When the narcissist cannot get anyone to watch his videos, he talks to his Pilpylon. And the Pilpylon tells him how amazing and drop-dead gorgeous and super intelligent and fascinating and incredible he is in his dreams.
Today's topic is about the Pilpylon. How does it feel? How does narcissistic supply feel? What is the inner experience of the narcissist when he is in receipt of narcissistic supply?
And it is not as simple as you think. Nothing is with narcissist. And who the heck am I? My name is Sam Vaknin. I'm the author of Malignant Self-Love, Narcissism Revisited, the first book ever about narcissistic abuse. I'm also a former visiting professor of psychology in Southern Federal University in Russia and currently on the faculty of SIAMS, Commonwealth Institute for Advanced Professional Studies, Cambridge United Kingdom, Toronto, Canada, and the inevitable outreach campus in Lagos, Nigeria.
Let's delve or dive right into the murky world of the narcissist.
Many people ask me, what is the difference between receiving compliments and narcissistic supply? We all expose from time to time to praise. People tell us how great we are, how kind we are, what a wonderful smile we have, the impact we have had on their lives, what a pleasant company we are.
So we are all in receipt. We are all at the receiving end of what could easily be construed as narcissistic supply.
So what's the difference between this and the pathological variety?
The variant of compliments, the variant of positive feedback known as narcissistic supply.
Well, there are two differences, two differences between compliments and narcissistic supply.
Number one, narcissistic supply is fantasy based.
Compliments usually reflect a modicum of reality. They're usually founded on some elements of reality while narcissistic supply in the vast majority of cases is fantastic, is counterfactual, flies in the face of reality.
And even when it is not, even when the narcissistic supply provided is well founded, the narcissist is going to take the narcissistic supply and embed it in a fantasy, sort of surround it, drown it in a fantastic context.
Narcissist converts everything into a fantasy. Any sort of interpersonal relationship becomes a shared fantasy.
The narcissist's self perception and self image are a fantasy of God-like grandiosity. He's a fantasy, narcissism, a pathological narcissism, he's a fantasy defense gone awry.
So that's the first difference.
The second difference is what is known as regulatory locus.
When you receive a compliment as a healthy, normal person, the few of you left, when you receive a compliment, you're not likely to react with too much of an upheaval, an internal upheaval.
The compliment is not likely to trigger you. The compliment is not likely to elevate your mood into a manic phase. The compliment is not likely to render you God-like in your own eyes, etc.
The narcissist reacts exceedingly powerfully to narcissistic supply because narcissistic supply in the narcissistic pathology is a form of external regulation.
The narcissist uses the supply to regulate, the supply from the outside to regulate his insight. He uses narcissistic supply in order to stabilize his sense of self-worth, his moods, his emotions.
In this sense, the distinction between borderline personality disorder and narcissistic personality disorder is very fuzzy, is very blurred, is very fine and very thin.
The borderline uses intimacy and especially presence. The intimate partner's presence is a way to regulate her internal environment. She uses the presence of the intimate partner to stabilize her nearby moods, to regulate her emotions, to keep her emotions from overwhelming her and drowning her.
So it is the intimate partner's presence that matters and to some extent intimacy.
The narcissist doesn't care about the source of the narcissistic supply. Narcissist doesn't care about people. He cannot perceive people as external and separate.
Narcissist cares about the supply itself.
The narcissist doesn't care about whether he made a good day, how do you feel, are you up, are you down, are you sick, are you healthy, are you happy, are you depressed.
Narcissist doesn't give a hoot about any of this.
But the narcissist cares a lot about your input, your feedback, your praise, your compliments, your unmitigated admiration and adulation, your affirmation, your applause or maybe your fear of him. Getting attention of any kind from you is what matters.
Narcissism, pathological narcissism, is the first attention economy. The narcissist consumes attention, processes it, converts it into a finished product and the finished product is the narcissist's homeostasis, equilibrium, inner peace, internal environment, precariously balanced on the regular uninterrupted flow of narcissistic supply.
So whereas a normal healthy person is likely to interact with you as the source of the compliment, the narcissist is likely to interact with your output, with your feedback rather than with you and he's going to use it to stabilize himself, to somehow regulate himself.
So these are the two differences.
Narcissistic supply triggers a fantasy defense in the narcissist and the second difference is the regulation of the narcissist's internal environment is external and performed via the consumption and processing of narcissistic supply.
