Hey guys,
I cut and pasted some interesting facts from a website I found extremely helpful and eye-opening to me. Most of this stuff, we veterened “old heads” know already, but I think it’s great for newbies to have as much info as possible when learning about NPD and the craziness that accompanies it.
Happy reading!!
from:
http://www.operationdoubles.com/narc/Here are some red flags:
putting on an ostentatious display of goodness and kindness
damaging the images of others
a history of past upheavals
being hated for mysterious reasons by people close to them
perplexing behavior — backwards reactions to things
trampling privacy/boundaries and being a control-freak
extreme self-absorption ·
hostile reaction to attention and credit given others
reacting with contempt to what should evoke sympathy
reacting with aversion to what should attract
reacting with anger to what should please
getting angrier in reaction to what should appease (Narcissistic Rage)
Narcissists go to extraordinary lengths to portray themselves as the very opposite of what they are. They cover every dirty deed with a grand display that makes them seem like the kind of person who would never do such a thing. This diabolical behavior is so characteristic of them that, if you know a person is a narcissist, you can tell what she's done in the dark from she does in the light of day
Projection is just a new name for an old thing, scapegoating. It's the oldest trick in The Book. It's a kind of baptism = a mud bath people give their betters, by rubbing themselves off on them. Here's how it works.
Got a guilty conscience? Say to yourself, "I'm not so bad." Then look around for somebody who's worse. Say, "I'm not as bad as so-and-so." But guess what? You don't look around for somebody who really has that fault and has it worse than you. You look for somebody with very little mud on his name, somebody who looks cleaner than you, preferably somebody who has the corresponding virtue instead of that fault.
For Example: If you're stingy, you look around for somebody with a reputation for generosity, because generosity in your neighbor puts your stinginess to shame by serving as a foil that (by contrast) makes your stinginess more noticeable. Then you smear your vice off on him. You tell everybody that he's stingy. You make everything he does sound stingy.
Thus you kill two birds with one stone: you rid yourself of your stinginess and him of his generosity. Not. But looks are everything, and Truth doesn't matter, and this fraud makes you look good by comparison with him. Ah, cheating is much easier than freeing yourself of sin the legitimate way, by repentance.
True, your own sins don't take away your right to condemn them in others, but when you condemn NOTHING BUT your own sins in others, you are just absolving yourself of your own sins and therefore have no credibility. So, the dead-giveaway of projection is what the finger-pointer does NOT holler about.
The worst thing about projection is that mud sticks best to a clean spot. I'm sure that people who do this think they're clever, but it's childsplay. Send a muddy child into an unsupervised school yard and wait to see what happens. He will rub himself off on every cleaner, smaller child he can find, till they are all crying and he looks good by comparison.
Looks good by comparison. Those are the all-important words. The hypocrite makes himself look good by comparison with others. He does that the easy way — by making others look bad. This is the root of envy. Which is NOT a rare motive for what people say about others. It's a common motive.
They become living, breathing Projection Machines. Projection becomes such a knee-jerk reflex that a narcissist accuses his victim of doing to him the very thing (or essentially the same thing) as he is in the very act of doing to the victim. This creates bizarre scenes that make you wonder whether the narcissist is hallucinating or tripping out on psychedelic drugs. You feel like Alice in Wonderland. You have to pinch yourself and wonder whether "it's me or him that is crazy."
Another big difference between narcissists and normal people when they're projecting on you is that narcissists expect you to share their delusion. Yes! You cannot help but perceive this as gaslighting. Narcissists try to make you be what they say you are because, like a psychopath, they view you as an object, not as a human person with perceptions and a mind of your own.* They view you as an extension of themselves (like a tool) to control. It is the moral equivalent of the control a rapist thinks he has over the body of another, whom he views as but an object, an extension of himself, an executioner of his will. Psychologists call this bizarre behavior projective identification, a defense mechanism. The narcissist wants you to identify with the image he projects on you. You are a mirror to reflect his fantasy, so he pressures you to behave as though it is real.
Behave is the key word. Narcissists do not connect with reality: appearances are all that matter in their world. So, you can lay out your grievances to a narcissist in a letter to let him know what you think, but if tomorrow you encounter him and act as though none of it happened, he is perfectly satisfied.
Though allowing a narcissist to get away with it is a big mistake, people do this because of their GOOD qualities. Indeed, the narcissist preys on the good qualities of normal, decent people. It is their GOODNESS that betrays them. That's because normal, decent people don't like to fight. Also, they are rational and therefore know that the narcissist himself is the one degraded by the stupid game he plays, not them. Moreover, they have self-respect, so they can't bring themselves to stoop to the level he brings an argument down to. So, they rise above it, allowing the overgrown child to have his way in treating them without respect. Thus, they spoil the brat, teaching him that his tactics work.
