Narcissist's Jigsaw Puzzle
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- Опубликовано: 22 апр 2021
- The thing that amazes me the most about narcissists is the DISCONNECTS, the disparities, incongruities, and discrepancies.
Between their self-awareness and the utter lack of transformative insight
Between their often towering intelligence and their ubiquitous pseudo-stupidity
Between the sagacious wisdom which many of them possess and display - and their pervasive inanity
Between their goal-orientation and their ultimate and ineluctable failures
Between their non-existent positive emotions and their disproportionate negative ones
Between their innate emptiness and their prodigious creativity
Between their ability to emulate love and their inability to consummate it
Between their unmitigated self-sufficiency and their total dependence on others (for narcissistic supply, as parental figures in a shared fantasy, etc.)
The cognitive-linguistic-analytical capacity of a brilliant man or woman coupled with the unboundaried emotional immaturity, impulsivity, reactance, and pseudo-naivety of a child aged 8-11.
Harvey Cleckley called it the “Mask of Sanity”.
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The puzzle analogy is one of the most relatable things I've ever heard about narcissism. It often feels like someone is presenting themselves as a puzzle to be solved. But as you inevitably learn, the lack of real introspection and growth means that this is really a facade to gain empathy
Well put, Rasmus.
My narcissist is one of the most intelligent and self aware people I've ever known. But his absolute lack of self accountability ruins his relationships. And he is conscious of this. We both call him an idiot. He seems so fractured. One of the wisest and most empathetic people and as cold as ice in the flip of a switch. Depending upon his needs. Similar to a selfish child. Emotionally stunted despite awareness. The intelligence only allows him to add to his mask. And inevitably he lights fire to anything good that comes his way.
Wonderfully expressed
It's like they are cursed with a low vibration and once they start to feel to happy or stable it becomes to unfamiliar and risky to the current chaos that seems to be working and they self sabotage in one way or an other.
Is it possible he's not a Narcissist? And maybe he has some other disorder, condition or trauma?
@@86sineadw he has multiple conditions and traumas. Diagnosed by multiple doctors with schizoid pd, NPD, antisocial pd, paranoid pd, and a sprinkling of magical thinking with schizotypal. He is the most traumatized human being I know of. And I love him.
@cyber SURVIVOUR move FORWARD he might break my heart from time to time but I've never felt in danger. Not even a little bit. Hes the most traumatized person I know and tends to be a defender of underdogs because of it. I cant imagine him being a danger to anyone.
I used to think that the narcissist in my life had some sort of rare, atypical learning disorder. I never considered emotional disability, as he was always so neutral.
Yes I thought that too…cos his language and reading skills were so rudimentary
Exactly! I'm getting headaches trying to understand this disorder, it only brings dispair and sleepless nights, yet I never reach the satisfying logical explanation why a person would be so insane...
Positive emotion is more dangerous, when happy you trust, narsissist can not trust
@@fdevlin5932 my guess is that they once trusted but they were betrayed and humiliated. So they learned not to trust in other people
Weird…mine claimed in a rage that I didn’t trust him. (perhaps projection).
..."nothing transforms a narcissist"...wow!...being a daughter of a narcissist, I would often bounce between hopefullness and futility...that he would act on his grandiose spouting of what true transformation is... wielding his worldly (and often spiritualistic) view...only to see that he is always reaching, desperately, to something he can never attain. He is empty of self. He lectures but can't live it. And leaves me in his wake, useful for a moment, then back to his delusions.
Mine used to go on a spiel about how everyone should just stay home from work and take care of each other. One person grows this and shares. Someone has eggs and shares. It was an extremely short sighted plan. But it made me think he was a caring person who wanted to be part of a community that cares for each other. Soon I realized he couldn't even be kind to the people in his own household let alone the nearby community because he became hateful of everyone even me. It just took longer than his hatred for the rest but it came.
Emotions are a heuristic for logic.
