I want to take a few minutes to dwell on a phenomenon that has puzzled many observers of pathological narcissism.
And that is the fact that pathological narcissists, people with narcissistic personality disorder, are very self-defeating. They undermine themselves. They sabotage their own efforts, even when they are not masochistic.
And so we have the anti-narcissist who is essentially a masochistic covert narcissist, and we have the classic, the masochistic classic narcissist.
Of course, masochism would explain why the narcissist becomes self-destructive, self-trashing, self-harming, and self-defeating.
But what about those narcissists who are not masochies?
The narcissists who go through life and they are self-interested, they are self-centered, they maximize and optimize outcomes, and they work, sometimes work hard, they build teams, create products, and so on so forth.
And then the last minute, they destroy everything in an orgy of self-annihilation, self-hatred, self-rejection, and so on.
Why is that?
I would try to throw some light on it.
First of all, Harvey Cleckley, in his famous book, Mask of Sanity, described many such instances and cases.
I think he mislabeled the people in the book, the people that he described in the book. He mislabeled in the psychopaths. They were actually narcissists and some of them were malignant narcissists.
The fact is that the narcissist turns down, undermines, sabotages, destroys, ruins, opposes opportunities.
When it comes across an opportunity, opportunity to advance, opportunity to become rich, opportunity to become famous, opportunity to have the girl, opportunity to, you name it. Any kind of opportunity.
He destroys it. He ruins it. He undermines it. He acts as if the opportunity were some kind of threat.
There's a distorted threat perception on the surface but the truth as usually narcissism is much more nuanced.
Here are the facts: a narcissist is likely to turn down, reject, undermine, and sabotage an opportunity, only when he perceives himself within the circumstances, within the situation, within the environment, he perceives himself as somehow inferior.
So when the narcissist is embedded in a certain situation or a set of circumstances or environment, and then someone offers him an opportunity or an opportunity arises, if the narcissist feels that embracing the opportunity, accepting the opportunity, jumping at the opportunity, would present him as inferior, would challenge his grandiosity or his grandiose, fantastic, inflated self-perception, if this is the case, the narcissist would reject the opportunity. Overlook it, ignore it, undermine it, sabotage it.
In the mind of the narcissist, when he is faced with an opportunity, some people may perceive the narcissist as in need of this opportunity, as powerless, or some people may say that the narcissist owes some kind of gratitude for the opportunity.
In other words, some opportunities in some settings, in some frameworks, in some situations with some people, some opportunities diminish the narcissist, at least in his own eyes, render the narcissist needy, render the narcissist powerless, render the narcissist as someone who owes a thank you, gratitude, render the narcissist the recipient of some kind of charity or altruism.
The narcissist is invested emotionally, cathected, in his own grandiose, inflated self-image. Nothing matters to the narcissist more than the maintenance and buttressing of this outlandish delusional self-perception. Nothing, no opportunity, no person, no amount of money, no amount of, nothing matters to the narcissist more than keeping this fictional narrative of himself alive and verified or validated by external observers.
Sometimes, latching onto an opportunity, accepting it, sometimes fitting into a situation, sometimes collaborating with people, sometimes the demands that an opportunity presents are such that the narcissist in his own eyes is being injured, narcissistically injured, or even in many cases mortified.
Opportunities can be, can often actually be perceived as mortification, especially if the opportunity is presented in a public manner, if it is publicly offered to the narcissist.
Narcissus, I don't need any opportunity. I don't need anyone. I don't need anything. I'm self-sufficient. I'm self-contained. I'm Godlike. Who are you to offer me an opportunity? What do you think I lack that I would need your magnanimity and largesse and charity? I don't need you and I don't need your opportunity.
And so there's this externalized aggression and defiance in the face of opportunity, as the opportunity is perceived as a form of devaluation.
When someone offers the narcissist an opportunity, it's as if the message is, Mr. Narcissist, or Miss Narcissist, you're not perfect. This opportunity would make you perfect or would make you better, or would make you richer or would make you more perfect.
But how can you be more perfect? Either you're perfect or you're not. If you're perfect you don't need any opportunities and if you do need opportunities then you're not perfect, you're dependent, you're relational, you're needy to some extent, you're powerless, you need other people, you depend on other people, they matter to you. Opportunities are forms of hidden criticism.
If I'm here, and I think I am the world, and I think the world of myself, and I think I'm godlike, and I think I'm the most brilliant and handsome. Well, in my case it's true, but you know what I mean. So if I'm here enshrined and entombed and embedded in this position which Rayfites I, I am perfection. Then why would I need anything from the outside?
Benedict Baruch Spinoza said that God cannot have a will. Because if you want something, it means you lack it. You don't have it.
When you want the girl is because you don't have the girl. When you want to drink water is because you don't have enough fluids internally. When you want to eat it is because you're hungry. It implies some lack.
Wanting something, having a will directed at something implies some deficiency, some imperfection, some lack. And because God is perfect, all encompassing, all comprising, all pervasive, God is the world. There's nothing that God lacks, there's nothing that God is deficient in, so God cannot ever will.
