Narcissism 

Outline: 

• Understanding Narcissism 
• Traits of Narcissism 
• Contributing Factors of Narcissism 
• How to Tackle Narcissism in Ourselves 
• How to Interact with a Narcissist 

Understanding Narcissism 

A narcissistic person’s emotional needs were not met as an infant or as a young child, leaving deep hurt and scars in us. We operate out of the sense that there’s not enough resources to go around; operating out of a sense of scarcity. We try to manage these feelings through our coping mechanisms.  

These coping mechanisms can come across as selfish, self-centered, excessively entitled, grandiose, arrogant, insisting on special treatment, need for admiration, acting like we are most special, lacking empathy, using (exploiting) others for our own benefit, controlling, manipulating, and gaslighting. 

While these coping mechanisms can repel others from us, they really are us doing the best we can to mitigate our deep hurts and sense of emptiness. The coping mechanisms of Undoing and Reaction Formation are strong unconscious motivators in our coping behaviors. See blog post on Coping Mechanisms Part 1 of 2

Signs of Narcissism 

We all have traits of various mental “conditions,” but we do not actually have a particular condition unless we possess most of its associated traits. While a person may have several of the following traits, they would not be considered a narcissist unless they exhibit most or all of them. 

Like many other mental conditions, the range of symptoms can go from mild to severe. Patients with mild narcissism can have non-existent physical temper tantrums, while at the extreme, some tantrum at the slightest provocation.  

In Ourselves: 

• Inability to know where we end and others start. 
• We assume others’ motivations to be the same as ours: If we feel resentment in a situation, others must feel the same resentment toward the situation or toward us. 
• Feeling of being merged with another, especially those who are related to us, assuming that however we feel is how others also feel. 
• Concerns of being reflected poorly by those related to us: We would be judged by how our loved ones show up in the world. 
• Need to control/change our loved ones so we can appear well before others. 
• Deep desire (sometimes this is our assumption) for others to read our mind and always be thinking of us and wanting to take care of our deep longings and desires. 
• We often think that if someone loves us, they would want to do whatever we wish them to do for us, even if we have not verbally expressed these desires. 
• We feel sure in our own feelings, experiences, reasoning, and are certain that we are right. Therefore, whoever disagrees with us must be in the wrong. 
• From our desperate need for our desires to be met, we can come across as possessing a sense of entitlement as we demand to have our needs and desires met. 
• Due to our fear of rejection and/or abandonment, we might preemptively reject others, and take care of our own needs before we attend to others. 
• We exhibit bravado to cover up our sense of inadequacy deep down. 
• Covering up our low sense of self-worth by coming across to others that we are special and entitled to special treatment. 
• Sometimes, out of our desperation to be seen and for our needs to be met, we can come across as lacking empathy, as we operate out of the sense that there aren’t enough resources to go around, so “it’s either us or them.” We therefore can do whatever is in our power to manipulate the situation to best fit our desires and demands. 
• Sometimes, this desperation can cause us to manipulate others to give us what we want, especially by inducing guilt in them. 
• Some of us have low frustration tolerance, and we can act on feelings of frustration through temper tantrums, either in words that berate others, or physical tantrums, or withdrawal and giving the silent treatment. 

In Interaction with a Narcissist: 

• Feel being controlled by the person that we must do what they want us to do. 
• Feel compelled to give in to the person.  
• Feel gas-it by the person. 
• Feel wronged and misunderstood by the person often. 
• Feel unseen. 
• Feel we don’t have a voice and are not deserving of having an opinion that’s different from the other person’s. 
• Guilted into complying with the other person’s demands. 
• Feel put down. 
• Feel small. 
• Feel demeaned. 
• Berated by the person. 
• Feel guilty when accused by the person. 
• Feel resentment toward the person demanding that we comply with whatever they want. 
• Being blamed for everything. 
• Feel trapped. 
• Feel punished by the other person whenever they are upset or disappointed with us. 
• Finding ourselves giving in just to avoid tension or yet another fight. 
• Finding ourselves actively avoiding contact with the person. 
• Wishing to spend time away from the person, but might not have the courage to do so. 
• Feel our relationship is on a roller-coaster ride: Whenever the other person is happy, everything is good; whenever the person is upset with us, we are punished by their blaming, berating or withdrawal, or silent treatment. 
• When we voice our hurt by the other person, we are told that we are “too sensitive,” and it’s our problem. 
• We find ourselves always being in the wrong and are never good enough for the other person - unless we are doing exactly what they want us to do. 

