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Narcissism

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Jethro Bodine said:
I've been kicking around starting a thread about this for a while now. I figured nobody would be interested and that's why I didn't every time I got serious about it.

I thought a lack of interest might come from people not being able to get a true grasp on what the narcissist looks like. I hope to add some insights that will help even more for others to discern who the narcissist is among us. They aren't just the Donald Trumps of media fame and fortune.
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I think it is important for a person to get a grasp in what a Narcissitic looks like.
 
Christ_empowered said:
I've been diagnosed w/ narcissism...as a teenager and again in my early 20s. I apparently don't have full-fledged NPD at this point. Some people can have NPD and not have it later, some people mellow out over time, and some people have "healings" of some sort. The overall picture for NPD is more nuanced and complicated than a lot of experts these days would lead us to believe.
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Do the symptoms in the OP resonate with you then?
 
I don't know how much I like all the attention being paid to NPD now. Its like...NPD, run away! Secular mental health doesn't hold out a whole lot of hope for anybody with severe problems, be it psychotic disorders or personality disorders. Unfortunate and ridiculous, considering how much money is pumped into mental health on a regular basis.

Anyway...speaking as an NPD-er, possibly a former NPD-er (I may have "narcissistic traits" that remain, but...those aren't severe and are amenable to therapy), stigma and punitive "treatment" don't help. At all. My NPD was so bad at one point that I was given heavy involuntary ECT age 23 despite having a head wound. NPD people "bring out the demon" in others. :-( sad times.

So...its like this...part of what makes NPD "incurable" is secular mental health people saying its "incurable" and denying NPD-ers any empathy, especially when we/they mess up and make bad decisions, personal sin, mistakes, etc. What's interesting is that the older literature indicates hope for narcissism (and homosexuality, believe it or not) through...get ready for this...compassion, empaty, boundary setting, etc. These days, people pop antidepressants and go to cognitive behavioral therapy, so NPD is viewed as intractable. Its ridiculous.
 
for Jesse...

...not anymore. Long story...I've had psychotic "issues" of some persuasion since childhood (not all psychotic disorders can be neatly categorized; hence "Psychotic disorder NOS"). I had everything that goes with psychotic disorders...gender problems, drug problems, adjustment issues. I also was prideful and filled with self-love from an early age.

Becoming a Christian, over time, changed things. I'm not terribly arrogant. I can check my self-love, thanks to lots of prayer (from me and others and also this forum, believe it or not). I don't need admiration, but I do like positive feed back. I no longer crave being "special," largely because of what the literature would call "corrective life experiences" at a young age. I'm not terribly exploitative. I mean, I like it when people do things for me, but I don't really expect a whole lot out of people. I am too aloof, but that could be any number of things (did I mention the psychotic disorder?).

So...my story is complicated. Loads of punitive psychiatric "treatment" (involuntary ECT, for instance) and worthless "therapy" from counselors who just wanted money and to pencil whip me. Loads of love from Christ and compassion from some Christians, particularly Christian women. Change in family dynamics (I'm closer to my dad and my mother and I are relatively distant...long story behind all that...). Application of Christian morality (trying to be celibate, "do unto others...", etc.).
 
Rollo Tamasi said:
Then what shall we do?
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Well, you're a Christian, so you're way ahead of the game.

For starters, give this link to your wife: http://www.narcissismcured.com/

The key to changing a narcissist is to create an environment that makes it difficult for them to be that. Since you're a Christian God is already doing that, or will be. Now we need to get your wife on board to do that, too. You have to speak their language, which is THEM, not anyone else. The pain has to be theirs. They will not respond to other's pain.

IMO, the enablement of others is probably the biggest block to making the narcissist see and change the fault of his own thinking and behavior. As long as there is no impetus to change it will be far easier for them to continue in the destruction (to others) of their self absorbed thinking and behavior. The woman in the link above gives some guidance on how to make the narcissist pain for their own narcissistic behavior.
 
