Where did it all start?
In the prior installment I covered the False Self and how it compares to the True Self. At this level, we can see a lot of depth, but to go further into the origins of narcissism we have to start at infancy. All of us are born with certain predispositions to a certain level of empathy, and if we start off with lower empathy we are one step closer to the callous behaviour we see in an adult narcissist.
Family origins
On the nurture side of the debate we have the pathological family. There are many theories on how bad parenting can lead to personality disorders in children. The parent can spoil the child and delude them of what the world offers. The motivation behind this for the parents is to live vicariously through the child, and have the child follow their dreams and wishes based on what they didn’t achieve. This can be an idealization. When the child fails to do this with their own efforts, because the child also has needs and limitations, then the parents devalue the child out of the disappointment. If the child’s demands are too onerous to the narcissistic parents, there can be neglect, and maybe even revenge if the parents put attention onto other siblings, causing envy and resentment in response to being discarded. This is the beginning of a cycle of abuse that will become internalized in the child. These are mental representations to replace the True Self with a False Self. This False Self has the only goal of gaining validation from others, regardless of what the True Self really wants.
Mirroring
In psychology there is a very important practice that parents have the power to create for their children. It’s called Mirroring. The parent SEES the true self of the child. To develop the child’s true self, the parent has to mirror back to the child with validation. “I see you. I love you. Just as you are.” You can also see the true self developing in the child with play. The child can find what it’s good at, and possibly a role in the world that supports that energy. The tragedy in not seeing the child’s personality is a loss to society because we will never see this potential, and the child never develops his or her own happiness.
Internalization
If the child has no other environment to escape to, and with enough isolation over the years, they can unconsciously identify and imitate the family’s beliefs, values, and goals. The lack of a relationship with parents requires the child to internalize his or her parents into the mind; learning from trial and error how to please the parents and avoid punishment. Giving what the narcissistic parents want is a way to stay safe and gain praise. Here the superego, which mimics the parent’s needs, teaches the child to chase after those same superficial goals of trying to gain favourable responses from important people. This is the training ground for our future narcissist. The skill to be able to condition responses from people. The ego is the part that takes action to control the environment to give the super-ego, the internal parent, what it desires. Unfortunately the True Self is still ignored. As Sam Vaknin puts it, “the narcissist follows a personal religion where the ego tries to obtain what the God-like super-ego desires.” The pleasure in life for the narcissist is pleasing this personal God, and through reward and repetition, becoming identified with it.
Transformation
When this identification is complete, the child has now become just like the narcissistic parent who abused him or her. The ego is now following this internal master of ridicule and shame. It can respond with rage and abuse to destroy people who dare to shine in front of the narcissist. This is because, as we saw in the last episode, the gap between the True Self and the Ego-Ideal is painful, because of the criticisms of the super-ego. Other people can become obstacles to the ego-ideal, and they must behave or be punished. The narcissist doesn’t see who you are, but has internal critical voices that are projecting on top of you. This is what it means when boundaries are violated by narcissists. People are supposed to behave when the narcissist commands. When people act independently, then the narcissist has to control these people, because they are only a means to an end. This end to satisfy the ego-ideal, and to stop the super-ego from taunting, criticizing and belittling. We become only tools for the narcissist’s ego-ideal and internal critical parent.
Winning!
And what is this goal of the ego-ideal? The goal is Narcissistic Supply. To make it simple, narcissistic supply is mental rewards of achieving superiority or importance. It’s that pleasure we get when we WIN. All of us desire this, but when the true self is not developed, all that is left is a child in an adult body, looking for winning sensations from authority figures, fans, employees, and disposable romantic relationships. If all of us are competing for attention, then naturally there will be conflict on who gets more of it. To get more you need a predatory mindset. Now we come to the point where the victim meets the narcissist and unconsciously falls into their traps. These traps are everywhere. They are in romantic relationships, workplaces, and community organizations. Predators want that elation of winning and if they are addicts they are going to overturn any stone to get to it. There is no safe place. Narcissistic abuse is like a virus. If you find one way to stop the abuse, a new way can be invented.
Leverage
If there is one way to predict when and where predatory behaviour will exist, it will exist where there is leverage. If a predator only looks to win, and in pathological situations, they look to win against anyone, including family and friends, then they will need leverage on their victim. Powerful people who have excellent boundaries, and sources of income independent of narcissists, are often peaceful and don’t even know anything about narcissism. The world looks rosy, and opportunities are everywhere, but if you don’t have this independence you are more easily targeted. Whether it is because we need a job, or we are stuck in loneliness and want a relationship, most of us have leverage points related to our needs. Now if you are in this situation, but you know your rights, and are adept at fighting back, you might still not be targeted by the narcissist.
