Abandon the Dreams and Fantasies for Protection Against the Narcissism
What is Narcissism and How can One Shield Oneself from the Narcissist’s Abuse
It is often hard to know when someone is experiencing the Narcissist’s abuse. Narcissists are master manipulators, and they create a matrix of fake reality by playing with your deepest insecurities, wishes, desires, and dreams. In this article, we explore various types of Narcissism and a simple yet effective method for protecting oneself from Narcissistic abuse.
What is a Narcissist?
Narcissism is a personality disorder. A Narcissist is a person who objectifies, uses, and abuses other people for their own personal gains. Narcissists have a fragile sense of self, so they create a fake persona of confidence, charm, and charisma in order to compensate for the lack of healthy self-esteem. Underneath an outward pretentious mask, they have nothing except a void, — a complete emptiness of the self. An utter self-loathing and self-hatred exist behind the mask of grandiosity and superficial charisma. This is why they always have to seek validation from others as a source of Narcissistic supply. Narcissists are not living beings; they are like zombies or humanoid machines. As they lack a strong sense of self themselves, they presume everybody else as lacking such a self as well. Everybody they interact with is nothing but a mental construct which only exists in their mind. They perceive everybody as an extension of themselves. Everybody exists only to serve their needs. They treat everybody as an inanimate object without an agency or autonomous decision-making ability. They have a mental snapshot of every person that they interact with which only exists in their head, and they want the real-world person to conform to their mental representation. Even though the real person changes with time and situations, Narcissists can’t comprehend this. When they see their victim behaving independently, it creates a conflict between their inner world of objects and the real world of people which they can’t tolerate. They manipulate people because they enforce their version of the victim in their head and believe that the version which exists in their head is the real one.
Overt, Covert and Cerebral Narcissists
Contrary to the popular belief, Narcissists come in all shapes and sizes. The typical Narcissist that most people are familiar with is the Grandiose Somatic Narcissist. This type of Narcissist obtains their source of narcissistic supply by using their body. Such a Narcissist is often easily identifiable due to its overt nature. These are fashion models, body builders/physical fitness gurus, actors, celebrities, big business CEOs, etc. However, these are not the direct threat to most people in society. They are so exposed and so distant from most of the public that their damaging effect is only limited to their followers and flying monkeys. However, they can also damage other people when they are in their life (e.g., bosses and close relationships). Due to their grandiosity, people can quickly figure out their patterns of behavior and toxic attitude.
There is another kind of Narcissists who are covert Narcissists. These people are the most dangerous because you don’t see them coming. These can be your intimate partners, friends, work colleagues, or family members. In contrast to the overt Narcissists, these covert Narcissists can be humble, insecure, average looking, and apparently nice in interactions. These are the snakes in the grass. You don’t know they exist, but they most definitely do. In every workplace there is at least one of these snakes. And when there is one snake, you bet it would breed more snakes in the shadows as well.
Another type of Narcissist is the one who obtains their narcissistic supply from their outward display of intellect. They are termed Cerebral Narcissists. Most “leaders” in the academia and STEM industry are Cerebral Narcissists. These people obtain their source of supply by posting content on social media as a means to show-off their knowledge. In this way, Cerebral Narcissist posting content about their supposed expertise about a certain topic is no different from a fashion model posting their selfies on social media. Means might be different, goal remains the same.
Humanistic/Empathic Narcissists
It is hard to imagine that people who save lives or protect people can be Narcissists. However, it is a fact that many Humanists, Saviors, Rescuers and Environmental/Climate activists are Narcissists. Most Saviors have a predefined pattern of behavior, whereby they need a victim and a harmful thing/person from which they are supposedly protecting the victim. For example, racist narcissists make the victim afraid of people with different ethnic background than the victim and when the victim starts to believe their lies, they “save” the victim from those supposed monsters from different group. Similarly, narcissists in the diversity/Identity activism use the cloak of victimhood to relate with the victim and then pretend to save the victim from the unjust society. However, all they want is to lure the victim into their trap and gain a source of narcissistic supply in the form of money, fame, power, or attention. Empathic Narcissism is very much present in spiritual circles. Many “self-less” famous people who apparently do acts of kindness or teach people about spirituality are Narcissists. Their source of Narcissistic supply is the admiration and validation that they receive in exchange for spiritual drama. Most of the Indian Spiritual Gurus are Narcissists. It is sad but it is a fact that there is darkness that often lurks under the pretense of compassion and altruism.
How the World of Narcissism Works?
The biggest weapon of a Narcissist is to create a false reality for the victim. During the earlier phase, —, when a Narcissist does the ‘love bombing’, such a false reality would resemble your idealized dream. Narcissists are masters of knowing what you subconsciously desire, and they show you a mirror in which you look like your idealized version. It is often so irresistible that the victim slips into the Narcissists’ fantasy world. Once the victim is lured into the shared fantasy, a Narcissist would consume the victim as a source of their Narcissistic supply. Often it is severe emotional and psychological abuse which a victim experiences during this phase. Once the Narcissist has drained the victim of all the emotional energy, it starts the discard/devalue phase. In this stage, a Narcissist would show a mirror once again to the victim but a different kind, in which the victim is the worst person. The aim is to destroy the victim’s self-esteem. Contrary to the mirror of idealization, — which was shown previously, this mirror exploits the victim’s subconscious aversions and insecurities. Most people break during this stage and develop some kind of psychological health condition (e.g., PTSD, cPTSD etc.).
Authenticity & Spiritual Defense
It is the fabric of reality which a Narcissist manipulates, or more specifically, the victim’s perception of their own self. So, a simple yet effective tool to escape the Narcissist’s matrix is to have healthy self-esteem. A person who is grounded in reality and has an authentic sense of their own self, remains immune to both the ‘love bombing’ and the devaluation phase. Even when one gets trapped deep into the abyss of Narcissist’s matrix, the best strategy is to check one’s subconscious dreams, desires, and fantasies. Abandoning the dreams, desires, ambitions, passions, fantasies, and expectations, leaves the Narcissist stranded in the barren land with nothing left to manipulate. So, the Narcissist would soon get bored and move on to the next source of supply.
Another effective way to shield oneself from Narcissistic abuse is by practicing spirituality. Mindfulness, Detachment, and Meditation can help one stay grounded in reality and not get deceived by the illusions of the Matrix. New advancements in technology take one away from the self into an artificial world of objects thereby acting as a hallucinogenic for the mind. AI Recommender and content curation systems create the same kind of perceptual hallucinations which a flesh-and-blood Narcissist did in the past. Spiritual practices can help protect one from the harmful effects of such technological innovations just as they did in the past against the previous versions of the Matrix.
Conclusions
In this article, we have discussed a simple method to protect one from the Narcissist’s abuse without becoming a Narcissist oneself. Narcissists lack a healthy sense of self; therefore, they live in an artificial reality. Behind their confident and pretentious exterior, they have a very vulnerable core. Infact their subconscious is filled with self-hatred and self-loathing. They treat other people as if they were some inanimate objects which only existed in their own head. They imprison their victim in a false reality by exploiting the victim’s desires, dreams, and expectations. This is why a simple way to escape the fake world of a Narcissist is to crush one’s own dreams and fantasies oneself. This leaves a Narcissist with nothing to exploit. Furthermore, having a healthy and realistic sense of one’s own strengths, weaknesses, and abilities keeps one grounded in reality. This acts as an insect repellent for the Narcissist maggots. With the advent of AI based realities, — which are just a replica of Narcissism, it is becoming increasingly important to pay attention to their effects on mental health of individuals. Practicing Spirituality can shield one from the harmful effects of such technology driven Narcissism.