Narcissist Crumbles without Narcissistic Supply

Handsome narcissisticNarcissist Crumbles without Narcissistic Supply

By Sam Vaknin
Author of “Malignant Self-love: Narcissism Revisited

The Grandiosity Gap (between a fantastically grandiose – and unlimited – self-image and actual – limited – accomplishments and achievements) is grating. Its recurrence threatens the precariously balanced house of cards that is the narcissistic personality. The narcissist finds, to his chagrin, that people out there are much less admiring, accommodating and accepting than his parents. As he grows old, the narcissist often becomes the target of constant derision and mockery, a sorry sight indeed. His claims for superiority appear less plausible and substantial the more and the longer he makes them.

Pathological narcissism – originally a defense mechanism intended to shield the narcissist from an injurious world – becomes the main source of hurt, a generator of injuries, counterproductive and dangerous. Overwhelmed by negative or absent Narcissistic Supply, the narcissist is forced to let go of it.

The narcissist then resorts to self-delusion. Unable to completely ignore contrarian opinion and data – he transmutes them. Unable to face the dismal failure that he is, the narcissist partially withdraws from reality. To soothe and salve the pain of disillusionment, he administers to his aching soul a mixture of lies, distortions, half-truths and outlandish interpretations of events around him. These solutions can be classified thus:

The Delusional Narrative Solution

The narcissist constructs a narrative in which he figures as the hero – brilliant, perfect, irresistibly handsome, destined for great things, entitled, powerful, wealthy, the center of attention, etc. The bigger the strain on this delusional charade – the greater the gap between fantasy and reality – the more the delusion coalesces and solidifies.

Finally, if it is sufficiently protracted, it replaces reality and the narcissist’s reality test deteriorates. He withdraws his bridges and may become schizotypal, catatonic, or schizoid.

The Antisocial Solution

The narcissist renounces reality. To his mind, those who pusillanimously fail to recognize his unbound talents, innate superiority, overarching brilliance, benevolent nature, entitlement, cosmically important mission, perfection, etc. – do not deserve consideration.

The narcissist’s natural affinity with the criminal – his lack of empathy and compassion, his deficient social skills, his disregard for social laws and morals – now erupt and blossom. He becomes a full-fledged antisocial (sociopath or psychopath). He ignores the wishes and needs of others, he breaks the law, he violates all rights – natural and legal, he holds people in contempt and disdain, he derides society and its codes, he punishes the ignorant ingrates – that, to his mind, drove him to this state – by acting criminally and by jeopardizing their safety, lives, or property.

The Paranoid Schizoid Solution

When narcissism fails as a defense mechanism, the narcissist develops paranoid narratives: self-directed confabulations which place him at the center of others’ allegedly malign attention. The narcissist becomes his own audience and self-sufficient as his own, sometimes exclusive, source of narcissistic supply.

The narcissist develops persecutory delusions. He perceives slights and insults where none were intended. He becomes subject to ideas of reference (people are gossiping about him, mocking him, prying into his affairs, cracking his e-mail, etc.). He is convinced that he is the center of malign and mal-intentioned attention. People are conspiring to humiliate him, punish him, abscond with his property, delude him, impoverish him, confine him physically or intellectually, censor him, impose on his time, force him to action (or to inaction), frighten him, coerce him, surround and besiege him, change his mind, part with his values, victimize or even murder him, and so on.

Some narcissists withdraw completely from a world populated with such minacious and ominous objects (really projections of internal objects and processes). They avoid all social contact, except the most necessary. They refrain from meeting people, falling in love, having sex, talking to others, or even corresponding with them. In short: they become schizoids – not out of social shyness, but out of what they feel to be their choice.

“This evil, hopeless world does not deserve me” – goes the inner refrain – “and I shall waste none of my time and resources on it.”

