My previous post explains that a Narcissist live in his own fantasy world. He knows this but, the players in his game do not. To the average person it would seem absurd that someone would create and live in a fictitious world but, to the Narcissist its the only way of him coping and ignoring the tragic world of his "true self". The fantasy world was created at a young age as a defense mechanism from feeling the effects of tragic events that occurred in his childhood. Perhaps he had trouble forming attachments with his primary caregiver during infancy. Or maybe it was abuse, neglect or lack of care attentiveness from his primary caregiver, either way his defense mechanism would be to create a "fantasy world" where he learned to not need any of these things to be content. This way of coping followed him into his adult life and whenever things become painful, instead of coping with them, he holes up inside his fantasy world. The narcissist then becomes whomever or whatever he wants. The more magnificent he is, the more attention and admiration he receives. If he shows his "true self", he believes that people will look at him with disdain and be repulsed by him. The Narcissist has lived in a psuedo world his entire life, he knows no differently. When his "true self" is seen by those that love him and he fears being exposed and his fantasy world possibly crumble, he abandons the person that stands in his way. He has spent a lifetime creating this fantasy world and false self and will do anything he can not to have the stigma of his pathological lying and grandiose storytelling seen by the very people that look up to and admire him for those qualities. Below are some links as to the root of the Narcissists deep rooted shame and emotional dissonance that began in his early childhood. The fact that it began so early in childhood and the Narcissist used it all throughout his life makes it that much hard for psychologists to treat. This behavior and "magical thinking" has shielded the Narcissist from a lifetime of shame. Often times, Narcissists will use alcohol or drugs to mask or numb their pain as well. The Narcissist I knew was his nicest when he was drinking or smoking. He could at that time leave the rigid constructs of his fantasy world for a while. Every question was not met with a nasty remark or comment, he displayed a bit of openness that he couldn't achieve when he was stone cold sober. A Narcissists existence is sad, they are plagued by being exposed and they are constantly retaliated against for their bad behavior. When once I asked the Narcissist "do you ever feel lonely"? his response was "only when I am around people", that sums it up. When he is alone he doesn't have to act, or remember all the previous lies that he has told about his false self. He is free to be the unlovable person that he believes he is. The stress of being exposed, or not being accepted is gone and he can rest easy.
It may start with a significant emotional wound or a series of emotional wounds culminating in a major trauma of separation/detachment. No matter how socially skilled a narcissist is, as a result of being emotionally detached, they have developed a major attachment dysfunction. In terms of emotional maturity, the narcissist is frozen in childhood. They became emotionally stuck at the time of their major trauma and subsequent separation/detachment. Their emotional age and maturity corresponds to what developmental stage they were at when they detached from the emotional world around them. The pain and subsequent trauma involved would have been devastating to the point that it almost killed that person emotionally. In order to survive, and as a result of generalizing that all people are harmful and cannot be trusted, this child constructed a protective barrier that insulated them from the external world of people and potential emotional harm. *1
As I’ve discussed in many of my posts, the core narcissistic defense involves flight from unconscious feelings of profound shame about oneself — how dysfunction in your family of origin has damaged you — into an idealized false self meant to disprove all that damage *2
*1 http://www.science20.com/practical_neuroscience/living_narcissist-81879
*2http://www.afterpsychotherapy.com/shame-trading/
Yeah, that's me.
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