I understand narcissists. I used to be one.
It started during my teenage years, but fortunately, it didn’t last long. My parents caused (and yelled at) my narcissism.
Want to know what made me stop? I secretly wrote a letter to my grandiose narcissistic father and my narcissistic mother.
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Dear parents,
When I was a child, I felt love for what I did, but not for who I really was. You have worked hard to remove my original identity, and replace it with a downloaded version of yourselves. Growing up was never about self-discovery, but about brainwashing, indoctrination, and performing well. Thus, my self-esteem as a child was very low.
Because of this, parental discipline and correction were extremely painful. This has led to a complete narcissistic breakdown: feeling less than nothing, unworthy of life, and the lowest human being on earth.
I felt worthless and had no basis for making eye contact with another human being, let alone standing up to them. I spent many hours lying in the fetal position, crying.
The envy I felt towards other normal teenagers was horrific. I hated them for being more confident, prettier, stubborn, happy, and healthy. I hated them and envied them for what I didn’t have.
But I didn’t hurt anyone because I didn’t want anyone to bear my pain. Committing narcissistic abuse is a choice. I choose not to offend. This is a mistake. My compassion and empathy for others run deep. I did not want anyone to endure at my hands what I endured at the hands of my father.
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I think that’s how you felt about yourself, Dad, and what triggered your rage followed by hours of lying in your dark room, having a narcissistic meltdown.
Were you “defensive” as a child? definitely! I was fighting to be okay and not fall apart. And it was strange. Whenever I started to accumulate some ego and feel good about myself, it destroyed me again. It was like you felt like I was starting to feel better about myself and wanted to lower that “proud” girl level. Again and again and again.
I wasn’t proud. I’ve been vain, which is a whole different thing. It’s called the “false ego.”
But you never understood that. Do you remember how I tried to explain to you that your grandmother was arrogant and insecure? Oh, how I deceived you!
Pride has a right basis. C.S. Lewis came close to describing this in The Screwtape Letters when he said: “[God] wants to bring man to a state of mind in which he can design the best cathedral in the world, and knowing that it is the best, he will rejoice.” In fact, without being any more (or less) or happy doing it than he would have been if someone else had done it.
This is true self-esteem and pride: healthy, accurate, and honest.
Vanity is like the vanity cakes made by Ma Ingels – fluffy on the outside but nothing on the inside. No self esteem. Every narcissist develops the narcissistic supply and false self in order to survive and function in this world, work with others and make a living.
A healthy person has self-respect and can therefore be humble because admitting a flaw does not destroy him. They know they can afford to be wrong because they know they are okay.
As always, C.S. Lewis said it best in the Screwtape Letters:
“You must therefore hide from the patient the true end of humility. Let him think of it not as self-forgetfulness, but as a certain kind of opinion (i.e., a low opinion) of his talents and character. I think he has some talents.
He fixed in his mind the idea that humility consists in trying to believe that those talents are less valuable than he believes them to be. There is no doubt that it is, in fact, less valuable than one thinks, but that is not the point.
The great thing is to make him value opinion for some other quality than truth, and thus introduce an element of dishonesty and pretense into the heart of what threatens to become a virtue. In this way, thousands of people have been made to believe that modesty means that beautiful women try to believe they are ugly and smart men try to believe they are fools. Since what they are trying to believe may, in some cases, be plain nonsense, they will not be able to succeed in believing it, and have the opportunity to keep their minds running endlessly around themselves trying to achieve the impossible.
