An unfortunately high fraction of my personal relationships – platonic, romantic, collaborative, familial – have involved narcissists. I am the common denominator there, so most of the problem lies within me: I seek validation from a sense of being useful and being needed, at the cost of my own fulfillment, at the cost of my own boundaries. I am drawn, quite irresistibly, to attenuating relationships and exit them burned and depleted.
I’m working on that. I’m also lucky to have people in my life who make the effort to create mutuality, and these are my current focus – healthy, respectful, reciprocal relationships that bring joy and fulfillment to all participants.
Sometimes I sink back into old patterns, and I need to remind myself of the misery I had invited into my life.
Perhaps the label is overused. Most of us aren’t qualified to clinically diagnose a personality disorder, and we’re using it as a catch-all phrase for ‘selfish people’. We’re all selfish in some way. But there is a “cluster of patterns”, for the lack of better phrasing, that stand out as being particularly malignant to us unhealthily-self-martyrizing types.
These folks are self-aggrandizing, believing that they are inherently superior and are entitled to a certain kind of life. But this superiority is illusory because it runs contrary to observable facts: their accomplishments, if any, is a matter of chance or circumstance. Often there’s nothing distinctive about them at all. Nevertheless, they enjoy a sense of manifest destiny: they are special, possess special truth, and deserve to be treated as such.
They are deeply self-centered, though they may present or even believe themselves to be otherwise, as part of a lofty self-image or as a tool of manipulation. Yet that façade is easily pierced – they display charm, make promises and offer affirmations that are sincerely only in the moment. As soon as their needs are met, they become aloof, and they feel righteously distant because you are always secondary to their present need, you are a means to an end. Soon you will feel guilty for having needs at all.
They are incapable of experiencing true guilt or remorse – their apologies, if offered, often shifts blame onto you. The onus is on you to take complete responsibility because, at the end of the day, you care more. When they complain about others, they are quick to engage in character assassinations: they are victims of circumstances, but others are rotten. Sometimes you can’t help but wonder… what do they say about you?
And they are hollow. I truly believe these are wretched and unhappy souls who miss a sense of self. They NEED to feel special, and manipulate the world, often out of instinct, to maintain that mirage because without it they are nothing. And they will use any and all tools – shaming, gaslighting, manipulation, compartmentalization, and deceit – to secure your attention, your acts of service, your affirmation, as and when they need it, all to protect that illusory sense of self. And you’re just one of such tools in their tool belt.
If there such people in your life…
Flee.
#00117F 