Pygmalion
Now if the narcissist feeds with pleasure, when there is evidence of winning, then it will need people who don’t fight back and cringe with fear and terror. Very easy wins. They are always testing boundaries of targets to see who reacts the right way. This leaves the most desired target. Someone who is naïve and empathetic. Sam Vaknin says the best target is a Pygmalion target. A naïve student who idolizes and needs the narcissist. Almost like a mannequin that is malleable and emotionally responsive.
Love vs. objectification
What the victim doesn’t realize at first is that the narcissist cannot feel love for the target beyond competition, lust and usefulness. The target will have to go through as much abuse as necessary before realizing that they are wasting their precious time, energy and sanity. It is possible to project empathy that you have, onto someone who only pretends to have it. Usually when abuse happens right away, most people will escape. The following tactics have to be done in a particular order to elongate the energy draining that the narcissist exacts on the victim. This draining is about getting that elation of winning while the target gets drained with stress from losing.
The Golden Period
In the beginning the predator has to move cautiously. This is why gathering information is so important to the narcissist. First the narcissist has to be pleasant enough with you so you will tolerate their presence. They try, with trial and error, to find what pleases you and enhance those reactions in you. It is a time when trust is created and the victim gives too much information about themselves that can be used against them later. This early period is called the Golden Period by H.G. Tudor, and it sets up the main motivation for the abused to stay with the abuser. The abused will get addicted and try to recreate this period.
The mask falls off
As the relationship becomes more familiar the effort to remain pleasant starts tiring the narcissist. Remember they are predators. Predators are externally motivated. Predators are only excited by the chase. They must feed or feel bored, and empty. All of us have had that feeling of the treasure hunt, when we go shopping and objectify things into characteristics which are more pleasing or less pleasing. Once we figure out the product and it’s drawbacks, and everything has drawbacks, it has no mystery, and pretty quickly there is some mysterious object somewhere else. The pressure builds to discard the current object, and move onto the next treasure hunt. Out of boredom of maintaining this façade, the narcissist has to start exerting some of that leverage on you to see how far the control can spread.
Return to the golden period
As the narcissist starts seeing any rebellion, there are some returns to that early period of pleasure to calm the victim, and remind the victim of The Golden Period. It’s a period of conditioning that mimics the results often seen in gambling addictions, where victims or addicts keep trying to recreate that version of the golden period. All this is manufactured to erase the self as Jackson Mackenzie describes in Psychopath Free. Just like the result of the parenting that lacked mirroring of the true self, the victim is slowly losing interest in their own hobbies, likes, and pursuits. Goals become exclusively related to the narcissist’s needs, which is what they want. The golden period is used to keep the victim dangling for months and years while their standards are progressively lowered. This is why a lot of victims don’t leave right away. When the victim heals and accuses the abuser, abusers will often say things like “why did you stay so long?” This is why. The victim is unconsciously trying to recreate the golden period, but instead their standards are lowered because the victim forgets about his or her own needs. This golden period doesn’t have to be love making. You can see this tactic used a lot in the workplace. It could be a boss that dangles a carrot of a promotion that never happens, or an employee that was treated with pleasant attention in the beginning, then being replaced by a new employee who becomes the new pet.
Unconsciousness of the victim
By the time the narcissist has control, the victim is unconscious of how manipulated they are. Tactics like triangulation, where rewards and attention are moved constantly to other targets, to manufacture envy and to motivate action. Until the victim is finally conscious of the manipulation, months or years may have passed. The realization is that our externally motivated desires to help were played like an instrument. It’s also a realization that our help towards the narcissist is actually seen as a method to take power over them. Accepting help is a weakness in their minds, and in some cases they are right. We need to help people that are asking for it, and are capable of gratitude. Helping people do things they can do themselves can foster dependency, which is a form of power you have over others. That’s what they fear, losing power. Your help just gets transformed into servant behaviour, as that is the only help a narcissist can accept.
Going too far
Eventually the narcissist goes too far. The cycle of rewards and punishments has too few rewards and too many punishments to make the relationship continue. This can circle back to more reminders of the golden period to keep the victim dangling. This may include promises to change, but eventually there is enough consciousness in the victim that this is all a game, and the narcissist will have to find another naïve victim to start all over again. The victim then has to heal and recover their own true self, before feeling like they used to before the abuse. This healing can take more months and years. It is the lesson about empathy that the victim learns. Developing yourself will actually help society more.