The Paranoid Aggressive (Explosive) Solution

Other narcissists who develop persecutory delusions, resort to an aggressive stance, a more violent resolution of their internal conflict. They become verbally, psychologically, situationally (and, very rarely, physically) abusive. They insult, castigate, chastise, berate, demean, and deride their nearest and dearest (often well wishers and loved ones). They explode in unprovoked displays of indignation, righteousness, condemnation, and blame.

Theirs is an exegetic Bedlam. They interpret everything – even the most innocuous, inadvertent, and innocent comment – as designed to provoke and humiliate them. They sow fear, revulsion, hate, and malignant envy. They flail against the windmills of reality – a pathetic, forlorn, sight. But often they cause real and lasting damage – fortunately, mainly to themselves.

The Masochistic Avoidant Solution

The narcissist is angered by the lack of narcissistic supply. He directs some of this fury inwards, punishing himself for his “failure”. This masochistic behavior has the added “benefit” of forcing the narcissist’s closest to assume the roles of dismayed spectators or of persecutors and thus, either way, to pay him the attention that he craves.

Self-administered punishment often manifests as self-handicapping masochism – a narcissistic cop-out. By undermining his work, his relationships, and his efforts, the increasingly fragile narcissist avoids additional criticism and censure (negative supply). Self-inflicted failure is the narcissist’s doing and thus proves that he is the master of his own fate.

Masochistic narcissists keep finding themselves in self-defeating circumstances which render success impossible – and “an objective assessment of their performance improbable” (Millon, 2000). They act carelessly, withdraw in mid-effort, are constantly fatigued, bored, or disaffected and thus passive-aggressively sabotage their lives. Their suffering is defiant and by “deciding to abort” they reassert their omnipotence.

The narcissist’s pronounced and public misery and self-pity are compensatory and “reinforce (his) self-esteem against overwhelming convictions of worthlessness” (Millon, 2000). His tribulations and anguish render him, in his eyes, unique, saintly, virtuous, righteous, resilient, and significant. They are, in other words, self-generated narcissistic supply.

Thus, paradoxically, the worst his anguish and unhappiness, the more relieved and elated such a narcissist feels!

Believing Psychopaths

Believing Psychopaths“…almost all of us have, at least once, experienced a compelling idea or semi-dazzling person crawling in through our psychic windows at night and catching us off guard. Even though they’re wearing a ski mask, have a knife between their teeth, and a sack of money slung over their shoulder, we believe them when they tell us they’re in the banking business.”

Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D.
p. 47 “Women Who Run With the Wolves.”

Narcissists and Facebook

Older narcissists gravitate toward Facebook. “It’s about curating your own image, how you are seen, and also checking on how others respond to this image. Middle-aged adults usually have already formed their social selves, and they use social media to gain approval from those who are already in their social circles,” said co-lead researcher Elliot Panek.

University of Georgia study: “Narcissists are using Facebook the same way they use their other relationships — for self-promotion with an emphasis on quantity over quality.” (September, 2008)

York University study: “Individuals higher in narcissism and lower in self-esteem spent more time on the site and filled their pages with more self-promotional content.” Psychology student and researcher Soraya Mehdizadeh said, “They’re updating their status every five minutes and the photos they post are very carefully construed… The question is, are these really accurate representations of the individual or are they merely a projection of who the individual wants to be?” (September, 2010)

Western Illinois University study: “Grandiose exhibitionism correlated with self-promotion and entitlement/exploitativeness correlated with anti-social behaviors on Facebook.” Researchers found those who scored higher on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory changed their profile photo and posted status updates more often. They also displayed “several anti-social behaviors, including seeking social support more than providing it, getting angry when others do not comment on status updates and retaliating against negative comments.” (March, 2012)

http://www.hlntv.com/article/2013/06/17/social-media-narcissism-twitter-facebook-studies

Verbal Abuse

Verbal AbuseThe Frog Story

A scientist conducted an experiment. She put frog number one into a pan of very hot water. The frog jumped right out. Then, she placed frog number two in a pan of cool water. This frog didn’t jump out. Very gradually, the scientist raised the temperature of the water. The frog gradually adapted until it boiled to death.

