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

the beginning? So wrong as that? Not

an easy pill to swallow, is it? How do you think our friends will react

if you try to cram it down their throats? After all, it really is you

who have thwarted my progress, tainted my reputation, thrown me off

course. There is an escape from the frustrations you cause me and,

fortunately, my reputation provides enough insulation from the outside

world so I can indulge in this escape with impunity. What escape? Those

eruptions of anger you dread and fear, my rages. Ah, it feels so good

to rage. It is the expression of and the confirmation of my power over

you. Lying feels good too, for the same reason, but nothing compares to

the pleasure of exploding for no material reason and venting my anger

like a lunatic, all the time a spectator at my own show and seeing your

helplessness, pain, fear, frustration, and dependence. Go ahead. Tell

our friends about it. See if they can imagine it, let alone believe it.

The more outrageous your account of what happened, the more convinced

they will be that the crazy one is you. And don’t expect much more from

your therapist either. Surely it is easier to live my lie and see where

that takes you. You might even acquire some of the behaviour you find

so objectionable in me.

 

But you know what? This may come as a surprise, but I can also be my

own worst nightmare. I can and I am. You see, at heart my life is

nothing more than illusion-clad confusion. I have no idea why I do what

I do, nor do I care to find out. In fact, the mere notion of asking the

question is so repulsive to me that I employ all of my resources to

repel it.

 

I reconstruct facts, fabricate illusions, act them out, and thus create

my own reality. It is a precarious state of existence indeed, so I am

careful to include enough demonstrable truth in my illusions to ensure

their credibility. And I am forever testing that credibility against

the reactions of others. Fortunately my real attributes and

accomplishments are in sufficient abundance to fuel my illusions

seemingly forever. And modern society, blessed/cursed modern society,

values most what I do best and thus serves as my accomplice. Even I get

lost in my own illusions, swept away by their magic.

 

So, not to worry if you still do not recognise me. I don’t recognise me

either. In fact, I regard myself as like everyone else, only perhaps a

little better. Put another way, I end up thinking that everyone else is

like me, only not quite as good. After all, that’s what the universe is

telling me.

 

Ah, there’s the rub. THE universe or MY universe? As long as the magic

of my illusions works on me too, the distinction is immaterial. Hence

my need for a fan club. And I am constantly taking fan club inventory,

testing the loyalty of present members with challenges of abuse,

writing off defectors with total indifference, and scouting the

landscape for new recruits. Do you see my dilemma? I use people who are

dependent on me to keep my illusions alive. In actuality it is I who am

dependent on them. Even the rage, that orgasmic release of pain and

anger, doesn’t work without an audience. On some level I am aware of my

illusions, but to admit that would spoil the magic. And that I couldn’t

bear. So I proclaim that what I do is of no consequence and no

different from what others do, and thus I create an illusion about my

creating illusions. So, no, I don’t recognise me any better than you

do. I wouldn’t dare. I need the magic. For the same reason I also fail

to recognise others who behave as I do. In fact, they sometimes recruit

me into their fan clubs. As long as we feed off of each other, who’s

the worse for wear? It only confirms my illusion about my illusions:

that I am no different from most other people, just a bit better.

 

But I AM different and we both know it. Therein lies the root of my

hostility. I tear you down because in reality I am envious of you

BECAUSE I am different. At that haunting level where I see my illusions

for what they are, the illusion that you too create illusions

collapses, leaving me in a state of despair, confusion, panic,

isolation, and envy. You, and others, accuse me of all sorts of

horrible things.

 

I am totally baffled, clueless. I have done nothing wrong. The

injustice is too much. It only makes the confusion worse. Or is this

too merely another illusion?

 

How many others like me are there? More than you might think, and our

numbers are increasing. Take twenty people off the street and you will

find one whose mind ticks so much like mine that you could consider us

clones. Impossible, you say. It is simply not possible for that many

people - highly accomplished, respected, and visible people - to be out

there replacing reality with illusions, each in the same way and for

reasons they know not why. It is simply not possible for so many robots

of havoc and chaos, as I describe them, to function daily midst other

educated, intelligent, and experienced individuals, and pass for

normal. It is simply not possible for such an aberration of human

cognition and behaviour to infiltrate and infect the population in such

numbers, virtually undetected by the radar of mental health

professionals. It is simply not possible for so much visible positive

to contain so much concealed negative. It is simply not possible.

