First of all, the term narcissism is many times misused. It is mistakenly used to describe a selfish behavior. We all can be selfish one way or another. That doesn't make us narcissists.
Second, it is important to understand the concept of a Paradigm. Probably, one of the most difficult things. Reader is encouraged to read Paradigm article before continuing here.
So what is Narcissism in the context of these articles?
There has been identified three "dark" personalities (paradigms) that are implicitly malevolent. They all share common patterns described below. One of them is sadistic. In these articles, we lump all three personalities into one word: narcissism. It will include all malevolent paradigms such as NPD (narcissistic personality disorder), sociopaths, psychopaths, sadists and / or others. This allows us to focus on the description of the malevolence, the behavior of the paradigm, and how to address it. The oversimplification however deprives us of understanding the nuances and differences of each paradigm. That is however not the focus of these articles.
How do people become Narcissists
Narcissists are not born, they are made. We can argue about nature vs. nurture, whether there is such a thing as a narcissistic gene, however at the end it does not matter. Narcissists are who they are, and they operate in a very specific way. Whether there is a gene that predisposes a person to enable acquiring a narcissistic paradigm is irrelevant to this article and its focus. Perhaps, we'll never even know.
Narcissists become such through a severe childhood trauma and abuse. This trauma comes from the environment. The primary care takers, the parents, or sometimes other people in the life of a Child. One can ask whether a war, or other major stressors can also cause Children to be traumatized. Of course they can, however war doesn't create narcissists, other narcissists do.
Severe abuse of children, or a severe enmeshment of children with an abuser will cause the Child's brain to adopt survival strategy. This strategy means completely complying with the abuser and adopt his/her thinking (paradigm). Abuse by a narcissists will either make the child narcissist as well, or completely codependent and submissive. One technique of doing this is through Parental Alienation - Not what you think.
Narcissistic paradigm knows no boundaries in gender, nationality, or race. It can be acquired by any human being. Statistics state that three quarters of narcissists are men. Perhaps that is true. It is however known, the narcissistic men and women adopt different strategies. While men might be more violent (on average), women might be more manipulative. This categorization is however not helpful because it is about the individual and the techniques one develops. Categorization allows narcissists to hide. So, let's not do it. While on average things have pattern, they not necessarily apply to individual. You might have a violent woman, or a non-violent highly manipulative narcissistic man.
Motives and Behaviors of the Narcissistic paradigm
Dominance
All dark personality paradigms see themselves as better than others. They see themselves elevated. Other people are born to serve them. An apple tree is there to provide apples for me. I will nurture the tree, I will water it, prune it, but at the end its function is to serve me. That's how the paradigm sees other people. They might 'support' and 'nurture' other people but it is all self-serving. If the tree is struck by a lightning, if it stops bearing fruit, it becomes useless and is abandoned. That's how the dark paradigm sees other people.
Lack of Empathy
Empathy runs contrary to the paradigm. Empathy doesn't exist or is suppressed. We read some psychological papers describing that there are damaged brain structures in the region where empathy resides. The paradigm destroys empathy region of the brain as otherwise the host would not be able to act out the paradigm. You can't abuse someone if you feel empathy towards that person.
Narcissistic Supply
For the paradigm's survival, it NEEDS a supply. It needs it like we need air, water, or food. If it doesn't get it, it will re-allign the life of its host in order to get it. This is a primary difference between a selfish person, who may behave selfishly at certain situations (when ego is threatened) and a narcissist who will seek its supply at all costs. It is an addiction in itself and we MUST see it as such. For the paradigm, the need to get its supply is existential.
The supply can have many forms and is probably nuanced by the differences of the various dark personalities. The NEED might be physical control, emotional control, power, money, status, sex, etc...
However, the need might actually also be "suffering". Suffering of others. The means of getting to the suffering might be one of the above. For example through physical or emotional abuse. As long as a victim is suffering, the paradigm feels alive as it is in control.
Source of Narcissistic Supply
Source might be a specific person, like a romantic partner, a child, woman, man, young woman, old woman, black man, or a group of people such as employees, members of a group, members of a cult, etc...
