Narcissistic people

Fragments from the forthcoming book “Fragile People: A Secret Door to the World of Narcissists”.

What is it to be a modern narcissist?

Renowned psychoanalyst Nancy McWilliams* believes that “people whose personality is organized around maintaining self-esteem by obtaining validation from the outside are called narcissistic by psychoanalysts… For some of us, concern with ‘narcissistic stock’ or maintaining self-esteem overshadows other tasks to such an extent that we can then be considered exclusively self-occupied. The terms “narcissistic personality” apply precisely to this disproportionate degree of preoccupation with self, rather than to the usual sensitivity to approval or criticism.

It means feeling my pervasive insignificance and inadequacy in whatever I do.

It means drowning in the almost minute-to-minute anxiety that there are gigantic opportunities floating around and everything is passing me by. And that everyone else is growing, climbing, and climbing, and I’m the only one who has nothing and should have everything because I’m “special” (or “special”).

This means abiding in the fantasy that I must be able to do whatever I want (or want to do). And that the results must be exceptionally unique and grandiose.

It means endlessly comparing myself to everyone else and constantly punishing myself for “losing.”

It means feeling discouraged and bored all the time.

This is how we get into our personal “paralysis”: we are supposed to be grandiose, but we can’t take on anything (because we are afraid, ashamed, and generally “what’s the point if everything is futile?”) and so we end up being insignificant again and again. In short, instead of an endless narcissistic orgasm, we are impotent.

Narcissists demand grandiosity and conformity to an ideal image for one very simple reason. They know no other way not to feel insignificant. Our consciousness creates the fantasy that this is the only way to escape the unbearable suspicion of how flawed we really are. The trap is that this is the way we open the gates to self-loathing. And it further reinforces our “fragility.” How exactly do we do this?

* Nancy McWilliams is an American psychoanalyst with a Ph.D. in personality psychology. She is a professor of psychoanalytic theory and therapy at Rutgers University’s Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology. Former President of the Psychoanalytic Division of the American Psychological Association.