Because the narcissist is Godlike, the narcissist cannot have a will in this sense. The narcissist cannot want something.
You know, in English, to want also means to not have, to lack, to miss. This is wanting, this is wanting means this is imperfect.
So the narcissist cannot desire the opportunity, crave for the opportunity, want the opportunity, because doing so would ricochet, boomerang, reflect on him.
Doing so would actually say, you see, there's something out there that you need. There's something out there that you miss. There's something out there that could make you better, more perfect.
And the narcissist is already perfectly perfect.
So when the narcissist associates a specific opportunity with this kind of messaging or signaling of imperfection, you're imperfect, you need this opportunity, this opportunity would change your life, etc. The narcissist would reject the opportunity, undermining, destroying, sabotaging. He would absolutely have nothing to do with this kind of opportunity. He would even begin to consider the people who offered him the opportunity to have conspired against him. They're out to take him down. The evil. That's one of a reactions to mortification.
So when does the narcissist adopt, when does he adopt or embrace lucky breaks?
I mean after all there are many narcissists in positions of authority, politicians, chief executive officers and rich people and famous people, and so they must have availed themselves, they must have used and leveraged some opportunities.
Whatopportunities. What kind of opportunity is a narcissist likely to accept, likely to try, likely to give it a shot?
The narcissist has a conflicted relationship with opportunities.
But when he can construe the situation in terms of magnanimity, you're not doing me a favor. I'm the one who is doing your favor by accepting your offer.
So the offer you have made is not something I need, it's not something I want, it's not something I desire, it's not something I crave. The offer you're making is an opportunity for me to help you. I'm superior to you. I'm godlike. So you want me to help you? I'm magnanimous. I will help you.
The narcissist can cast himself, not as a recipient of favors, but as the provider, the benefactor, the altruist, charitable, pro-social, communal type. If the narcissist can convince himself that he is engaged in a rescue operation, a rescuer savior operation that is helping someone, at that point, the narcissist may embrace the opportunity. Will likely take it with both hands, adopt it, act on it, immerse himself in it and benefit from it.
So the narcissist, when faced with an opportunity in life, a lucky break, a possibility, a job offer, a relationship, the narcissist doesn't calculate potential benefits against potential risks, risk to reward ratio, cost benefit analysis. Narcissists don't do that.
What they do, they analyze the impact on the grandiose, inflated, fantastic self-image and self-perception that they have laboriously constructed over the decades.
So they ask themselves, if I were to accept this possibility, this lucky break, this opportunity, this offer, this proposal, if I were to accept them, how would it reflect on me? Would it cast me as the needy party, as someone who has benefited, has been helped somehow, powerless, someone who owes gratitude? If that's the case, I'm not interested.
Could it be construed, could it be reframed, could it be spin doctored, could it be spinned to show that I'm the one who is doing everyone a favor and the charitable one, the altruistic one, I'm the rescuer, I'm the savior, I'm the fixer, I'm the healer, I'm the charitable one, the altruistic one, I'm the rescuer, I'm the savior, I'm the fixer, I'm the healer, I'm the contributor, the wise man. If it can be construed this way, if it can enhance my grandiosity, sustain and buttress my self-imputed self-perceived perfection, if accepting the opportunity, saying yes to the proposal would make me look grander, more perfect, more amazing, more incredible, more wiser, you know, then I will take it. Only then I'll take it.
So this is a binary kind of calculus. The narcissist inflated and fantastic self-perception depends on proven self-sufficiency, defiance, and independence, a phenomenon known as counter-dependency.
Opportunities, there are, as I said, double-edged swords. There's dual messaging or mixed signals in opportunities.
On the one hand, you are the beneficiary. An opportunity can help you in life, improve your lot, make you richer, more famous, more wiser, something, improve you somehow, an opportunity, prove you, your life circumstances, your stationing life, your relationships. Opportunities, as the name implies, are a form of self-betterment, becoming better, a better version of yourself.
That's on the one hand.
With the other hand, opportunities are perceived widely, even among healthy people, in terms of a disparity of power. The power asymmetry.
There is someone or something, it could be the universe, it is someone or something, it could be the universe, it is someone or something which has something to give and there is the recipient which wishes to receive. So the world has something to give to you, and you're the recipient, the grateful recipient.
Or someone, another person, has something to give to you and you should be grateful and should embrace the offer.
But then to be grateful, to be grateful is to acknowledge this power disparity, to acknowledge that there is inferior and superior, there is you who should be grateful and those who are owed some thanks, owed the gratitude, your gratitude.
So this immediately inferior superior thing and the narcissist cannot cope with it. He has to be in the superior position. He has to rewrite the narrative, to reframe the opportunity, to recreate the environment in the situation and the circumstances by manipulating people if necessary, modifying behaviors, setting new terms and conditions.
Something to accomplish a situation where his very acceptance of the opportunity, his very embrace of the proposal, his very agreement to collaborate in making things happen, they imply his superiority, his magnanimity, his altruism, his sagacity, his unprecedented perfection.
Otherwise, it's no thanks.