Selected Replies to "On Being Perfect"

Note: Because my psychology correspondence has gradually evolved toward offering people advice, I want to say I am not a psychologist and any advice I offer is based only on common sense and life experience. I think most educated readers will accept this.

Open All | Close All

My boredom is the world's business

I include this post, not because it has any depth of content, but so people won't think I'm exaggerating the narcissism and shallowness of the typical Web surfer.

By what means am I not to believe that you are not in fact another narcissist internet junkie?Unless you have something coherent to say, by what logic should I or anyone care what you think of me or my Website? Each month, hundreds of thousands of people visit my site. Each of my visitors is exercising free choice, some doubtless find my articles silly and move on. Many people visit Websites that fail their personal standards, but only narcissists write to say how bored they are.

I don't have to justify myself to you, and the fact that you think I do only reveals the depth of your narcissism.

The next time you encounter a Website that bores you, just choose a different one, with a silence appropriate to the richness of your intellectual life.Well your vain articles ...Evidence? Or did you miss this word and its meaning during your education?... would surely prove that. Anyway they bore me to death.Your boredom is not a matter of public concern, and you just confirmed your narcissism. The fact that my articles bore you to death should only be a reason for you to use your channel selector (that's your mouse) to choose another Website, not to write the self-indulgent, contentless post you ended up writing.

Short form: no one cares what bores you. The only reason you think it's important is because you are a narcissist, someone inclined to alert the media when his wishes are frustrated.And about Psychology...well tell what degree you've taken in Psychology?You obviously failed to read the articles you feel competent to complain about (or if you read them, the wires between your eyes and your brain blew down in a petulant storm). If you had read and understood them, you would know that you just committed a very common logical error, argumentum ad verecundiam, or argument from authority. An argument from authority is a way for uneducated people to advertise their ignorance, but it has no place in a discussion of science, where evidence is the only basis for discussion.

Imagine how Einstein's first relativity paper would have been received if the periodical he submitted it to had been guided by your enlightened belief system. They wouldn't have published it, on the ground that Einstein hadn't finished his degree (he was a lowly patent clerk at the time).

But that is not what happened. Reason? Just like people, ideas should be judged, not on their source, but on their content. Consequently, we all know who Einstein is, and none of us care what degrees he had — at least, no educated people care.

If scientific discussions were governed by your medieval outlook, science and human progress would grind to a halt, for the simple reason that every new scientific field, and every breakthrough within an established field, is born without a graduate degree program. Established academic programs can only teach what is already known — new discoveries by definition take place outside the domain of education. This is why science disregards authority.

In short, people who ask, "By what authority do you discuss ..." are only revealing the incompetence of their teachers.You know my Aunt committed suicide suffering from Bipolar Disorder. And I guess frequent mood swings and voices and hallucinations I guess don't exist.You are entitled to your opinion. How does your remark relate to the content of my articles? In my articles, I clearly say that psychologists are competent to describe mental disorders. You know, if you had read the articles you are complaining about, you might be able to argue from a position of knowledge rather than ignorance.Hmmm... Well then I do agree yes mental illness has gotten way too far.You are in no way agreeing with my articles, only yourself.Everyone claims to be and they're inventing new illnesses.This sentence fails any test of internal consistency. Try re-reading your posts before mashing the "send" button. Avoid further embarrassment.Perhaps they should have left it at Mania and Dementia. But trust me I grew up around plenty of Mental Helath issues..Especially having my own brother tell me he was the Antichrist. Hmmm... I guess he was bored. I guess we're all pretty bored.I would be bored as well, if like you I had nothing worth thinking about. But in point of fact, that isn't true. The only reason you think everyone is bored when you are bored is because you suffer from megalomania, narcissism's loyal traveling companion.

Please spare us the details of your personal melodrama — suffer in silence.

Perfect!

... thank you for your treatise "On Being Perfect". It explains the likely mental profile of various personalities I have encountered over the years, and it appears to support my instinctual response to distance myself from such encounters. I will forward a link to it to several of my friends who have recently had the misfortune to be "narcisssized" by a particularly 6-ish 46-year-old "expert".You're very welcome. I'm glad my article is helping readers deal with these annoying, sometimes dangerous people.

By the way. Remember the old joke line "Anarchists, Unite!"? It's funny because anarchists obviously aren't going to unite. It turns out it's the same with narcissists, because only one of them can be the smartest person in the world. :)

I appreciate your kind comments.