Christ_empowered said:
Secular mental health doesn't hold out a whole lot of hope for anybody with severe problems, be it psychotic disorders or personality disorders. Unfortunate and ridiculous, considering how much money is pumped into mental health on a regular basis.
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Fundamentally, I agree with this. Generally speaking, there is no worldly cure for the classic narcissist. Despite this fact, I think there are a couple of reasons why the psychiatric community has basically written off the 'disease' (if I read correctly somewhere, it's been removed from the DSM-the 'Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders'):
  • Pretty much everybody suffers from the 'disease' to some extent or another (which, as a Christian, I agree with). It's just a fact of being human.
  • The traits of narcissism are actually esteemed in our society, and are only despised by the people directly injured by them. Narcissists get what they want. We exalt and worship the person who rises to the top, no matter what they did to get there. But don't be deceived. Not every narcissist is marked by their financial and media successes. In day to day life it can be as simple as the narcissist getting their way in a personal relationship.

Christ_empowered said:
So...its like this...part of what makes NPD "incurable" is secular mental health people saying its "incurable" and denying NPD-ers any empathy, especially when we/they mess up and make bad decisions, personal sin, mistakes, etc.
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The irony of narcissism is that if they are capable of any empathy it is toward another narcissist. Being empathetic to a narcissist is dangerous. It actually validates and enforces their narcissistic thinking. They have to feel the pain that is inflicted upon them as a result of being narcissistic. But the rest of us want to rescue them from that pain, as if that's going to somehow speak to them. Generally speaking, it does not. It only validates and enforces their narcissistic thinking and behavior. Empathy only has a place after they have suffered sufficiently to begin to see the light on how wrong their ways are.


Christ_empowered said:
What's interesting is that the older literature indicates hope for narcissism (and homosexuality, believe it or not) through...get ready for this...compassion, empaty, boundary setting, etc.
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Narcissism is primarily a spiritual problem. That's why the secular community only knows how to put band-aids on it. And they realize that they simply don't have a band-aid that sticks for very long and have to keep replacing it.

I'll agree with boundary setting as a primary agent through which narcissism is healed. That's how you make the narc feel the pain of his destructive and hurtful ways. And as I say, empathy and compassion as a healing agent is only effective AFTER they have begun to come to their senses after a good painful bout of not being able to get their way. The difficult thing about that is it seems to take a LOT of abuse for them to start to wake up. They are the classic 'cut your own nose off to spite your face' people. Lost jobs, destroyed relationships, etc. etc. etc. because of their narcissistic ways simply do not impact them very much.
 
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Social media can be a great thing, but I think it encourages narcissism to some degree. Facebook accounts, tumblr blogs, twitter, etc are all about me me me, this is what I think, blah blah blah. (But hey, I still have all three. =P) It doesn't have to be that way, and I'd argue that social media has a lot of pro's, too. But I find it dismaying to see how often my social media becomes about me, and encourages me to have less of an interest in others...rather than more. That's something I'm always having to fight.

Well, not really relating to narcissism as a mental illness, but yeah.
 
questdriven said:
Social media can be a great thing, but I think it encourages narcissism to some degree. Facebook accounts, tumblr blogs, twitter, etc are all about me me me, this is what I think, blah blah blah. (But hey, I still have all three. =P) It doesn't have to be that way, and I'd argue that social media has a lot of pro's, too. But I find it dismaying to see how often my social media becomes about me, and encourages me to have less of an interest in others...rather than more. That's something I'm always having to fight.

Well, not really relating to narcissism as a mental illness, but yeah.
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No, it's very related. Facebook, Twitter, etc. is a narcissist's dream come true.
 
There's apparently a term from the '90s called "cocooning", relating to technology and how we use it isolating us more and more. Or something like that. I'd say we've reached that. Though, I do enjoy talking with people online. A few months ago I met someone from Italy, near where my family used to live when my mom was in the Navy.
 
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