WHAT OR WHO MAKES A NARCISSIST?

WHO BECOMES NARCISSIST AND WHAT OR WHO MAKES THEM NARCISSIST? AN INTRODUCTION! POST NO.1/N (A 10 minute read) 

Hello again readers, welcome to a new file of blog posts titled, WHAT IS NARCISSISM? I am going to profile the narcissist so clearly with my x-ray INFJ eyes, that I am going to leave no doubt in any readers minds as to what a narcissistic person is and why they are narcissist.

Where does my knowledge come from you may well ask and good on you if you do ask that very question? Because yes, the internet is saturated with mixed messages which only serve to add further confusion and ignorance to a person seeking real knowledge.

But maybe it is the very word NARCISSIST that sounds so horrible and is generally applied to despotic, tyranical, dictator type leaders, that we do not consider the little average person to be a NARCISSIST, because they do not go killing hundreds and thousands of people in cold blood perhaps!

Oh, yes, make no mistake, any leader who is promoting the killing of thousands of innocent human beings, can only be NARCISSIST. They who have no EMPATHY at all. But I believe that all MAN-KIND are NARCISSIST; it is how they are bred. Human beings have EMPATHY, the NARCISSISTS (man-kind); have none!

WHAT EXPERIENCE DO I HAVE OF NARCISSISTS?

I was born to a NARCISSIST female, who is actually so border-line that for 5% more INTUITION, she would be INFJ type like me. My two sisters are largely NARCISSISTIC in their personal relationships too. I had two boyfriends in teenage years who were both NARCISSISTS.

And more recently, I have been in a long-term relationship (28 years), with a NARCISSIST, whose father and three brothers, are all NARCISSISTS as well. So, in short, I have been permanently surrounded by NARCISSISTS and social NARCISSISM. That is my reality; sad to say! 

THAT IS EXACTLY HOW A LONG-TERM RELATIONSHIP WITH A NARCISSIST LEAVES YOU FEELING! Photo by Dollar Gill on Unsplash. 

Maybe because our societies are built around male NARCISSISM, we have actually come to accept that most males have violent tempers and can be very aggressive. But do we name those feisty, aggressive, foul-mouthed, troublesome males as NARCISSISTS? No; we don´t! But they are all NARCISSISTS none the less. 

It is just that we have become so very accustomed to the violence of the male of the human species and on top of that, it is seen as a plus point to be a tough, uncouth, fighting machine who has no EMPATHY for anyone at all.

Our societies are certainly doing nothing to educate males and females to become full-blooded, full-bodied human beings, who can express themselves in words. Who can FEEL beyond themselves and not NEED to feed permanently off others. Evolve into a full, healthy, psychological adulthood and take on a positive part in life.

WHERE DO NARCISSISTS COME FROM? 

SCENARIO NO.1: THOSE LIVING WITH THE NARCISSIST MOTHER. 

NARCISSISTS are not born as such, but they are born from a NARCISSIST or even the worst situation of all; they were born from TWO NARCISSISTS. A new born baby is pure at birth. As yet it understands not what words spoken to them mean. But we use all of our senses when we are young. Our sight, our sense of smell, touching, we are learning by sensing and FEELING.

Even though that new-born baby cannot understand the words being said around them, they can sense the pitch of those words. The wavelengths; yes, these tiny little beings perceive the wavelengths. They know what makes them FEEL at ease, what makes them FEEL secure and FEEL happy.

And they already respond to all that discomfits them. Banging, crashing, shouting, screaming; oh, yes, they FEEL all of that too without understanding at all what is going on. If you are born to a NARCISSIST parent or parents, sad to say, this volatile environment will be your first example of home life and an adult male and female; your parents!

This is your home environment and as a young child, you will go adapting to this very volatile situation because it is regular and it is cyclical. Things build gradual up to a peak, all blows up and there is much damage caused materially, emotionally and psychologically. Then there is the cooling down and reparation phase, which then leads to a relatively calm phase!

Until the next time that the NARCISSIST´S tensions overflow and they let leash on you, their close family members once again. In my own home, it was my mother who was the eternal volcano. Yes, we learnt to tip-toe around her as children. Our father would comfort us and recognize along with us, that our mother had been out of reason for her actions!

"I will have a word with her when you have gone to bed!" Is what he would say. And I imagine he did because the next morning after he had gone off to work, like we did not get the riot act read to us by our mother; and straight out of bed!! What in fact we did, was to reveal her truths. We did not lie to our father; not at all.

We were confused because we could never see her reasons for her actions. Even as young children we were evaluating her actions in a way that she herself was obviously incapable of doing. We were turning to our father for understanding of this behaviour and wondering what we had done to set this off.

Bless my late father´s heart because he is the reason that I am NOT NARCISSIST. I have no doubt in my mind whatsoever, that my father thought that he had met an incredibly beautiful and vivacious woman and had been very much in love with her. I can see now the reverse of the Prince Charming tales.

He was a Prince Charming; a real-life one. She came as a false Princess who was really a part-time Cinderella and other times the wicked mother (no step-mother in my case). She had hoped to up her level by marrying a man who could offer that. But could she adapt to this new level? NO; is the answer to that! Totally incompatible as people and I have made exactly that same mistake with my partner!

