Narcissism

Research believes yes and they are still looking for it.

OMG, yes. I think being evasive means their survival many times. Especially if they are on the verge of being caught in one of their many, many, many lies. If they can't lie their way out of something they are going to be as evasive as possible to avoid getting caught and having to answer to something directly.

By choice, it is healther and would behoove a person not to deal with the eratic mood swings of a narcissist, however, if you are forced to associate with an N, you must work very hard at maintaining your own self-esteem. Talk to yourself and tell yourself that his/her opinion should not weigh heavily on your scale for approval. Be vehement about the fact that you do not care if you meet his/her idealized standard; you know, the one that you work your tail off to aspire to be? The imaginary partner that doesn't exist?

Since one obviously bought into the N's contortive web, self-esteem is an issue and should be nurtured and preserved at all costs. The first thing to remember is that they are the ones with a problem; not you. If they want to be on a "high," well that makes interacting with an N very low maintenance and doable. But, if you catch them on a day that they are pouting, because they are not the center of attention, or because you did something so miniscule for which they will throw punishment darts, then continue to have a jolly old time in their presence. Again, they are the ones with the problem, not you.

I believe in "arrival." No one goes from zero to 10 overnight. One goes from 1 to 2, 2 to 3, and so on. Relationships with N's are evolving and, thus, it will take an evolving and an "arrival" to make that decision to leave them. It's hard during the phase when in your mind and heart you believe to be in love with them. As time passes, you will wake one day and be extremely repulsed by the person you chose to sleep beside. You will come to your senses and then it will be easy to leave them.

If you are not married, it is in your best interest to leave your N now. You may think and feel that you will die without them, but you will be so surprised to be pleasantly relieved by the fact that you will be so much better off without them. There will be no one for which you are forced to contort; you no longer have to compromise your entire belief system; you no longer have to explain your every little move and detail to accommodate their insecurities and paranoia. You will not miss the durress associated with the anchor to the Titanic on your heart because of the pain that is constantly inflicted ... and for which you find yourself apologizing for.

God did not plan for us to be treated this way. After all the complicated scenarios one could share in their experiences with an N, in the most simplest form, love is kind and it's a place that allows the essence of your person to breathe and be appreciated for your unique self.

A narcissist would not want help because he or she would not think there was anything wrong. Therefore, you can't help a narcissist; even when a narcissist is court ordered into therapy, there is little a professional can do to help a person change this personality type.

Kelly's narcissism prevented her from forming genuine friendships with other people. Another phrase for narcissism is self-absorption. It is a noun.

That depends on if he or she has someone else to leech off of. If he or she has truly hit rock bottom, it may be just what is needed for them to get help and end their narcissistic ways. But as far as I'm concerned, only a miracle would do that. ~ T

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yes! Anything they are accusing you of, they are doing themselves

In the narcissist's surrealistic world, even language is pathologized. It mutates into a weapon of self defence, a verbal fortification, a medium without a message, replacing words with duplicitous and ambiguous vocables.

Narcissists (and, often, by contagion, their unfortunate victims) don't talk, or communicate. They fend off. They hide and evade and avoid and disguise. In their planet of capricious and arbitrary unpredictability, of shifting semiotic and semantic dunes - they perfect the ability to say nothing in lengthy, Castro-like speeches.

The ensuing convoluted sentences are arabesques of meaninglessness, acrobatics of evasion, lack of commitment elevated to an ideology. The narcissist prefers to wait and see and see what waiting brings. It is the postponement of the inevitable that leads to the inevitability of postponement as a strategy of survival.

It is often impossible to really understand a narcissist. The evasive syntax fast deteriorates into ever more labyrinthine structures. The grammar tortured to produce the verbal Doppler shifts essential to disguise the source of the information, its distance from reality, the speed of its degeneration into rigid "official" versions.

Buried under the lush flora and fauna of idioms without an end, the language erupts, like some exotic rash, an autoimmune reaction to its infection and contamination. Like vile weeds it spread throughout, strangling with absent minded persistence the ability to understand, to feel, to agree, to disagree and to debate, to present arguments, to compare notes, to learn and to teach.

Narcissists, therefore, never talk to others - rather, they talk at others, or lecture them. They exchange subtexts, camouflage-wrapped by elaborate, florid, texts. They read between the lines, spawning a multitude of private languages, prejudices, superstitions, conspiracy theories, rumours, phobias and hysterias. Theirs is a solipsistic world - where communication is permitted only with oneself and the aim of language is to throw others off the scent or to obtain narcissistic supply.

