Narcissism in women - signs and causes

In modern society, the number of people focused solely on themselves is steadily growing.
Of course, not all of them can be fully called narcissists, but there are many of them, and the signs appear not only in men, but also in the fairer sex. Despite the fact that many perceive narcissism as a character trait, in psychology narcissism in women is considered as a personality dysfunction that needs to be treated. This pathology is characterized by the perception of the world and people through the prism of one’s own “I”. Such people are confident that they do everything perfectly, have incredible beauty, intelligence and other qualities that are considered “good”. In turn, they expect from others, at a minimum, respect and a desire to please, and, at a maximum, admiration and admiration. Such girls rarely create strong family unions, because they are focused exclusively on themselves: their appearance, desires and needs.

Loving Narcissus

I believe in the possibility of love for a narcissist if the lover accepts him unconditionally, without illusions or expectations. Narcissists are narcissists. Take 'em or leave 'em. Some of them are lovable. Most of them are incredibly charming and smart. The source of suffering for the victims of the narcissist is their disappointment, the collapse of illusions, the sudden and sad realization that they have fallen in love with an ideal of their own making, a phantasm, an illusion, a Fata Morgana. This "awakening" is painful. The narcissist always remains the same. Only the victim changes.

It is true that the narcissist puts on an attractive façade to capture the Source of Narcissistic Supply. He, this facade, is very vulnerable because he is incompatible and too perfect. The cracks are becoming more obvious every day, but are often ignored. Then there are those who INTENTIONALLY and WILLINGLY doom their emotional wings to the blazing narcissistic candle.

It's a catch-22. Trying to appeal to a narcissist's emotions is like discussing atheism with a religious fundamentalist. Narcissists have emotions, and very strong ones, so frighteningly pervasive and negative that they hide them, suppress them, block them and modify them. They resort to a million defense mechanisms to cope with their repressed emotions: projective identification, splitting, projection, intellectualization, rationalization. Any attempt to connect with a narcissist emotionally is doomed to failure, alienation and rage. Any attempt to “understand” (in hindsight or in the present) the narcissistic behavioral patterns, reactions, or his inner world from an emotional perspective is equally hopeless.

Narcissists should be thought of as forces of nature or an accident waiting to happen. The universe does not have a script or plan in which it deprives someone of happiness. Being born to narcissistic parents, for example, is not the result of a conspiracy. This is a tragic accident, no doubt about it. But it cannot be dealt with emotionally, without professional help, or in a haphazard manner. Stay away from narcissists or face them head-on, armed with self-discovery through therapy. It's possible.

Narcissists are not interested in the emotional or even intellectual stimulation of their loved ones. Such feedback is perceived as a threat. Those closest to them in the life of a narcissist have very clear roles: accumulation and distribution of the past Primary Narcissistic Supply, to regulate the content of Narcissistic Supply. No less and definitely no more. Closeness and intimacy are despised. The process of devaluation is in full swing throughout life or relationships. A passive witness to the narcissist’s past accomplishments, a distributor of the collected Narcissistic Supply, a punching bag for his rage, a codependent, property (and not conquered, but taken for free) and nothing more. It is a thankless, FULL TIME, exhausting job being a narcissist's intimate.

But people are not tools. To see them as such is to devalue them, to diminish them, to reduce them, to limit them, to prevent them from understanding their own potential. The narcissist inevitably loses interest in his tools, ragged versions of the complete human being, once they refuse to serve them in their pursuit of glory and brilliance.

Take your “friendship” with a narcissist as an example of such a twisted relationship. There is no way to truly know a narcissistic “friend.” No one can be a friend to a narcissist, and no one can love him. Narcissists are dependent. They are no different from drug addicts. They are in pursuit of the pleasure of a drug known as Narcissistic Supply. Everything and EVERYTHING around them is an object, a possible source (for idealization) or not (for cruel culling).

Daffodils home in on potential targets like cruise missiles. They excel at faking emotions, putting the right actions at the right time, and manipulation.

Of course, all generalizations are false, and there are examples of happy relationships with a narcissist. I discussed the narcissistic couple in one of my questionnaires. An example of a happy marriage is the connection between a somatic narcissist and a cerebral one and vice versa. Narcissists may be happily married to a submissive, dependent, self-blaming, echoey, reflective, and indiscriminately supportive spouse. They also do well with masochists. But it’s hard to imagine a healthy, normal person being happy in such “madness for two.” It is also difficult to imagine the lasting and lasting effects on a narcissist coming from a balanced, healthy partner/spouse. One of my questionnaires is dedicated to this topic.

