Originally posted in September 2007
From: CZBZ_1 (Original Message) Sent: 9/18/2007 9:48 AM Dear all,
Someone asked me the other day if I could give them ONE characteristic of the Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Because brevity is not my usual style (LOL), their question caught me by surprise.
On WoN, we try to be as thorough as possible by talking about Narcissism as 'unchangeable' (a la Vaknin) or as remediable (as current research is now postulating. This depends on the severity, of course).
If you had to sum up Narcissism in one sentence, how would you respond to the question: What is the number one indication of Narcissistic Personality Disorder?
It might also be interesting to talk about how each of us came to this conclusion from our personal experience.
Is Narcissism first detected by a lack of empathy? An inability to introspect? Lying, cheating, deceiving? Controlling others? Grandiosity? DSMIV Criteria
Love,
CZ
From: Cornfield10 Sent: 9/18/2007 11:09 AM I won't spend much time thinking about this question because I no longer need to dwell on the problem. The biggest detectible sign of narcissism is the compulsive lying, which accelerates over time, because it doesn't satisfy the person. The biggest problem living with narcissism is the lack of empathy because it is pretty difficult to live with someone who doesn't care about others and can't or won't learn to care.
You can learn to dismiss the lies over time because after you have checked out the facts you soon learn that everything that might impact your actions is a lie, and you can adjust your actions accordingly to save your plans. But living with a person who can't and won't care about others, especially you, the target, is actually dangerous.
That's it in a nutshell.
Cornfield
From: CZBZ_1 Sent: 9/18/2007 1:24 PM Cornfield, the one word I came up with to describe narcissism was HUBRIS.
I used to see my husbaNd as a man of great confidence (which is something I surely lacked when we met). He got me to do things I'd likely never have done without him pushing me forward. And that is the truth and one of the good things about our relatioNship.
Maybe other people viewed the narcissist as being self-confident, too; although what we were most likely seeing was Arrogance, not confidence.
Not until his self-confidence defied all reason, did the word HUBRIS come to my mind. LOL Later on, after learning about NPD, the term HUBRIS was replaced with a better description: Jack Azz.
So I guess we can tell people that if they are in relationship with a Jack Azz, they are more than likely dealing with a Narcissist.
Love,
CZ
From: Cornfield10 Sent: 9/18/2007 2:27 PM CZ, I can agree with what you describe. In my husband's case, I recognized early on that there was a mental condition that did not respond to any kind of therapy, kind or otherwise. Calling my husband a bad name would not further explain his condition nor would it help make anything better. That is why I resisted condemnation of his behavior.
He did not get up in the morning and decide to see how bad he could be. He couldn't react to life except in one consistent manner, and that made him mentally disordered, and unable to be helped in any manner. After years of practice he became obsessed with his condition and self-destructed. I will continue to refer to him as mentally disordered because I recognized the mental problem, except for the depression and the crying and complaining I did looking for relief and answers. I was able to hold my sanity together living with this problem because of my steadfast belief that I was dealing with dementia and mental illness.
To use the word Hubris in my case would be to criminalize his mental condition and until the last four years, he was not criminal in his attitude. Of course we now know that there are mentally disordered people who can decline into a criminal state.
That is what scared me; not the loss of responsible income, not the loss of accountability, not the lack of interest in others, but the fear of criminal behavior.
Psychopathy is the condition to fear.
Cornfield
From: czbz3 Sent: 9/18/2007 4:04 PM "That is why I resisted condemnation of his behavior." Ah, Corn. I shall always be subject to the emotional punch of a good metaphor. Jack Azz relays more information to the listener than 'mentally disordered' could say in 10,000 words. I find that most people glaze over if we try to be too accurate or clinical. When I say my X was a JackAzz, the conversation takes off in no time and people seem to 'Get It'. Everybody knows a jack azz but very few have even heard of narcissists (and most likely could care less about the DSMIV).
It's great you can be so straight forward and mentally objective about your your life partner, though. I still get angry that my X refused to get professional help even after numerous people encouraged him to do so. Perhaps I still suffer feelings of guilt for not being able to get through to him before he self-destructed. I dunno. Something new is always coming up for me to deal with but gosh! 34+ years is a very long time and the truth is, I really truly loved the man.
Love,
CZ
From: foofoogirliegirl007 Sent: 9/18/2007 4:15 PM "I still get angry that my X refused to get professional help even after numerous people encouraged him to do so." Well, he doesn't think there is anything wrong with him. Plus, as we have all learned, they don't know how to "help" these people as of yet.
"Perhaps I still suffer feelings of guilt for not being able to get through to him before he self-destructed." CZ, there is nothing you could have done. Please let go of the guilt. Shoot, even trained professionals cannot help these people.
"... the truth is, I really truly loved the man." We all truly loved them and that's why the journey is so hard. You never want to see a person you love self-destruct. I think we can all know that we did our best (can't ask for anything more than that) and we loved our N's. We have lost no dignity in that.
From: Cornfield10 Sent: 9/18/2007 9:38 PM CZ, I have to be true to my concern for mental illness and that is what holds me back from calling my husband a derogatory name. I have been a proponent and lived with the mentally ill and the mentally retarded, so I am soft on calling them names. All my life I have wanted to get help for people and respected that they had a problem.
That is a different attitude than blaming them totally for their problems. I now realize that my husband was to be blamed for his refusal to address his problems, but not all mentally disordered people are able to do that.
