Malignant Self Love, Samuel Vaknin [reading tree txt] 📗

this predicament. The

narcissist is perceived by the partner to be a person in the position

to demand these sacrifices from her partner, being superior in many

ways (intellectually, emotionally, morally, financially).

 

The status of professional victim sits well with the partner’s tendency

to punish herself, namely: with her masochistic streak. The tormented

life with the narcissist is, as far as the partner is aware, a just

punitive measure.

 

In this respect, the partner is the mirror image of the narcissist. By

maintaining a symbiotic relationship with him, by being totally

dependent upon the source of masochistic supply (which the narcissist

most reliably constitutes and most amply provides) - the partner

enhances certain traits and encourages certain behaviours, which are at

the very core of narcissism.

 

The narcissist is never whole without an adoring, submissive,

available, self-denigrating partner. His very sense of superiority,

indeed his False Self, depends on it. His sadistic Superego switches

its attentions from the narcissist (in whom it often provokes suicidal

ideation) to the partner, thus finally obtaining an alternative source

of sadistic satisfaction.

 

It is through self-denial that the partner survives. She denies her

wishes, hopes, dreams, aspirations, sexual, psychological and material

needs, and much else besides. She perceives her needs as threatening

because they might engender the wrath of the narcissist’s God-like

supreme figure. The narcissist is rendered in her eyes even more

superior through and because of this self-denial. Self-denial

undertaken to facilitate and ease the life of a “great man” is more

palatable. The “greater” the man (=the narcissist), the easier it is

for the partner to ignore her own self, to dwindle, to degenerate, to

turn into an appendix of the narcissist and, finally, to become nothing

but an extension, to merge with the narcissist to the point of oblivion

and of dim memories of one’s self.

 

The two collaborate in this macabre dance. The narcissist is formed by

his partner inasmuch as he forms her. Submission breeds superiority and

masochism breeds sadism. The relationships are characterised by rampant

emergentism: roles are allocated almost from the start and any

deviation meets with an aggressive, even violent reaction.

 

The predominant state of the partner’s mind is utter confusion. Even

the most basic relationships - with husband, children, or parents -

remain bafflingly obscured by the giant shadow cast by the intensive

interaction with the narcissist.

 

A suspension of judgement is part and parcel of a suspension of

individuality, which is both a prerequisite to and the result of living

with a narcissist. The partner no longer knows what is true and right

and what is wrong and forbidden.

 

The narcissist recreates for the partner the sort of emotional ambience

that led to his own formation in the first place: capriciousness,

fickleness, arbitrariness, emotional (and physical or sexual)

abandonment. The world becomes uncertain and frightening and the

partner has only one thing to cling to: the narcissist.

 

And cling she does. If there is anything which can safely be said about

those who emotionally team up with narcissists, it is that they are

overtly and overly dependent.

 

The partner doesn’t know what to do - and this is only too natural in

the mayhem that is the relationship with the narcissist. But the

typical partner also does not know what she wants and, to a large

extent, who she is and what she wants to become.

 

These unanswered questions hamper the partner’s ability to gauge

reality, evaluate and appraise it for what it is. Her primordial sin is

that she fell in love with an image, not with a real person. It is the

voiding of the image that is mourned when the relationship ends.

 

The break-up of a relationship with a narcissist is, therefore, very

emotionally charged. It is the culmination of a long chain of

humiliations and of subjugation. It is the rebellion of the functioning

and healthy parts of the partner’s personality against the tyranny of

the narcissist.

 

The partner is liable to have totally misread and misinterpreted the

whole interaction (I hesitate to call it a relationship). This lack of

proper interface with reality might be (erroneously) labelled

“pathological”.

 

Why is it that the partner seeks to prolong her pain? What is the

source and purpose of this masochistic streak? Upon the break-up of the

relationship, the partner (and the narcissist) engage in a tortuous and

drawn out post mortem. But the question who really did what to whom

(and even why) is irrelevant. What is relevant is to stop mourning

oneself (this is what the parties are really mourning), start smiling

again and love in a less subservient, hopeless, and pain-inflicting

manner.

 

The Abuse

 

Abuse is an integral, inseparable part of the Narcissistic Personality

Disorder.

 

The narcissist idealises and then DEVALUES and discards the object of

his initial idealisation. This abrupt, heartless devaluation IS abuse.

ALL narcissists idealise and then devalue. This is THE core of

narcissistic behaviour. The narcissist exploits, lies, insults,

demeans, ignores (the “silent treatment”), manipulates, controls. All

these are forms of abuse.

 

There are a million ways to abuse. To love too much is to abuse. It is

tantamount to treating someone as one’s extension, an object, or an

instrument of gratification. To be over-protective, not to respect

privacy, to be brutally honest, with a morbid sense of humour, or

consistently tactless - is to abuse. To expect too much, to denigrate,

to ignore - are all modes of abuse. There is physical abuse, verbal

abuse, psychological abuse, sexual abuse. The list is long.

 

Narcissists are masters of abusing surreptitiously. They are “stealth

abusers”. You have to actually live with one in order to witness the

abuse.

 

There are three important categories of abuse:

 

1. Overt Abuse - The open and explicit abuse of another person.

Threatening, coercing, beating, lying, berating, demeaning, chastising,

insulting, humiliating, exploiting, ignoring (“silent treatment”),

devaluing, unceremoniously discarding, verbal abuse, physical abuse and

sexual abuse are all forms of overt abuse.

