More On Being Perfect....

[Certain Hope]

Me...  Wrong?!? 

Adults are expected to possess some resilience toward reasoned disagreement, and by so doing derive benefit from the knowledge and experience of other adults.
Unfortunately, people discover about adult narcissists that they can't lift themselves above a deadly cycle of fantastic claims and a pathological inability to listen, followed by rage, over and over, forever.

To summarize, narcissists are people who have not grown up, and who will probably never grow up.
They only appear to be adults.
Adults welcome the chance to learn something new, to correct mistaken beliefs, while narcissists, when confronted by the report of any personal shortcoming, would prefer killing the reporter to accepting the report.

I sort narcissists into two varieties, overt and covert.
Overt narcissists proclaim their wildly distorted view of the world and face the consequences, a recipe for one personal disaster after another.
Most of us know the names of a few overt narcissists — Charlie Manson (California, 1969), Jim Jones (French Guiana, 1978), David Koresh (Waco, Texas, 1993). These are people who would rather kill everyone in sight (including themselves) than acknowledge any personal shortcoming.
Covert narcissists are equally handicapped, but they use a strategy that conceals their pathology in the short term: instead of asserting personal authority, they choose authority figures whose views roughly correspond to their own.

By adopting the protective coloration of the True Believer, covert narcissists fit into everyday society better than the overt variety. By carefully selecting authority figures, the covert narcissist can lead a seemingly normal life,
until and unless someone doubts the authority of their authorities,
at which point they revert to a classic narcissistic rage, followed by the selection of a new authority.
All this posturing is meant to avoid the circumstance that all varieties of narcissist deeply dread — having to acknowledge that they are wrong, and that there is something they haven't yet learned. For a narcissist, that is an occasion for panic and rage, not reflection and study.

Modern society offers all sorts of havens for the covert narcissist: religion, some parts of academia, even clinical psychology.
Each of these shelters offers an association with seemingly unimpeachable authority, therefore it meets the narcissist's need to be thought correct without the drudgery of learning anything difficult or engaging in the high-wire act of original thought.

[Certain Hope]

Superiority and perfection

The foundation of narcissism is self-inflation.
 It is hard for someone with normal self-awareness, who acknowledges their shortcomings and vulnerabilities,
 to understand how anyone could have total and unquestioning belief in their own perfection, superiority and greatness.
It is inconceivable that ordinary, fallible humans could have such exaggerated beliefs about themselves.

Our inability to understand such delusion leads most of us to assume that problem behaviour must be the result of low self-esteem and over-compensation.
But throughout history into modern times countless dictators, religious and cult leaders, aristocrats, royals and tyrants have believed they had the right to control and dominate other people or even the entire world.

The philosopher Bertrand Russell was perhaps only slightly exaggerating when he claimed that
all men
(and presumably many women)
want to be God and that some can’t believe they are not.

The narcissist, the heartbreaker, may not be a potential dictator believing they have an inalienable right to dominate (although some are) but their self-images of superiority are not poles apart.
The comedian Peter Sellers for example, acted like royalty, insisting on deference and adulation, expecting to be feted and catered to in all things at all times.
In the narcissist’s mind they are not only the centre of their own world but the centre of the lives of everyone around them and more important to other people than they are to themselves. They are the star and everyone else the supporting cast.

Just as we might see ourselves blown up to giant size in the distorting mirrors at a carnival, narcissists see themselves magnified, as bigger, better, and more important than they actually are.
Narcissists believe they are already automatically whatever they want to be, that they need no teacher or role model to learn from, that they need no achievement to work towards, no maturity or growth to strive for, no ideals to pursue.
They are perfect just as they are.

Narcissists truly believe they are more important than anyone else.
They may have talent and ability, but never as much as they think.
They exaggerate the smallest asset and if they lack some quality, they will create it in their imagination or denigrate it as being beneath them.
They might, for example, despise and disparage anything at which they do not excel.
They may be the most ordinary of men and women or even far below average yet still believe themselves to be superior to almost everyone.
Narcissists believe they are unique and extraordinary and expect others to acknowledge and applaud their superiority whether or not there is any evidence to support it.
Such self-inflation makes them immune to self-doubt and allows them to convince themselves they are all the things they have ever wanted to be.

Like Narcissus, they love and admire an illusion, an inaccurate, idealized self
and not the reality of a whole, authentic, if imperfect self.

Beyond the image of perfection though, they are hollow because he or she denies, ignores, and neglects any aspect of themselves that is less than perfect and so rejects who they really are.

They have no interest in discovering the whole self beneath the image of perfection,
preferring to avoid self-awareness and self-examination
with the assurance that if they believe something
(that they are perfect)
then it is so.

[Ami]

I guess the answer to not being 'perfect" is for us to see and own our own flaws. That is what I am trying to do ,now, to face my own selfishness, fear, anger,needs for approval,needs for belonging, needs for attention, self centeredness, etc and see that they are ALL there.
 I could not see myself as I was,before. .This information is very helpful, Carolyn. Thank you.       Ami

[Certain Hope]

I guess the answer to not being 'perfect" is for us to see and own our own flaws. That is what I am trying to do ,now, to face my own selfishness, fear, anger,needs for approval,needs for belonging, needs for attention, self centeredness, etc and see that they are ALL there.
 I could not see myself as I was,before. .This information is very helpful, Carolyn. Thank you.       Ami

I think that's right, Ami... seeing and owning, instead of stuffing and trying to put a "nice" face onto it all. Working on that myself, too.
 Thanks for your comments... and you're welcome.

Carolyn