Narcissist?

[BabylonPI]

Is there a straightforward definition please?
Is there a list of narcissistic tendencies or traits

I hear the term a lot these days and a lot on here, but I don't know what it is/means.

Thank you.

Re the idea that narcs are consummate vampires and want to destroy want they envy and can never have:

A narc I was involved with once (ugh horrible memory as it nearly killed me and all ended very badly) told me that he envied my happiness and the joy I found in life (back then. grr) and said - and I practically quote him word-for-word here:

"I see you like a spider. I want to pull all your legs off one by one then shove your body under a carpet and stamp on it".

We were sitting outside a bar in London on a lovely summer's evening. I felt sorry for him and wanted to 'heal' his sorrow, misery and show him that loving life was acheiveable and fun. He was 20 years older than me and I had all the exuberance and arrogance of youth. I was also a total fuck-up as I really DID stick with him instead of running for the hills.

If anyone, man or woman, lover or friend, said such a weird and violent thing to me now I would take immediate steps to eradicate them from my life.

He very nearly did destroy me. And in the process of doing so each time, would whistle and cheerfully put all his things in bin bags before going back to his wife. I remember sobbing uncontrollably on the floor outside the bathroom on one of those occasions as he actually took a long hot bath and had a shave, before ringing her and cheerfully telling her he was coming home.

...and he too was very intelligent. Spoke Russian and French fluently, had a degree from Oxford, was my boss at work...

fucker.

UA, how horrifying for you

Very interesting thread indeed. I too was a victim of a Narc who ticks so many boxes in the script. It has been taking nearly 8 years to recover but I'm not fully there. My parents were also EA, does it have any relation with me getting involved with a Narc?

I've been lurking on this thread for a while...

My experience of narcs is that of a combination of intelligence and immaturity...I don't know if that makes any sense? It seems to me that it is the child like inability to do certain things that really draws us (the co-dependents) in...

Every reason Mypop. YOu equated being fucked over with being loved (as all of us did who ended up entangled with a narc).

that spider imagery is just horrible. reminds me of John Fowles' butterly guy

being the victim of narc parents/family can also make one 'bright'. We've talked about this before on here: hypervigilance ie hyper alert to any changes in mood or 'temperature' in the hope of making sense of what's going on, or predict what's going to happen next. Almost always doomed to failure in that it is very hard to predict what is going to happen next. If you grew up in a family like that, you learn to read every sign, every nuance of every sign, to deciper patterns... which does sharpen the brain a bit.

my terrifying narc ex read philosophy at uni and was so bright he was otherworldly bright. When the spell was beginning to break I remember thinking he was too clever for a human being. Yet he was also staggeringly stupid. I used to think he was the type that was so bright he couldn't peel a banana type of thing (you know the type) but now realise you can't replicate being human entirely. There are significant gaps no matter how vigilant they are at covering every base.

Yes, Springy. Those of us who are adapted to sociopaths spot the gaps early, seeing them as injuries which we can - and should - heal. Others might not notice them as soon, but will be put off by them instead of attaching to them.

When X2 proposed, I refused. I said he was too distant and secretive; too detached. He said he wanted my help in changing that. This was enough for me, I subconsciously saw it as my purpose in life.

I'm not convinced there's any correlation between IQ, EQ and neuro-psychological disorders. There are stacks of super-brains with Asperger's, for example, and also plenty of academically weak people with ASDs. I believe it's true of PDs, too.

While I suspected X2 had Asperger's, he was not especially lacking in emotional intelligence. What he lacked was caring about it.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for this thread, all of you.
This has been like a lightbulb in my very dark mind. I thought I was losing my mind with the current situation, but I finally GET IT!!!

I am going to give you the background, which will probably out me in RL, but I don't really care at this stage, and I could really do with some support.

My Dad is dying from inoperable lung cancer. He is in his late 70's and lives alone. He has always been a very difficult man to get on with, there were always almighty sulks, temper tantrums, low level physical aggression, not talking to at least one of us at a time, etc etc.

