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Question
mudpuppy:
Thanks PR.
I agree about disorders not being destiny because I've seen late adolescents who were obviously trending toward disorder but who, whether through willpower, support from others, serendipity, patience, blind luck or some other factor I'm not aware of return back to a healthy mindset and seemingly grow out of it.
Others seem to almost dive into the pool of craziness eagerly or at least they seem to offer little or no resistance and turn utterly inward and are permanently lost in crazytown.
Lighter,
Thanks for your perspective, although it isn't mine. Apart from someone who is simply bat s*** crazy with an organic brain disease and doesn't know right from wrong I still believe everyone who does know right from wrong has not just a legal a duty to "cope" in a manner which doesn't, for instance destroy other people's lives, but a moral one as well.
And because empathy is not a limitless resource I tend to save my supply for the victims of the animals who refuse to cope without harming others, although it's difficult to think of an animal species that tries to make itself feel better by defaming and driving other animals insane. Maybe comparing them to animals is a little unfair....to the animals.
Hops,
Thanks also. I have compassion for Ns to the extent I feel sorry for them, but don't consider feeling sorry for their plight the same as extending them empathy as Lighter said she does. As I understand empathy it is the understanding of or ability to identify with or vicariously experience others feelings. I can't do any of that with an N. All I can do is pity them a bit for being such miserable arseholes, but then in a very short time I consider all the lives they destroy and my compassion is short lived.
I'd argue compassion does me even less good than judging does, because part of judging is seeking justice. The world seems chock full of compassion for people who don't deserve it but woefully short of justice. I'll stick to the J word for now. Maybe compassion is easier after one receives a little justice.
In any event my original questions weren't really about the extent to which we hold these people accountable or judging or empathy or any of that; more of a cogitation on the nature of who they are and how they get that way, questions I doubt there are definitive answers to. Thanks for the input guys.
mud
Overcomer:
I'll try to weave an answer based on the biggest N in my life, my Mother.
I know one of the traits an N has is an over inflated view of themselves without anything to back it up. However, in my mom's case, a sudden rise in status fueled her narcissism.
She was born in the depression and lived in a small town. She wasn't really pretty and her parents took every opportunity to make sure she shouldn't aspire for too much because she was just an average girl. She screwed up her life until she was on a train to go visit my dad (who was stationed in Labrador) when she met a professor who told her she was still young and could go to school.
She bit on that like a wild women. Went to school and finished 4 years in 3 (with me, 3 years old and my brother 8, left without much of a mom.) Then she joined a new company that sold decorative accessories out of the home. She got in at the right time, she was in the right place and the next thing you know, my average small town mom was rich!!
Then came plastic surgery. Then came importance. People flocked to her. She enjoyed being a big wig in her company. I believe all THAT made her an N. She knows deep down that she's just an average girl born during the depression who wasn't that attractive. She will NEVER give that up - no one knows THAT girl - now she is beautiful and rich and successful (and lonely - my brother cannot stand her and she my brother. My relationship with her has always been rocky. She is only nice to me now because I have cancer and it wouldn't look good if she was mean to me.)
So take away all that luck and ambition and she would be normal, I guess. But now she can walk around with her nose in the air thinking she's got all the answers. Meanwhile with her aging, people are taking advantage of her at every turn.
No turning back. So many people blew smoke up her *ss that she thinks she is special!!!
sKePTiKal:
Thank you mud, back atcha.
Your descriptions of how you think about N-situations are quite helpful to me. I think the difference between teens who "get it together" and those who make a bee-line for crazytown... is that inner self and whether that self has decided: hey - I matter to ME, at least; I know right from wrong and I don't want to be doing wrong. The crazy-town groupies have decided that they do NOT matter to anyone... and that's a wound that's quite deep... so they stop mattering to themselves. It can be quite difficult - it's like the task of a zen master - to be in the right place, at the right time, to reach into beneath all the mystery, fear, defensive bunkers to that hidden, hurting self - to gently say: It's OK. C'mere - you need a hug. You matter to me.
It's your responses to Lighter & Hops, though, that helps me out with something I've been wrestling with: values and morality. Obviously, when you're a teen who gets stuck in crazytown, you're a tad confused about values and morality... what your own self believes, rather than what others tell you is "correct" and validation from others isn't really required for individual beliefs. There seems to be a lot to choose from these days. And I know I went through a period of experimentation with different "systems". I've hung on to bits and pieces of each that touched me; that felt "right" and "true".
I've observed a societal confusion over the shades of meaning between sympathy|empathy, empathy|compassion, empathy|expectations for personal responsibility... and personally experienced, once again, the cognitive dissonance between something that's totally faked, compassion used like a club to beat up on someone else... that kind of thing. That kind of personal observation/experience is... well, it certainly wakes up the old lizard brain! ;) So, I've been researching... coming at the problem with a dictionary, reading from as many different angles & perspectives as I can, talking to a lot of different and different kinds of people... collecting enough "frame of reference" to make a decision. And I think sometimes values and morality are always a "work in progress" - they can contract toward the more absolute... or expand, becoming more flexible, mutable... breathing, sort of... within the world and times we live. It's curious and fascinating.