-Anonymous

Part of conditioning is adapting. In other words, conditions may change around us and, like frog number two in the little story above, we may adapt very gradually. We are not inclined to notice gradual changes. This is how most partners adapt to verbal abuse. They slowly adapt until, like frog number two, they are living in an environment that is killing their spirit.

Going back to our story, frog number one jumped right out of the hot water because she noticed a contrast between the comfortable air she had been in and the very hot water she was put into. She felt the difference. She was able to discriminate. If she had stayed in the hot water after experiencing that it was not a healthful environment, she would have been “denying” her experience or acting unnaturally.

p. 111 “The Verbally Abusive Relationship” by Patricia Evans

The Victimization of Lynndie England

Lynndie England
Lynndie England

Before reading this article, we ask you to read our Intent and Disclaimer document to clarify and deepen the understanding of our words.

The focus in our work on The Sociopathic Style™ is on the victim, not the perpetrator. Much is written and will be written on the psychopathic personality. Much is to be discovered. The victim, however, is often overlooked, forgotten or not seen. Sometimes the victim is seen as the perpetrator. The process whereby that happens is the true skill of the psychopath [I am using the term “psychopath to indicate the individual who is 100% committed to the Sociopathic Relationship Style]. When that happens at the societal level it is a clear example of a phantom psychopath at work.

Pfc. Lynndie England was photographed at Abu Ghraib Prison participating in the torture of prisoners. She was quickly seen as a villain, a sadomasochistic perpetrator, evil itself and the poster child for the sick abuser the American military was cast into by those who chose to polarize the activities of the United States in the middle-east.

As a result of her military court process much is coming to light. Of particular interest from The Sociopathic Style™ perspective is the real human accounts of her life and her relationship with Cpl. [now Pvt.] Charles Graner.

KATE ZERNIKE in a recent article the New York Times; 5/10/05:

“Private Graner, 36, a Pennsylvania prison guard and a former marine, had rejoined the military in a burst of patriotism after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. He was fresh from an ugly divorce in 2000. His ex-wife, Staci Morris, had taken out three protective orders against him, and after he was arrested for harassing her in 2001, Private Graner admitted that he had dragged her around by her hair… He introduced (Staci Morris and Lynndie England) the two women, and Ms. Morris said she felt “selfish relief” that with someone new, her ex-husband would stop being obsessed with her. And she liked Private England, finding her quiet and adoring…”If he was as charming with her as he is with most women at the beginning, I can understand it,” Ms. Morris said. “Charming, compliments, you name it. The things you would love to hear as a young woman.”

It would be hard to find a better description of a person committed to The Sociopathic Style™ than the above description of Charles Graner by his ex-wife, Ms. Morris.

  • He was in an occupation that is a position of power over other people on a daily basis.
  • He rallies to the fight when an attack occurs.
  • He is physically abusive to the point of having three protective orders taken out against him.
  • His ex-wife feels relief when he has another woman in his life so he will give up his obsession with her.
  • He was charming with women giving them all the words they would love to hear.

And now let us look at how he involved himself with Lynndie England. Kate Zernike continues writing:

“In Iraq, Private England was disciplined several times for sleeping with Private Graner, against military rules. She flouted warnings to stay on the wing where she worked as a clerk and spent most of her nights in the cellblock where he worked the night shift.

One night in October, he told her to pose for photographs holding a leash tied around the neck of a naked and crawling detainee. He e-mailed one home: “Look what I made Lynndie do.” The now infamous pictures of detainees masturbating, he said, were a birthday gift for her.”

And how he involves himself with another woman: [Again, as an aside, the psychopath will almost always have another woman waiting in the wings as he is unconsciously terrified of abandonment.]