If you can't tap into and understand your feelings, there are a myriad of situations in which you will fall short in the practical application of intellect, regardless of IQ.
👏👏👏👏👏💖💖
The narcissist can play a part and then drop it. This way they are not held responsible for anything, good or bad that was generated by playing the part.
This, a thousand times this. The narcissistic person is a walking contradiction. The victim's confusion & self-doubt is in large part caused by this reality. We try to understand the narc, and we try to be understood, and we only grow more & more confused bc we are trying to make sense of the insensible. We are trying to integrate that which cannot be integrated.
That's so true...you can drive yourself nuts trying to solve a puzzle that cannot be solved!
Thank you for this. After the discard I spent months trying to sort reality from fiction, so that I could come out the other side in possession of my own sanity. I slowly realized her incredibly traumatic childhood, along with the resulting CPTSD and BPD/NPD, wasn't something I would have ever been able to love her out of. Every single thing you said in this video hits home in a very familiar way. I'm on my feet again. It's time to keep going.
Over time you realize how bad it must really be for her, and there is no chance you could even come close to loving her enough. Hard to imagine that your mom and dad instead of loving you were beating you and were a constant source of stress and fear.
@@marktalksmoney1956 True. Sometimes difficult to remember given her behaviors. She has no awareness about how poorly she actually treats people, only 100% awareness that she was treated poorly as a child.
He loves the rendering of love, creating and activating love patterns ( reaction ) in his partner , than not consuming fully into the relationship thus creates a reliable source of narc supply
Funny how the Dr. Answers his own questions.
The narc is empty thus is able to resonate other creators and creation within himself ( inner combination ). Plus his immaturity makes the narc able to take action boldly without any second thought. Plus the void in himself makes him adopt ideas that don't belong to him thus never takes responsibility on the consequences ( immaturity )
So true.
That does help, after having a narcissist boss it was mind-boggling for a while. The behavior and comments he would make just made no sense for someone trying to lead a team to a positive solution. I could never figure out exactly what the goal was of the behavior but I'm slowly realizing I'm never going to be able to understand it all.
Thank you Dr. Vaknin. This articulates so clearly the contradictions and pseudostasis of my amazing, hopeless beloved
Jz B B
Its all about emptiness... sometimes its a void, other times its extension... when art is created its extended and big part of creation... other times its just a tool for source of supply... but this neutral emptiness is a big part of narsisist.... just my thought.... thank you!!!!!!!
I think this could be the reason for my feeling of "beeing home" with a narcissist. It may sounds spooky for people without the disorder, but if there is not a lot of them inside them.. well.. then there is more space for me, which hasn´t got a lot of "me, too. You get in because there is enough room for it. You and the other person are sharing the same space and maybe that`s what creates the closeness. At least between two narcissists. This just came to my mind a few minutes ago. Havn´t thought about it enough, probably, but it is a starting point at least. Thanks for your work, Professor! :)
Same. To begin with anyway, I always felt at home and relaxed around narcissists. They mirror.
Perhaps a very creative child who grew up in a very emotionally ‘heavy’ environment channels emotions through his/her creativity their entire life rather than burdening themselves with having to live them? So their is a brilliant cognitive understanding and release of emotions all in the realm of the mind. Living from a distance - internally - vicariously through their art. Too painful otherwise? Like abrogating responsibility of life for life due to very early childhood trauma
Perhaos the narcissist rely on the gaze of others, like a mother's gaze. Their reaction to him is how he sees himself?
The same gaze the narc uses to search for supply is now the same gaze that he needs as an addiction for supply and mortification.
👏true
When they look into your eyes they are searching for your "liking" towards them yeah..
What sets apart initiated love from consumated love is the (lack of) self. You can initiate love, pretend to be in love, it is still a one way street (Aquiring a supply partner). You know how love looks, it is going through the motions at that phase, experience and feedback. Once it is to become a two way street it stops, because the acts of the other party don't land, they fall in the abyss, it becomes scattered.