 

2. Covert or Controlling Abuse - Narcissism is almost entirely

about control. It is a primitive and immature reaction to the

circumstances of a llife in which the narcissist (usually in his

childhood) was rendered helpless. It is about re-asserting one’s

identity, re-establishing predictability, mastering the environment -

human and physical.

 

3. The bulk of narcissistic behaviours can be traced to this

panicky reaction to the remote potential for loss of control.

Narcissists are hypochondriacs (and difficult patients) because they

are afraid to lose control over their body, its looks and its proper

functioning. They are obsessive-compulsive in their efforts to subdue

their physical habitat and render it foreseeable. They stalk people and

harass them as a means of “being in touch” - another form of

narcissistic control.

 

But why the panic?

 

The narcissist is a solipsist. To him, nothing exists except himself.

Meaningful others are his extensions, assimilated by him, internal

objects - not external ones. Thus, losing control of a significant

other - is equivalent losing the use of a limb, or of one’s brain. It

is terrifying.

 

Independent or disobedient people evoke in the narcissist the

realisation that something is wrong with his worldview, that he is not

the centre of the world or its cause and that he cannot control what,

to him, are internal representations.

 

To the narcissist, losing control means going insane. Because other

people are mere elements in the narcissist’s mind - being unable to

manipulate them literally means losing it (his mind). Imagine, if you

suddenly were to find out that you cannot manipulate your memories or

control your thoughts… Nightmarish!

 

Moreover, it is often only through manipulation and extortion that the

narcissist can secure his Narcissistic Supply. Controlling his Sources

of Narcissistic Supply is a (mental) life or death question for the

narcissist. The narcissist is a drug addict (his drug being the NS) and

he would go to any length to obtain the next dose.

 

In his frantic efforts to maintain control or re-assert it, the

narcissist resorts to a myriad of fiendishly inventive stratagems and

mechanisms. Here is a partial list:

 

Unpredictability

 

The narcissist acts unpredictably, capriciously, inconsistently and

irrationally. This serves to demolish in others their carefully crafted

worldview. They become dependent upon the next twist and turn of the

narcissist, his inexplicable whims, his outbursts, denial, or smiles.

In other words: the narcissist makes sure that HE is the only stable

entity in the lives of others - by shattering the rest of their world

through his seemingly insane behaviour. He guarantees his presence in

their lives - by destabilising them.

 

In the absence of a self, there are no likes or dislikes, preferences,

predictable behaviour or characteristics. It is not possible to know

the narcissist. There is no one there.

 

The narcissist was conditioned - from an early age of abuse and trauma

- to expect the unexpected. His was a world in which (sometimes

sadistic) capricious caretakers and peers often behaved arbitrarily. He

was trained to deny his True Self and nurture a False one.

 

Having invented himself, the narcissist sees no problem in re-inventing

that which he designed in the first place. The narcissist is his own

creator.

 

Hence his grandiosity.

 

Moreover, the narcissist is a man for all seasons, forever adaptable,

constantly imitating and emulating, a human sponge, a perfect mirror, a

chameleon, a non-entity that is, at the same time, all entities

combined. The narcissist is best described by Heidegger’s phrase:

“Being and Nothingness”. Into this reflective vacuum, this sucking

black hole, the narcissist attracts the Sources of his Narcissistic

Supply.

 

To an observer, the narcissist appears to be fractured or discontinuous.

 

Pathological narcissism has been compared to the Dissociative Identity

Disorder (formerly the Multiple Personality Disorder). By definition,

the narcissist has at least two selves, the True and False ones. His

personality is very primitive and disorganised. Living with a

narcissist is a nauseating experience not only because of what he is -

but because of what he is NOT. He is not a fully formed human - but a

dizzyingly kaleidoscopic gallery of ephemeral images, which melt into

each other seamlessly. It is incredibly disorienting.

 

It is also exceedingly problematic. Promises made by the narcissist are

easily disowned by him. His plans are transient. His emotional ties - a

simulacrum. Most narcissists have one island of stability in their life

(spouse, family, their career, a hobby, their religion, country, or

idol) - pounded by the turbulent currents of a dishevelled existence.

 

The narcissist does not keep agreements, does not adhere to laws,

regards consistency and predictability as demeaning traits.

 

Thus, to invest in a narcissist is a purposeless, futile and

meaningless activity. To the narcissist, every day is a new beginning,

a hunt, a new cycle of idealisation or devaluation, a newly invented

self. There is no accumulation of credits or goodwill because the

narcissist has no past and no future. He occupies an eternal and

timeless present. He is a fossil caught in the frozen ashes of a

volcanic childhood.

 

What to do?

 

Refuse to accept such behaviour. Demand reasonably predictable and

rational actions and reactions. Insist on respect for your boundaries,

predilections, preferences, and priorities.

 

Disproportional Reactions

 

One of the favourite tools of manipulation in the narcissist’s arsenal

is the disproportionality of his reactions. He reacts with supreme rage

to the slightest slight. He punishes severely for what he perceives to

be an offence against him, no matter how minor. He throws a temper

tantrum over any discord or disagreement, however gently and

considerately expressed. Or he may act attentive, charming and tempting

(even over-sexed, if need be). This ever-shifting code of conduct

coupled with an inordinately harsh and arbitrarily applied “penal code”

are both promulgated by the narcissist. Neediness and dependence