Voicelessness and Emotional Survival > What Helps?
The Shy/ Covert Narcissist
SilverLining:
--- Quote from: LeahsRainbow on February 11, 2008, 11:53:16 AM ---
"He immediately picks up other peoples words and phrases and adopts them into speech and written form"
What I would so love to know, desire to know, is WHY exactly did he (and looking back he always did this .... with others too)
What is it? Is there a concept / meaning for this ?
I think this is significantly important, to know, why and what.
Does anyone know?
Many thanks,
Leah x
--- End quote ---
I agree it's significant. My father does this. It's another pattern I started to see in recent years. He throws out phrases and opinions from books, magazines, and other statements as if they were his own original creation. It's definitely crazymaking. Others try to interact based on his opinions of the day, but the next day he reads something different and his position shifts. I've made comments which he instantly counters (the typical response) but then not much later he's repeating the comments as his own opinion. Very weird and hard to deal with. He operates like a computer with no long term memory, following a program to respond to everything with a counterpoint or covertly abusive comment.
This is just sort of thinking out loud but maybe it has to do with their lack of connection to an authentic strong "core self"? Since N's look out at the world and see nothing but projections of themselves, they pick up material from outside and quickly translate it into their own, totally without consciousness of the underlying process. At the same time, they can't acknowledge it came from "outside" because that would be admitting vulnerability and weakness. So they are involved in a constant somewhat desperate project to build their "self" out of the material coming at them in the moment, while at the same time denying what is going on.
Certain Hope:
So glad to know y'all are finding this info helpful!
Here's the rest of what I've gathered so far... with more to come:
***************************************************************************************
A Covert/Shy Narcissist will have grandiose fantasies but will also be plagued by a feeling of unworthiness and thus shame for even having fantasized about his or her greatness.
This type of narcissist is likely to be characterized by an incapacity to sustain ambitions or to pursue even attainable goals with full dedication, yielding to others rewards that he or she may legitimately deserve.
The final result is often significant masochistic self-damage, self-pity, feelings of hurt, and depression.
While feeling they deserve to be recognized for their specialness,
unlike the Arrogant/Overt Narcissist, the Covert/Shy Narcissist is plagued by self-doubts
and thus does not as readily seek the affirmation from others he or she believes is due.
Moreover, because of this strong sense of worthlessness, this type of narcissist often will not seek out appropriate friends or romantic partners, because they fear exposure as frauds.
For this reason their associates tend to be conspicuously inferior to themselves.
Cooper observes that this narcissist, secretly harbors fantasies that he or she is engaged in a heroic rescue of someone of lesser capabilities...
And, when their friends and associates offer praise, the Shy/Covert Narcissist believes that this admiration is phony and insincere.
They tend to devote a considerable amount of time ruminating over the unfairness of how little their true worth is appreciated and how others get the recognition for things that they themselves did.
For Elaine ~ my husband is rather addicted to a computer game, as well... and I myself have struggled with addictive behavior (particularly to the internet! :o)... so I'd just like to say that this sort of behavior in and of itself can be attributed to numerous other factors besides covert narcissism, although... considering the patterns in your fiance's behavior, I dunno.
Anyhow, some of this stuff is mere childish fantasy (computer preoccupation), some can be attributed to depression, avoidance, obsessive compulsive traits... whew - - a very messy mish-mash of complications, indeed. But I'll try to write some more about computer addictions soon - particularly re: these games, which especially can be seditious (like the rpg - role playing games).
Hugs,
Carolyn
SilverLining:
--- Quote from: LeahsRainbow on February 11, 2008, 01:25:43 PM ---
I believe that is it in a nutshell, I really do. What I have thought is that he would take on a "self" a 'persona' simply because he did not have one, a core Self.
This whole experience is a living nightware to walk and live through with someone and so very crazymaking.
((((( TJR ))))) that you have lived through all of this also.
I honestly feel understood and validated.
Grateful thanks,
Leah x
--- End quote ---
Hi Leah. Likewise I am very grateful to you for the feedback and validation. I've kinda stumbled along for years with no discussion of these issues. There were a few feeble attempts with the siblings, but we are all subject to the same unconscious rulebook so it never went very far. And as I've suggested on other threads, validation and positive feedback were in pretty short supply in my FOO.