Informers
At this stage the narcissist can try some more reminders of the golden period to bring the victim back for more abuse, or a recycling of the same tactics on someone new. Often the narcissist will have many people to draw supply from, and some of these people can be useful recruits. Because of the power of leverage and the attractiveness of power, many people feel drawn to imitate the narcissist because they are a successful role model. The recruits may also be narcissists in training. There are many names for these people, like the Flying Monkeys in The Wizard of Oz, or Lieutenants as H.G. Tudor calls them. They are essentially informants, and they do similar tactics on you as the main narcissist would. Usually they will be pleasant in the beginning and they even pretend to talk against the narcissist, but this is just to get your favour, and to get you trusting enough to give them more information. This way they can know what your sore spots currently are, and continue triangulating and make you feel that lack for what you don’t have. This is lots of winning supply.
Another layer of no contact
It seems like a good deal to inform for the narcissist, but if there are lawsuits, they can throw the informer under the bus and let them take the blame. Then the narcissist can continue on with other disposable informants and other targets. This is where boundaries are important and victims need to test their friendships to see if they really are friendships. Being attached to connections who still communicate with the narcissist is still that marionette string of the golden period affecting you. After using the typical advice of going no contact with the main narcissist, it is a fear of cutting off the friendship with the informant that bothers the victim now. This is why no contact with the narcissist includes blocking their informants as well.
Healing
You are not out of contact until you are out of the narcissist’s sphere of influence. Better yet is to heal your wounds that make you feel defective, and reengage with your hobbies and life interests. Those wounds are exactly what the narcissist uses to control you. The entire game was to get you to dislike what you have, and chase after your own super-ego to please the narcissist. It’s that constant propaganda that your job is not enough, your money is not enough, your looks are not enough. It may be true that some of these things are not enough for the narcissist, but if you keep looking at what is not enough, you will not see your true self and your true purpose on this planet. You’ll always be fitting yourself into the narcissist’s purposes and your inner fire dies out.
Reciprocity
After some months and years pass, the victim starts deeply healing, and can see two sides to this world. One side is seeing how good relationships feel like, where you can be yourself and express yourself freely, and people return your affections. The other side is Crypto-Fascist or Crypto-Communist authoritarian relationships, where people are just a means to an end. The relationship is always vertical and one-sided. Books by the author Franz Kafka, The Trial, and Metamorphosis can be wake up calls for all empathetic helpers. You can be exploited, no matter your good intentions. It’s also a reminder that those who seek this kind of power can be found in every institution that has leverage over the populace. A lot of what makes a powerful class of people, is this kind of networking.
Brochures of happiness
Pursuing worldly success will guarantee that you will bump into a narcissist, and threaten their power and control. Worldly status is advertised to us, but they never tell us of the conflict that’s coming. Why? You may need them, but they also need you, especially to do the dirty work they don’t want to do. They promise you success with lavish college brochures, but they only want you to be The Help and that’s what they don’t advertise. Their sense of self only exists when they are dominating you, because your low position reminds them of their importance. Narcissists were always there. In order to take over an institution, even an institution that is supposed fight this behaviour, you just need to tell people what they want to hear and hide your true self. Once you gain enough leverage in the institution, you can then exert your narcissistic control, and try to maintain it. Like the main character of Stanislaw Lem’s The Futurological Congress, when the illusions of power are peeled back, there’s just a manipulator on the other side. As long as we desire the same dreams, and we need resources from the same places, we will always have to deal with conflict. No two can occupy the same place at the same time.
N-Magnet: Narcissist’s Ideal Victim? – by Sam Vaknin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cv5VncdRqYs
Malignant Self-Love: Narcissism Revisited by Sam Vaknin: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9788023833843/
Sam Vaknin’s overview of Narcissism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xd9KwpL7U_I&t=1089s
Sitting Target: How and Why the Narcissist chooses you by H. G. Tudor: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9781535375092/
Psychopath Free by Jackson MacKenzie: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780425279991/
Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare by Shahida Arabi: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9781533752703/
The Narcissist’s Secrets by Leyla Loric and Richard Grannon: Kindle: https://amzn.to/39nZAid
How to take revenge on a narcissist by Leyla Loric and Richard Grannon: Kindle: https://amzn.to/36fcw8g
The Trial by Franz Kafka: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780805204162/
Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780805210576/
The Futurological Congress by Stanislaw Lem: https://www.isbns.net/isbn/9780156340403/
Psychology: https://psychreviews.org/category/psychology01/