 

But it is. That is the enlightenment of Narcissism Revisited by Sam

Vaknin. Sam is himself one such clone. What distinguishes him is his

uncharacteristic courage to confront, and his uncanny understanding of,

that which makes us tick, himself included. Not only does Sam dare ask

and then answer the question we clones avoid like the plague, he does

so with relentless, laser-like precision. Read his book. Take your seat

at the double-headed microscope and let Sam guide you through the

dissection. Like a brain surgeon operating on himself, Sam explores and

exposes the alien among us, hoping beyond hope for a respectable tumour

but finding instead each and every cell teaming with the same resistant

virus. The operation is long and tedious, and at times frightening and

hard to believe. Read on. The parts exposed are as they are, despite

what may seem hyperbolic or far-fetched. Their validity might not hit

home until later, when coupled with memories of past events and

experiences.

 

I am, as I said, my own worst nightmare. True, the world is replete

with my contributions, and I am lots of fun to be around. And true,

most contributions like mine are not the result of troubled souls. But

many more than you might want to believe are. And if by chance you get

caught in my Web, I can make your life a living hell. But remember

this. I am in that Web too. The difference between you and me is that

you can get out.

 

Ken Heilbrunn, M.D.

 

Seattle, Washington, USA

 

I N T R O D U C T I O N

 

The Habitual Identity

 

Warning and Disclaimer

 

The contents of this book are not meant to substitute for professional

help and counselling. The readers are discouraged from using it for

diagnostic or therapeutic ends. The diagnosis and treatment of the

Narcissistic Personality Disorder can only be done by professionals

specifically trained and qualified to do so - which the author is not.

The author is NOT a mental health professional, though he is certified

in Mental Health Counselling Techniques.

 

In a famous experiment, students were asked to take a lemon home and to

grow used to it. Three days later, they were able to single out “their”

lemon from a pile of rather similar ones. They seemed to have bonded.

Is this the true meaning of love, bonding, coupling? Do we simply get

used to other human beings, pets, or objects?

 

Habit forming in humans is reflexive. We change ourselves and our

environment in order to attain maximum comfort and well-being. It is

the effort that goes into these adaptive processes that forms a habit.

Habits are intended to prevent us from constant experimentation and

risk taking. The greater our well-being, the better we function and the

longer we survive.

 

Actually, when we get used to something or to someone - we really get

used to ourselves. In our habits we see our history, all the time and

effort invested. Habits are encapsulated versions of our acts,

intentions, emotions and reactions. They are mirrors reflecting back

that part in us that formed the habit.

 

Hence, the feeling of comfort: we really feel comfortable with our own

selves when we feel comfortable with our habits.

 

Because of this, we tend to confuse habits with identity. When asked

WHO they are, most people resort to describing their habits. They

relate to us their work, their loved ones, their pets, their hobbies,

or their material possessions. Yet, all of these do not constitute an

identity. Their removal does not change one’s identity. They are habits

and they make the respondent comfortable and relaxed. But they are not

part of his identity in the truest, deepest sense.

 

Still, it is this simple mechanism of deception that binds people

together. A mother feels that her offspring are part of her identity

because she is so used to them that her well-being depends on their

existence and availability. Thus, any threat to her children is

interpreted by a mother as a threat to her person. Her reaction is,

therefore, strong and enduring and can be recurrently elicited.

 

The truth, of course, is that children ARE a part of their mother’s

identity in a superficial manner. Removing them would make her a

different person, but only in the shallow, phenomenological sense of

the word. Her deep-set, true identity is unlikely to change as a result.

 

But what is this kernel of identity that I am referring to? This

immutable entity which is the definition of who we are and what we are

and which, ostensibly, is not influenced by the death of our loved

ones? What is so strong as to resist the breaking of habits that

die-hard?

 

It is our personality. This elusive, loosely interconnected,

interacting, pattern of reactions to our changing environment. Like the

mind, it is difficult to define or to capture. Like the soul, many

believe that it does not exist, that it is a fictitious convention.

Yet, we know that we do have a personality. We feel it, we experience

it. It sometimes encourages us to do things - or prevents us from doing

them. It can be supple or rigid, benign or malignant, open or closed.

Its power lies in its looseness. It is able to combine, recombine and

permutate in hundreds of unforeseeable ways. It metamorphoses and the

constancy of its rate and kind of change is what gives us a sense of

identity.

 

Actually, when the personality is rigid to the point of being unable to

change in reaction to changing circumstances - we say that it is

disordered. A personality disorder is the ultimate misidentification.

 

The individual mistakes his habits for his identity. He identifies

himself with his environment, taking behavioural, emotional, and

cognitive cues exclusively from it. His inner world is, so to speak,

vacated, inhabited, as it were, by the apparition of his True Self.

 

Such a person is incapable of loving and of living. The personality

disordered sees no distinction between his self and his