My beautiful, loving mum (who adored my Dad) always kind of kept a lid on things, and tbh, she was the one we all loved with a passion, as he was always just so hard to keep happy. Any infraction, 'disrespectful attitude' or a different opinion any anything was/is seen as 'talking down' to him and resulted in him losing his temper, withdrawing contact, and, in recent years, abusive phone calls.

Some MN's might know this, but I have an elder brother with severe disabilites, and after mums death, my Dad did a pretty good job of caring for him, with LOTS of support from me and cousin and other brother. Sometimes I felt like I was being crushed by his personality and got very sick myself. Nothing was ever good enough, and I was always 'disrespectful'.

Many times over the last 7 years, I have been thrown out of his house for various things like not liking his new coat, throwing out mouldy food, watering the plants incorrectly etc. I have always have to suck it up and beg my way back in for the sake of DB. I realise now that this enabled him to carry on with his narc behaviour.

He needs constant praise for every little thing.
Thinks he the most wonderful person to have ever lived!
No dissent is tolerated, and a different opinion on any subject is unbearable to him.
The world is out to get him, but he (according to him) gets on with everybody and never fights with anyone.
Needs constant attention.
Gaslighting.
'Keeping score" about everything.
Charming and kind to outsiders.

Anyway (if you have got this far), my DB is now in residential care. Dad has banned me, my other brother and my DH from the house as we "disrespected him" over various things. My heart is broken. I have tried to talk to him a coulple of times, but he has turned his face away from me on both occasions.

How do I come to terms with this. I am "happy" to never see him again tbh, but as another poster said, when I tell others about whats going on, I look like a paranoid weirdo who is neglecting her dying dad.

sigh ....

The first time his abnormal behaviour really really struck me dumb was when my mum died. I got the frantic phone call telling me to come quick and I raced there in 5 minutes. I tore into the house, with paramedics barging past me and my mum dying on the floor upstairs. He was sat on the bottom step, looked up at me and said "what am I going to do now?"

thanks for reading, felt good to get some of it out

Thanks for posting. I'm glad I didn't have a child with my X nac. In fact in my eyes he could do no wrong and was so perfect that he could even put up with 'me'. ...but I had a gut feeling that I shouldn't have a child with him. One day when he was threatening me with divorce yet again, he said that if we had a child together he would stay with me just for the sake of the child. So than I told him I would never ever have a child with him. Than he stopped his threats and really dumped me for good. I have a very difficult father myself, strict, exigent, overbearing and impossible to make happy. I just didn't want any child of mine to have the same kind of father....Now, my current H has many flaws but he is loving, affectionate, playful, patient and indulges our daughter. I'm just so glad I didnt have a child with X

the three books he gave me to read were the butterfly Collector, dorian gray and lolita. Oh how amazing and endlessly interesting he was.

Thank you for posting, Paula. It's hard to come to terms with all this, isn't it.

I wanted to share this for other readers of the thread. It's from a very long post on psychforums by a member with NPD and SPD (schizoid). I find it difficult to read empathetically. If you manage it, you might find her discovery of self-care as the route to a more fulfilling way of life interesting. The same route leads into recovery for targets of their abuse.

This is the part I wanted to share:
As cold, as heartless and as sad as I can now finally acknowledge that it really and truly were, you never were a friend of ours. You were a mere pass-time, and a source of entertainment. If you were good, you may have been an object we valued for your providing us with amusement, but we never thanked you. If you were lucky, you may have been a source we really appreciated for the admiration you so nicely shone upon us and allowed us to bask in, but we never thanked you, and we probably never told you we liked you, let alone that we loved you, and if we did, we lied, because we were incapable of loving.

(My bold.) From the horse's mouth, so to speak. It's definitely wise to remember this when trying to understand a relationship with a narc.

Or, as we used to tell each other about Narc Boss: "Remember you're not dealing with a sane, rational human being!"

Fabulous, UA - he gave you three books about himself.

