So what to do about narcissism?

“Wounded” narcissism ranges from minor impairments to narcissistic personality disorder. Depending on the degree of “woundedness” a person may try to deal with their narcissistic traits on their own or need help from a professional.

People with severe narcissistic personality disorder may not need therapy at all because it will be ineffective due to its pathological nature.

They do not feel attachment, do not need relationships, dream only of power and success. Narcissists are good at this because they have a special relationship with their conscience. In general, many of them do not even think that they need to really treat something in themselves.

But not all narcissists have a personality disorder. Many of us have multiple narcissistic symptoms, but that doesn’t make us true narcissists in the clinical sense of the word. And that means that there is a fairly pronounced healthy part of us. And the more of its influence in a person, the more suffering he suffers from alienation from himself and from people. The better he feels this pain. The more (albeit subconsciously) he feels sad about his inability to be in a relationship. The more acutely he feels the impossibility to do his favorite work and creativity.

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That’s why deficit narcissists are very frequent clients in the psychologist’s office. We can say that they do not understand what is wrong with them, but unconsciously seek any opportunity to restore their integrity. And here the prognosis is much better. And I often joke that “domestic healing” from narcissism in small doses is inevitable.

Life, with all its bumps, illnesses, and even more so deaths, is usually a good cure for the grandiosity with which we usually emerge from childhood and adolescence.

Yesterday wanted to go into space, and today a manager at a telecom parlor and shooting thirty bucks for beer.

Yesterday dreamed of being Miss World, and today twins (one under each armpit) and an entire t-shirt in the remains of their dinner.

Most recently, drinking with classmates and wiggling about great prospects. And today you won’t go to the reunion. Because nothing’s changed, you’re still there.

It’s a good thing if you went on a wild goose chase before 40. Esotericism to gain power over your desires. Buddhism to learn not to get attached to anything or anyone. NLP to gain power and control over relationships. Psychotherapy, to run from my powerlessness….

Tried everything. And in the best case bumped his forehead, waking up from the claim to greatness, agreeing to the role of an ordinary man.

Then after forty there’s a chance for happiness.

Three marriages, two divorces. Or three, too.

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A couple of layoffs. One failed startup. If more, you’re a hero because you weren’t afraid and didn’t give up. Respect and kudos.

In between all of this other human pleasures and just good results, not feats, splendor and successful success.

Domestic enlightenment is inevitable for the majority of the population, who as recently as yesterday were gripped by mass narcissistic neurosis.

When I shared my thoughts on Facebook, two lovely ladies wrote me a marvelous illustration of this in the comments.

- How familiar! I’m not running the planet by my 38 yet. I was planning on 35!
- К 35? Oh, come on! My model of the world was based on the fact that everything would start at 18, when I would already (!) be a cool owner of a billion-dollar business and kick the doors to the Forbes 100. And the plan was to take over the universe by the time I was 30.

There’s truth in every joke, and here it’s huge. The almost all-encompassing narcissism of childhood flows seamlessly into the narcissistic ambitions of youth, still simmering with the Napoleonic plans of youth, and then….

In a good version, the grandiosity gradually recedes under the pressure of reality. This certainly causes a person narcissistic trauma of varying degrees of severity. Feeling your own powerlessness where you thought you were omnipotent just yesterday is very hard. Or to crawl through tears into your ordinariness, even though yesterday you thought you were the only one in the universe with superpowers. And I repeat: it will be a good way of development of events. Because if you haven’t hit life and thrown off the shackles of narcissistic power, you won’t be alive in the second half of your life….

But if instead of domestic healing, you endlessly catch yourself smashing your forehead against reality or exhausting yourself trying to control the universe and you’re failing …

If you’re already tired of not trusting people, carrying all the responsibility of the world on your shoulders…

If you are already tired of demanding a lot from yourself and punishing yourself, realizing that it does not lead to anything…

If you want qualitative changes that give you a chance for a life with joy, happiness and love… I don’t know any other way but psychotherapy. What is lost in contact with people is also found among people. And in a relationship with a psychologist, the narcissist also brings his peculiarities. It usually looks like this.

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