I came as myself, a Princess and thought that I had met a Prince Charming. He had hoped to up his level by latching on to me. But could he adapt to my level? NO; is the answer to that! He was a part-time Cinders and other times a hissing, spitting, venomous toad or like the wicked father that I had never had! He duped me with his act, just as my mother duped my father with her act.

What I can see from my own personal perspective and through the eyes of my one elder and one younger sister, is that we associated these behaviour patterns as belonging to the female. The peace descended on our house when our father came home. 

So, in consequence, from our lack of maternal support and emotional care from our mother; we have all avoided relationships with females by and large. We do not trust women and do not see them as automatic points of emotional support. We have all always looked towards men. We did not know that men could be NARCISSISTS too!!

Therein my late father´s only mistake as I can see it. He did not explain her behaviour to us, but maybe he ENFJ type that he was, could not fathom out how he had been so deceived. Being a very responsible and caring man, as his daughters, he certainly made up for our mother´s lack of affection. That is what can save a young child from repeating the cycle of NARCISSISTIC behaviour patterns.

Teach your children how to be real human beings who can speak in words, who can understand their FEELINGS and who can communicate rationally with others. Teach them to be aware of how ugly this behaviour really is and to not want to be the same themselves and cause so much pain and injury to others.

Because you know what if FEELS like; then don´t subject anyone else to that misery! The "Do as you would be done by" philosophy rather than the "Do to others as done to you!" the NARCISSIST´S systematic reaction response. You have to want to be better in order that you are better.

WHY IS YOUR MOTHER NARCISSIST?

If a NARCISSIST is turned into one by living with a NARCISSIST parent, then this could be deemed as normal behaviour to them. But when you have a contrasting parent who is an EMPATH, you are allowed to see the two very different personality types. 

Why you choose to be more like to one than the other, I believe depends on just how much you needed APPROVAL and APPRAISAL, to say nothing of love and affection from the NARCISSISTIC one. Maybe it is natural for a girl to FEEL that her mother should be her tower of support and a fine source of love and affection.

By the same token, is it not that a boy living with a NARCISSISTIC father, yearns for the APPROVAL of the father. These boys have love and affection from the mother, the mother APPROVES of ever little thing that they do. She over praises them for very little doings to compensate for the father´s permanent DISAPPROVAL of them.

In the same way, it fell to my father to be that main parent who was consistent, reliable, steady and ever-loving. But he did not give us false APPRAISAL or APPROVAL ever. Credit and praise came when it was due and was always reflective of our doings. He was an academic man himself, who could evaluate our progress accurately by our age levels.

He was just, he was fair and he would guide us towards improvement in the areas that he could see were not perhaps our best. He helped build CONFIDENCE in us as individual people, with individual characters and abilities. We did not have to please him as such; we just had to do our best. And because he was so attentive with our educational progress, well, like he did not know when we were slacking!!!

Why was my mother NARCISSIST then? Because she had a NARCISSISTIC parent too!

REPEATING THE PATTERNS! 

Which of her parents was the narcissistic one, well, maybe I will never know that for sure? But from my recent learnings and all of my own observations throughout our respective lives, I can see that it was her mother and that in fact she has played out the same relationship with my elder sister as she had with her mother.

I can see that very clearly in her behaviour and attitude towards her three sisters and one brother, who are all very close. She is the one that stays away. Just as my elder sister stayed away, although to her defence, she was the best big sister that you could have wished to have had. She was my big sister and my younger sister´s big sister.

Between her and my father, I did not want for love and affection, or APPROVAL and APPRAISAL. I never got much ever from my mother though. But I learnt early on in life, to do without her APPROVAL. That does not mean that it has not hurt me and my sisters that we have never been able to meet with her APPROVAL; seemingly.

That is not because of anything that we do; it is because she is a sick, under-developed child in an adult´s body, living the life of an adult female which she was never suitably prepared for. Her education was cut short by our modern standards and she had to go out to work to help support her widowed mother and her siblings.

A GOOD MARRIAGE was what all young women of her era were looking for. A good man with a good income who could lift you out of your lowly circumstances and give you a better life and supposedly be able to give your children better educational opportunities than you had been afforded. 

A GOOD MARRIAGE was ever a material transaction for a female and sadly, they never considered their long-term happiness. In my mother´s case, her inferiority complex was what crippled her in her relationship with my father. Although his family background was humble too, his parents were both working and saving hard for their son´s education.

They were born as social equals but my father´s family managed to break a cycle and help their son to be able to live much better than they had. My mother had had to marry in order to raise her standard of living. He had earned his rise in level and she had been willingly taken on board to accompany him.

Not having the same academic level as he, she was not capable of socializing on the levels that came with his life. NOT GOOD ENOUGH! The root of the NARCISSISTIC syndrome.

In the next post I will look at the scenario which involves the child with the NARCISSIST father. If you would like me to let you know when that post is published, why not try signing up to follow this new series of blog posts? Many thanks for reading.