Speaking of which, every cult will have a leader who has a dark paradigm. And every group will become a cult the minute a dark paradigm becomes its leader. All members will be serving different functions of providing supply to the leader. The group serves nothing else. And these groups may even masquerade themselves as non-profits, or even fighting for the victims of abuse. Reader is encouraged to visit When Narcissists Lead Support Groups article. These groups will draw, like a magnet, vulnerable people = abused people seeking help = sources of narcissistic supply.
The source is very important for the narcissist as it FEEDS the paradigm and makes it feel alive. Without the source, the paradigm is dying. The source is the lifeblood for the paradigm. If the source rejects to give supply, or the source divorces itself from the narcissist, the paradigm feels existentially threatened and it retaliates. It is threatened on two levels: 1) it needs the supply which it is not getting and 2) source might expose the paradigm. Both are very dangerous for the paradigm and thus it attacks and wants the source back or dead. Why Abusers Portray their Victims as Abusers?
Two faces
There is the public face and then there is the hungry skeleton in the closet. Narcissist may appear as a completely normal member of society. She/he may even participate in volunteering events, or may be respected, charming, honored by friends and co-workers. She/he will have people surrounded who will swear that she/he is a good moral person.
But the skeleton in the closet, reserved for the source of the supply and children, is a whole different dimension of the personality. This is also why the paradigm has enormous needs to keep the skeleton hidden, at all costs.
Keeping the dichotomy of the two faces is very taxing. And it is a fragile state. One face exists in order to get its existential supply, and the other is to protect itself and keep itself hidden in order to keep the supply coming.
Need to be hidden through control and coercion
The only way for the paradigm to get what it wants, it has to stay hidden. This is enormously energetically expensive state. It has to keep playing games and coercing the source. It is well known that in romantic relationships, the victim many times loses connections to friends, family and is many times contained within a house or apartment. Every move is controlled. This is for the paradigm to 1) keep the source for it self and 2) avoid its exposure. The paradigm makes the host (narcissist) psychotic and it also makes the victim psychotic. That is why it seeks and attaches only to people who have opposite and complementary paradigms of succumbing to the psychosis.
Once the source divorces (meaning detaches) from the narcissist, narcissist will attempt to destroy the source. In order to keep hidden, it will project all its malevolence onto the victim and portray itself as the victim. It will reverse the roles. It is another psychosis it will go through when it feels threatened. The projection onto the victim is powerful and existential for the paradigm.
The paradigm can flip the psychosis of its host instantly. It can go from "I love you, let's work this out", when it still believes it can persuade the victim to keep providing the supply into "I will destroy you" within minutes once it realizes that the source is truly gone.
The paradigm is actually so powerful that it will induce psychosis in other people who will start believing that the narcissist is the actual victim. We call them Flying Monkeys . This is where the gas-lighting, manipulation, and lying happens. The emotional message that third party people receive is that the narcissist is immensely abused by the victim. But let's think about this.
The narcissist actually really feels existentially abused by its source leaving (or stopping to give it its supply). If someone cuts you off from food or water, you will feel existentially abused and will do ANYTHING to get it. Otherwise you die. And whoever would not give you water or food is truly abusive to you. Like "they want you dead" kind of abusive. Well, that is exactly how the narcissistic paradigm feels when it can't get its supply from the victim. On top of it, detached source can expose the paradigm which would threaten it to receive any supply in the future. That is existential crises, and thus its purpose in life will become to destroy the source. At least until it finds a new supply AND it no longer feels the source is after its exposure.
Induced Persecutory Psychosis
The paradigm can actually be very powerful and destructive. On an individual level, narcissist will induce psychosis in its victim. This is what we call gas-lighting and deception when the victim starts to question its own reality. It goes further though. Once the victim separates and there is mutual fight, e.g. for children during a divorce, the psychosis will be induced in other people. We call them Flying Monkeys. These people will vehemently defend the narcissist. They actually really believe that the narcissist is the good person and the victim harmed it. They are however under a powerful spell of the induced delusion. It goes further.
If two or more narcissists meet, their paradigm is the same and operating the same, so they will align. As such, a lawyer, a judge, a psychologist if narcissistic, they will all align with the abuser. This way you can have a mass psychosis on a systemic level. We call this Narcissistic Pyramid. It goes further.
The paradigm, once acquired by masses, is capable of creating a persecutory psychosis even against a substantial portion of population. This happened many times in the history of human kind. Mao, Stalin, Pinochet. A book and article Gulag Archipelago describes this well. And yet, it goes further.