What a surprise.

I think that many people can be quite selfish and self serving, but are sufficiently socialized and attached that either through empathy or just wanting to fit in, they control overly selfish behaviors. When people lack that attachment to others they just don't have that control element so they continue to be selfish but get better at covering their tracks, at least to the casual observer.

The point about relationships is key. Narcs just cannot have healthy close relationships as they don't see other people as people. If you suspect that someone you know is a narc, look at their friendships etc. if the only ones that last seem to be a bit odd or one sided, then steer clear of that person.

My dad was very much an unwanted person and it was made very clear to him. Unsurprisingly, he has a whole load of issues and hang ups. Many of them are if narc tendencies and he is really quite controlling. But he is able to maintain relationships although they can be quite fraught. I think the fact that he had an older sister who showed him affection and looked after him helped, but there are some real problems from him being sent to boarding school at a young age cos he wasn't wanted at home.

However, I can continue a relationship with him (though distant) as he clearly does care about people and I can see that when he is relaxed he tries to listen and accommodate their wishes, it's just the moment he is stressed that he needs to take control because he can't cope. If he were any less empathetic it would be to the point that I would have no contact any more.

I suppose I need to tackle my fear of narcs. My heart beats when I read some of the stuff on here and I want to run away.

I wonder about something that happened when narc ex died. It was a sudden and shocking death. My horrible sister called and asked how we all were (me and the kids) and I said something about myself first, how I was. 'It's not about you though is it!' she snapped. I snapped back that I am the kids' mother and they were in my care, the only parent they had now. I've wondered about that - was it just another of her usual jabs at me for being self-absorbed, or was I self-absorbed. It sounds lame but I thought she was calling to offer support as she is my sister. Support for all of us too of course. MInd you, she never has supported me - hardly! - so why I thought things might be different I really don't know. I felt tremendously angry that she had taken a pop at such a terrible time, but was there something in it? I have felt so guilty about it, so ashamed, that all I was thinking about was myself when my kids were grappling with appalling news.

I just find the whole narc thing unbearably sad. There is an entire absence of hope in it: no hope, no hope, like a tolling bell.

you are right springy, it is hopeless and sad

my dad is literally sitting in his house, alone, waiting for the death coming soon, without his children and grandchildren around him. He worked so hard for us when we were kids (and made sure everyone knew how hard he worked, and was always obsessed with money and our gratitude for it), and now, because his intolerable narc behaviour, he is alone

I can't do it to my mother! She is old and very frail. I don't know if she is a narc or conditioned by narcs but her mind is going. My (narc?) family are encircling, keeping me out. Surely there is some way to get to her? She is a nightmare though.

springydaffs,you are not a narc,remember.

When bereavement happens,everything people do and say can become heightened and memorable.
Emotions run high all round.

And it was about you,as well as the kids.

Your sister has her own issues.And she was upset too.

In an ideal world everyone would support everyone.

In what ways are your family keeping you away from your own mother?

no it was a jab springy. my mother did it to me when my grandfather died - i was in pieces with no support or help understanding what bereavement is like iyswim. other people are not allowed any attention or to have feelings - maybe because they don't really feel in an authentic way? anyway i remember a vicious attack from my mother saying that i never loved him anyway and as if i cared about anyone other than myself. it hurt so much because i really did love him and was reeling from him dying but like you i doubted myself and somewhere in there still do.

i was also not allowed to be ill - like she did not believe in illness when it came to me - it was all eye rolling and ignore. i remember once falling down the stairs as a child and laying at the bottom crying and she was watching tv in the living room with the door open and she did not move. i eventually just got myself up and went away. but even now there is this insane little shred of doubt as to whether that was unreasonable or not when of course it was unreasonable to sit and ignore your child falling down the stairs. it actually turned out i had concussion, i later started throwing up and when my dad finally came home he took me to casualty.

they project so much at you that it is hard to feel confident and solid in your own version of reality, your own emotions, your own perception of yourself. it's a fight.

at one point i used to secretly and guiltily wonder what it would be like when she died and we were all free of her (awful i know) but i look at my sister and whether she is a narc or has just caught a lot of fleas that she finds work rather well for getting her own way i see that it will continue.

bleurgh!!!