Contributing Factors of Narcissism 

According to Margaret Mahler, we go through these developmental stages from birth on: 

• Autistic Phase (birth to 1 month). We are not aware the existence of others, just like when we were in the womb, we were there by ourselves and alone. 
• Symbiotic Phase (1 – 5 months). As an infant we become aware that our mother is there to meet our needs and feel merged with her: Whatever we feel must be how she feels, and whatever she feels is how we feel.  
• Differentiation Phase (5 - 9 months). We become aware that our mother is a separate entity from us, although she is still the main person to meet our needs. 
• Practicing Phase (9 - 14 months). We start to be more mobile and are able to physically walk away from our mother to explore the world outside of her. 
• Reproachment Phase (14 – 24 months). As we explore and fall in love with the world, we need to run back to our mother to make sure she is okay with us becoming a separate person and having life apart from her, in fear that she might reject us if we no longer are fully dependent on her. 
• Object Constancy Phase (24 months on). We can have a life apart from our mother, knowing that she still loves us and is there for us.   

• One might develop narcissism if the person is stuck in either the Autistic Phase or the Symbiotic Phase.  
• The narcissistic person is unaware that there is a world outside of them. That’s when the narcissistic person can show up as not caring about others’ needs or differing opinions or desires or wants. 
• This person feels merged with their significant others and is unable to separate their desires from those of the others’. 
• When we have an attentive caregiver who is attuned to us and capable of meeting our needs, there is a strong likelihood that we will master our developmental stages. 
• Conversely, when our caretaker is unable to attend to our needs, we can feel a sense of rejection, dejection, abandonment, worthlessness, emptiness, and scarcity. 
• Additionally, some of us are born with low frustration tolerance and/or resilience. This can be due to one or a combination of: biochemical makeup, hormones, genetics, or inborn temperament. 
• Trauma can also cause us to be stuck in an earlier developmental stage, and with narcissism, we can revert to the Autistic or Symbiotic Phases of development. 

How to Tackle Narcissism in Ourselves 

• Whether we can acknowledge some traits of narcissism in ourselves or we find ourselves meeting the criteria of narcissism, here are some ways we can tackle our tendencies. 
• Acknowledge what happened (or didn’t happen) to us while we were infants and needed attending to, that contributed to the development of these traits. 
• Address the trauma that might have contributed to the development of these traits. 
• Take back what happened to us when we were vulnerable and powerless, by grieving and forgiving all the players who took part in forming and shaping our psyche, including choosing to forgive our primary caretakers who did not meet our needs the way we needed them to. See blog post on Forgiveness
• Take control by adjusting our expectations toward life and toward others. See blog post on Setting Realistic Expectations
• Choose to consider others as separate from ourselves and respect their individuality and differences. One practical way of doing this is saying to ourselves: “I am me and so and so is so and so. So and so is not me, and I am not so and so.” This is bringing into our conscious the merging of ourselves with the other in our unconscious and loosens its hold on us.  
• Choose to accept others’ preferences, desires, and decisions and not to change them so as not to manipulate or control others. 
• Choose to act toward others how we wish them to act toward us, while not expecting others to act toward us the way we want them to. 
• Practice humility that we don’t actually know everything, nor are we always right. 
• Embrace our feelings of powerlessness and all other negative emotions, as they are normal emotions that everyone experiences. 
• Embrace all our emotions and address them in healthy ways. See blog post on Practical Ways of Coping With Emotions
• Be proactive in the present and choose to respond to life’s frustrations with a healthy mindset through appreciation of the good in each situation, while acknowledging the bad and the frustrations in the same situation. 
• Work on frustration tolerance by first being gracious to ourselves: the more we experience grace, the more we’d be able to extend it to others. 
• Actively seek to develop meaningful relationships with safe people who see, hear, understand, accept, and love us unconditionally. This will be helpful to love and accept ourselves, while we also learn from their role-modeling on how we too can embrace others just the way they are.  
• Practice vulnerability with these safe people. 
• Procure long-term therapy to have our therapist become the parent we needed but didn’t have, to help heal our hurts and wounds. 