This has profound implications. Communication through unequivocal, unambiguous, information-rich symbol systems is such an integral and crucial part of our world - that its absence is not postulated even in the remotest galaxies which grace the skies of science fiction. In this sense, narcissists are nothing short of aliens. It is not that they employ a different language, a code to be deciphered by a new Freud. It is also not the outcome of upbringing or socio-cultural background.

It is the fact that language is put by Narcissists to a different use - not to communicate but to obscure, not to share but to abstain, not to learn but to defend and resist, not to teach but to preserve ever less tenable monopolies, to disagree without incurring wrath, to criticize without commitment, to agree without appearing to do so. Thus, an "agreement" with a narcissist is a vague expression of intent at a given moment - rather than the clear listing of long term, iron-cast and mutual commitments.

The rules that govern the narcissist's universe are loopholed incomprehensibles, open to an exegesis so wide and so self-contradictory that it renders them meaningless. The narcissist often hangs himself by his own verbose Gordic knots, having stumbled through a minefield of logical fallacies and endured self inflicted inconsistencies. Unfinished sentences hover in the air, like vapour above a semantic swamp.

In the case of the inverted narcissist, who was suppressed and abused by overbearing caregivers, there is the strong urge not to offend. Intimacy and inter-dependence are great. Parental or peer pressures are irresistible and result in conformity and self-deprecation. Aggressive tendencies, strongly repressed in the social pressure cooker, teem under the veneer of forced civility and violent politeness. Constructive ambiguity, a non-committal "everyone is good and right", an atavistic variant of moral relativism and tolerance bred of fear and of contempt - are all at the service of this eternal vigilance against aggressive drives, at the disposal of a never ending peacekeeping mission.

With the classic narcissist, language is used cruelly and ruthlessly to ensnare one's enemies, to saw confusion and panic, to move others to emulate the narcissist ("projective identification"), to leave the listeners in doubt, in hesitation, in paralysis, to gain control, or to punish. Language is enslaved and forced to lie. The language is appropriated and expropriated. It is considered to be a weapon, an asset, a piece of lethal property, a traitorous mistress to be gang raped into submission.

With cerebral narcissists, language is a lover. The infatuation with its very sound leads to a pyrotechnic type of speech which sacrifices its meaning to its music. Its speakers pay more attention to the composition than to the content. They are swept by it, intoxicated by its perfection, inebriated by the spiralling complexity of its forms. Here, language is an inflammatory process. It attacks the very tissues of the narcissist's relationships with artistic fierceness. It invades the healthy cells of reason and logic, of cool headed argumentation and level headed debate.

Dear Lord,

It's called "NO CONTACT." You move on and never look back.

Waking consciousness is a kind of mental state wherein it encloses the feelings, idea and thoughts of an individual. Waking consciousness occurs when a person is awake and active.

No, because they pursue the illusions they create in their twisted minds.

The fantasy is created not in pursuit of happiness. It is created as the main part of the process of self denial. Just as the constant lies and the Narcissist rages are also part of the self denial compulsion.

We all do things to protect us from our phobias and fears. One may sleep with the lights on if we are afraid of the dark. Is this happiness?

Happiness is not a feeling of safety. It is also more then a sense of achievement. It is a function of self awareness. This is something beyond a Narcissist.

If we are the leading role in a play and we achieve high regard for our performance, this is wonderful feeling. But it is not happiness. We would not trade such a moment for the feeling one has in the arms of a true love or at the wedding of ones daughter or the birth of a child.

Maintaining a fake self image, has absolutely nothing to do with happiness and never will. Happiness will only land at ones feet when in ones own shoes.

Borderline personality disorders, although they cause social difficulties, can be hard to "treat." These disorders are usually diagnosed by a psychiatrist or a psychologist, and a prescription isn't necessarily prescribed. To "treat" personality disorders, patients often go through extensive counseling sessions.

The way in which a narcissist thinks is basically everything to do with the self. It is all what is in it for them, what they can gain out of each situation, what they can extract from each person they come into contact with. When they have no particular use for that person, they discard them without a second's thought.

No. That person is only an extension of himself. He can only love things that are of himself and thus is incapable of any selfless love, empathy, or understanding. A narcissist's onlyopportunity for change occurs during a life altering crisis. This deflates the narcissist's ego a leaves him emotionally unstable. It is possible, but very unlikely a narcissist will change. It is even more unlikely he will change for another person. He probably is unaware of his own attitudes as they are subconscious defense mechanisms usually formed in childhood or adolescence. Furthermore, he is incapable of that self-sacrificing behavior that enables Pygmalion projects.

• Yes. Go onto: www.google.com Then type in: Treatment for Narcissistic Personality Disorder?" Don't be surprised to find that there is little help because Narcissists are not labeled "Narcissistic" without a good reason. They feel they are right and everyone else is wrong, so it's highly doubtful they would ever seek counseling and if they did they wouldn't believe what the counselor told them anyway. Few Narcissistic people are every helped and therefore it's difficult to really study a group of people that are narcissistic.

Histrionic personality disorder sufferers tend to exaggerate things, act in a dramatic fashion, and can be prone to excessive shows of sentimentality, anger, sadness, and happiness verging on mania. They can use this to manipulate people. The "drama queen" archetype applies.

A narcissist is pretty close to an arrogant person. Yes, they do actually care what other people think of them or if they hurt others, but they would like you to believe otherwise. Usually narcissistic people have been hurt in some way, so they put a wall up. Often people that have had a very rough time in life will quite often put up a wall to protect themselves. From the narcissistic people I have encountered I do find they use their "private time" to express their feelings. There are people out there with absolutely no remorse and will give themselves all types of excuses to make themselves feel right, but narcissistic people a usually not included in this.

Narcissists imitate emotions in order to attrcat attention and sympathy (forms of narcissistic supply).

According to the psychological structure, "narcissism" is an obsessive interest in oneself. This obsession with the self runs the gamut from vanity (preening in the mirror) to downright God-complexes. Nevertheless, narcissists have feelings. Are narcissists sensitive? Let us define "sensitive." In its most exacting definition, "sensitive" means more aware of other people's feelings than one's own feelings. In most psychological opinion, narcissists are considered over- or hyper-sensitive. This does not mean that narcissists care more about other people than the average person. In fact, it means just the opposite. It means that THEIR feelings are more likely to be hurt (if you can get their attention away from themselves in the first place!). Thus, narcissists are not "sensitive" (liable to be touched someone else's feelings)... they are "delicate" (more apt to touched by their OWN feelings). Remorse is indeed a feeling, and it has two sides. First, it applies towards what has happened to another person or creature. Second, it applies to what has happened to oneself. For example, let us say that a man runs over a dog. Most people have both of sides of remorse run through them. First, a person generally feels bad for what has happened to the dog and its owner and perhaps anyone in the vicinity who may have been affected by the accident. Second, a person generally feels fear for what will happen next -- citations, civil suits, revenge, trauma to oneself. In narcissistic behavior, one would see more of the latter. However, let us not be hasty to attribute labels based on incidents or moments in time. Narcissism as a pathology must be identified over a longer period of time. Even so, all humans have the element of narcissism with them. It is called the Survival Instinct. In this regard, we are all narcissistic to some extent. A person who is PATHOLOGICALLY narcissistic is predominantly in Survival mode, and normally asks "What will happen to ME?" or "How does this affect ME?" It is not that a narcissist does not feel empathy or sympathy towards others, it is simply that fear and adrenaline overcome his or her better nature. How does one overcome narcissism? To begin, the narcissist must understand that there are bigger, more important things than one's own security and perfectionism. The narcissist must stop relying on the soothing words of his or her enabling partner (accomplice) and instead rely on the soothing word of God, who is bigger than any person or nation. Vanity is useless in front of a God who knows your heart. Faith overcomes fear and allows the narcissist to "let things happen." How many people do we know who say "it's all about me!" These would benefit greatly from helping others, but those gestures are empty without the appreciation that a narcissist craves. God fills that void.

In most cases it is taken as a negative word. Intellectual Vanity means to have a intellectual pride and to consider other people inferior in terms of knowledge and education.

Narcissism can be difficult to treat at times, but it depends on the client. If the client is truly motivated (which yes, does happen despite what you may read online), treatment requires that the therapist be particularly skilled in the treatment of this disorder. There are some very specific therapeutic interventions that can significantly reduce symptoms for a motivated client. If you, or someone you love, are suffering from narcissism I would recommend searching online for someone in your area that has had proven success with this area of treatment. Personally, I have found working with narcissism to be both enjoyable and fulfilling.

So, to summarize, find someone in your area that both enjoys working with narcissism and has had success in its treatment.

NA usually refers to Narcotics Anonymous. There is no Narcissists Anonymous, since they do not recognize a problem and generally feel no need to change.