Springy, your sister's riposte was projection. Break it down:-

Her: How are you all?
How are you, each of your kids, and you as a family?
You: I'm shell-shocked, can't function much ...
This is where she sympathises and leads into further enquiry ...
Her: It's not all about you!
Eh??!

1. She asked a question but didn't do any 'active listening' to the answer.

~ This shows she isn't interested in what you say.

1. She only heard your partial answer; didn't register that it was partial.

~ This shows she doesn't understand how conversation works.

1. She assumed your reply was purely selfish.

~ This is projection. She imagines your feelings being the same as hers. ~ Additionally, she's not interested in your feelings so shuts you down.

I think it's a very safe guess to assume she needed replies for people who heard about your bereavement. So she made the conventional call: "How are you all?" wanting a concise summary that would save her face when asked.

The very best answer - from her point of view - would have been "We're all shocked but coping well, thanks. How are you?" This would be no help to you in your time of need, so you were right not to play. Of course it's bitterly painful to realise your own siblings are incapable of supporting you. (Mine are quite good at gestures, as it happens, so they do nice things now and again: on their terms.) The disappointment softens as you come to accept they can't and won't. It's like wishing sand were edible! Sand has its uses and looks pretty in the sun, so we get along with that instead of trying to make dinner out of it.

As with all trauma reactions, Springy, narcissism has a residual power over you that is unwarranted. My way of diluting its power was to learn about it, sympathetically. Dividing the world into good and evil serves us poorly and is, anyway, a disordered manner of thinking. Narcissism is a healthy human quality. I don't know whether you'll empathise with this, but I'm only beginning to come through a long period of denying my own narcissism and start looking after my appearance again.

We're all narcissistic, cruel, avoidant, dependent, needy, demanding, histrionic, loving, giving, creative, imaginative, deluded, selfish, selfless, open, secretive, etc, etc ... Healthy personalities have myriad qualities, forever shifting and rebalancing; presenting one face to a certain situation and another later the same day.
It's called flexibility. Because we understand this is human, we understand it in others, too. Since we understand that other people are also flexible, we can imagine (empathise with) their feelings & reactions to situations where we were not present.
Because disordered personalities are inflexible, sufferers don't empathise with this quality of ours. It leads them to call us false and manipulative; it's unimaginable to them that we could genuinely feel & react one way in circumstance A, and other ways in B, C, and the rest of the alphabet.
It's hard for us to imagine that they could not have this adaptability in their personalities. But they don't. It's a disorder. It bewilders and disappoints us - but, once we've grasped the difference, it's unfair to expect of them what they cannot offer.

as an example of the not allowed to have feelings thing i have a few times made the mistake of phoning my mum when upset about something and foolishly ended up telling her i'm upset or trying to talk about it with her (not to do with her, say something bad has happened elsewhere that i'm upset about and i make the mistake of answering 'how are you?' honestly) and she has more than once literally hung up on me. "oh i don't have to listen to this" snarled angrily and the phone down.

utterly baffling.

at one point i used to secretly and guiltily wonder what it would be like when she died and we were all free of her (awful i know)

Pfft, not awful! The very best thing my father did was die unexpectedly.
So shoot me.

agree with the don't expect what they cannot give business.

i think it stopped hurting me so much when i grasped that. i have described it as seeing my mum and dad as these two people i know and keep in touch with but don't see them as my parents - it's hard to explain but i no longer look at her as my 'mother'. not sure if that makes sense to anyone - obviously she is my mother but the concept of mother, what you expect of a mother, what emotions, gestures, whatever you associate with the term mother are NOT to be found in her. so she's not my 'mother'.

YY, SAF. Oddly, my mother is attempting reparation now. It's rather sweet. It's gestures, okay, but still sweet!