Self-compassion/pity
“Out of the need for tenderness and affection, to be accepted, listened to, and cared for, arises self-care.”
James Hillman is an American psychologist and founder of archetypal psychology.
In therapy, we say that changing the way we treat ourselves is a long-term process. In order to gain the ability to be caring and merciful instead of cruelty and ruthlessness, some kind of relationship with another person must develop in which the narcissist will observe a similar attitude toward himself.
Just as the child absorbs parental ways of treating himself, accommodating them as internal figures, so too the adult needs objects that will treat him differently.
The external experience of care, attention, and benevolence must be appropriated and become an internal experience.
In a child, the mechanism of caring for oneself is really initially introjected, that is, built in from the outside. And if the environment in the form of adults did not give it, there is nowhere to take it in the self.
Yes, the narcissist managed in all this uncaring and devoid of emotional presence to survive and even become strong. He coped and decided for himself that he would do without everyone. He carried into his life the ways of dealing with his emotional needs that were applied to him. When he was a child, he was shown how to handle the moments when you need care. And now he is providing for himself exactly the same emotional starvation that adults gave him by not responding to a child’s need for tenderness, affection, attention, care.
Thank the author: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/FragilePeople/
It might have sounded like this:
- “Don’t make it up, there’s nothing wrong.”
- “Stop crying, you’re not in pain.”
- “There’s nothing to cry about, nothing happened.”
- “There’s no need to feel sorry for yourself, your arms and legs are intact.”
The adult narcissist treats himself in the same way.
- Forbids himself to feel sorry for himself and show that he feels bad, hurt, scared.
- Holds back emotions in the presence of others.
- Devalues his experiences.
- Thinks that if he feels really bad, it is not a reason to complain and even less to feel sorry for himself.
One client told me that no amount of feeling bad about himself would make him stop doing what he set out to do. No amount of mistreatment of him is a reason to think that he can’t be treated that way. To my question, “I believe you can take a lot and endure a lot, but why?” — he replied without any hesitation, “It’s a luxury to walk away from where it’s bad.”
And therein again lies the great paradox. In some matters narcissists are impatient and independent. And in some are so insensitive to their discomfort and obsessed with the task at hand that, relying on their strength and invulnerability, are willing to withstand great dissatisfaction with the situation. Everyone suspects narcissists of selfishness, but sometimes they don’t know how to take basic care of themselves.
Hillman talks about just that: “Self-pity is the beginning of deep self-care. Through it I can come to discover in myself the many qualities that awaited this immersion in the pursuit of salvation, in lost desires and regrets for wrong choices. For self-pity is one of the paths to self-discovery, to self-disclosure; it reveals my aspiration for myself.” -Hillman J. Inner Search. 2015.
That is, it is self-pity that opens up the possibility of appropriating the care that one expects from one’s surroundings. By relying on self-pity, on adequate acknowledgement of one’s difficulties, pain and difficult experiences, it is possible to provide oneself with the level of care one needs.
Thank the author: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/FragilePeople/
Narcissists come into therapy with very clear and very rigid “don’t feel sorry for me” attitudes. And the same applies to any expression of sympathy and empathy. On the one hand, this provides a familiar treatment of oneself. And on the other — the living presence is very likely to collapse the ironclad narcissistic defenses, under which will be a trembling and grieving heart.
The narcissist is afraid to feel his own pain, which would make him an ordinary person who is beyond experience and who, like all of us, suffers.
The need for comfort is buried so far away that it’s not even in the options. Narcissus doesn’t believe that anyone cares about his feelings and is genuinely surprised when it turns out not to be the case.
True, if he discovers your interest, with this discovery he will also do peculiarly. Narcissus will either devalue care and participation, suspecting you of pretending. Or rationalize, quickly saying that “tears do not help the grief” and “there is no point in feelings, we need to act”. Of course, this will leave the narcissist out of reach of participation: he will leave himself his usual control.
Attempts to feel something for his wounds and pain are skillfully repelled by the narcissist with formulations like these:
- I don’t need pity;
- I don’t see why a person like you should feel sorry for me;
- there’s nothing to empathize with, let’s figure out what we can do about it;
- there’s no value in digging into your feelings, tell me how to solve it.
But… if you understand what’s behind it, you can bring humanity back into contact drop by drop, inviting the person to recognize what’s behind their fear to feel empathy for themselves. The narcissist avoids in every way possible the manifestation of compassion for him in any human being. That is, the very essence of his pain he will hide as reliably as Koschei the Immortal hides his death.
To witness the suffering of a narcissist is to show that you understand his vulnerability, and thus become a source of strong threat.
Vulnerability is too dangerous for his image of himself and for relationships in which he feels he will be rejected for his weakness and imperfection.
Thank the author: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/FragilePeople/
He hides his suffering. He hides his tears. He talks about everything with exaggerated indifference. He doesn’t feel what it would be adequate to feel in his situations. And it turns out that it’s almost impossible to feel anything for him. To be more precise: everything one feels for him has to be experienced alone, running into an impregnable rock protecting his fragility.
Sometimes my clients tell me, “I am afraid to feel sorry for myself. Because then I’ll fall apart, and I can’t afford that.”
That is, there are two non-overlapping and polar parts of their psychic reality: one strong, ruthless, demanding and coping, the other weak, exhausted and crushed by self-pity. It’s as if one should feel even a little bit sorry for oneself, as if it would run through the veins like poison and soften all the bones, muscles, will and consciousness. That’s why it is necessary not to let yourself down and be tough and even cruel with yourself. And in some ways the narcissist is quite right: even one drop of pity felt by the heart can melt it, which means there is a chance that hot human blood will run through the veins. Pity is the transformational salt of therapy that can break the narcissistic “spell,” or at least begin that work. If one can break through the devaluation and rationalizations, the narcissist will feel that the people around him care about his suffering, his pain, his experiences. And this, like Ariadne’s thread, can bring him back to people.
Thank the author: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/FragilePeople/