BUT many spouses/partners/friends want to BELIEVE that – given time and patience – they will be the ones to rid the narcissist of his inner demons. They think they can “save” the narcissist, protect him from his (distorted) self.

Narcissists use this naivety to their advantage. Natural defense mechanisms, provoked in normal people by love, are coldly used by the narcissist to extract even more Resources from his tormented victims. The narcissist influences his victims by penetrating their souls, penetrating their defenses. Like a virus, it triggers a new genetic mutation within its victims. She echoes through them, speaks through them, walks through them. It's like an invasion of blood-sucking insects.

You must be careful to separate your Self from the seed of the narcissist within you, this alien fruit, the spiritual cancer that is the result of living with a narcissist. You must be able to separate the real you from the parts that the narcissist has put on you. To cope with him/her, the narcissist forces you to be "polite" and develop a separate False Self. There is nothing more developed than his False Self - but it is there, inside you, as a result of the trauma and abuse inflicted on you by the narcissist.

So maybe we should talk about another mental illness - Victims of Narcissistic Personality Disorder?

They feel shame and anger because of their past helplessness and subordination. They are wounded and hurt by the painful experience of sharing a fake existence with a fake personality, the narcissist. They are scared and often suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Some of them lash out at others, replacing their frustration with bitter aggression.

Like his disorder, the narcissist is all-consuming. Being his victim is no less harmful than being a narcissist. It takes enormous mental effort to leave a narcissist, and physical separation is only the first (and least significant) step.

It is possible to leave a narcissist, but narcissists do not leave their victims easily. He is here, hidden, making existence unreal, dizzying and distorting without respite, an internal, merciless voice, alien to compassion and empathy towards his victims. The narcissist is present in the spirit long after he has melted into the flesh. There is a real danger that victims of narcissists will find themselves, like him, caustic, self-centered, and lacking the ability to empathize. This is the narcissist’s final bow, his curtain call—indirect, but no less significant.

Disorder or normal?

To a certain extent, self-confidence is a good quality, as is the desire to succeed in a particular area.
But it’s one thing to improve yourself and overcome the next rung of the career ladder, and quite another thing to humiliate a loved one in order to look more presentable against their background. Attention! Almost every small child is a perverted narcissist who is sure that life revolves around him. If his parents do not allow him to be convinced of the opposite, surrounding him with exorbitant care, then in the future he will grow up narcissistic and not appreciative of the efforts of other people.

One of the dangers of the disease is the patient’s unwillingness and unwillingness to admit their problem. It’s impossible to convince him of anything, but it’s easy to get influenced. As a rule, the victims are those closest to them - spouses, parents, children, brothers or sisters. Pathology begins where a person loses the ability to empathize and care for others, concentrating only on himself.

Psychologists identify the following reasons for the development of the disease:

• formation in the child of a sense of shame or own imperfection;
• excessive care;
• lack of attention on the part of adults;
• cases of domestic violence.
• Manifestations of the disease
• A perverted narcissist is characterized by:
• obsession with one's appearance;
• regular criticism of the target;
• a constant desire to dominate the life of another person and solve important issues for him;
• inability to empathize and worry about someone else;
• emphasizing one's strengths;
• disdain for the achievements of others;
• the use of nonverbal methods of reducing self-esteem;
• complete disregard for criticism;
• negative references to women or men with whom there were personal relationships;
• exaltation of one's own desires at the expense of the needs of the family.

Many people wonder whether a perverted narcissist loves his children. To a certain extent, yes (as far as he is generally capable of this feeling), but only as a continuation of his own “I”. Women who are narcissists pay more attention to their children and see the baby as proof of their own worth. As for men, they either ignore their offspring or constantly criticize them, control them and do not allow them to develop independently.

Narcissistic Tactics

The narcissist tends to surround himself with inferiors (in some respect: intellectual, financial, physical). He limits his interactions with them to the field of his superiority. This is the safest and fastest way to maintain his lush fantasies of omnipotence and omniscience, irresistibility, ideal features, superiority, and so on.

People are interchangeable, and the narcissist does not distinguish one individual from another. For him, they are all inanimate details of “his audience”, whose job is to reflect his False Self. This produces an eternal and constant cognitive dissonance: the Narcissist rejects the very people who maintain the boundaries and functions of his Ego. He cannot respect people who are so clearly and obviously inferior to him, and on the other hand, he will never be able to contact people who are clearly on his level or superior to him, because the risk of narcissistic injury in such relationships would be too great. Equipped with a fragile ego teetering dangerously on the brink of narcissistic mutilation, the narcissist prefers the safe route. But he feels contempt for himself and others for choosing him over him.

