Abusive Ex Leverages Children Against You
Abusive ex-partners often use their children to manipulate and control their former partners. They may co-opt their children into aiding and abetting their abusive conduct, using them as bargaining chips or leverage. The abuser may emotionally blackmail the children, threatening to withhold love and affection if they do not comply with their demands. The abuser may also pervert the system, using therapies, marriage counselors, mediators, court-appointed guardians, police officers, and even judges to pathologize the victim and separate them from their sources of emotional sustenance.
Abusive Ex: Tell Your Children the Truth!
Parents who have been victims of abuse should not attempt to present a balanced picture of their relationship with their abusive ex-spouse to their children. Children have a right to know the truth about the overall state of affairs between their parents, and both parents have a moral obligation to tell their offspring the truth. If spousal abuse is wholly or partly to blame, it should be brought out into the open and discussed honestly with the children. The child should be brought up to insist on being respected by the other parent, on having him or her observe the child’s boundaries and accept the child’s needs and emotions, choices and preferences.
When the Narcissist’s Parents Die
The death of a narcissist’s parents can be a complicated experience. The narcissist has a mixed reaction to their passing, feeling both elation and grief. The parents are often the source of the narcissist’s trauma and continue to haunt them long after they die. The death of the parents also represents a loss of a reliable source of narcissistic supply, which can lead to severe depression. Additionally, the narcissist’s unfinished business with their parents can lead to unresolved conflicts and pressure that deforms their personality.
Narcissists Hate Children and Envy Them
Narcissists hate children because they envy them. Children’s feigned innocence, manipulation, and lack of empathy are disarming in their directness. Narcissists see children as both mirrors and competitors, reflecting their constant need for adulation and attention. Children are loved by mothers, which makes narcissists jealous and infuriated by their deprivation. Narcissists hate children for being them.
Depressive Narcissist
Pathological narcissism is often considered a form of depressive illness, with the life of a typical narcissist punctuated with recurrent bouts of dysphoria, sadness, hopelessness, anhedonia, loss of the ability to feel pleasure, and clinical forms of depression. Narcissists react with depression not only to life crises but to fluctuations in narcissistic supply and to the internal dynamics that these fluctuations generate. There are several types of dysphoria and depression in pathological narcissism, including loss-induced dysphoria, deficiency-induced dysphoria, self-worth dysregulation dysphoria, grandiosity gap dysphoria, and self-punishing dysphoria. Many narcissists end up delusional, schizoid, or paranoid to avoid agonizing and knowing depression.
Narcissist: Irresistible Charmer
Narcissists use charm to manipulate and control others, seeking attention and admiration. They use their charisma to exert power over people and view those they charm as objects for their gratification. Pathological charm can involve sadism and is used to maintain object constancy and fend off abandonment. Narcissists react with rage and aggression when their charm fails to elicit narcissistic supply, revealing their true predatory nature.
Narcissist’s Sadistic Inner Judge and Critic
The narcissist is tormented by a sadistic superego, which is an amalgamation of negative evaluations, criticisms, angry or disappointed voices and disparagement meted out in the narcissist’s formative years and adolescence by parents, peers, role models and authority figures. The narcissist’s sense of self-worth is catapulted from one pole to another, from an inflated view of himself to utter despair and self-denigration. The narcissist needs narcissistic supply to regulate this wild pendulum. The narcissist’s whole life is a two-fold attempt to both satisfy the inexorable demands of his inner tribunal and to prove wrong its harsh and merciless criticism.
Narcissist Has No Friends
Narcissists treat their friends like Watson and Hastings, who are obsequious and unthreatening, and provide them with an adulating gallery. Narcissists cannot empathize or love, and therefore have no real friends. They are interested in securing narcissistic supply from narcissistic supply sources. The narcissist overvalues people when they are judged to be potential sources of supply, and devalues them when no longer able to supply him, ultimately leading to the alienation and distancing of people.
Narcissistic Personality Disorder Prevalence and Comorbidity
Pathological narcissism is a lifelong pattern of traits and behaviors that signify infatuation and obsession with oneself to the exclusion of all others. Healthy narcissism is adaptive, flexible, empathic, and causes elation and joy. Narcissistic Personality Disorder is diagnosed in between 2 and 16% of a population in clinical settings or between 0.5% and 1% of the general population. Narcissistic Personality Disorder is often diagnosed with other mental health disorders, and this is known as comorbidity.
Narcissistic Personality Disorder Clinical Features
Narcissistic traits in childhood may lead to full-fledged narcissistic personality disorder later in life, especially if the child has experienced abuse or trauma. Narcissists use a false self to garner attention, or “narcissistic supply,” which helps them cope with pain and feel important. Narcissists are vulnerable to criticism and disagreement, and they struggle to maintain healthy relationships. Treatment for narcissistic personality disorder includes talk therapy and medication, but the prognosis for an adult with the disorder is poor.