Yes, it’s always one sided.
Wow, thanks for this insight and explications. Clear but sad.... all this makes really sense! "My" narcissist friend is highly intelligent and i never understood how these "2 intelligences" can coexist - But this video sums up his stupid, mean and incomprehensible immature emotional behaviour.
Professor, all your programs are amazing, but this one is by far the best!!!!!!! Makes you think about something that is unthinkable..... I have seen this, witness the whole beauty and ugliness of this disorder on my own skin... a person of art, poetry, creativity that can't be faked, and than the ugly truth.... unbelievable!!!!!! If there is no self who created art and poetry?????? What if hall of mirrors are not in the mins but in countisness that lives in emptiness???? Only questions:))))))))))))))
Absolutely fantastic delineation and perspective Sam that we can apply to so many people around us
. Fundamentally if somebody does not grow up with the balanced care and love and attention they need they will be some version of psychopathic narcissistic some degree of it This accounts for such a high percent of people
"The fool who persists in his folly will surely become wise"
Just a guess by a person on the fence of whether or not they are a Narc the stopping in love is due to the performance being tiring requiring more vulnerabilities then they are willing to share or no longer fulfills the “Rush” a new relationship would bring them
Perhaps the creativity of the inner child that free of expectations or norms just like some kids just suddenly create something that adult normally would not even think or consider?
Yes, mine was very intelligent, wealthy, hard working, had been a CEO, etc, but continued to fail at personal romantic relationships. He can only do them short term or FWB. I found out the hard way. He had lived alone for 20 years and prided himself on independence but he was never without supply. Now 70 years old so may get more difficult.
Thank you Dr. Vaknin
I recently read Erich Fromm’s, ‘Heart of Man - His genius for Good and Evil’. In a nutshell, one of the primary discussion points is the daily decision that human beings have to make re ‘choosing’ to be nested in a necrophiliac (death loving) psyche state, or its opposite, ‘life’ loving. Pain is pleasure, pleasure is pain to a necrophiliac. It feels ‘demonic’ on some level. And yes, I’m fully aware of how loaded a term that is, but to ‘choose’ to inflict pain, suffering and evil over love, joy, grace etc is...well, I really don’t know wtf it is!!!! It’s terrifying though that these people are out there. Preying on not only other people, but also on the capacity within themselves to express the potential for ‘goodness’ and whole hearted living. It’s like they are locked in their own personal hell realm. Wow, 😂, I can’t get away from the use of religious metaphors today! They do make me feel like I need to hold a crucifix up to their faces though, whilst exorcist like bellowing, ‘leave this place and do no harm’. 😏🤣🙏🏻 Oof, I’m minimising here...these feckers are a breed apart. And now I’m thinking of Scott M Peck’s book, ‘People of the Lie’. He talks about the skin crawling revulsion that these empty souls invoke in us when we’re forced to humour and manage their darkness in our lives. Ugh, WHAT are they???????????
Your channel is exactly what I need in so many aspects of life right now. I enjoyed how you explained intelligence and how/why we measure it. That's the topic that I am currently studying for a degree. The rest is just what I'm studying for fun and personal growth. Thanks as always for your videos .
I don't know if this will mean anything to you Sam, but I've puzzled similarly for quite some time on these matters. You expressed befuddlement at the narcissists inability to understand himself despite, say for example, his creative ability. As someone trained as a musician and composer first and foremost I have reflected many times over the years on this inexplicable inspiration we, as artists, commonly feel. As such, I would suggest that, in a strange way, the narcissists inner fragmentedness actually aids in creativity. Whether you agree or not, my belief is that anything repressed and beneath awareness, takes on a life of its own. As such, the feelings/creative forces themselves gain a certain power over an individual when they are in a narcissistic state. I'm not suggesting that every creative person is a narcissist in the clinical sense, but it is certainly true that many artists (including myself) do not fully understand the processes going on in the background when they're in the act of creation. I can't speak for other artists specifically, but I absolutely feel that when I'm in the act of creation, something in me is changing. Almost in a primordial, alchemical sense.
