone outside a relationship to know how the two parties are mutually benefiting from the relationship. Outwardly we may conclude we are seeing two opposites. We have to avoid this kind of simplistic acceptance of outward appearances when we observe a relationship between adults who have chosen to be together and who hang together tenaciously. One person may appear to be evil and the other "in thralldom" to the partner's evil. We must accept the reality they are both evil though likely not equally so.
If you, as an adult, try to make yourself believe you must remain in a relationship with someone you know is evil you must ask yourself the question: in what way have I made a deal with the devil? In what way have I compromised my integrity and taken the easy route morally so that I can co-exist with evil? No adult stays "in thralldom" to evil except by a choice of the will. You can wiggle, argue and poo-poo this statement, but it still remains true.
It is observable all throughout human society: we gravitate toward those who are like us. There is a natural tendency for people to associate based on ethnicity, religion, race, educational level, families, etc. Why can we not see that humanity chooses to associate with those who are morally similar?
We see this played out all the time with teenagers. Teens are old enough to figure out a way to do what they want to do. You can guide, shape and shelter your children, but when they reach a certain age they will choose their peers based on their hidden inner life. A kid can look like he is outwardly conforming to expectations, but the real test of the teen character is what associations he chooses because teens have reached an age where they are largely responsible for their choices in friendships. Many parents will refuse to believe that Johnny has fallen in with a "bad crowd" because he chose to. They assume that Johnny was a good boy right up until he was somehow corrupted by some bad kids. The truth is that Johnny felt a resonance with the "bad crowd". Some part of him was attracted to their badness. You have not been privy to Johnny's inner landscape. His private thoughts and fantasies. His desires only heretofore checked by lack of opportunity.
Not all teens pick evil associations. We see many teens choosing good friends. Friends who take their education seriously, who obey their parents, who submit to the rules of parents and school, who choose not to have sex. Just as it is no accident that Johnny picked the bad crowd, the teens who pick good friends did not do so accidentally. They deserve credit for the good choices just as Johnny deserves blame for picking bad friends.
You need to correctly analyze the relationships you are in and the relationships you see around you as it relates to the narcissist. You need to recognize that adults choose their associations. They remain in close association with evil when they themselves have compromised themselves morally. When we let life just carry us along and pretend that we are in a bad relationship because of some vagary of fate we have a sign that we've taken the lazy course. Moral laziness is the path to destruction.
It can be argued that the greatest failing of the evil is their absolute refusal to recognize their own evil. We may be basically decent people with grave moral failings which could be classified as evil because they have damaged ourselves and others. But we distinguish ourselves from the character disordered and evil personalities by being willing to introspect and identify our moral failings, acknowledge those moral failings, make restitution for our bad acts and to turn resolutely from our bad ways. Truly evil people will never allow themselves to see themselves as evil. They will scapegoat all their evil onto someone else to falsely maintain a sense of purity and perfection. When we refuse to scapegoat our bad acts onto someone or something outside ourselves; when we are willing to acknowledge to ourselves that we've compromised with evil; when we resolutely turn from doing the evil we've practiced in the past-- then we can clearly differentiate ourselves from those who are evil.
Don't make excuses for yourself or for others for staying in close relationship with evil people. Recognize the dynamic of symbiosis that is occurring. Unless an adult is physically being held hostage, that adult has a choice as to whether or not to stay in association with an evil character. Knowing this to be true, do not attempt to "rescue" someone who is dancing in lock-step with a narcissist. They must be avoided along with the narcissist because they are morally compromised. Whether due to laziness, psychological dependence, greed, shared power...adults stay in relationship with evil people because they choose to. They feel they have something to gain by the association. Acknowledge to yourself this reality and live accordingly.
Just because someone else has chosen to dance with the devil it doesn't justify you doing the same. Take responsibility for the choices that keep you locked in a tango with evil people. You have no one to blame but yourself if after realizing you're dancing with evil you choose to remain where you are. Once you are willing to own the fact that your own choices have put you where you are, you are much more likely to start making different choices. Remember:
"As adults we are not forced by fate to become trapped by an evil power, we set the trap ourselves..."
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