Some narcissists are also psychopaths (suffer from Antisocial Disorder) and/or sadists. Antisocials can't really enjoy seeing someone else's pain, they just don't care. And sadists enjoy it. Classic narcissists do not take pleasure in hurting others, but they do enjoy the manifestations of unlimited power and the confirmation of their grandiose fantasies when they cause or may cause someone pain. What really turns them on is the POSSIBILITY to hurt others rather than the act itself.

How to resist perverted narcissism?

This mental disorder is difficult to treat, so the best tactic in this case is not to interact with the narcissist and not to succumb to his manipulations.

Psychologists say that interpersonal relationships with such a person are a dead end from which there is no way out. While the partner is tormented and suffering, the narcissist experiences pleasure admiring his person. Even if you persuade your loved one to go to a psychologist, the benefit from this will not be great: the narcissist simply will not understand why he needs to change, because such a person is already happy with everything.

That is why it is important to promptly get rid of communication with people who can insult or humiliate you, bring you to tears or develop feelings of guilt. If a person is a close relative, it is important to understand that what makes him a sadist and manipulator is mental illness.

At the same time, offer the patient treatment in a specialized clinic, sessions with a psychotherapist, after which you should tune in to long-term behavior correction.

Endless story

Even the official termination of a relationship with a narcissist does not put an end to it. The ex “belongs” to the narcissist. She/he is an inseparable part of his Pathological Narcissistic Space. This possessive streak is experiencing physical separation. Thus, the narcissist tends to respond with rage, seething envy, feelings of humiliation and intrusion, and violently aggressive pursuit of his ex's new boyfriend, or her new job (for her, a new life without him). Especially when it implies "failure" on his part and thus denies his greatness.

But there is a second scenario: If the narcissist firmly believes (which is very rare) that his ex will never again produce any amount, however small or residual and of any kind (primary or secondary), of Narcissistic Supply - he becomes completely indifferent to the fact that she does and everyone she can choose.

Narcissists actually feel bad when they hurt others and when they are on the verge of an unsafe turn in their lives. Their underlying (and subconscious) ego-dystonia (bad feelings about oneself) has only recently been discovered and described. But the narcissist only feels bad when his Resource Providers are threatened by his behavior or by narcissistic injury during a major life crisis.

The narcissist equates emotions with weaknesses. He treats sentiment and emotions with contempt. He looks down on the sensitive and vulnerable. He ridicules and despises the dependent and the loving. He ridicules expressions of compassion and passion. He lacks empathy.

He is so afraid of his Authentic Self that he would rather humiliate it than admit his own mistakes and weaknesses. He likes to talk about himself in mechanical terms (“machine”, “efficient”, “punctual”, “result”, “computer”). He suppresses his human side diligently and persistently. For him, being human and surviving are two mutually exclusive things. He must choose, and his choice is clear. The narcissist never looks back until life circumstances force him to do so.

All narcissists fear intimacy. But it is the cerebral narcissists who deploy strong defenses against it: “scientific detachment” (the narcissist as an eternal observer), intellectualization or rationalization of his emotions, intellectual callousness, intellectual “annexation” (he considers others to be an extension of him, his property or fertilizer), reification of others and etc. Even the emotions he expresses (pathological envy, rage) have the not entirely undesirable effect of alienating him rather than bringing him closer together.

Leaving Narcissus

The narcissist initiates his own breakup out of fear of him. He is so terrified of losing his sources of Narcissistic Supply (and experiencing emotional pain) that he will choose to “control,” “lead,” or “direct” a potentially destabilizing situation. Remember: the narcissist's personality has a low level of organization. It's poorly balanced.

If abandoned, the narcissist would suffer narcissistic injury so fatal that it could lead to the collapse of the entire structure. Usually in such cases, narcissists harbor suicidal ideation. But, once he has begun and directed separation from himself, the narcissist often begins to perceive it as a goal set for himself - he can and does do so in order to avoid all these undesirable consequences.

How does perverted narcissism manifest itself in women?

A separate category of patients consists of those for whom pathology has particularly destructive consequences. Although it would be more correct to say that it is those who surround them who suffer. Signs of perverted (perverse) narcissism in women are:

• psychological pressure against family members, friends, subordinates;
• driving loved ones to suicide due to constant humiliation;
• perversion of words and deeds occurring to those who fall under their influence;
• inability and unwillingness to admit guilt;
• mentioning past partners exclusively in a negative light;
• shifting responsibility;
• imitation of feelings and close observation of the reactions and behavior of others.

It is important to know that perverted narcissists pay attention to bright, successful individuals, especially those who have a malleable psyche, an impressionable character and an optimistic outlook on the world.