How to Interact with a Narcissist 

• Know who we are, where we end, and where the other starts. 
• Set healthy boundaries. Remember that we cannot expect others to respect our boundaries, and it is our responsibility to tow the boundaries we’ve set. See blog post on Setting Healthy Boundaries
• Choose compassion toward a narcissist while holding firm on our boundaries: Do not demonize a narcissist. See their behaviors as coming from coping with their hurt and deeply unmet needs. 
• Know that everyone wants to be seen, heard, understood, accepted, and loved unconditionally. Let that be our aim in our interactions with everyone, especially with those who exhibit narcissism.  
• As we interact with a narcissist, do not take how they treat us personally, as they’d treat anyone the same way: It’s about them, not about us. 
• Expect that we will most likely feel unseen, unheard, blamed, wronged, misunderstood, voiceless, that we can’t do anything right, gas-lit, “eating crow,” hurt, manipulated, guilty, defeated, demeaned, put-down, resentful, not allowed to have our own opinion or agency, and being controlled - in our interactions with a narcissist. 
• Acknowledge all the negative emotions engendered in us as we interact with a narcissist and do not suppress these feelings. 
• Choose to show up as defined and as having a separate agency from the narcissist.  
• Choose not to take on the blame or labeling by the narcissist.  
• Do not try to defend ourselves against their accusations. 
• Rather, state how we feel about what the narcissist has accused us of, and literally walk away from the person and not stay engaged with them: Arguing only prolongs the negative interaction and hurt. 
• Take ownership of our own emotions: “I am being triggered right now and am not able to be constructive with you; I am going to give myself a 'time out,' so I can calm myself down and be able to interact with you in constructive ways.” In so doing, we are also role modeling for the narcissist how they could cope with their negative feelings.  
• If we are actually asking for a limited time out, we would do well to give a specific amount of time that we need a break from the person. We need to come back to the person at the end of the said time to either re-engage in a productive dialogue or to ask for an extension of time.  
• A lot of the time, just stating our feelings and walking away is probably more productive than coming back to process the interaction if the narcissist is unable to be constructive. 
• Choose to show up brave and not cave into the narcissist’s anger, blame, or withdrawal when we don’t do what they want from us. 
• Embrace the discomfort of the narcissist being angry with us. 
• Choose to take care of our own emotional needs by regularly pampering ourselves with simple activities that do not require others’ cooperation. 
• If we are being punished with a silent treatment, use that time to fill our own tank: Go visit with friends and families and do enjoyable activities so we would not be giving in to the narcissist's punishment. 
• Manage our resentment. See blog post on At All Cost Avoid Resentment
• Know when to distance ourselves from the narcissist, especially when we are not yet married to them. 
• Request for the narcissist to go into therapy for us to stay in an active relationship with them. Individual therapy is of ultimate importance for the narcissist, and couples therapy is very needed if we plan on staying in a relationship with the narcissist. 
• It is not our role or responsibility to change the narcissist. The psychoanalytic joke: “How many therapists would it take to change a light bulb? The answer is: “The light bulb would have to want to change.”