Key Points
Exaggerated victimization is a common feature of selfish arrogance.
Narcissists often feel victimized because of their unrealistic expectations, over-sensitivity, and lack of empathy.
Narcissists also play the victim to garner sympathy and avoid responsibility for their abusive behavior.
Delusional arrogance is one of the core pathologies of the narcissistic personality. This is most clearly manifested as arrogant entitlement, but delusional arrogance is another persistent feature of narcissistic arrogance that can be difficult to spot and even harder to understand.
Why Narcissists See Themselves as Victims
Let’s take a closer look at the narcissistic victimization. Why do they see themselves this way?
Feelings of Deprivation. Psychologically, the narcissistic personality operates from a perspective of deprivation, believing that there is not enough respect for their feelings, needs, and privacy. Narcissists’ feelings of deprivation stem from an underdeveloped identity, an inability to validate their self-worth internally, and a compensatory illusion of superiority that creates a cognitive dissonance between reality and their exaggerated expectations of what life owes them.
Hypersensitivity. Because of their notoriously poor emotional reactions and hypersensitivity to not getting what they believe they deserve, whether it be attention, compliance, admiration, or forms of service, narcissists often experience feelings of injustice or even persecution. The normal insults and setbacks we all endure are insults to the narcissistic personality’s sense of self-importance.
Lack of Empathy. Narcissists’ lack of emotional empathy means that they rarely see situations from any perspective other than their own, and they often see themselves as the wronged party when there is disappointment or conflict in their relationships.
Victim Identity. People who were scapegoated as children in a narcissistic family system and who developed a narcissistic personality are often identified as victims and continue to frame their experiences in this way in their adult relationships. The all-encompassing sense of victimhood, common in the more covert type of narcissist, becomes the organizing principle of the self. This type appears less showy and more vulnerable than the overt narcissist, but they share the same basic personality structure, including feelings of superiority, repressed shame (splitting), destructive envy, and a lack of empathy for others.
Why Narcissists Use the Victim Position
Narcissists’ compulsion to frame their experience as unfair and to assume the victim’s position stems from their fundamental instability and compensatory grandiosity. But playing the tragically wronged victim is also a manipulative strategy that serves their desire to control others and avoid accountability for their opportunistic and abusive behavior.
Pity Tricks Because narcissists rely heavily on others for validation and believe they should be cared for, pretending to be a victim of uncaring people or unfair circumstances is a common narcissistic strategy to evoke guilt and gain attention, sympathy, or care. Empathetic individuals can be particularly vulnerable to narcissists’ victim narratives, which often involve damaging distortions, omissions, and outright lies about their family members, friends, or coworkers. Many narcissists become so skilled at portraying themselves as long-suffering victims of horrible ex-spouses or ungrateful adult children that they successfully isolate themselves from other family members and community members who believe the narcissist’s destructive assassinations.
Narcissists are empty, isolated, envious, and contemptuous individuals, and they are relationship enemies who exploit and despise others to manage their emotions and boost their self-esteem. Because they are developmentally immature, they rely heavily on the childhood defenses of denial and projection. The most damaging aspect of narcissistic pseudo-victimhood is victim-blaming, a form of projection in which the narcissist acts abusively toward someone and then accuses that person of abusing them. Examples of this include a narcissistic spouse who engages in infidelity but then tells family and friends that the spouse is cheating or a narcissistic parent who provokes a child with ridicule or criticism and then claims that the child is overly sensitive, difficult, or angry.