Relationship Dynamics

The narcissist lives in a fantasy world of ideal beauty, incomparable (imaginary) accomplishments, luxury, splendor and endless success. The narcissist constantly denies his reality. This is what I call the Greatness Gap - the gap between his sense of superiority, rooted in his inflated and lush fantasies, and his incommensurate reality and meager accomplishments.

The partner is perceived by the narcissist only as a Source of Narcissistic Supply, a tool, an extension of himself. It cannot be denied that – in the blessed and constant presence of the narcissist – such a tool would cease to function. The narcissist perceives his partner's needs and sorrows as threats and disrespect.

The narcissist considers his mere presence in the relationship to be nourishing and supportive. He feels destined for the best that others have to offer, without investing in the support of his relationships. To rid himself of deep-seated (and completely justified) feelings of guilt and shame, he pathologizes his partner.

He projects his own mental illness onto him/her. Through a subtle mechanism of projective identification, it forces him/her to play the constant role of “sick” or “weak” or “naive” or “stupid” or “bad”. What he denies in himself, what he is disgusted to see in his own personality, he attributes to others and molds them in such a way as to satisfy his prejudices about himself.

The narcissist is bound to have the best, most brilliant, amazing, talented, bright, stunning spouse in the entire world. He won't settle for anything less. To compensate for the shortcomings of his spouse in real life, he invents an idealized figure and enters into a relationship with her.

Then, when reality too often and obviously comes into conflict with his fiction, he resorts to devaluation. His behavior turns heads and becomes threatening, demeaning, arrogant, reproachful, destructively critical and sadistic, or cold, unloving, distant and “sick.” He punishes his real partner for not living up to his fantasies, for “refusing” to be his Galatea, his Pygmalion, his perfect creation. The narcissist plays the threatening and demanding God.

Basic techniques of a perverted narcissist

Below are the main techniques with which such a patient tries to gain unlimited power over other people:

• Appeal to the heightened sensitivity of another person: often the narcissist claims that the interlocutor is “making a molehill out of a molehill.”
• Preventing the other person's attempts to express their feelings and share their own thoughts, in which case the narcissist may abruptly change the subject, mock or complain about their poor health.
• Unexplainable coldness in interpersonal relationships, sudden boycott of a partner.
• A sudden break in relations with a partner, while certain conditions are imposed on him.
• Sudden attacks of aggression and rage in ordinary situations.
• Demonstrated evasion of fulfillment of one’s obligations, gross violation of agreements.
• Misinterpretation of the words of another partner, and such distortion is done in an arrogant and mocking voice.

Sadness

When we are cheated on or abused, we feel sad. We are saddened by the image of the traitor and aggressor - an image that was so flattering and so wrong. We mourn the trauma he caused us. We experience the fear of never being able to love or trust again - and we mourn this loss. In one fell swoop, we lose someone we believed or even loved, we lose our believing and loving selves, and we lose the trust and love we felt. What could be worse?

The emotional process of grief has many phases. At first we are dumbfounded, shocked, inert, motionless. We play dead to avoid our inner monsters. We ossify in our pain, locked in ourselves and our fears. Then we feel angry, resentful, rebellious and full of hatred. Then we accept. Then we cry. And then some of us learn to forgive and sympathize. And this is called recovery.

All stages are absolutely necessary and beneficial for you. It is bad not to return the rage, not to blame those who accused us, to deny, to pretend, to evade. But it is equally bad to be fixated on your rage. Constant sadness is a continuation of violence, but only in a different way.

By constantly reproducing our painful experiences, we unwittingly contribute to our enemy by prolonging his or her atrocities. It is by moving on that we defeat the aggressor, reduce him and his importance in our lives. It is by loving and believing again that we undo the damage that has been caused to us. To forgive means to never forget. But remembering does not necessarily mean experiencing it again.

Forgiveness and Forgetting

Forgiveness is an important ability. This benefits the forgiver more than the forgiven. But it doesn't have to be a blanket, random behavior. It is forgivable not to forgive someone. This of course depends on the severity and duration of what was done to you.

Overall, it is unwise and counterproductive to apply “universal” and “unchangeable” principles to life. Life is too chaotic to obey strict rules. Sentences starting with “I never” or “I always” are not very persuasive and often lead to self-destructive, self-limiting and defeatist behavior. Conflicts are an important and integral part of life. No one should ever seek them out, but once encountered, should not avoid them. It is through conflicts and troubles, as well as through care and love, that we grow. Human relationships are fluid. We need to evaluate our friendships, partnerships, even marriages from time to time. The past alone is not enough to maintain a healthy, nurturing, supportive, caring, and empathetic relationship. Shared memories are important, but not sufficient. We must win and win back our friendships daily. Human relationships are a constant test of loyalty and empathy.