Now, consequently, persons with narcissistic style or narcissistic disorder are dependent on supply for external regulation, not only a sense of self worth.
As I mentioned, emotions as well, moods and narcissists can easily sink into dysphoria or even depression if he is deprived of narcissistic supply.
So mood, there is mood reactivity in narcissism to the presence or absence of narcissistic supply.
Similarly, emotions are triggered, especially negative emotions, such as rage, such as envy, they're triggered by the absence or withholding or presence of narcissistic supply.
Narcissistic supply permeates the narcissist's world and ambience. It's exactly like oxygen in the air. The narcissist inhales narcissistic supply constantly and in an oxygen poor environment, narcissistic supply poor environment, the narcissist suffocates.
So this external regulation is even more critical in narcissism than it is in borderline personality organization or borderline disorders. This is in the case of the narcissist, a dependency and addiction.
So how does it feel? It feels like a rush. Whenever the narcissist receives a dose of narcissistic supply, especially from a high grade source, someone the narcissist kind of looks up to, it mires in a way, however stealthily and slyly, someone who is a frame of reference, a point of reference for the narcissist, a role model, a peer, an important peer, significant other, and even an intimate partner. So these are high grade sources of narcissistic supply and they're also sources of high grade narcissistic supply.
And so when he is in receipt over dose of such supply, the reaction is indistinguishable from drug addiction, high rush. This is known inaccurately as narcissistic elation. Narcissistic elation is something completely different, but it's unfortunately online.
Some people use the phrase narcissistic elation wrongly. It's more like narcissistic euphoria and it is very reminiscent of the psychological reaction to coke, cocaine. Coke addicts are grandiose. When they consume coke, they're grandiose. They become essentially narcissists and the longer the consumption and more regular the consumption, the more narcissistic they become until their personality is transformed into that of a transient narcissist.
So the real narcissist, the overt grandiose narcissist, the covert narcissist, they are on this self-generated coke, so to speak, all the time. They consume narcissistic supply all the time. They're a constant high, constant rush, a crack addiction in a way.
Narcissistic euphoria involves a sense of omnipotence. I can do anything I put my mind to. I am all powerful. There's nothing beyond my Ken and my ability, my strength, my resources, my assets, my skills, my talents, my gifts, my intelligence. They're supreme. They're so supreme and so supreme and so superior that no one attains my level. No one reaches my level. I'm absolutely godlike.
So there's this sense of omnipotence, invincibility, invulnerability, and immunity to the consequences of his actions. That's why the narcissist, having received narcissistic supply, becomes very reckless and a bit psychopathic, a bit antisocial.
Now when I say he, it's a she, she is a he, half of all narcissists are women nowadays.
So the narcissist having just received, having just absorbed narcissistic supply, osmosis, narcissistic supply osmosis, having gleaned and garnered and harvested narcissistic supply from his human environment and not only human, for example, possession of a luxury car is a source of narcissistic supply. So inanimate objects can also yield supply belonging and affiliation with a highly respected group or exclusive club is also a source of supply, etc.
There are new resources of supply. Even ostentatious charity, altruism and morality, virtue signaling is a form, yields narcissistic supply.
So whenever the narcissist absorbs narcissistic supply, owing due to his actions or due to his presence or in a serendipitous way from the human environment or non-human environment, narcissists are great at mining and extracting supply from almost anything imaginable, including in times of need, self supply.
So whenever there's a meeting, an encounter between a narcissist and his supply, the narcissist becomes utterly deluded. His fantasy becomes very virulent, pernicious. I would even say nefarious, becomes a bit of a psychopath. He's omnipotent, invincible, invulnerable, immune to the consequences of his actions, decisions and choices, defined, reckless.
And sooner or later, narcissist become hypomanic, or manic.
And this is extremely reminiscent of bipolar disorder, bipolar disorders, especially bipolar disorder one.
In this state of mind, anything is possible. Anything is achievable. There's no limit to the narcissist's capacity, accomplishments, schemes, get rich quick schemes or whatever.
The narcissist is assured 100% of his eventual success, failure and defeat are not options.
At that point, the narcissist also wrongly perceives, delusionally perceives his own creativity, the quality of his creations. If he's a writer, if he's a musician and so on and so forth, because narcissistic supply is very much like a dragon, exactly like a typical junkie, the narcissist misjudges the profundity of his own work, his own contributions, his own actions, the relative weight of his involvement, commitment and investment.
There's a total distortion of the proportionality and the type and nature of his interactions with the environment and with his own mind.
