Narcissist's Interview - Excerpts Part 17 - Narcissist's Interview

Written by Sam Vaknin

Q: Where did the idea for your Web site, where you first published your theories on NPD, come from, and how has it evolved?

A: I did not believe then - nor do I believe now - that any publisher would have published my writings. I come on too strongly, I am uncompromising, politically very incorrect. Publishers are commercially motivated and politically constrained. Is it a coincidence that the Internet and e-books evolved in tandem with desktop publishing? It is a revolt against the publishing establishment. The website - and the printed edition that followed - were acts of desperation. But, in hindsight, it was a blessing. My site has 1500 impressions (=c. 400 new readers) DAILY (c. 140,000 readers accessed it in the last 12 months). I have a discussion group with 420 members. My book is being sold through Barnes and Noble. I am content. At the beginning, I simply translated my jailhouse notes, taken from a worn out cardboard-bound notepad. Then, as people kept writing to me (I get c. 20 letters daily) asking the same questions over and over again, I came up with the "Frequently Asked Questions" sections (all 67 of them). Then I noticed that my list-members were especially attached to certain messages asking me to re-post them to the list from time to time. I collected them in 27 (soon to be 28) "Excerpts from the Narcissism List" pages. So, you see, the site developed by default and in response to pressures by my "customers". I want to emphasize that only the print edition of the book costs money. The rest - the full text of the book, the discussion group (5-7 daily articles) - are free of charge.

Q: You wrote: "I never described "Malignant Self Love" as a helpful work. It is not." And you also wrote: "So, you see, the site developed by default and in response to pressures by my "customers". You are a self-professed narcissist, and you warn your readers that narcissists are punishing, pathological, and not to be trusted. Yet hundreds of readers or customers seem to be looking to you for help and advice on how to cope with their own narcissism or on their relationship with a narcissist. I'm struck by a kind of hall-of-mirrors effect here. How do you reconcile these seeming contradictions?

A: Indeed, only seeming. I may have mis-phrased myself. By "helpful" I meant "intended to help". The book was never intended to help anyone. Above all, it was meant to attract attention and adulation (narcissistic supply) to its author, myself. Being in a guru-like status is the ultimate narcissistic experience. Had I not also been a misanthrope and a schizoid, I might have actually enjoyed it. The book is imbued with an acerbic and vitriolic self-hatred, replete with diatribes and Jeremiads and glaring warnings regarding narcissists and their despicable behaviour. I refused to be "politically correct" and call the narcissist - "other-challenged". Yet, I am a narcissist and the book is, therefore, a self directed "J'accuse". This satisfies the enfant terrible in me, the part of me that seeks to be despised, abhorred, derided and, ultimately, punished by society at large.

Q: While you say your work is not helpful, don't you feel that at least the "victims" of narcissists might be helped? After all, you're giving away all the trade secrets.

A: The victims of narcissists have rarely become victims randomly. It is very akin to an immunological response: there is a structural affinity, an inexorable attraction, an irreversible bonding and an ensuing addiction far stronger than any substance abuse. I, therefore, am doubtful not only with regards to the prognosis of a narcissist - but also with regards to the healing prospects of those exposed to his poisoned charms. The Inverted Narcissist (a sub-species of codependent who is specifically attracted to narcissists) - ARE narcissists, kind of mirror narcissists. As such, they are no less doomed than the "original".

Q: How old are you?

A: On April 2000, I will be 39.

Q: What did your parents do professionally?

A: My mother was all her life a wife to both my father and to her house. As a consequence, she had very little time left for us, her children. She was also fighting what I now know to have been severe mental disorders. Later in life, she healed spontaneously and developed a minor career as a caretaker - looking after the disabled and the geriatric. My father - a clinically depressed person if I ever saw one - climbed the corporate ladder to become a regional construction site manager. But he was never too gregarious or obedient and so, hated by the management and admired by very few co-workers for his professionalism - he was booted out. He spent 8 years wallowing in self pity until he found a menial job in a warehouse, way beneath his qualifications. He likes it there. It validates his view of himself as a martyr.

Q: How big was your family growing up--how many brothers and sisters?

A: I have three brothers and one sister, all younger than I. To most of them - those who did not detach on time - I have been a destructive influence.

Q: What was your family's attitude toward religion?

A: My parents vacillated between ridicule and disdain and bouts of devoutness. On the average, we were a mildly traditionalist family: selectively observing a few religious commandments and rites. Two of my brothers flirted with fundamentalist Judaism (less derogatorily known as Orthodoxy) only to come a full circle to being dedicated atheists. I am agnostic. I simply don't know and I do not waste my time on questions which are, in principle, non-answerable.