Through gas-lighting and deception, whole nations can be induced into psychosis about another nation and this leads to global wars.
Intelligence, Effective Coercive Techniques, Professions
Many dark personalities are highly intelligent people. As if the intelligence was a defense mechanism. As if it was means to ends. Means of getting the supply. This dark paradigm, in order to get what it existentially needs, has to be intelligent in its technique. Combined with its view of dominance, it feels empowered that it is smarter than everyone else and victims deserve being exploited if they are outwitted.
If the narcissistic supply is status and power, the paradigm might thrive for political position. If the narcissistic supply is emotional control, it might thrive to be a psychologist. If the narcissistic supply is money and power and dominance, it might thrive for a CEO of large company. This does NOT mean that all politicians, psychologists, or CEOs have dark personalities. It does not mean that at all. It means that dark personalities with specific supply needs will thrive for positions that will provide such and that they have intelligence to attain those positions.
Narcissistic Rage
If the paradigm is exposed, it will go into narcissistic rage. It feels it's going to die. This is the most dangerous act. The paradigm already feels dominant and feels no empathy, as such nothing has limits on what they are able to do. This is were people get killed or missiles are fired.
Psychologically Speaking
Here is a text from a psychological research paper describing a behavior of the paradigm (although that's not what it is called there), after a Source separates from the narcissist, allegations of abuse are made by both parties, and Children are involved:
Judicial and/or non-clinical determinations as to the legitimacy of abuse allegations have shown to be confounded by the presence of dark personality parents who are prone to (1) be manipulative, vengeful, deceitful, and willing to weaponize others, including their own children, to fulfill self-serving agendas; (2) develop non-bizarre encapsulated persecutory delusions when experiencing interpersonal stress; and (3) engage in false virtuous victim signaling to obtain otherwise unwarranted resources and assistance for themselves while creating a belief in others that the alleged perpetrator must be punished harshly. Additionally, children who become triangulated by a delusional dark personality parent into an enmeshed cross-generational coalition against the other parent are highly likely to adopt the pathological parent’s delusional beliefs, creating an induced delusional disorder.
Let's dissect this sentence by sentence:
Judicial and/or non-clinical determinations as to the legitimacy of abuse allegations have shown to be confounded by the presence of dark personality parents who are prone to (1) be manipulative, vengeful, deceitful, and willing to weaponize others, including their own children, to fulfill self-serving agendas;
Judicial and/or non-clinical means third parties. How can third parties (lawyers, psychologists, judges) determine what is going on.
(2) develop non-bizarre encapsulated persecutory delusions when experiencing interpersonal stress; and
"Non-bizarre" means believable. They do not claim that the victim has two heads. They claim the victim is e.g. abusive. These are believable accusations. "Encapsulated" means that the delusion is limited to its targeted victim only. Nobody else. Outside of that target, they behave functional and normal. This feeds the legitimacy of the allegation.
(3) engage in false virtuous victim signaling to obtain otherwise unwarranted resources and assistance for themselves while creating a belief in others that the alleged perpetrator must be punished harshly.
"False virtuous victim signaling" means that narcissist is all-good, and departed source of supply is all-bad. The signalling refers to emotional messaging and portrayal to the outside world. The alleged perpetrator, the source who dared to stop the supply and threatens to expose the paradigm, must be punished harshly. And sadly, many times it is. And that's we We Have Had Enough of abuse.
Additionally, children who become triangulated by a delusional dark personality parent into an enmeshed cross-generational coalition against the other parent are highly likely to adopt the pathological parent’s delusional beliefs, creating an induced delusional disorder.
This is what is publicly known as Parental Alienation. Its purpose is to cross-generationally (from parent to child) replicate the paradigm onto the child. This is explained in Parental Alienation - Not what you think article.
Final Thoughts
We at We Have Had Enough believe that narcissism has to be looked at as an addiction. Addiction for the supply. And treated as addiction. We do not believe that there is high probability of healing the addiction but perhaps we are wrong. We however believe that Alcoholics cannot be put in charge of liquor stores, just like pedophiles cannot be put in charge of daycare centers. Similarly, Narcissists cannot be put in charge of political, legal, legislative, corporate, religious, academic or any other structure because they WILL DO damage.
We MUST UNITE against our common enemy. We Have Had Enough of the abuse.