So narcissist would tell you that he has just had a stroke of genius, that he is about to revolutionize science, or I don't know what, that he's the greatest politician ever, or the greatest husband or father and so on.
So there is a misperception, misjudgment of oneself and one's place in the world. And this is known in Iacob's work, the psychoticism. It's not psychosis, but it's psychoticism.
At that point, the narcissist ascends to heaven. You should have such luck. I mean metaphorically, of course. Apotheosis, he becomes a God.
In his own mind, his perfection is affirmed. He is now a perfect being, blemishless, immaculate, perfect. And as a perfect being, he is lovable. Remember that in the narcissist childhood, the little love that the narcissist had received from his mother or father, this love was conditioned upon performance.
And now that the narcissist has received narcissistic supply, now that he has absorbed his daily dose of adulation and admiration and attention and so on and so forth, now that he feels that he is a divinity, a deity of some kind, now his performance is guaranteed to be perfect as he is perfect.
And with a perfect performance, he cannot be criticized. He cannot be analyzed. He cannot be disagreed with, with a perfect performance. Surely he's going to garner love. Finally, someone is going to love him because he has rendered himself a perfect entity. He's a perfect entity by virtue of the consumption of narcissistic supply.
So the narcissist depends on his addicted to narcissistic supply because narcissistic supply renders the narcissist in his own eyes sufficiently perfect to be deserving of love. His perfection renders him lovable and that counters the bad object inside himself.
Today, the prevailing view is that all narcissism is compensatory. It compensates for an inferior, inadequate, bad object.
The narcissist has been told throughout his childhood, early childhood and so on, that he is bad and worthy, inadequate, failure, stupid, ugly, or that he doesn't measure up to the parental expectations despite his gifts maybe.
So one way or another, the messaging, the signaling, the parental messaging and signaling has been very negative. And the narcissist develops a bad object, a perception of himself as lacking, as deficient, as defective and default to compensate for this.
The narcissist comes up, the child comes up with narcissism, the false self. The false self is everything the child is not. The false self is godlike and perfect.
But how to maintain this self-deception, this delusion, delusional disorder of, you know, I'm perfect, I'm godlike?
You need other people to tell you that you're not dreaming, you're not being delusional, you're not self-deceiving, you're not misleading. No, you're really a genius. You're really amazing. You're really drop-dried gorgeous.
And this is narcissistic supply. Narcissistic supply is input from the environment, especially human environment, but not only.
Input from the environment that sustains and buttresses and upholds and proves conclusively the veracity, the realness of the false self.
And therefore the narcissist's own divinity. And as a god who is perfect, the narcissist is deserving of love and is likely to receive it, that renders him lovable.
Narcissists need to feel lovable because exactly like borderlines, they have pronounced separation anxiety, abandonment anxiety. They're unable to maintain object constancy. It's very difficult for them because they don't relate to other people as external and separate from them.
Exactly. The reason for the introjection and internalization of other people, the reason why the narcissist converts external objects, other people into internal objects is this fear of abandonment and separation.
You see an internal object would never abandon the narcissist. An internal object would never betray the narcissist. An internal object would never separate from the narcissist. Would never dump the narcissist. Internal object is there, totally controllable. Inside the narcissist's mind, a captive, a hostage of the narcissist, this internal object.
It's also ideal. And as an idealized, ideal internal object, it's not likely to behave badly. It's not likely to hurt the narcissist, not likely to cause pain. It's not likely to attack the narcissist or criticize the narcissist or demean and degrade the narcissist. An idealized object is also godlike and is good.
So we're beginning to see the convergence between narcissistic supply and the internal management, the management of the internal space of the narcissist, the economy of the internal space.
Historic supply is streaming, streaming information that most of this information is counterfactual. And a lot of this information is converted into misinformation by the narcissist through the fantasy defense to fit the information that's coming from the environment into the fantasy.
The narcissist has to falsify and reframe it.
So narcissistic supply has actually two phases.
The messaging, the signal, the content that is sent by the source of supply.
If the narcissist has an intimate partner, what the intimate partner says to the narcissist, that is narcissistic supply.
And then the narcissist takes this input, takes this feedback from the intimate partner, from a friend, from family, from children, from neighbors, from colleagues. So he takes this input and he shape shifts it. He molds it, he scubs it, he falsifies it, he refrains it to fit and to support his fantasy of himself as godlike, his grandiosity, his cognitive distortion, his divorce from reality.