I do have to say, I've also experienced the same kind of compassion that Hops has described. It's like a force that's around us all the time, but that we aren't always aware of - because we can only tune in our "receivers" to one wavelength at a time. Sometimes, it makes itself known to people in extreme distress... and we can learn to tweak the knob on the receiver just right to get it to "come in". But there's also a "popular" form of compassion - that alters the meaning - that's artificial and fake (the one that makes the pit of my stomach drop recognizing the cognitive dissonance). And I've found that judgement - in the form of discernment first, then a moral judgement - is my best "tool" for walking those fine lines between the two. There is nothing wrong, in my book, with moral judgement when it's a personal dictionary of how to behave... that's not imposed on others.
There's been a trend lately to adopt these changing definitions of values and morality - and hesitation or doubt about accepting this, is grounds for being branded a threat to society. Any form of "judging" - this is good, this is bad - that doesn't match up with the flavor of the month, is verboten. Where've we heard this kind of thing before?? SIGHHHHH.....
What I'm noticing is that people are becoming confused about this, in our society. And some of those artificial forms of compassion are being offered up as "better than" the originals - new & improved, you know? Re-invented for the 21st century -- like human nature evolves that fast (HA!). Narcissism is swapped in for self-respect, self-esteem that's earned through good deeds & earning it... another moral shell game.
But that's a topic for another thread. Carry on...
Dr. Richard Grossman:
--- Quote from: mudpuppy on September 26, 2012, 12:42:37 PM ---Is there anything inherently wrong with Narcissists besides their Narcissism?
By that I mean, absent their insane efforts to cover up what they perceive to be their fatally flawed inner self would they be "normal"?
Is even their lack of empathy a reaction to this irrational, overwhelming fear of exposure of their worthlessness, or if we could somehow eradicate their pathological dishonesty and manipulations and fears would they still be cold hearted creeps with no human feelings of love or human connection?
I guess if the lack of empathy is a reaction to their irrational fears then they are essentially "normal" people driven batty by a baseless fear.
If on the other hand they inherently lack empathy then their fears are entirely rational because they are fundamentally flawed, inherently worthless people, right?
mud
--- End quote ---
Hi mud,
IMO, if somehow one was able to excise most “narcissists’” underlying sense of worthlessness and fear of being exposed, one would not find a “normal” person. For example, the predisposition to manipulate (without self-awareness) for one’s own good would still be there. So, a person with NPD, in my view, is predisposed to certain brain patterns/circuitry which lead to a particular way of seeing and responding to the world. This is why only a small percentage of people who have an underlying sense of worthlessness become “narcissists” (as opposed to chronically depressed, etc.)
The fact that so many different brain circuits are all pointing in the same direction—a narcissistic view of and response to the world—makes most in this group impossible to treat.
Richard
mudpuppy:
Hi Doc,
--- Quote ---This is why only a small percentage of people who have an underlying sense of worthlessness become “narcissists” (as opposed to chronically depressed, etc.)
--- End quote ---
That makes a lot of sense.
--- Quote ---IMO, if somehow one was able to excise most “narcissists’” underlying sense of worthlessness and fear of being exposed, one would not find a “normal” person.
--- End quote ---
They might not be normal but would they be pathological? IOW absent a perceived fatally flawed inner self to protect by any means necessary would they just be kind of self centered and perhaps a little devious?
If so then that would indicate there are no narcissists who do not have that sense of worthlessness and it might also mean your garden variety self-centered, slightly N person is only prevented from being a pathological N by having developed a more healthy self image.
Where does that inner sense of total worthlessness and fear of it being exposed come from? The old abandonment at a young age thing? Not all Ns are abandoned or ignored are they?
Also I wonder if you put any credence in my "tipping point" idea that sometime, presumably in late adolescence, many people reach a point where they will go one way or the other. Not that there is a conscious decision, only that some take a path which leads to relative normalcy even if they are still affected while others surrender to their fears and end up clinically disordered. Or is it not that these people might have, given different decisions or circumstances, not gone either way but that the only mildly affected were never going to become disordered despite their environment while the severely affected ones were inevitably destined for severe nuttiness (I hope armchair readers don't mind my technical jargon) :P
Kelly,
Do you think maybe your mom was just as messed up prior to "making it" as she was afterword but the money and attention just let her manifest it in a different way? When you're plain and poor you can hide your worthless self by disappearing even if you still have grandiose fantasies. Once you have money you can indulge them.
PR,
Lots of stuff there so I'll just note one thing; re judgement. I agree judgement is fine if we don't impose it on others. If we impose it on others we've gone beyond judgment to condemnation. Condemnation is reserved in our system to the state. That's the concept Jesus was expressing with the woman caught in adultery. He didn't tell anyone adultery was OK, in fact He told her go and sin no more but He also asked her "where are your accusers" after the others had left. When she acknowledged they were gone He told her " neither do I condemn you".
Brings to mind the old saw that "justice is getting what we deserve, mercy is not getting what we deserve and grace is getting what we don't deserve". I like grace.
mud
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