“Specialist Ambuhl, who has been discharged from the Army, was Private Graner’s partner on the night shift…She had been involved with another soldier in the unit. But by late December, she had ended that relationship and started one with Private Graner…She reassured him that she would not get back together with her ex-boyfriend…But Private Graner had not completely cut off relations with Private England. On Jan. 2, 2004, he was caught sleeping in Private England’s quarters and demoted…A few days later, Ms. Ambuhl e-mailed him again, “I really do care about you,” she wrote. “It’s just that part of me says I just got hurt from a relationship so don’t put myself in the position to get hurt again.”

After Graner developed a relationship with Ms. Ambuhl, Lynndie England discovered she was pregnant with his child:

“Private Graner, quickly identified as the ringleader in the abuse, e-mailed his father in early March to discuss the accusations against him, then popped “more good news:” Private England was two months pregnant – he spelled her name Lynndie – and the pregnancy would most likely get them sent home from Iraq. They found out she was pregnant two days after breaking up. “I stopped seeing her back in January but when all this garbage came out i started seeing her again,” he wrote, “chances are very good that it is my child….o well….daddy what did you bring home from the war????”

Lynndie England leaves the scene: [Parenthetically: By Graner having another woman at his side or he would not be faced with his inner emptiness, the core of the abandonment anxiety].

“Private England – but not Private Graner – was sent back to the United States because of the pregnancy. The Army moved Private Graner and Ms. Ambuhl, along with four other soldiers under investigation, to a tent apart from the rest of their unit. And they resumed their relationship… Privates England and Graner were no longer speaking when their son was born in October. She named him Carter Allan England.”

Graner then proposes marriage to Ms. Ambuhl:

“The two spent evenings together during the trial, and it was there that Private Graner proposed. He was convicted, sentenced to 10 years in a military prison and demoted from specialist to private. He had earlier been demoted from corporal.”

“Ms. Ambuhl had gone back to work at the laboratory and was living with her parents. They accompanied her to Fort Hood for the wedding in April. Another man stood in for Private Graner because he had begun serving his sentence and Ms. Ambuhl, as an admitted co-conspirator, is not allowed to see him.”

And finally let’s come back to Lynndie England by again referring to the article by Kate Zernike.

“Private England heard about the wedding from her lawyers, who heard about it from a reporter the Friday before her trial was to begin. She had worked out a plea agreement that limited her time in prison to 30 months, and the jury could have given her less time. She planned to have her son live with her mother while she was in prison.”

“Ms. Morris, Private Graner’s ex-wife, had been subpoenaed to tell the jury that Private Graner was a bad influence, and over pizza in a hotel room, she befriended Private England. She told Private England that she regretted not warning her away from him at the beginning. “She said, ‘I guess I should be grateful for Megan (Ambuhl)?’ ” Ms. Morris recalled, “And I said, ‘Yeah, honey, you should be.’ ”

“The day before his testimony, Private Graner sent a note to reporters saying he regretted that “Lynn” had pleaded guilty and hoped her plea would get her a light sentence. Private England did not return any such affection. She leaned down to a courtroom artist sketching Mr. Graner: “Don’t forget the horns and goatee.”

“Prosecutors advised defense lawyers against putting Private Graner on the stand, but they did it anyway. He testified that he had ordered Private England to remove a prisoner from a cell by a leash and that it had been a legitimate military exercise. This presented what seemed to be a contradiction – a defendant pleading guilty but presenting a witness who testified that she was innocent. The military judge threw out her plea agreement and ordered that the court-martial process start over. “It’s nothing you did,” the judge, Col. James L. Pohl, told her, “It’s what he did.”

Private England turned to Ms. Morris. “Well, he screws everything up, doesn’t he?” Ms. Morris recalled Private England saying.

“I have to agree with you,” Ms. Morris replied.

All italicized sections above are from an article by KATE ZERNIKE, in The New York Times, May 10, 2005

[I need to insert a brief note. I believe that, in the best execution of a judge’s duty, this judge recognized her victimization and used the law to pull her out of the victimization and help her.]

Dr. JLMc.

