From my experience and more reading on the topic than I care to remember, narcissism can be brought down to one word: ego. But it may not be in the way you might imagine.
Narcissists actually have quite fragile egos. At some point in their lives, they have been deeply hurt (quite likely by a narcissist). In an effort to protect themselves from future damage and painful emotions, they spend a great deal of time attempting to maintain and build up their egos. This often leads to diminishing, manipulating and controlling other people when required. If they can make someone else feel ‘less than’ themselves, then their ego gets a boost. As a result, they don’t need to feel badly about themselves for the moment.
Narcissists are disordered individuals with incredibly sensitive and easily bruised egos. Consider any recent interaction with a potentially narcissistic person. When you remove their word salad of blaming and complete lack of accountability, what’s left? Typically what you will see is a person who was deflecting and projecting blame or shame or something else that they have deemed to be negative. And why? Simply because they can’t handle the feelings that go along with being wrong or flawed or…well, human. Being blamed for something might just require them to look at themselves, and for a narcissist, that’s a path filled with incredibly thorny branches. As long as they can present a puffed-up persona to the world, their hope is that everyone believes it, including them.
Coping skills are greatly lacking in narcissists. So they have their go-to patterns of dysfunctional behaviors and reactions that they predictably fall back on because they believe it will keep their egos safe from any further harm. They project, deflect, gaslight, manipulate, throw guilt around, give the silent treatment, and any number of other things. Yes, in the process they often hurt other people. But they can only hurt other people if those people allow it to hurt them. Instead, a good way to stay safe around narcissists is to filter out all of the bluster, condescension, blame, and nonsense being aimed at you or someone else, and just take a look at what and who lies beneath. What narcissists harp about is rarely in regard to the person they’re pointing fingers at. It’s a smoke and mirrors show to keep the spotlight off of themselves and their own deep-seated issues, fears and fragility. They need to maintain control and power in order to avoid their fake persona collapsing and people (the narcissist included) seeing through to the truth.
Am I suggesting that we should have sympathy for narcissists, especially given the damage they do? That’s a matter of personal choice. But what I am saying is that when we learn to tear back the layers and realize that none of it is truly about us, it makes it easier to process and then move ahead in whatever way we choose. And trust me, once you do that a few times, it becomes second nature. You will quickly notice behavior that sets off your bs alarms, followed by seeing it for what it is (a fake front with the goal of ego protection), and then possibly disengaging yourself from a no-win discussion or situation.
As someone who once spent countless hours trying to ‘figure out’ the narcissists in my life, I’m sharing my insights with you to potentially save you some time. What I learned is that it’s integral to protect your peace and happiness. Do your best to see through the smoke show, don’t shoulder someone else’s issues as your own or accept disrespectful treatment, and it’s recommended that you not expect change from a narcissist. It’s rare for them to make adjustments, simply because that would require looking deeply at themselves, which is what they spend most of their time trying to avoid.
Above all else, trust how you feel. Listen to your intuition. If someone in your life tries to make you feel badly about yourself by assigning unjustified blame and attempting assaults on your character, especially on a regular basis, remove the emotion from the situation and look at their words and actions from a neutral space. What you will more than likely find is that this is about them, not you. Then be sure to remember that you have a right to personal peace, positivity and boundaries, supportive people around you, and to be treated with respect and kindness. Try not to allow anyone else’s issues to impact negatively on your well-being.
Narcissism is fairly straightforward once you know what it looks like and why it’s happening. Armed with an understanding of it, you’ll have the skills to protect yourself and the freedom to get on with living your best life without being held back by other people’s complications.
Until next time,
Heather ~Natural Clarity Coaching~ naturalclaritycoaching.com na********************@***il.com Natural Clarity Coaching on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter
