Does a narcissist enjoy inflecting pain on others?

Answer 1

No. And they really don't care either.

ANSWER

I think victims fear to defend themselves because society has an unwholesome obsession with passing judgment on every single thing a person says or does. It's like there is some moral obligation to call every word or deed "right" or "wrong." This nonsense has gone so far now as to extend to FEELINGS.

You can't say or do anything without someone feeling it incumbent on them to tell you whether it was holy or a sin, though secular people use different jargon than that.

When I was teaching, I relieved myself of this burden. Sometimes I'd sit back at my desk in Biology lab and just watch the kids interact with each other. Every minute or so, someone would grab an instrument and tell his or her partner, "No! That's not how you do it, Dufus! This is how you do it!" Then over here, there's a kid snarling at his partner for "kidding" him in a way he didn't like. Over there, a girl is sitting back in disgust, tossing the instrument on the table saying, "There, you do it if you can do it better!" because her partner was criticizing every move she made. I could list no end of little human interactions like this going on.

When I was new to teaching, my indoctrination went off and I thought I had to race like a firefighter to the scene and correct this behavior. I must swoop down on every spat or quarrel, bawling the parties out for getting mad and judging who was to blame.

Then one day I had a brilliant thought. "Why?"

Why did I have to do that? So, I sat back and just watched. Guess what? Every little issue resolved itself almost instantly. A minute later, those partners were getting along fine again.

It was easy to see that one party stepped on the other's toes or was succumbing to mediocrity that would affect his or partner's grade and...YEOW - just like tiger cubs at play. Every so often, one of them gets ticked off and snarls. But then it's over.

The snarl actually works. It's nothing so long as the God of that world (me - TEACHER) doesn't descend on them and make a big deal out of it.

Once that happens, THEN their feelings don't blow away in under 30 seconds, because now they've been SHAMED by the teacher judging them as having sinned.

So, I learned to mind my own business. I'd just watch to make sure something I didn't understand wasn't about to escalate into something I would have to put a stop to. Guess what? I never had to. Those kids got along with each other and me beautifully.

Sometimes during one of these little spats one of them would look up and see me watching them - looking like "Oh-oh! She sees us and we're gonna get bawled out for arguing with each other!"

Why? Because that's what their other teachers would have done.

They'd keep looking back at me, more and more puzzled at why I wasn't coming at them and was just sitting there listening and occasionally laughing at something one of them said. I'd see the humor in it, you see. Then I'd make some joke to show them the humor in it, too.

In short, I just made light of it, made nothing good or evil of it, and just let them settle it.

Suddenly the brainwashing fell from my eyes and I could see that every time a person says a sharp word it is not a sin. It is nothing. It is part of normal human interaction.

Every time you yell, it is not a sin. Every time you get angry it is not a sin. Every time you slam a cupboard door it is not a sin. And if it's in self defense, even every time you hit it is not a sin. Neither is every time you fart.

I was a cradle Catholic and the nuns weren't HALF as bad as secular society is today in loading a guilt trip on you for every single thing you say or do.

Let's be honest. The reason people judge everything you say or do is because judging others is THE act of playing God and makes them feel morally superior to those they are saying sinned. In other words, it's nothing but self-righteousness.

And the punch line is that those same holier-than-thous doing this are committing the Sin Sodom (by denying you the right to do anything but bend over for abuse) while bawling you out for "raising your voice."

Don't be puppet-mastered by these moral idiots, whether they be the secular ones or the religious ones. Don't fear that you mustn't ever do anything that someone will call a sin. They can call ANYTHING a sin.

Knuckling under to their moral control tactics disables you and establishes a gross double-standard, in which the narcissist is free to rage, hit, abuse, be irrational, act crazy, lie his head off, smear, and steal to get whatever he wants, but you dare not even "raise your voice" or FEEL your anger.

Of course you don't want to degrade yourself by how you react and protect yourself. But don't be obsessed with fear of doing anything some holier-than-thou would say is wrong. If you do, you will soon find that you are nailed to a cross for target practice.

Every little thing you say or do simply doesn't rise to the level of being right or wrong. It needs no judgment. And being obsessed with such trivia is just a distraction from the big things, the things your moral judgment should be focused on.

ANSWERNo, but there is a chance if you let them know about it.

Please see the discussion page before you revert this edit. Thanks.

Narcissists are human beings, hence can be assumed to have normal emotional tendencies. They don't get enough feedback from others to let them know if they are hurting them or not. If there is a high enough social cost associated with being a narcissist that eventually leads to them not being liked and if they are aware of the cost, they wouldn't be narcissistic ( note that this social cost only refers to the emotional hurt that other people experience). People can be narcissistic without being hurtful. They can have a very good opinion of themselves without devaluing others.

Miscommunication can also be a factor. There can be negative connotations ascribed by the receiver to narcissistic behavior by the sender. For a healthy interaction between two individuals, both parties need to be aware of ,among other things, what may be construed as hurtful behavior. The disconnect usually happens because people are not aware of other perspectives at all times.

Answer 2

No, that's a sadist. A narcissist is someone who loves their own appearance; derived from Greek myth of Narcissus who spent so long looking at his own reflection in a lake that he became rooted to the spot and turned into a flower. aka a narcissa