Restrained Narcissist - Excerpts Part 24

Written by Sam Vaknin

Excerpts from the Archives of the Narcissism List Part 24

1. The Restrained Narcissist
2. About Myself (what else?)
3. Myself as a Source of Narcissistic Supply to Others, or: The Existence of Others
4. Right Now I am Enraged
5. Is there an Ideal Source of Supply?
6. Destruction and Construction
7. Punishing Others
8. You are a Source of Supply
9. Narcissism
10. Addicted
11. False Self
12. Worth and Grandiosity

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1. The Restrained Narcissist

The reason Ns are restrained is because they are terrified of their own suppressed violence. Ns are aggressive, rageful, uncontrollable. They fear the consequences. Their restraint is simultaneously an act of cowardice and self-denial.

2. About Myself (what else?)

I am looking to believe that narcissism can be unlearned.

I am sure that unlearning it is hardly the whole story. There is learning and growing to do. My narcissism is functional, adaptive, useful. It must be replaced with something if its breeding grounds (my needs) do not change.

I am tired, exhausted, depleted (the last word comes to mind more and more often). Today I am full of energy (by no means manic, just feeling good). But there is a another storm coming.

It sounds like a formula. As though I was writing it for publication, with an eye on posterity.

Then I said: it rings hollow and untrue.

Then I said: the fact the I wrote it must be of some import, the nature of which I do not know.

Today, I had the first good day after a month of impotent rage and raging envy. It often happens to me: inappropriate affect, incongruence, incoherence, lack of cohesion, no correlation. I feel one thing (let's say: I feel good) and I write another or people are convinced that it is my most horrible day.

I just read this "right now I am enraged". But I am not. I was not enraged all day.

Was I lying? No, I was not. It is simply that I occupy an inner world with very little relation to the outside. I WAS VERY ENRAGED yesterday. When writing it, I relived this rage in a semi-detached, semi-involved manner, as a baseball fan would when watching a game of his favourite group. Or like watching an especially engrossing movie, there and not there, without before or after. Movies are rather timeless ("it happened in the movie").

3. Myself as a Source of Narcissistic Supply to Others, or: The Existence of Others

I never thought of myself as a source of supply, though I, in all probability, am very much so to many people. For instance: I hold a high ranking official position in the government and people name drop. Others regard me as "brilliant" and my affirmation and approval means a lot to them.

By stating that I am not a source to you - in some way you belittle me. But I am not reacting as I always do when belittled (or when I paranoidally think I am being belittled). I do not react to the THREAT. I react in a detached, amused and bemused way. I must get to the bottom of this. Perhaps you reflected me to myself and I find (that part of) myself pompous and unworthy of serious consideration.

By casting me in the role of a source of supply, you reminded me that others do exist.

The existence of others strikes me. It doesn't permeate the background, there constantly, a fixture, as I GUESS is the case with most people.

I am suddenly and intermittently struck by the lightning bolt of other people's existence (usually when they express their unmet needs).

It gives me pause. I slow down. I ponder this miraculous event, this curious fact, that others seem to have dimensions, to exist.

Then I shrug my shoulders and continue with whatever it was I was doing before. The other - whose existence I just became aware of - fades into the sort of two dimensional shadow which often inhabits my world.

It is the most peculiar thing this startling realization, but it is experienced by me exactly the way I just described it.

Imagine a movie character leaping out of the screen and you will grasp the effect.