And all this is intended to convince the narcissist somehow that he is not a bad object. That now with the aid of narcissistic supply, he has become a good object. Narcissistic supply converts or transforms the bad object into a good object, a perfect object, a godlike object, a flawless and immaculate object. This kind of object is likely to perform perfectly, commit no errors and mistakes, and therefore is deserving of love. That's a lovable object.
When the narcissist is unable to obtain narcissistic supply, he collapses. And what collapse means is the narcissist fails to sustain a good object and gets in touch with his own shameful bad object.
Narcissistic supply is the firewall that separates the narcissist's delusional, fantastic, good object from the narcissist's equally delusional and fantastic bad object. It's the only thing which, narcissistic supply is the only thing which stands between the narcissist and his disintegration and his experience of the life threatening shame inside him.
So this shame also convinces the narcissist that he is not lovable.
So narcissistic supply is a double yummy or triple yummy.
Function number one, you're great, you're godlike, you're perfect, grandiosity, cognitive distortion, impaired reality testing. Narcissistic supply helps with it, especially after the narcissist has processed the supply, refrained it and falsified it to fit into his fantasy.
Function number two, you're not a bad object, you're a good object because you're godlike, you're perfect, and you perform perfectly.
Number three, since you perform perfectly, you're finally deserving of love.
The narcissist has learned as a child to connect love with performance and this is irresistible.
And so the narcissist is constantly preoccupied, not to say obsessed, with narcissistic supply. Who will give it to him? How is he going to secure it? How to avoid disruptions in the supply chain? And so on and so forth.
So he is hell bent on somehow controlling the sources of narcissistic supply.
If when the narcissist perceives the sources of narcissistic supply as too independent, too personally autonomous, too agnostic, too strong, that is very threatening because they can walk away.
And again, to remind you, a source of narcissistic supply could be essentially anyone, friend, colleague, child, intimate partner and so on, although there are different types of supply, secondary, primary, we're not going to, but sources could be objects.
But when it comes to people, people have a mind of their own. People abandon, people hurt, people cause pain, people torture, people walk away, people separate, people are horrible.
They don't just stay put. They're not inert. They're not controllable.
Narcissist needs to render them, render them dead. He needs to kill his sources of narcissistic supply and then swallow them and convert them into internal objects.
The process of introjection and internalization and identification and incorporation. These are the four phases.
In narcissistic, in the narcissistic pathology involves symbolically, metaphorically killing the source of narcissistic supply.
Only someone who is dead is unlikely to break up with you, to walk away, to abandon you, to separate from you, to forget about you, to not care about you. Only someone who is dead is utterly controllable.
So the narcissist engages in something called hyper-reflectivity, expansive hyper-reflectivity, which is a hallmark, a very crucial element in psychotic disorders.
What he does is he expands outwards. Again, everything is symbolic. Some narcissists are obese, but non-narcissists is sufficiently obese to expand physically. They expand outward psychologically and mentally. They appropriate the environment. They invade it, they consume it, they digest it, they assimilate it. And so they subsume the environment, especially the human environment.
Now I'm talking about the human environment. Human sources of narcissistic supply.
The narcissist swallows them alive, takes over them like a hostile takeover, merges and fuses with them, but asymmetrically emerges and fuses with them in the sense that he abolishes their independent existence. He converts them into internal objects.
And this way he feels safe. He feels stable because now these internal objects are going to serve the narcissist's agenda. They're going to cater to the narcissist's psychological needs and they should be grateful for having been given this amazing opportunity to interact with this God-like person.
But by rendering the sources of narcissistic supply dead in his mind, by converting them into totally controllable, manipulable internal objects, the narcissist finally mitigates, reduces ameliorates his abandonment, anxiety, separation insecurity. It's an anxiolytic action process.
And narcissistic supply is anxiolytic, but narcissist in his pursuit of narcissistic supply very often acts in ways which are indistinguishable from psychosis. That is not my observation. That is Kerber's observation.
And so narcissistic supply fulfills crucial functions in maintaining the narcissist's grantiosity. Perception is lovable, a sense of safety and stability reduction in abandonment, anxiety and perception as creative, critical functions. Narcissist supply is not just about being a jerk or a-hole who is fishing for compliments.
No, this is not the pursuit of compliments. This is the pursuit of self-regulation via external sources.
And in this sense narcissists are almost indistinguishable from borderlines. They're the same kind of economy, internal psychological economy.