Had I left him the first month we were married and refused to return until I had better living conditions I may have been able to force some compliance out of him when he was young, as we were only 20 when we married. I do not believe he would have given up on me at that time, and that it would have been a little like the peanut butter cookies. He said he didn't eat them, but when I made them, he loved them.
Once the control was complete, there was no reasoning with him.
Although this sounds like I am making excuses for my husband's behavior, I feel that I am being true to my support and caring feelings for people who are mentally ill.
It is what kept me from hating him and chopping him up in little pieces in a fit of anger.
I knew I shouldn't be living with this deranged man, but I took the risk because I had enough strength to try everything. In the end, I was making plans to get out. I never reached the level of low self-esteem that some of you talk about because in my heart I knew that I had not done anything worse than nag or holler a few times in frustration. I never tried to get even with him. I spent a lot of time away from him.
His behavior really got interesting after I got past the crying stage, and I was curious to find out just how much he would decline. My doctor insisted I was living with Alzheimer's and I was anxious for an event so I could go before a judge if I had to explain a petition. I always felt I could adequately convince a judge of his mental condition because I had studied so hard and deserved the chance to "tell it to the judge" and get a guardianship and put him somewhere. Son was looking forward to putting him in a facility. Daughter wanted his driving privileges revoked but knew that I couldn't live with him if he was at home all day.
In my book, I would never call a person a Jack Azz because in the end he could not act any other way. Perhaps I was being a martyr, but it seemed the right thing to do.
I was keeping an animal in the house and learning from the experience.
I really thought he would need to be institutionalized soon if he had not died of cancer. I continued to urge him to get medical care when perhaps the sensible thing to do would have been to ignore him and hope he died sooner from neglect.
I satisfied my good conscience. I will carry that with me the rest of my life.
I feel that God is satisfied with my good fight for life.
Cornfield
From: VivaLaVicarious Sent: 9/18/2007 10:24 PM I haven't posted in quite some time, but I still read now and again. This thread caught my interest. I had a word for my Nx long before I knew what an "N" was...
Solipsist: A person who lives in a solipsism
Main Entry: so·lip·sism
Function: noun
Pronunciation: 'sO-l&p-"si-z&m, 'sä-
Etymology: Latin solus alone + ipse self
: a theory holding that the self can know nothing but its own modifications and that the self is the only existent thing
Question is... How could I have known that word and not realized what he is.
Btw, he lives on Jackass Hill here in Metro Denver. LOL I kid you not. People ask me, "Where does your Ex live?". I reply with a straight face, "Jackass Hill". They laugh, and say, "Mine too". I reassert, "Really, he live on Jackass Hill".
You can't buy that kind of irony.
From: lapin125 Sent: 9/18/2007 11:16 PM Arrogance. Extreme arrogance
Viva, solipsism-great word. I must remember that. Good SAT word or spelling bee word, lol.
Great address for an N. Thanks for sharing.
From: CZBZ_1 Sent: 9/19/2007 8:35 AM Thank you for the good laugh this morning, Viva! By the way, it's nice to hear from you again.
For me anyway, in my soplisistic world LOL, using a word like JackAzz takes the 'edge off' a little bit, too. Nothing helped me get back on my feet as much as laughing at the X's oh-so-serious-aNtics. Poking fun at his infidelity kept me from hanging myself from the rafters maybe. Once the word "Boink" became part of my lexicon, his arrogant pretense of 'making love to his (new) soulmate' got right down to the truth of the matter. He was BOINKING. He was not making love.
The words we use are like vehicles carrying emotions to the surface where they can be expelled in a good laugh, a good cry, a good biptch fest.
I love your donation to the thread today, VivA: SOLIPSISM. However, finding out that your X lives on JackAss Hill absolutely MAKES MY DAY! No matter what happens the whole rest of this next 12 hours, I'll be smilin'.
Thank you!
Love,
CZBZ
From: CZBZ_1 Sent: 9/19/2007 9:02 AM Dear Corn,
I admire your dedication to speaking about mental illness in a respectful manner. As you know, I live with two people who have bipolar and at first, we were overly cautious about saying anything at all for fear of hurting their feelings. After all, their condition is biological even though there are numerous things they can do to help themselves deal with a mood disorder. BUT....being too reverent was isolating them from a real life in a way. Nobody ought take themselves so seriously that people 'walk on eggshells' for fear of irreparably hurting their feelings. Especially not in our family since teasing and joking is how we relate to one another.
So in our household, we call my sis and her son the biPolar bears and it's amazing what a relief it is for all of us, actually. Some people might be horrified to hear us say such a thing but for us---it works. Of course, that means folks have pet names for me too since titts equal Tatts around this place and if we can't take it, we'd best not dish it out.
I know you're wondering what their nicknames are for me, aren't ya?
hehehe
Thanks for continuing the dialogue with me. I truly appreciate your viewpoint, Corn because you help me understand how my verbiage might impact other people. We tend to see the world through familial eyes and sometimes forget that what might be acceptable in our own family, is totally repugnant to others. I sure don't mean to offend folks with the way we poke fun at narcissists. But taking Ns too seriously makes matters worse.......After all, narcissists do know right from wrong and they do live in little bubbles of pretense that could use a pin-prick now and then. Nothing flattened the X's arrogance quite like laughing at him.
Besides, I have a different perspective on JackAzzes than I do people with mental illnesses like bipolar-bearism.
Loves,
CZ
P.S. Okay...I'll self-disclose and say that my daughter (34) calls me Co-dy. Only once I could laugh at myself was I able to Focus on the Good and Eradicate the Bad about my innate desire to please.
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