Decompensation - Excerpts Part 42 - Prevalence of Narcissism

Written by Sam Vaknin

That's all there is to it. Narcissists regard other people as you might regard a faucet. As long as it spews forth water - you maintain it. Once it stops - you ignore it without giving it a second thought.

But narcissists sometimes fail to say goodbye because they find it difficult to confront their own failure. It is too painful and threatening. The narcissist is a confabulation of omnipotence and perfection built on shaky, fallacious foundations. Failure means exposure and exposure might lead to the disintegration of the entire edifice. The narcissist thus prefers to simply abandon the scene of his defeat even as he declares victory unilaterally and counterfactually.

5. Avoiding Pain

Narcissists are terrified of pain. The False Self - the essence of pathological narcissism- is an elaborate, multilayered reaction to past traumas and their attendant anguish. The narcissist is conditioned by his torturous past to avoid grief at any cost - even at the cost of self-annihilation and re-invention as a narrative, a piece of fiction.

6. Prevalence of NPD

The incidence of the Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) may be MUCH higher than the reported figures (up to around 5% of the adult population). The reason NPD is under-reported is because narcissists rarely go to therapy, tend to charm and deceive the therapists once they do , and never admit that something is wrong with them even then.

7. Long-term Planning

The typical narcissist has a short attention span and believes that the world is a random, menacing place. Catch as catch can. Carpe Diem (seize the day). The narcissist lurches at any potential source with a "charm attack" that often, alas, proves irresistible.

Very few narcissists are sufficiently cold and calculated to cultivate long-term Sources of Supply.

Pathological narcissism - the addiction to and pursuit of Narcissistic Supply to regulate a labile sense of self-worth - is not a conscious choice, or a lifestyle, or a profession. It is the quiddity (the essence) of the narcissist. Do bees plan to sting? Do tigers analyze their hunting patterns? Do mothers love their children by design?

It just comes to the narcissist naturally.

I see a beautiful woman, who is also reasonably clever - and I want to "convert" her, to make her admire me, to cause her to spread news and views about me and "proselytize" to ever expanding circles of family and friends.

This wish is the psychological equivalent of hunger or thirst (or sex drive). It is a craving gradually translated into a plan of action.

But first comes the insatiable addiction to narcissistic supply - and only then a cognitive "blueprint" of hunting, conversion and conquest.

8. Love and Being Loved

Fear of commitment ("commitmentophobia") and intimacy is one thing. Inability to love and be loved is another.

All narcissists share the first. And, surprisingly, all narcissists share the second also!

The word "love" is understood by the narcissist to mean "dependence", "neediness", "ability to provide narcissistic supply", "becoming the narcissist's extension and property".

In these - distorted and sick - senses of the word, all narcissists love to be loved...

next: Excerpts from the Archives of the Narcissism List Part 43