Now, once the narcissist has secured, having secured narcissistic supply, the narcissist feels that cosmic justice has been restored.
Narcissist perceives the world as hostile, capricious, arbitrary, unpredictable. As a child, the narcissist has been exposed to self-centered, depressed, absent, controlling, parentified, instrumentalizing, especially mothers but later fathers. So parental figures, maybe even peers, maybe teachers and borderlines.
So the narcissist has learned that reality is bruising, reality is fearful, reality is merciless. Reality doesn't realize or recognize the narcissist's amazing uniqueness and superiority.
Reality is likely to challenge the narcissist's fantasy, self-deception and delusionality. Reality hurts and to avoid reality, the narcissist uses narcissistic supply.
Narcissistic supply, as I said, is a defense against the bad object, which is the internal reality.
But narcissistic supply is also a defense against the world, against life. And this is what Kleckle, Harvey Klenk called a rejection of life.
Narcissistic supply is the way the narcissist experiences reality and life vicariously through the point of view of another person. That other person serves as a buffer, a partition, a protective layer.
And so having consumed, having been at the receiving end of narcissistic supply, the narcissist finally feels restored. He feels that the world is as it should be. There is justice and he can rely on the machine-like, proper operational functionality of a universe that prior to that had gone awry, has gone away.
Narcissistic supply restores order and structure, predictability, and determinacy into the narcissist's crazy-making, chaotic, internal, disorganized personality.
The narcissist constantly anticipates the worst. It catastrophizes. That's why most narcissists are paranoid and that's why paranoia is a form of narcissism.
So narcissistic supply solves this. It doesn't cure, it doesn't heal because the narcissist needs narcissistic supply all the time.
Should the supply be interrupted? The narcissist slides back. It's like a Sesyphean struggle.
The minute the supply is interrupted for whatever reason, the narcissist slides back all the way downhill and has to start pushing the stone again uphill.
But on the days when the narcissist or the minutes or the hours, the narcissist receives narcissistic supply, especially ample supply, especially high grade supply, especially supply that keeps giving in some way.
In receipt of this supply, the exposure to such a narcissistic supply makes the narcissist feel at home in the world. There's a sense of familiarity, a comfort zone. I know the ropes now. I'm so superior that I'm never at risk. I'm not at risk. There's no danger because I'm God like. So cosmic order and structure and justice have been resolved. Why justice?
Because the narcissist is unique. People have to recognize the narcissist's elevation to a superior status, his divinity. So narcissistic supply is a form of signaling by the environment to the narcissist.
Finally, the universe has learned your value, found out how valuable you are, how unique you are, how amazing and incredible you are, how unprecedented you are. Your contributions are revolutionary, transformative, unequal and unparalleled. This is the message of narcissistic supply.
However minute.
So then the narcissist feels at home, a universe that recognizes his separateness, his superiority, his divinity. The universe that recognizes all this, his perfection, his omnipotence, his omniscience, his brilliance, his genius. The universe that recognizes all this is the right kind of universe. It is properly constructed. It is reliable. You can rely on this kind of universe. You can feel safe, stable and at home and familiar in a familiar setting.
Now, this of course leads to haughtiness, haughtiness and contempt. You cannot elevate yourself into a superior position without implying or stating openly that other people are inferior.
The narcissistic position is I'm superior because you are inferior and I need to devalue you and I need to render you inferior to prove to myself that I'm superior.
So there's a lot of haughtiness, arrogance and contempt.
And yet at the same time, the narcissist relies on a select subset of humanity for narcissistic supply. His sources of narcissistic supply are also human.
And if he is God like, if he is a Godhead, if he's perfect, if he's brilliant, if he's endowed, then they are not.
It's by contradiction that the narcissist survives constant comparison.
Narcissism, pathological narcissism is exceedingly competitive.
So what the narcissist, so narcissist has to square the circle on the one hand, all other people are vastly inferior to the narcissist. And yet there's a group of people which seem to be vastly superior to the narcissist because he depends on them. He's addicted to their input. He requires the narcissistic supply just to survive.
How to reconcile these two?
So what the narcissist does, he idealizes his sources of supply and this allows him to idealize himself. This is known as co-idealization.
Idealization is the narcissist's solution to the conundrum. If I am God, all other humans are trash. But if all other humans are trash, I cannot receive the narcissistic supply, which would prove to me that I'm God.