I have quoted from this article by Kate Zernike at length because it so eloquently illustrates the wreckage left in the trail of the psychopath. We are not only witnessing the debris left of the lives of three young women [I count Ms. Ambuhl as one of the three, as the story of her future with Pvt. Graner has yet to unfold and I will all but guarantee it will be tragic and, she will not be the last].

We are witnessing also the life of a new child brought onto this Earth in the midst of such rubble, the prisoners at Abu Ghraib, the thousands of hours of time spent by highly qualified professionals to untangle the mess and the millions of dollars spent by our military and our government, the besmirching of the reputation of the United States and all its citizens in the eyes of the world and I am sure the debris will pile higher and higher.

I am certain many women can identify with this story. This story is very familiar to many of the people we have worked with. The story is the same. You just plug in different names, different places, and different events. The story is a classical example of Sociopathic Style Archetypes.

Lynndie England is not the only victim of this one person, we all are!

This illustrates one of the most important points we are making in our work on The Sociopathic Style™: The cost to the individuals involved is tragic; the cost to society of this relationship style is huge beyond comprehension!

Remember, this is the story of the web woven by just one psychopath. There are hundreds of thousands of these stories unfolding throughout the world as you read this article. We pay the price.

Oh, and by the way, what is the price paid by Charles Graner Jr.? He was convicted, sentenced to 10 years in a military prison and demoted to private.

As a final note, I would like to quote from another article written in the Dallas Morning News on May 13, 2005.
This comes from columnist Richard Cohen:

“There is no end to the sadness of Lynndie England. There is no excusing what she did, but explaining is a different matter. She is that rare genuine article, the cliché, and the stereotype that turns out upon investigation to be true. She lived with her family in a trailer in West Virginia. She’s only a high school graduate. She married when she was 19 — on a lark, she told her friends, and then for only two years.”

“She joined the Army Reserve…for college money (she wanted to be a meteorologist and chase storms). She had an affair or something with Graner in Iraq and has a baby by him. He apparently encouraged her to abuse prisoners. He also married another woman.”

“A psychologist from her home area testified that England had been a blue baby, born also with a malformation of the tongue that gave her a speech impediment. Apparently, she often chose not to talk at all. She had a learning disability as well. And you can see — can’t you? — what no one will testify to, she’s homely — and that matters for a woman in America…”

“She is the sort of woman who gets used by others, most often men. Powerless everywhere in life except on her end of the leash, she just had to come night after night to the section of Abu Ghraib where Graner held sway…I could have said no,” she told the military court. “I knew it was wrong.” But in all likelihood, only theoretically could she have said no. Some women always say yes.”

“How sad, how ironic, that this wee woman should become the personification of supposed American arrogance. Like all those convicted for the abuses of Abu Ghraib, she is one of America’s little people — not an officer, not even regular Army, but one of a collection of nobodies just trying to get somewhere better. Lynndie England was one of them, and she is suffering for that — officially for abusing prisoners, actually for being a loser. Whatever the outcome of her trial, the sentence will be life.”

Dr. John L. McCormick; May 15, 2005

People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil

By M. Scott Peck, M.D.

confrontationThere can be a state of the soul against which Love itself is powerless because it has hardened itself against Love. Hell is essentially a state of being which we fashion for ourselves; a state of final separateness from God which is the result not of God’s repudiation of man, but of man’s repudiation of God, and a repudiation which is eternal precisely because it has become, in itself, immovable.

The varieties of people’s wickedness are manifold. As a result of their refusal to tolerate the sense of their own sinfulness, the evil ones become the uncorrectable grab bag of sin. They are, for instance, in my experience, remarkably greedy people. Thus, they are cheap- so cheap that their “gifts” may be murderous. In The Road Less Traveled, I suggested the most basic sin is laziness. In the next subsection I suggest it may be pride –because all sins are repairable except the sin of believing one is without sin. But perhaps the question of which sin is the greatest is, on a certain level, a moot issue. All sins betray – and isolate us from – both the divine and our fellow creatures. As one deep religious thinker put it, any sin “can harden into hell”:

There are analogies in human experience: the hate which is so blind, so dark, that Love only makes it the more violent; the pride which is so stony that humility only makes it more scornful; the inertia – last but not least the inertia – which has taken possession of the personality that no crisis, no appeal, no inducement whatsoever, can stir it into activity, but on the contrary makes it bury itself the more deeply in its immobility.