I'd be curious to know what you think of this anyway :) Let me know if there's anything you'd like me to clarify.
I would like you to search my channel for my videos on art and artists.
Yes, on the one hand he is mthimatical and strategic genius who can calculate money matters very fast he remembers tons of numbers and dates about his contracts over the years but at the same time can't feel my emotions at all. He can't understand that no one wants to be with such a dead inside person, he believes he is very decent to be with, that any woman will be happy to have such a man. His eyes are cold and empty. When he was sending he selfies (when I demanded) he was making faces, never a straight and normal expression... I couldn't understand why.... Now i know he was scared that i might see his emptiness and pretence
A lack of common sense and emotional intelligence.
lol so true so true just constructs soul less
Sam I don't know if you reply here. I absolutely love your work by the way, you are quite a unique individual. I've been wondering about something which scares me quite a bit, and I thought if anyone has a good answer to this it would be you. Maybe you have a video discussing this that I haven't seen? So here's my question:
What do you think we are going to see over the next 30-40 years when the children of millennials start to grow into adulthood? By millennials I mean the current generation of young people who are the most entitled, immature and narcissistic generation we perhaps have ever seen in the west. The Cardi B, Justin Bieber, Instagram, TikTok, Jersey Shore, Onlyfans generation. The generation for whom social media is more real than real life. I am very worried about the capacity of this generation to be nurturing and responsive parents, when they (or we, I should say, I'm 25 so..) themselves are, for the most part adult children, very low emotional intelligence, and sort of, narcissists by proxy (due to social media and awful, awful cultural values, as opposed to lack of shame repair in infancy).
How will the Twitter generation raise their children? And what can we expect to see when this children are in their 20's-30's?
Is it conceivable that the emotions are still there but the brain mislabels them? Like data cables plugged into the wrong port or all the cables are plugged into the same port with a multi adapter and the brain believes it is choosing the appropriate emotion selection not knowing it's drawing the same one for every thought. When the brain reflects, it can only verify that it made the right choice.
Watch my vids on narcissists and emotions.
Sorry wasn't clear. . I meant as a potential explanation for this disconnect. If a healthy brain uses intellect combined with emotional (interpersonal) experience to develop common sense and wisdom, could the narcissists brain actually develop all the same processes leading to the same common sense and wisdom, but all based upon incorrect data. Like the video where one person sees red, the other green, but both know it as red.
Hi Sam, I would like to plant an idea. I've read some books by Oliver Sacks, physician, professor, author and neurologist. And in his books he writes about the brain creating it's own sounds, visions when it is depleted by some condition. Could the enormous creativity of some narcissists be the consequence of the disconnects, the scatteredness? A way to fill the gaps?
Could be. But WHO is doing the creating? And works of art, for example, require access to emotions and empathy. Where do these come from in a narcissist?
The brain itself. I'll translate a piece - They were, I answered, not psychotic but neurological hallucinations, so-called 'release'-hallucinations. Because of her deafness the auditory part of the brain, deprived of it's usual supply, had begun to generate a spontaneous activity of its own, taking mainly the form of musical hallucinations, mostly musical memories of the past. (Musicophilia. Tales of Music and the Brain, 2007) I think it is like the energy that has to go somewhere, when it is limited by abuse. The brain adapts. Also, I don't believe you need emotion to create, a public will do. As a baby/toddler I was already able to draw a stick figure and got praise from my mother. And later at family gatherings. I got better at drawing until I left school. I don't draw for myself. I drew for the praise, to be better than the rest, and I was good at it. Last time I put paint on a canvas was three years ago at a party from work were I had a public. - Also works of art, once they're are on the outside, you can see the construction. I have trouble putting things in order in my mind, but a drawing, once it's on the paper, is kind of my extended memory.
