How Narcissism Works
OK so:
You got your narcissist.
Someone whose sense of self is underdeveloped because the mirroring they got as a child was inadequate. They did not receive reflections that they could healthily use, that they could internalize into some sort of reliable inner life.
Someone who needs to use other people to fill their internal gaps and make themselves feel — well, feel as though they exist (and, in a compensatory move, are important and very special). I usually think of narcissists as empty, but the truth is they’re full of shame and self-loathing, fear and uncertainty.
OK and:
All of us are self-interested
to one degree or another. All of us are self-absorbed and existentially uncertain at least some of the time. All of us use people for our own psychic and material benefit. And all of us get used. Because, as human organisms, our survival depends on fitting together.
These fits, these patterns, these dances, are worth monitoring because they can be dysfunctional, maladaptive. (They can also generate remarkable personal and mutual growth.) But, at bottom, using others for one’s own benefit is expectable, if sometimes irritating and even downright maddening and often deserving of corrective action.
But being self-interested, even self-absorbed, does not make us narcissists. Narcissism is actually
a whole nuther kettle of fish.
At their best, narcissists are usurious: They take more than they’re owed.
At their worst, they’re
extortionists.
When they’re thwarted — disagreed with, criticized, disobeyed — when someone calls them out or holds the line or otherwise threatens their trigger-hair equilibrium and fragile self-image or dips into their deep reservoir of self-loathing — they erupt. And spew onto the offender the very feelings the narcissist cannot bear within themselves. (Or they become masterfully manipulative and passive aggressive.)
It’s called narcissistic rage. Due to narcissistic injury.
So how does narcissism work? It protects a fragile, underdeveloped human being from feelings that are unbearable and always bubbling just under the surface. It enlists — really, coerces — other people to keep the lid on those feelings for the narcissist. When other people, acting as if they have autonomy and are not mere minions, do something that unleashes those emotions and beliefs, the narcissist extorts. They take what they need. From people who are merely objects for their use. For their psychic survival.
The narcissist’s ferocious, even
sadistic reaction
to narcissistic injury is super effective in the short-term. It lays the blame elsewhere. It distracts from the shame and the other demons that lie in wait inside the narcissist’s soul. It intimidates and deflates, encouraging the butt of the rage or manipulation to question themselves or cave to the narcissist’s need.
Just so you know: The degree of hateful control a usurious narcissist exerts when injured is proportional to the degree of desperation they feel to avoid any knowledge of whatever is happening inside their bodies. Because there’s nothing but demons in there. And don’t you dare try to get a narcissist to come face to face with those demons!
That’s how bad they are.
Which raises the question: What can you do when you have inadvertently injured a narcissist? And find yourself to be the butt of narcissistic rage?
My answer is complicated, but In a pinch:
Get away (by physically leaving or refusing to engage)
Find compassion for the narcissist and yourself
Possible mantra: Narcissism sucks. For everyone. When faced with narcissistic rage, your first step is away.