So with the soul and God; pride can become hardened into hell, hatred can become hardened into hell, any of the seven root forms of wrongdoing can harden into hell, and not least that sloth which is boredom with divine things, the inertia which cannot be troubled to repent, even though it sees the abyss into which the soul is falling, because for so long, in little ways perhaps, it has accustomed itself to refuse whatever might cost it an effort. May God in his mercy save us from that.*

A predominant characteristic, however, of the behavior of those I call evil is scapegoating. Because in their hearts they consider themselves above reproach, they must lash out at anyone who does reproach them. They sacrifice others to preserve their self-image to perfection. Take a simple example of a six-year-old boy who asks his father, “Daddy, why did you call Grandma a bitch?” “I told you to stop bothering me,” the father roars. “Now, you’re going to get it. I’m going to wash your mouth out with soap. Maybe that will teach you to clean up what you say and keep your mouth shut when you’re told.” Dragging the boy upstairs to the soap dish, the father inflicts this punishment on him. In the name of “proper discipline” evil has been committed.

Scapegoating works through a mechanism psychiatrists call projection. Since the evil, deep down, feel themselves be faultless, it is inevitable that when they are in conflict with the world they will invariably perceive the conflict as the world’s fault. Since they must deny their own badness, they must perceive others as bad.

In The Road Less Traveled I define evil “as the exercise of political power that is, the imposition of one’s will upon others by overt or covert coercion – in order to avoid…spiritual growth. (p.279)

Strangely enough, evil people are often destructive because they are attempting to destroy evil. The problem is that they misplace the locus of the evil. Instead of destroying others they should be destroying the sickness within themselves.

*Gerald Vann, The Pain of Christ and the Sorrow of God. (Temple Gate Publishers, Springfield, Illinois, copyright by Aquin Press, 1947, pp. 54-55).

Deliberate and Planned

 

Psychological TraumaEvery victim of a personal crime has to face the reality of this: the deliberate and planned violations by their intimate partner on their personhood, down to the foundation of who they are as an individual. They are assaulted emotionally, spiritually, verbally, and sometimes physically. They are shaken to the very core foundation of everything they thought and knew about themselves. The result is soul trauma. This is a PROCESS and not an event.

The psychological trauma they face can impair their ability to bring charges against a perpetrator and to see the perpetrator for who he/she really is. Everything they experience and face appears to be stressful. Add to that stress the fear of retaliation and “silence” along with the inability to make good choices is the result.

A society also becomes a partner with the perpetrator through “dissociating” the victim. This is where they “dissociate” the victim from the human race by seeing the victim as “irritant symbols” who “had it coming” because of not leaving the relationship, keeping secrets, or by blaming – “what did you do to make that happen?” Society also “objectifies” the victim, similar to the perpetrator, so they don’t have to do anything about the problem that they find hard to deal with. Then add society’s minimization of the incident by statements of “if it was really bad she/he would have left.” Animal rights are still more important in this country than are the rights of women and children. We have more animal shelters and provide more money to animal shelters than we have to shelters for women and children. When it comes to shelters for men, there are even less available for male victims. Animals take a precedent over people in the United States.

Victim Selection

Victims are selected because they crossed paths with the perpetrator and had a symbolic significance or purpose for the perpetrator. Perpetrators thrive in neighborhoods, churches, courtrooms, hospitals, political offices, law enforcement all across our country and in every country worldwide. Their “hunting grounds” are limited only by their own choices.

– Dr. Kathie Mathis