Narcissists and the Entitlement of Routine - Narcissists and Emotions

Written by Sam Vaknin

• This frequent change of vocations prevents the Narcissist from having a clear career path and annuls the need to persevere.
• All the initiatives adopted by a Narcissist are egocentric, sporadic and discrete.
• They focus on an aspect of the Narcissist, are randomly distributed in space and in time, and do not form a thematic or other continuum - they are not goal or objective oriented).
• Sometimes, as a substitute, the Narcissist engages in performance shifting:
  The construction of imaginary, invented goals with no correlation with the real world - and their attainment.
• To avoid facing performance tests and to maintain grandiosity and uniqueness the Narcissist refrains from acquiring skills and training (driving licence, technical skills, any systematic - academic or non-academic - knowledge).
• The Child in the narcissist is reaffirmed this way - because these are adult activities and attributes that are avoided.
• The gap between the image projected by the Narcissist (charisma, unusual knowledge, grandiosity, fantasies) and his actual achievements - create in him permanent feelings that he is a crook, a hustler, living an unreal life in a movie-like setting.

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• This gives rise to ominous sensations of threat and, concurrently, to compensating feelings of immunity.
• The Narcissist is forced to become a manipulator.

Locations and Environment

• A prevailing feeling of not belonging and of detachment.
• Bodily discomfiture
  (the body feels as depersonalised, alien and a nuisance, its needs are totally ignored, its signals re-routed and re-interpreted, its maintenance neglected)
• Distance from the political communities which the Narcissist inhabits (neighbourhood, city, state), his religion, his ethnic background, his friends.
• He often adopts the stance of the "scientific observer".
• This is Narcissistic Detachment - the feeling the Narcissist has that he is a director or an actor in a movie about his life.
• The Narcissist avoids "emotional handles": photographs, music identified with a certain period in his life, places, people, mementoes and emotional situations.
• The Narcissist lives on borrowed time in a borrowed life.
• Every place and time period are but transitory (sufficient but not necessary) and lead to the next, unfamiliar environment.
• The Narcissist feels that the end is near.
• He lives in rented apartments, is an illegal immigrant in many countries, works without the necessary permits and licenses, is fully mobile on a short notice, does not buy real estate or immovables.
• He travels light and he likes to travel. He is peripatetic and itinerant.
• The Narcissist cultivates feelings of incompatibility with his surroundings.
• He considers himself superior to others and keeps criticizing people, institutions and situations.
• The above behaviour patterns constitute a denial of reality.
• The Narcissist defines a rigid, impenetrable, personal territory and is physically revolted when it is breached."

next: Wasted Lives: Spending Time With A Narcissist