@@samvaknin Also the narcissist is a performer, they get love when they perform. It is an extreme form of codependency (your own words). - It is trained/abused into them from an early age to be able to perform, their lives depend upon it.
@@samvaknin Also, you create. I don't see the difference between writing a book about narcissism, designing a building, or making a work of art. It's just personal preference. You express what suits you, what you're good at.
The narcissist I know is successful investor but he can’t keep long time relationships. Not even with his own children. He doesn’t care about anybody but himself. He clearly doesn’t have enough capacity to hold a family but he doesn’t seem to care. He is fine with it, sometimes, I believe even “proud”.
interesting ideas. . an abstract conceptualist!? who thinks in pictures Not words! does not know what he is looking for nor how to look for it!? of the moment, no past an the future has not arrived, . now. . . an now. . . an now! that feeling we call being alive???
How is it possible they change behavior when going to prison (due to the presumed fear they have of imminent death when behaving badly). You touched on this in a previous video but i don't understand. Likewise why can't they choose "love?"
Fear modifies behaviors. Love is not a choice: it is a complex of emotions.
@@samvaknin I have to choose love. If someone wrongs me, I first feel anger, but I have to grow and choose love if I want to move past it.
Dear Vaknin,
I admire you and your videos. And although you say narcissists are toxic, I think life would be boring without them. You say people have to take distance from them because they are like a Tornado but what is if I want inside it? I think people the same kind as you, I mean narcissists, are perfect for people like me to motivate us to become the best version of ourselves. I was able to have this experience with the help of your videos. ♡
Where can I find a goldmine of a woman like you? Bonus points if she is attractive, young and gullible to the maximum.
Yours truly,
just a "harmless" covert narcissist
If the narcissist is so dependent, what is the point of the discard? I did watch your other videos professor Vaknin, and kind of understand the working of the devaluation and discard phases.. yet I can't really get past the narcissist's stupidity of pushing away the very thing they want or need so much..
Control. They want to abandon and reject you before you do it first. Not saying you can’t discard them, as I did. As children they were abandoned and rejected by one or both parents which created the false self. They are very dependent, hence, why they are always on the hunt. They are predators and have an insatiable appetite for supply. Which leads to the answer to your question, no person, place or thing will ever fill the void. They live in a fantasy land, no one is home!
They are rejecting, or abandoning, their "dead" (absent or cold) mother. Plus, others will either find new supply or the discarded supply has run its course or soured
Can someone answer my question. Can the level of narcissism increase and if so what is the trigger? An affair an ego boosting job?
Watch the vid about situational narcissism.
Thank you. My husband who I now believe is a covert narcissist left me for a year to move to SE Asia to be in charge of a new Plant and this is spot on..
What happened to Minnie? Did you dump her?
Yes, she was a bitch.
She cheated on me with many mugs, hanging out in the local dishwasher. But I still have a soft spot for her. we had many warm and fluid moments together. Sometimes, she is positively hot.
at 17:30 he says something I can't make out what he said...."At the L-SOMETHING and grooming phase of the shared fantasy"....what is the word he is saying?
Lovebombing
@@samvaknin thank you so much! I really appreciate it
So basically, he doesn’t get along with himself. If he’s fragmented & the pieces cannot be reconciled. A form of DID?
Does the Narcissist Have a Multiple Personality (Dissociative Identity Disorder)?
groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/NARCISSISTIC-PERSONALITY-DISORDER/mxA7tQxS68U
@@samvaknin Thank you for your response. I’ve read every paragraph but didn’t click on links to continue reading. However, I plan to read each link as I am convinced that I’ve married a narcissist who has sudden irrational mood swings & at least two separate personalities.
Hi Sam, what happens when a narcissist is poor and unattractive ?
Because I know narcissist wants to feel powerful and look at the world in a hierachical way. Wouldn't it be contradictory if they are poor or unattractive.
He would consider himself a genius and irresistible. Watch the vids about grandiosity.
@@samvaknin OK thx, will check it out!