Narcissist's Interview - Excerpts Part 17 - Narcissistic Supply

Written by Sam Vaknin

But my "achievements" are ephemeral. They do not last because I am never there to follow up on them. I lose interest very quickly, move physically and disconnect emotionally. Another area of dysfunction is my sexual life. To my parents sex was ugly and dirty. My rebellion led me to experience orgies and group sex, on the one hand - and (most of the time) asceticism. In between bouts of promiscuity (once a decade for a few weeks, after major life crises) I engage in sex very very rarely (despite long-term relationships with women). My sexual non-availability is intended to frustrate women who are attracted to me. I use the fact that I have a girlfriend as an alibi to avoid contact with women. I am a conscious misogynist: I fear and loathe women and tend to ignore them to the best of my ability. To me, they are a mixture of hunter and parasite. Of course, this is not my STATED position (I am truly a liberal - for instance, I will not dream of depriving women of their career opportunities or suffrage). This conflict between the emotional and the cognitive leads to express hostility in my encounters with women, which they detect, in some cases. Alternatively, I "desexualize" them and treat them as functions.

Q: What can change your situation? have you improved your situation?

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A: Research shows that psychodynamic therapies (such as psychoanalysis) are rather helpless in coping with NPD. Behaviourist therapies do succeed to modify certain behaviour patterns. Overall, I haven't improved one iota in my 37 years. Jail, exile, bankruptcy, divorce, mortal danger - NOTHING changes me. In a perverted way, I am "proud" of it. You must understand that personality disorders have a function. They develop because the child is exposed to repeated traumas. His way of defending himself is by constructing a "False Self" to take on the flack. The child mentally deflects his traumatic experiences to the False Self. Because it is impossible for him to love the abusing and dangerously unpredictable parents or caregivers - he directs his love at himself. Hence pathological (or secondary) narcissism. I must emphasize, though, that this is a psychodynamic (object relations) view. There are other schools in psychology and they have other explanations.

Q: Is your narcissism your own doing or do you think that there external causes as well?

A: See above.

Q: Do you blame other factors for your fall?

A: No, my fall, is entirely, directly and indirectly related to the fact that my personality is inflexible. This rigidity means that I have pre-set, immutable, invariable reactions to changing situations. Of course, very often my reactions are counter-productive. I am self-destructive and my behaviours are self-defeating. I hate myself so much that I am content only when I suffer and on the verge of complete devastation. It is a common mistake to believe that understanding something is halfway to curing it. I understand pathological narcissism as very few people do. I correspond with psychologists and psychiatrists all over the world, giving them advice on this subject. Yet, even if I am fully aware that my actions will cause me great, irreversible, harm - I cannot change my course, I cannot avoid committing these tragic errors. I want to be constantly punished. It was Kafka who understood that a continuous trial is the worst possible punishment. Believe me, my jail period was nothing compared to the five years that my criminal trial lasted. Similarly, a personality disorder is very much an on-going Kafkaesque trial. No one - least of all the accused - knows the charges or when the trial is going to be over. It is a daily Chinese torture.

Q: Are you in touch with your family? What do they advise you to do?

A: I haven't seen my parents for almost three years. Immediately after I was released from prison I had to flee Israel because of the combined pressures of both my creditors and the State of Israel. I talk to them (to my family) rarely by phone. There is not a lot of advice they can give me. Even as a small kid with big eyeglasses and a big IQ, I was alien to them. I did not belong. They were afraid of me, repelled by me, they wanted me to disappear, like nightmares do. At least this is how I felt. Ever since then I found myself in dozens of unprecedented or very rare situations in which NO ONE could give me any reasonable advice, let alone my parents. I am in touch with my brothers, especially with the youngest, Sharon. The difference between us is 16 years and, in some respects, I am like a father figure to him. He is a very talented painter and illustrator.

Q: What do you miss most in Israel?

A: Nothing. It always was by far the most unpleasant place I know and it is getting worse daily, I am being told.

Q: Can you describe your appearance nowadays? How is your health?

A: I look exactly as I did when I was Bar Mitzvah. I refuse to grow up (though I did get much fatter). I have no children, am not married, don't have a driver's licence. These are things grown-ups do. I am a Wunderkind and I am simply afraid of losing this (by now, imaginary) title by growing up. I am rather healthy, except some minor problems. Because I do not exercise, I don't have one muscle in my flabby body (except my brain, of course :o)))

Q: What does money mean to you?

A: Safety, the ability to extract Narcissistic Supply by showing off, the ability to do what I really want which is to accumulate knowledge and to use it to impress everyone. I don't like the process of making money. It is tiresome, repetitive and does not involve the intellect too rigorously. Every idiot can make money, most of them do and, from my experience, most of those who do are not bright, to use a very restrained British understatement. Now I don't have a penny - but I know how to make money and I made money a few times in my life. There is nothing to it.