How not to get along with a narcissist

I had the great misfortune to get involved with a narcissist a few years ago. In fact, this woman bore traits of several related disorders in the spectrum of Axis II personality disorders. She might just as easily have been diagnosed as histrionic or borderline, or all three, depending on the information made available to the diagnostician.I can attest to the truth of what you say about the female narcissist, who excels at her craft in ways that would put any man to shame. To my knowledge, I am the sixth man to be so utterly devalued by this woman in about 20 years.I am going to say something here and I hope you will not be offended. In order for a narcissist to devalue a person, that person must voluntarily put himself in a position to be devalued. The key to dealing with narcissists is not to give them anything unless and until they earn it. Narcissists are born manipulators. They are unable to earn the respect and affection of others in the traditional, honest way.

Relationships between narcissists and intact, self-respecting people last about 30 seconds. Narcissists can only have enduring relationships with narcissistic enablers, and the relationship is parasitic.We'd all be wise to learn just enough about the tactics such people use, and to avoid them. I spent quite some time afterward supporting and being supported by others who had experienced the brutality of these sociopaths firsthand, and few could match my own experience for either her persistence or pure evil. I commend you for your insights, and I thank you for sharing them.This comes down to self-knowledge. Once one has sufficient self-knowledge, one avoids narcissists like the Plague. There's nothing that can be done for them, so you look after your own needs. The impulse to meet a narcissist's expectations is invariably the first chapter in a Greek tragedy.

You're the real narcissist!

Well you're certainly correct narcissists do like the internet, and, they also like feeling smart and, posting pictures of themselves and also creating a website about their superior knowledge.Actually, narcissists don't tend to post their own opinions at all, because the possibility exists that they will be proven wrong. Clinical narcissists are by definition always right, and they do this by aligning themselves with unimpeachable authority, not by posting their personal views.

If someone challenges the views of a narcissist, the latter responds by referring to the authority, and if that fails, he changes authorities. But he will never acknowledge the possibility of being wrong in a personal sense.

I am wrong regularly, and as a scientist I am more than willing to change my views based on new evidence. You don't have the intellectual training required to see that as a requirement for all legitimate intellectual discourse, or its association with idea creation and testing.

"Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new" — Albert Einstein.Narcissists tend to own websites and talk about themselves or at least talking a lot!Say again? Maybe a bit more time spent composing your messages will pay off in the long run.Welcome to humanity genius.This sort of prose normally follows an unimpeachable argument, but that argument is missing from your post.But remember I thought you didn't have any beliefs about psychiatry but when someone angers you you might as well half heartedly agree with it.Agree with what? The fact that psychiatry is not a science doesn't mean there are no mental conditions. Your position is like arguing with a racist by taking the position that there are no black people.I agree with some articles, but just noticed that no matter who you are you are flawedDo you seriously think the point is not to be flawed? Science doesn't argue that humans are not flawed, quite the opposite. If people were not flawed in diverse ways, there would be no point in a discipline like science to keep us honest. The existence of science represents confirmation of the existence of human flaws, including mine.

But you could find this out in the usual way, by reading, by becoming educated.and I have caught up with your articles for awhile now but gotta be honest.Does this represent a break with the past?I am not a New Ager, but believe in spirituality.This has no connection whatsoever with the present topic.Not all those people are bad,You have just used a word, and a concept, that I have never used in any of my articles.many actually make a difference and helpThat is a point I make explicitly in my articles — about psychologists, bartenders, astrologers and others. They all help their clients, just as a sugar pill, a "placebo," helps a medical patient under the right circumstances. And it is not the topic.then even Christians think they help others.Yes, of course, I have never taken any other position. You need to read more carefully and less emotionally.I disagree with your views on psychology,Based on the content of your post, you do not remotely understand my views on psychology. How did you miss the part where people are being jailed, lives ruined, on the basis of fantasies concocted by psychologists in the minds of their clients? How did you miss the part where bogus therapeutic methods sometimes kill people, people like Candace Newmaker?you don't understand a persons reasons for their choicesIn a political issue like this one, we don't need to understand the reasons, only the outcomes.you can't judge a person just by actions or beliefs.In point of fact, yes, one can judge a person based on his actions — this is the basis of all criminal law. Imagine defending a rapist by saying, "You can't judge a person based on his actions." I respectfully disagree.I don't see things through a rosy lens, I just have my personal experience to understand.Sadly noted. Maybe it's time for you to get an education, so you can comprehend something other than your subjective experience.

What you fail to realize is this issue comes down to — not emotion — but evidence. It is in the nature of evidence not to care how people feel about it.

Children of Narcissists

I just read your article about narcissistic people, in which you say the best way to deal with a narcissist is to get away from them before they destroy you. I am wondering what you would recommend to the young man with the narcissistic mother you spoke of. Well, because the person in question is a minor, he doesn't have a lot of options until he's 18, and the people around him (relatives, teachers and counselors) may make things worse by concealing basic facts from him, in part because of enormous social pressure to preserve the special relationship between parents and children.

