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Narcissist's Beloved Paranoia

Uploaded 7/7/2011, approx. 3 minute read

My name is Sam Vaknin, and I am the author of Malignant Self-Love, Narcissism Revisited.

I am the author of Cold Therapy.

My name is Sam Vaknin, and I am the author of Cold Therapy.

My name is Sam Vaknin, and I am the author of Cold Therapy.

My name is Sam Vaknin, and I am the author of Cold Therapy.

My name is Sam Vaknin. I am the author of Cold Therapy.

My name is Sam Vaknin. And in cutting-edge with med I and in they are there to force him to abstain and refrain from certain actions which endanger them or their interests.

The narcissist feels that he is at the center of intrigues and conspiracies of colossal worldwide magnitudes. Alternatively, the narcissist feels victimized by mediocre bureaucrats and intellectual dwarves who consistently fail to appreciate his outstanding really unparalleled talents, skills and accomplishments.

Being haunted by his challenged inferiors substantiates the narcissist's comparative superiority. Driven by a pathological envy, these pygmies collude to defraud the narcissist, badger him, deny him his due, denigrate, isolate and ignore him.

The narcissist projects onto this second class of lesser persecutors his own deleterious emotions and transforms aggression. He attributes to them the very negative emotions that see the inside himself. He says that they are hateful, they are rageful, they are teeming and seething with jealousy, but actually this is exactly what is happening inside him.

The narcissist's paranoid streak is likeliest to erupt when he lacks narcissistic supply.

The regulation of his lab, in sense of self-worth is dependent upon external stimuli, adoration, adulation, affirmation, applause, notoriety, fame, infamy and in general attention of any kind. When such attention is missing, lacking, deficient, the narcissist compensates by confabulating. He constructs ungrounded narratives in which he is a protagonist and he uses these stories, these narratives, these fictions to force his human environment into complicity.

Put simply, the narcissist provokes people to pay attention to him by misbehaving or by behaving oddly or eccentrically or by claiming that he is the victim of conspiracies.

And then there's the intimacy retarding paranoia. Paranoia is used by the narcissist to ward off something he dreads, which is intimacy.

The narcissist is threatened by intimacy because it reduces him to ordinariness by exposing his weaknesses and shortcomings and by causing him to act like everyone else, normally.

The narcissist also dreads the encounter with his deep buried emotions hurt, envy, anger, aggression likely to be foisted on him in an intimate relationship.

So he seeks to reverse intimacy once it has happened or to avoid it altogether.

The paranoid narrative legitimizes intimacy repelling behaviors such as keeping one's distance, secrecy, aloofness, reclusion, aggression, intrusion on privacy, lying, desultoriness, itineracy, unpredictability, idiosyncratic or eccentric reactions. All these are fully justified when one finds himself at the center of a conspiracy or persecution.

Gradually, the narcissist succeeds to alienate and wear down all his friends, colleagues, well-wishers and mates.

Just precisely what he wanted. The narcissist wants to be left alone. Even his closest, his nearest and dearest, his family, feel emotionally detached and burned out after a certain period of time.

The paranoid narcissist ends his life as an oddball recluse, derided, feared and loathed in equal measures.

The narcissist's paranoia, exacerbated by repeated rejections and by the process of aging, pervades his entire life and diminishes his creativity, adaptability and functioning.

The narcissistic personality, buffeted by paranoia, becomes ossified and brittle.

Finally, atomized, isolated and useless, this personality succumbs and gives way to a great void. The narcissist is consumed and is no more.

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Narcissists use language as a weapon of self-defense, to obscure, not to communicate, and to obtain narcissistic supply. They talk at others or lecture them, exchange subtexts, and spawn private languages, prejudices, superstitions, conspiracy theories, rumors, phobias, and hysterias. The rules that govern the narcissist universe are loopholeed, incomprehensible, open to interpretation so wide and so self-contradictory that it renders them meaningless. The narcissist, in this respect, is a great social menace, undermining language itself.


Paranoia, Narcissistic Mirroring, and Narcissistic Reflection

Narcissists tend to react with paranoia when they feel threatened, but these attacks tend to fade and the narcissist frequently homes in on new agents of persecution. The narcissist's paranoia is a grandiose fantasy aimed to regulate their sense of self-worth. The narcissist's partner tends to encourage their paranoid or threatening attention, and this is a game of two. Living with a narcissist can tilt one's mind toward abnormal reactions, and even after separation, the narcissist's partners typically still care for the narcissist greatly.


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Focus on the underlying motivations behind a narcissist's communication rather than the content of their words, as their speech often serves specific goals such as impressing others, confabulating to fill memory gaps, supporting their grandiose self-image, or manipulating the listener. Narcissists do not engage in genuine communication; instead, they use language as a tool to manage impressions and reinforce their false identities. Their communication is often condescending and aimed at converting others into sources of narcissistic supply or participants in their shared fantasies. Understanding these motivations can help navigate interactions with narcissists more effectively.


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Narcissists communicate using a dual-layered approach, where the overt message conceals a hidden, manipulative intent designed to trigger emotional responses in their targets. This hidden message often employs techniques such as counterfactuality, victimhood, projection, and gaslighting, which distort reality and shift blame onto others. Effective communication with narcissists requires ignoring the hidden messages and, if possible, involving intermediaries to prevent emotional manipulation. Ultimately, understanding the nature of narcissistic communication can help individuals protect themselves from the psychological harm inflicted by these interactions.


Narcissist's Routines

Narcissists have a series of routines that are developed through rote learning and repetitive patterns of experience. These routines are used to reduce anxiety and transform the world into a manageable and controllable one. The narcissist is a creature of habit and finds change unsettling. The narcissist's routines are often broken down when they are breached or can no longer be defended, leading to a narcissistic injury.


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Narcissists perceive others as internal objects rather than separate entities, leading them to misinterpret speech as emanating from within their own minds. This internalization causes them to filter and distort communication, often attributing hostile meanings to benign statements, which reinforces their grandiose self-image and paranoia. Consequently, any interaction can trigger a defensive response, as the narcissist views words as potential threats to their self-worth, leading to devaluation and eventual discard of the other person. The communication style of narcissists reflects a fundamental disorder, resembling traits found in autism spectrum disorders, indicating a deeper issue with understanding and processing verbal and non-verbal cues.


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Narcissists cannot be cured and are a threat to those around them. Victims of narcissists often confuse shame with guilt and attribute remorsefulness to the narcissist when they are actually feeling shame for failing. Narcissists are attracted to vulnerable people who offer them a secure source of narcissistic supply. Healing is dependent on a sense of security in a relationship, but the narcissist is not interested in healing and would rather invest their energy in obtaining narcissistic supply. Narcissists lack empathy and cannot understand others, making them a danger to those around them.


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Narcissists exhibit a profound sense of contempt towards others, perceiving them as weak or inferior, which reinforces their own grandiosity and sense of superiority. They are particularly triggered by any signs of vulnerability or inadequacy, interpreting these traits as threats to their self-image and using them to manipulate or exploit others. The narcissist's relationship with emotions is complex; they view emotional expression as a weakness and often react with suspicion or disdain towards those who display empathy or attachment. Ultimately, the narcissist's worldview is characterized by a zero-sum mentality, where they must constantly assert their superiority while simultaneously feeling threatened by the perceived inferiority of others.

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