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Narcissist's Routines

Uploaded 4/26/2011, approx. 3 minute read

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

The behavior of the narcissist is regulated by a series of routines developed by rote learning and by repetitive patterns of experience.

The narcissist finds change extremely distasteful, stressful and unsettling. He is a creature of habit.

The function of these routines is to reduce the narcissist's anxiety by transforming a hostile and arbitrary world into a hospitable and manageable and controllable one.

Many narcissists are indeed unstable. They change jobs, apartments, spouses, vocations and locations. But even these changes are pretty predictable.

The narcissistic personality is disorganized and chaotic, but it is also rigid. The narcissist finds solace, uncertainty, in recurrence, in the familiar and the anticipated. These balance his inner precariousness, volatility and chaos.

Narcissists often strike their interlocutors as being machine-like, artificial, fake, forced, insincere or spurious. This is because even the narcissist's ostensibly spontaneous behaviors are either planned or automatic.

The narcissist is continuously preoccupied with his narcissistic supply.

How to secure its sources and how to obtain the next dose is a chore. This preoccupation restricts the narcissist's attention span.

As a result, the narcissist often appears to be aloof, absent-minded, unfocused, de-concentrated and uninterested in other people. He would not pay attention to events surrounding or even to abstract ideas, unless of course these have a bearing on his narcissistic supply.

The narcissist develops some of these routines to compensate for his inability to attend to his environment and its needs.

Automatic reactions require much less investment of mental resources. The narcissist's resources are scarce indeed. It doesn't have the necessary energy to invest in other people.

Consider driving, for instance. When we drive, we do interact with our environment, but we do so completely automatically. Often our mind wanders and is occupied with something completely different.

It's the same with the narcissist. The narcissist interacts with other people and with the world at large, the same way that you drive your car on automatic pilot.

Narcissists make fake warmth and outgoing personality. This is the routine that I call the narcissistic mask.

But as one gets to know the narcissist better, the mask falls and the narcissistic makeup wears off. Narcissist muscles relax and he reverts to what I call the narcissistic tonus.

The narcissistic tonus is a bodacious air of superiority mixed with disdain or contempt for others.

So while routines such as the various masks are extraneous and require an often conscious investment of energy, the tonus is the default position. It's effortless. It's frequent. And it is the true face of default self.

Many narcissists are obsessive compulsive as well. They conduct daily rituals. They are overly punctilious. They do things in a certain order and adhere to numerous laws, principles and rules. They have rigid and off- repeated opinions, uncompromising rules of conduct and alterable views and judgments.

These compulsions and obsessions are ossified routines, fossils of past responses and reactions to the environment.

Other routines involve paranoid, repetitive thoughts. Yet others induce shyness and social phobia. The whole range of narcissistic behaviors can be traced to these routines and to the various phases of their evolutionary cycles.

It is when these routines break down and are violated, when they become no longer defensible, when they are breached or when the narcissist can no longer exercise or defend them, it is then that a narcissistic injury occurs.

The narcissist expects the outside world to conform to his inner universe. When a conflict between these two realms erupts, thus unsettling the ill-poised mental balance so painstakingly achieved by the narcissist, the narcissist unravels. Without his routines, he falls apart. He decomposes.

The narcissist's very defense mechanisms are routines and so he is left defenseless in a hostile, cold world without them.

This, of course, is the true reflection of his inner landscape, hostile, barren, a wasteland.

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The pathological narcissistic space is a geographical area, group of people, or an abstract field of knowledge in which the narcissistic pathology reaches its full expression and effectiveness. It is a territorially expanded false self that is achieved via sources of narcissistic supply. The existence of the pathological narcissistic space is independent of the existence of sources of narcissistic supply. The pathological narcissistic space constantly consumes and drains narcissistic supply, and it generates negative narcissistic accumulation.


Negative, Fake, Low-grade Narcissistic Supply

Normal individuals seek a balanced amount of attention, while narcissists are insatiable, constantly craving affirmation to sustain their self-worth. They create a false self, projecting an idealized version of themselves to elicit reactions from others, which they refer to as narcissistic supply. Even negative attention can serve as supply for narcissists, as they prioritize any form of attention over being ignored, manipulating others to maintain their focus. Ultimately, the narcissist's existence revolves around this relentless pursuit of attention, which is intertwined with their internal struggles and feelings of worthlessness.


Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD) Misdiagnosed as Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD)

Narcissists are anxious for social approval and seek narcissistic supply compulsively, which creates attendant anxiety. They require external feedback to regulate their sense of self-worth, self-confidence, and self-esteem, making them irritable. Narcissists are terrified of being embarrassed or criticized in public, and they fail to function well in various settings. It is easy to mistake the presenting symptoms of certain anxiety disorders with pathological narcissism, but the narcissist is egosyntonic, while the anxious patient is distressed and looking for help.


Express Constructive Anger, Not Narcissistic Rage!

Anger can be expressed in constructive or destructive ways, with narcissistic rage being a particularly destructive form. Constructive anger involves honest communication, describing one's state of mind without blaming others, and asking for change assertively, while narcissistic rage is characterized by disproportionate reactions to perceived slights and a lack of accountability. Narcissists often project their emotions onto others, creating a toxic dynamic where they transfer their pain and frustration, leading to further conflict. Ultimately, healthy anger can lead to positive change and resolution, whereas narcissistic rage is an internal dysfunction that manifests externally without addressing the root causes.


Narcissistic Entitlement=Learned Helplessness+Grandiosity

Entitlement is a crucial pillar of narcissism, and it is one of the diagnostic criteria in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. Narcissists feel entitled to everything, including narcissistic supply, which they believe they are owed by the world. Entitlement is a form of learned helplessness, which is acquired through abusive parenting. Narcissists hate routine and use emotional investment prevention mechanisms to avoid getting emotionally involved and subsequently getting hurt.


Narcissist: No Sense of Humor

The narcissist's humor is rarely self-deprecating and is often used to seek validation and admiration from others. This inflated sense of self-importance leads to a belief in a unique mission and cosmic significance, causing the narcissist to view every aspect of life as part of a grand design. Consequently, the narcissist reacts to life's challenges with extreme emotions, oscillating between idealization and devaluation of others, and often perceives minor events as significant omens. This mindset fosters paranoia and detachment, leaving little space for genuine humor or levity.


Witnessing the Narcissist's Glory: Secondary Narcissistic Supply

Narcissists rely on the memories and perceptions of others to validate their existence, as they live vicariously through the reflections of their past glory. They require active reminders of their achievements and moments of admiration to sustain their self-worth, especially during times of neglect or humiliation. As their sources of narcissistic supply age and pass away, the narcissist's sense of self diminishes, leading to a gradual fading of their identity. Ultimately, the narcissist's existence is deeply intertwined with the memories held by others, making them dependent on external validation for their sense of reality.


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Suicide among narcissists is often viewed as an act of self-control and a means to restore their sense of grandiosity, rather than a result of depression. The suicidal ideation in narcissists is characterized by a grandiose fantasy, where they perceive their death as a way to signal their superiority and defiance to others. This behavior is exacerbated when narcissism is comorbid with other mental health issues, leading to higher rates of suicidal thoughts and actions. Ultimately, narcissists may resort to suicide as a final act of control, believing it will elicit guilt and shame in those who have wronged them, thereby reinforcing their perceived superiority even in death.


Narcissist's, Borderline's Rage Not Same (Grandiosity vs. Acting Out)

Narcissistic rage and borderline rage, while similar in appearance, stem from different underlying motivations. Narcissistic rage is a reaction to threats against the narcissist's grandiose self-image, serving to restore their inflated sense of superiority and protect their fragile inner self. In contrast, borderline rage arises from a sense of loss of control and is driven by a desperate need to regain connection with those perceived as abandoning or rejecting them. Both types of rage signal attempts at behavior modification, but narcissistic rage is psychopathic in nature, while borderline rage combines elements of psychopathy with a deep-seated neediness and codependency.


Raging Narcissist: Merely Pissed-off?

Narcissistic rage is a phenomenon that occurs when a narcissist is frustrated in their pursuit of narcissistic supply, causing narcissistic injury. The narcissist then projects a bad object onto the source of their frustration and rages against a perceived evil entity that has injured and frustrated them. Narcissistic rage is not the same as normal anger and has two forms: explosive and pernicious or passive-aggressive. People with personality disorders are in a constant state of anger, which is effectively suppressed most of the time, and they are afraid to show that they are angry to meaningful others because they are afraid to lose them.

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