I am quite militant about people like "Joan" because in my long life I've seen many examples of the harm they do. Narcissism is sufficiently malignant that the two obvious responses to the narcissist — acceptance and rejection — are both mistakes.

The reason they are both mistakes is because they represent a "false choice". If the child takes the first option and accepts the narcissist, he becomes an enabler, an accomplice, and this might create a lifelong pattern of behavior. And because he is not free to leave, the only way a child can reject the narcissist is to become a bigger narcissist himself.

For an adult, the third option — escape — is regarded as the only healthy decision, but this option is not available to a child. My mom is this type of narcissist. I am [ ... ] years old and she is now [ ... ]. She did ruin my life and it is true, she still is the same. There is very little support for the idea that narcissists ever change or evolve. There is no known cure or effective therapy. This is why getting away from them is the generally accepted solution. I did try to get away from her. I won't go into the many tactics she used, but she made me suffer a great deal. The only way I could end the suffering was to go along with what she wanted or leave my entire family. I could not bear being so alone without a family, so I caved. This clearly shows the false choice at work. But since you do see the problem, do you have any thoughts about what a person whose parent is like this might do? Getting away from a narcissist is an extreme example of the more normal process of becoming an adult, where a person establishes his own separate identity.

In normal circumstances, breaking away and entering adult life is a painful experience for both the parents and the child. It's sort of a second birth, where the birth canal is the front door of your parents' house.

In the special circumstance of a narcissistic parent, breaking away is more like escaping from a bear trap with a Swiss Army knife — you may have to leave some limbs behind. But not breaking away is worse, as I am sure you will agree.

My standard advice to young people with narcissistic parents is to be patient, hopeful and optimistic, avoid confrontations, become an adult, and leave.

Society won't normally allow families to be split up based on the pathology of the parents, because that would become a bigger social problem than the harm the parents do when given free rein. The problem is that narcissistic parents find this out, then they become incredible bullies and sadists, because they know society won't do anything about it.

Narcissistic parents were bullied and tortured when they were kids, now it's their turn. I discovered this generational angle when "Joan" tried to excuse her behavior by saying, "parents have always terrorized their children." It's true, but it's terribly sad, and fortunately it's not the only possibility.

To recognize that narcissists are damaged goods and cannot be reformed is the first step to recognizing the solution — break away, leave. Do not allow yourself to be talked into "helping" narcissists — they cannot be helped, and any support you give them only makes them worse, more demanding, more parasitic. By the way, that's one way to identify narcissists — they keep getting worse, while claiming to be getting better.

And this important warning. Do not engage narcissists with the intent to proactively reform them. They will stop at nothing to defend themselves against an effort to improve their functioning, and there is no behavior too vile or low for narcissists when they feel threatened by the prospect of personal change. I found this out the hard way.

How about more on this topic?

I read your article on Narcissism and saw that you had some odd responses, so I thought I would send you a positive reply. Your article is greatly appreciated. My father has NPD and I have read so many books on this topic, your article hit home. The lesson for me is so simple yet so true...that I can still be a giver without being an enabler. Red flags should arise when somebody will not take no for an answer, because normal people will accept others decisions. (and no for an answer) That's going to be my mantra from now on.

Anyway, I do not know if you are going to be writing more on Narcissism or not, but I ask that you will. We need educated, respectable people out there getting the word out to victims. Sounds weird, I know, but I have met so many people who have suffered so much because of Narcissism.

Thanks for the article.

You are certainly welcome. I think there are many more narcissists out there than present estimates would lead one to believe. I keep meeting them online and in person.

Apropos your request, I am planning to write more on this topic. I intend to create a "narcissism checklist" Web page, with a list of obvious narcissism warning signs, like:

All interpersonal interactions are about control, not communication.
Won't accept "no" in circumstances where a reasonable person would accept it.
Expects concessions from others that he would never grant to another.
Chronic asymmetry in relationships — takes but doesn't give, and doesn't feel uncomfortable about it.
Has no idea how his behavior looks to other people, and doesn't seem to care.
The "hypocrisy factor" — thinks he has rights and privileges that he won't grant to others.
Perpetual dissatisfaction, and no personal responsibility — "This isn't good enough, and it's your fault!" Whatever happens, no matter how positive, the narcissist finds a reason to declare it unsatisfactory, and to hold someone else responsible.
A constant effort to associate with unimpeachable authority, and the more powerful and distant the authority, the better.
A preference for plural pronouns in personal communications — "We aren't happy" is much preferred over "I'm not happy," even if it's necessary to invent the unhappy group.

This list is a work in progress. It will most likely become longer and more detailed.

My article about symmetry, located here —

http://arachnoid.com/symmetry

— contrasts itself with narcissism by examining normal relationships and how they become more balanced over time.

Thanks again for writing!