Are narcissists cognizant or completely unaware of their maladaptive abusive behavior?

Answer 1

That's an excellent question and one I don't think there is an answer too unless you get to know the person better. Some people are very intelligent and they are so into whatever they do as a career or are interested in, they forget things around them including people and sometimes can appear abrupt and uncaring. EXAMPLE: A scientist or a mathematician, career oriented persons can go to work looking disheveled (one of the professors I use to work for came to work with different colored socks on and if I asked a question he would scowl and continue on with what he was doing, but he was a dear.) Then there are the perfectionists. Often these people are misdiagnosed as having an obsessive behavioral disorder. The perfectionist will do things over and over again until they get it right or at least, feel they have accomplished it right in their own minds. Then there are narcissistic people that are plain rude, crude and think they know it all and show little emotion to others mental pain. In fact, THEY are the pain! There way is the right way! Schizophrenics can also have these behavioral patterns as well. They can appear void of feelings, and get confused easily. What we may see in society, they don't. Unless a psychiatrist has diagnosed this person with any one of these maladies then it's simply second-guessing. As we know the brain is the least studied part of the body, but scientists are going full steam ahead to try and catch up. We hear little about the progress unless we decide to do some real research on it. I do, and I found out that just as I had always suspected, in the future people that suffer from mental imbalances such as panic attacks, Agoraphobia, manic depression, Schizophrenia, etc., will wear a tiny mechanism in their brain to balance out the brain chemistry (sort of like a pacemaker for the heart) and no more pills with bad side effects! In fact, they have tried this method already, but it won't be FDA approved for at least 5 more years. There is always hope! The very best to you in 2006 Marcy It's very hard to know this and we may never know for sure. The reason is you cannot get inside someone else's mind. But I surmize from many many conversations with a narcissist that they are aware. On a level that they usually hide, both from themselves and others, they are aware. They can get to this level if they try to, so I call that aware. What they are aware of is that their minds are structured differently and work differently than others. They don't understand what it is for others to feel pain, but they know they should not cause others pain. They will do it if they think they can get away with it and it looks interesting or fun. They will do it to get attention. They don't care if they cause others pain, but they don't want to look bad because then they might not be able to think of themselves as the wonderful people they think they are. Others might stop admiring them. They don't always know what exactly is wrong with them, but they know it's something and that they shouldn't let others know about it. They suspect it's something very very bad. They are often fearful and depressed. They also have very bad memories and can spontaneously forget things or warp things in their memories. But on the very deepest level, they do know that they are different and that they are cold and that they are predatory or virus-like. The narcissist I knew even took pride in his predatory nature. I call that aware. The deal with them isn't that they don't know what they do and how they do it. The deal is they try to make what they do seem like a good thing. That's where the logic gets twisted. So I would say a narcissist is aware of his maladaptive abusive behavior, but he would claim it is adaptive and amazingly good behavior, and that you are abusive and if his behavior seems maladaptive, it's all your fault. That's basically how the line of logic runs. And then they laugh at you in their heads all the way to the bank. Want to see something funny, tell a narcissist you can see through them and that they aren't so great, and watch the freak-out begin. Not for the faint of heart--be prepared for some fireworks!