Protect from Narcissism - Excerpts Part 32

Written by Sam Vaknin

Excerpts from the Archives of the Narcissism List Part 32

1. How to Protect My Son from Narcissism?
2. From Desperation to Happiness
3. Internal Combustion and External Propulsion
4. Loving and Believing that You Love
5. The Art of Un-Being
6. The Narcissist's Refrigerator
7. Mind Like Water Interview

1. How to Protect My Son from Narcissism?

Your son is likely to encounter narcissists in his future.

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In a way, he will be better prepared to cope with them, more alert to their existence and chicanery and more desensitized to their abuse.

For this you should be grateful.

There is nothing much you can do, otherwise. Stop wasting your money, time, energy, and emotional resources.

It is a lost war, though a just cause. Instead, make yourself available to your son.

The only thing you can do to prevent your son from emulating his father - is to present to him another role model of a NON-narcissist - YOU. Hopefully, when he grows up, he will prefer your model to his father's.

But there is only that much you can do. You cannot control the developmental path of your son.

Exerting unlimited control is what narcissism is all about - and is exactly what you should avoid at all costs, however worried you might be.

2. From Desperation to Happiness

This is our duplicity as humans:

That we transform our desperation into a fount of happiness, our constant quest into its own reason, our horror into curiosity, our fear into courage, our thoughts into action, our cruelty into God.

It is this insane behaviour that psychiatrists call "sane".

3. Internal Combustion and External Propulsion

Some of us have internal combustion - others need external propulsion.

It takes the two kinds to make a world.

You need a reason, a vision, an horizon - to be motivated.

You are deterred by the void.

I need the void. Its very vacuity attracts me. The challenge of its emptiness.

I am out to conquer by expanding into the abyss.

You minimize yourself in order to avoid it.

You are propelled by other people's strength and by their convictions.

Their very eagerness and neediness accelerates you.

I make a universe for them and then withdraw.

You make a universe for them and then withdraw.

I withdraw because they need me.

You withdraw because you need them.

4. Loving and Believing that You Love

One must differentiate between LOVING and BELIEVING that you love.

Adults who are NPD sufferers lack empathy and, as a result, are incapable of loving.

The prognosis of NPD in therapy is poor - though a certain percentage does "heal".

Put together, this means that NPDs are not likely to recover or develop the ability to love as other people do.

Still, many Narcissists BELIEVE that they are in love or that they are loving.