So I need to isolate a group, a tiny group of people who are not trash. They're not in my class. They're not up to my level. They will never be me because I'm no longer human, God like, but they are vastly superior to all the rest. And they are my sources of narcissistic supply. I bestow upon them the gift of being able to supply me. I render them my intimates, my familiars. They are now in my inner circle.
So the narcissism, pathological narcissism is a concentric disorder. That's the narcissist, Sui Genovis, one of a kind, maybe with God, I don't know, even that is debatable.
Then there is an inner circle, which is the second circle. And this inner circle is composed of people who've been idealized and therefore are very close to being perfect. Not as perfect as a narcissist, not as intelligent as a narcissist, but not far.
This gives them the ability to provide the narcissist with narcissistic supply and the narcissist association with them in cooperation of them in his mind as internal objects render him perfect as well.
So he idealizes them in order to idealize himself. It's like saying my inner circle is comprised of ideal people, which proves that I'm ideal. They are perfect. So that means I'm perfect. They're inside my head. I own them. I possess them.
Narcissism is not about being possessed. It's about possessing others.
So this haughty contempt is reserved only to people who are not sources of narcissistic supply. So narcissists cannot break this cycle. Narcissistic supply is a drug, as I said. So it involves craving, exactly like you crave alcohol when you're an alcoholic or when you crave coke, when you're a coke head or a coke addict.
Here there's craving, which leads to obsession, compulsion, one track minded, relentless pursuit of narcissistic supply. It's an addiction. Narcissists can't just cut it off or switch it off. He's an addict. He's a junkie and his sources of narcissistic supply are his pushers.
Let it be clear. Narcissistic supply is a universal drug in this sense, again akin to cocaine. As I said, cocaine induces grandiosity. So narcissistic supply is a universal drug.
And con artists, gurus, coaches, essentially swindlers, they push this drug. They're pushers. They push narcissistic supply in order to manipulate their audience, in order to convert their audience into narcissists.
So you know, awaken the giant within, the law of attraction. You're a victim, sir. You're an angel. These are all forms of narcissistic supply. These people are trying to convert you into narcissists.
Empowered by technology, contemporary humanity is comprised of, I don't know, 99% of profoundly dumb people who compensate for their abysmal intellectual inferiority and nations with pathetic and reasonable grandiosity and with insufferable victimhood entitlement. That's a ripe, a breeding ground ripe for con artists. And they're all over you, laughing all the way to the bank, making you feel great, making you feel God-like, making you feel perfect, making you feel blameless and blemishless, making you feel superior somehow, making you feel intelligent when you're not.
And of course, absconding with your money and much else besides mental health sometimes, the remaining 1% are truly gifted and endowed individuals.
But in a world that is essentially narcissistic, where narcissism is the organizing principle and the private religion, these people, these gifted, sometimes geniuses endowed people are superior. They are really superior. This is veritable superiority, but it renders them contemptuous and haughty.
And this contempt and haughtyness is so defeating because you can't do anything on your own. You have to work, collaborate with others, you have to cooperate, teamwork is crucial for survival and success.
So we have a polarized society, a multitude of seriously stupid people who are manipulated by con artists who provide them constantly with narcissistic supply.
Technology itself is constructed to provide narcissistic supply. Everyone in his mother, in his dog can do anything nowadays. This is very empowering and very grandiosity supporting.
And the other class of people, the tiny minority, the intellectual elites, they're divorced from the masses because they're haughty, they're arrogant, they're contemptuous.
And there's a war going on over narcissistic supply. Both classes of people are actually delusional. They have impaired reality testing, because these stupid people are led to believe that they're not stupid by the con artists who provide them with narcissistic supply.
And that is delusional, that is a fantasy. And the clever people reject the stupid people, not realizing that this is a very destructive and self-defeating strategy.
They think they are independent when they are, like every other human being, very dependent on the human environment.
So this is also delusion. It's also a form of impaired reality testing. And this is only the beginning.
So I hope that you've realized how crucial narcissistic supply is in the narcissistic pathology.
While the psychopath is goal-oriented, psychopath wants sex, money, access or contacts or power, the narcissist is not goal-oriented. His only goal is obtain, secure narcissistic supply.
But narcissistic supply is not a goal, it's a drug.
So you would do well to think of narcissist as cocaine addicts or junkies of some kind, rather than as malevolent malicious entities, evil out to kill you and destroy you.
This is the psychopath.
This is a confusion between psychopaths and narcissists. Narcissists are pathetic and pitiful. Psychopaths are truly, truly dangerous.