They allow the narcissist the lower set of standards he needs, expecting no better behavior from him. Quite correctly, they see that he is inferior and incapable of better behavior. But there is a terrible pitfall in thus allowing him to relate to them inappropriately, as though he deserves all attention and they are insignificant. Thus, the whole family engages in tragic role playing that insidiously stamps its face on their character.
Narcissists know that pure malevolence is hateful and gives people the creeps. So they are desperate to keep its presence in them a secret. That is why they invest so much energy in the false image of themselves they carve out with everything they do and say.
Even more telling is what he did to prevent others present from paying attention to each other. Narcissists know that this is easy to do. You just stifle any conversation people try to have. He brought a radio to the kitchen table. When that didn't suffice, he broke up conversation by hijacking it with some obnoxious statement he butted in with — something too obnoxious to pass over or ignore, something that sucked all attention to himself.
Unless he is a "doting" narcissist who inundates his children with critical attention to improve them, he pays none to them at all. He never plays with them. He is disinterested in their grades, activities, aspirations, social lives, majors, degrees, professions, and problems. As often as anybody tries to inform him about these things, he forgets them. He never sends anyone on this planet a card or a letter. He never gets anyone on this planet a gift. (When absolutely necessary, he has his wife, his sister, his daughter, or his secretary get it for him.) He never comforts a grieving person. He sheds no tear for any other human person, though he readily sheds tears for the flickers of light on a television or movie screen.
Unfortunately, people suffering from NPD aren't the only ones who do this. But you will find that a malignant narcissist cannot resist a chance to get away with doing it. My own observations make me think that they are ever on the lookout for an opportunity. I think they instantly notice whenever the coast is clear and — zap — do it almost reflexively, like machines. Unlike normal people, they will do it to ANYONE. Conversely, normal people have some reason for hostility toward the person they target with abuse. They therefore do it for natural motives of retaliatory defense or revenge. But a narcissist's motive is unnatural. It's the bottomless motive of pure malice, so he or she selects their targets on the basis of vulnerability. Indeed, narcissists most often abuse their own children, brothers and sisters, lovers, best friends, and benefactors.
Why the malice? Just because that other person has a little of what the narcissist views as ALL belonging to him — worth, dignity, and self respect. He must have it ALL. And anybody else who gets any is depriving him of it.
Narcissists are so hooked on their drug, so in need of getting it all, that they fight off temptations to show any regard for anybody else. This explains their most perplexing behavior.
The stronger the temptation, the harder they must fight to fight it off. This is why they react violently to moments that strongly call for attention/regard/humanity to others. The strongest calls are those heart-rending ones for love — those that compel sorrow, compassion, affection, sympathy, and what the Italians call piéta. They react to such a call like somebody being burned at the stake reacts to a flame. They fight it off as though it were an attack on them, as though it were a vampire's attempt to suck their life blood.
A malignant narcissist is a joker whose favorite trick is to pull an identity-switch with the victim. Before you know it, he has you sympathizing with "poor-little-meek-and-sensitive" him and censoring instead, the victim . . . for not just letting him get away with whatever he did. The joke's on you, and the narcissist is laughing up his sleeve at you for being so easy to impregnate with absurdities. Don't let him sneak garbage into your head. Don't let him confuse humanity with human and confuse the noun human with adjective human. It's a shell game with words. Inhumanity isn't human. By definition, treating others with inhumanity is having no humanity. So, their dehumanization (through acts their twisted minds think dehumanize their victim) is their doing, not anybody else's. Sympathy for such a predator is as inappropriate as sympathy for the mythological character of the devil would be.
The narcissist never tires of this imbecile game. But you will run out of patience with it fast. There are three things never to forget while interacting with him:
The person inside this adult is a damaged three-year-old.
He views you as an object to exploit for his self-aggrandizement without regard for your feelings and welfare.
He is acting on alien premises.
Are they to blame?
In a word, yes. I hold that opinion for the same reason the courts do: because narcissists can, and do, control their conduct:
·
They are one person to those who can fight back or get away from them and another to the trapped and defenseless.
·
They are one person in the light of day and another in the dark.
·
They act-out a charade to portray themselves as the opposite of what they really are.
That proves they know that what they're doing is wrong (or they wouldn't hide it), and they can keep from doing it when the coast ain't clear. Sounds like guilt to me. How about you?
Consider what comes packaged in the attention he can never get enough of and denies others: regard, appreciation, consideration, respect, courtesy, gratitude, deference, apologies, affection, praise, acceptance, understanding, compassion, empathy and love. These things are the stuff of human relations.
from:
http://www.operationdoubles.com/narc/