After thinking about it some more, the "lack of self" idea explains a lot. I had been wondering if my father was just getting senile, but now I recognize a pattern going back to my early childhood. He reads a book, gets an narcissistic inflationary idea, pursues it for awhile, reality proves disappointing, then he falls into depression, blaming it on outside "forces" such as the family. From my mid-life perspective I can't remember a time it wasn't going on. The entire FOO experience was an emotional roller coaster driven (at least in part) by my fathers bi-polar swings.
The conversation you describe with your ex strikes me as a child/adult trap. You being the rational adult remember what he said three weeks ago and remind him of this straightforward information. He comes back like an 8 year old with "no I didn't" Now you are expected to be the parent and just let him bounce around in his regressive fantasy world. Not much chance of an "adult to adult" relationship from that point.
Thanks again Carolyn for starting this thread. It's been a personal history changing revelation for me. Learning about autism and aspergers syndrome a few years ago was a great help, but it never quite fit what was going on in my family.
SilverLining:
--- Quote from: Certain Hope on February 10, 2008, 07:00:59 PM ---
For me, having always been quite shy (until I met and survived npd ex in my 40's!!), I can see clearly the roots within myself of this covert narcissism... and I almost feel as though it may be what helped me survive some of the dreadful setbacks over the years (as well as likely helping me into position for setbacks :?). The ingredients for this mess are all there, within me... and yet, so is empathy... and I attribute the activation of that empathy to my own children, without whom...
well, I think I might be much more like my mother than I care to imagine.
Carolyn
--- End quote ---
Seems like a good non N-ish insight to me. Maybe you WERE more like your mother than you imagine, but are now conscious of the whole thing, which is NOT like her? So possibly an N-ish phase was just part of a larger unfolding. What seems narcissistic in hindsight may have been temporary defensive self containment.
Likewise for me, the more sobering revelation is how it might have been passed down to me. It's obvious how my father picked it up from my grandfather, and my brother from my father. During my early adulthood I was reeling from an inflation/deflation cycle of my own and rather desperately searching for a sense of self. I feel like I was reeling from the effects of the whole childhood environment, and maybe now am starting to overcome these limitations.
Certain Hope:
--- Quote from: tjr100 on February 12, 2008, 01:44:49 PM ---
Seems like a good non N-ish insight to me. Maybe you WERE more like your mother than you imagine, but are now conscious of the whole thing, which is NOT like her? So possibly an N-ish phase was just part of a larger unfolding. What seems narcissistic in hindsight may have been temporary defensive self containment.
Likewise for me, the more sobering revelation is how it might have been passed down to me. It's obvious how my father picked it up from my grandfather, and my brother from my father. During my early adulthood I was reeling from an inflation/deflation cycle of my own and rather desperately searching for a sense of self. I feel like I was reeling from the effects of the whole childhood environment, and maybe now am starting to overcome these limitations.
--- End quote ---
Thank you so much, tjr. This is an area which absolutely boggles my mind, because - as you've indicated - I know that we each bear inherited traits from our parents, etc... and so, of course, I "can't help" but be like my mother in some ways... and it's like the battle against my own innate characteristics somehow keeps her (and my dad, too, in other ways) as the focal point of my struggles... when I don't want to have inherited anything from them, you know? I guess maybe the source of all that is anger, on my part, but it feels more like revulsion. And the alternative to that seems to be to consider their positive qualities... which I also find to be a revolting concept.
Sorry, this is really a confusing mess to try to express, but... it's like I'm afraid to consider any of their characteristics as "good" or positive, because that feels like making myself a potential victim yet once again of hoping that maybe they could be capable of a genuine relationship.
It'd be so much easier to apply black/white thinking to them, but that's the immature mentality of the adolescent in me, I think...
and when you boil it all down, I don't want to be going through something now which shoulda been over 30 years ago, when I was a teenager.
Anyhow, I love the expression "temporary defensive self containment"... and I do believe it fits... I just wish it hadn't lasted so long. Truly, it's the same exact phenomenon I witness in my own teenaged daughter, who's about to turn 17...
and the same with my older 2 girls... both of whom appear to have outgrown it now...
good grief, I can make myself dizzy with wondering.
So I understand at a gut level - the reeling from the effects. When all you know is to somehow try to merge, meld, or complete the identity of another who has virtually no sense self... now that's a life built on illusion. The unsettling discomfort of finding your own two legs on which to stand... well, it's like coming off a 40 year boat ride and finding that they're made of jello. They'll strengthen with exercise though, I keep tellin myself... they really will.
Thanks again. Your post really helped.
Carolyn
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