Narcissist’s Romantic Jealousy and Possessiveness
Narcissists experience anxiety when they become aware of their possessive and jealous tendencies. Anxiety characterizes all their interactions with the opposite sex, especially in situations where there is a possibility of rejection or abandonment. The narcissist’s envy of their female mate is a result of an unconscious conflict, and they exercise their imagination to justify their negative emotions. Narcissists often strike an unhealthy balance by being emotionally and physically absent, which drives their partner to find emotional and physical gratification outside the relationship.
Narcissist: Women as Sluttish Huntresses or Sexless Saints
Heterosexual narcissists desire women but are frustrated by their inability to interact with them meaningfully. They hate women virulently, passionately, and uncompromisingly, and their hate is primal, irrational, and the progeny of mortal fear and sustained abuse in early childhood. Narcissists are infinitely pessimistic, bare-tempered, paranoid, and sadistic, and their daily routine is a rigmarole of threats, complaints, hurts, eruptions, moodiness, and rage. They are their own worst enemy and cannot conceive of life in one place with one set of people, doing the same thing in the same field with one goal within a decades-old game plan or career path or relationship.
Narcissism: Multiple Personality Disorder/Dissociative Identity Disorder?
Narcissistic personality disorder is not a form of dissociative identity disorder (DID) because the false self of a narcissist is not a full-fledged personality, as happens in DID. The false self is a mere construct, a reactive pattern, and lacks many functional and structural elements. DID alters have a date of inception, but the false self is a process without a cut-off date. Narcissism is a total, pure solution of self-extinguishing and self-abolishing, while other personality disorders are diluted versions of self-hate and perpetuated self-abuse.
Can Narcissism be Cured?
Pathological narcissism is difficult to cure, and most narcissists resist psychotherapy. However, some progress has been made in effecting small changes in personality disorders through talk therapy and medication. The earlier the therapeutic intervention, the better the prognosis, and aging tends to moderate or even vanquish some antisocial behaviors associated with pathological narcissism. The existence of empathy is a serious predictor of future psychodynamics, and the prognosis for a classical narcissist with grandiosity, lack of empathy, and all is not good as far as long-term, lasting, and complete healing.
Issues in Narcissistic Supply
Narcissists devalue their sources of supply for the very qualities that make them sources of supply in the first place. The narcissist resents his dependency on narcissistic supply and perceives intimacy and sex as a threat to his uniqueness. Narcissistic supply includes all forms of attention, both positive and negative, fame, notoriety, adulation, fear, applause, approval. Narcissists frantically try to recycle their old and wasted sources when they have absolutely no other sources of supply at their disposal.
Schizoid and Paranoid Narcissist
Narcissistic personality disorder is often diagnosed with other mental health disorders, other personality disorders such as borderline, histrionic or antisocial. This phenomenon of multiple diagnosis in the same patient is called co-morbidity. Narcissists are often paranoid and some of them are schizoid. The narcissist depends on people, but hates them and despises them. A minority of narcissists choose the schizoid solution.
Forgive the Narcissist?
To preserve one’s mental health, one must abandon the narcissist and move on. Moving on is a process that involves acknowledging and accepting painful reality, learning, grieving, and forgiving. All stages of grieving are necessary, but it is equally bad to get fixated on rage. Forgiving is an important capability, but it should not be a universal indiscriminate believer. Human relationships are dynamic, and we must reassess and reassess our relationships on a daily basis.
Adapting to the Narcissist
Professor Sam Vaknin explains that it is impossible to change a narcissist, but you can adapt to them by modifying their more abrasive behaviors. He suggests determining your limits and boundaries, accepting what you can and rejecting the rest, and concluding an unwritten or written contract of coexistence. Vaknin warns that sacrificing yourself for someone else is not love, and that it is crucial to understand the complex dynamic of a relationship with a narcissist for your own survival as a psychologically functioning person.
Remain Friends with the Narcissist?
Narcissists are only friendly when they need something from you, such as narcissistic supply, help, support, votes, money, or sex. They also become friendly when they feel threatened and want to smother the threat with pleasantries. Narcissists are also over-friendly when they have just been infused with an overdose of narcissistic supply. Some people prefer to live with narcissists because they have been conditioned to treat narcissistic abuse as background noise and are compensated for the abuse by the thrills provided by living with a narcissist. However, inverted narcissists are typically unhappy and in need of help, which suggests that they are victims who experience the Stockholm Syndrome.
Cope with Vindictive Narcissists
Narcissists are often vindictive and can be dealt with by either frightening them or luring them. Frightening the narcissist is a powerful behavior modification tool, and one can identify the vulnerabilities and susceptibilities of the narcissist and strike repeated escalating blows at them. The alternative is to lure the vindictive narcissist by offering continued narcissistic supply until the war is over and won. Adulation, admiration, attention, sex, or subservience are the tools in coping with vindictive, dangerous stalkers and paranoia.