Morgue Official: The Man Who Never Grew Up

“The narcissist’s positive emotions come bundled with overpowering negative emotions, notably anger and envy. Rather than experience these, narcissists prefer to imitate emotions and affect. Still, when deprived of narcissistic supply or when narcissistically injured, the narcissist does exhibit a limited range of reactive and highly destructive emotions. Of course narcissists have emotions. All human beings have emotions. It is how we choose to relate to our emotions that matters. The narcissist tends to repress them so deeply that, for all practical purposes, they play no conscious role in his life and conduct, though they play an extraordinarily large unconscious role in determining both. Like everyone else, the narcissist goes through a cognitive phase which allows him to conceptualize, contexualize, and identify physiological reactions and behavioral patterns and label them as emotions. But unlike healthy people, narcissists, having labelled them, do not experience these emotions as well. In other words: the narcissist deduces the existence of emotions in others and in himself by gathering data and then analyzing their meaning and significance. He uses his intellect to answer the question: ‘what is happening (to me, to others)?’ He has no experiential correlates: he does not experience these emotions in others (because he has no empathy) or in himself (because, probably owing to past traumas, he has repressed them so effectively so as to permanently deny access to them). He, of course, is aware of his thoughts and knows that everyone calls these physiological and behavioral responses ‘feelings’, so he makes use of this common vocabulary. Everyone goes through a cognitive phase when they emote. (Cognition (thoughts, concepts, ideas) is never divorced from emotion. Conflict can be avoided by separating the cognitive content (for instance, a disturbing or depressing idea) from its emotional correlate. The subject is fully aware of the facts or of the intellectual dimensions of a problematic situation but feels numb.) Normal, healthy people are usually not cognizant or only dimly aware in passing of these underlying cognitions (thoughts). They fully experience their emotions, though. In contradistinction, narcissists and psychopaths are aware only of their cognitions and do not experience emotions (they have no emotional correlates).

 

Whenever the narcissist does experience emotions – rage, envy, sadness, craving, dependence – he lives to regret it. The narcissist’s emotions are invariably negative and frequently result in self-defeat and self-destruction. Gradually, the narcissist learns to withdraw ever deeper, to disengage ever more thoroughly, to numb and deaden himself, and to render himself a rigid robot-like zombie. The narcissist’s positive emotions come bundled with very negative ones. This is the outcome of frustration and the consequent transformations of aggression. This frustration is connected to the Primary Objects of the narcissist’s childhood (parents and caregivers). Instead of being provided with the unconditional love that he craved, the narcissist was subjected to totally unpredictable and inexplicable bouts of temper, rage, searing sentimentality, envy, prodding, infusion of guilt and other unhealthy parental emotions and behavior patterns.

 

The narcissist reacted by retreating to his private world, where he is omnipotent and omniscient and, therefore, immune to such vicious vicissitudes. He stashed his vulnerable True Self in a deep mental cellar – and outwardly presented to the world a False Self. But bundling is far easier than unbundling. The narcissist is unable to evoke positive feelings without provoking negative ones. Gradually, he becomes phobic: afraid to feel anything, lest it be accompanied by fearsome, guilt inducing, anxiety provoking, out of control emotional complements.

 

He is thus reduced to experiencing dull stirrings in his soul that he identifies to himself and to others as emotions. Even these are felt only in the presence of someone or something capable of providing the narcissist with his badly needed Narcissistic Supply. … The narcissist subjects his feigned emotions to his cognition. He ‘decides’ that it is appropriate to feel so and so. His ‘emotions’ are invariably the result of analysis, goal setting and planning. … The narcissist finds it hard to remember or recreate what he ostensibly – though ostentatiously – ‘felt’ (even a short while back) towards a Narcissistic Supply Source once it has ceased to be one. In his attempts to recall his feelings, he draws a mental blank. … To summarize, the emotional life of the narcissist is colorless and eventless, as rigidly blind as his disorder, as dead as he. He does feel rage and hurt and inordinate humiliation, envy and fear. These are very dominant, prevalent and recurrent hues in the canvass of his emotional existence. But there is nothing there except these atavistic gut reactions. … Whatever it is that the narcissist experiences as emotions – he experiences in reaction to slights and injuries, real or imagined. His emotions are all reactive, not active. He feels insulted – he sulks. He feels devalued – he rages. He feels ignored – he pouts. He feels humiliated – he lashes out. He feels threatened – he fears. He feels adored – he basks in glory. He is virulently envious of one and all. … Narcissism is an effort to contain the ominous onslaught of stale negative emotions, repressed rage, a child’s injuries.

 

Pathological narcissism is useful – this is why it is so resilient and resistant to change. When it is ‘invented’ by the tormented individual, it enhances his functionality and makes life bearable for him. Because it is so successful, it attains religious dimensions – it become rigid, doctrinaire, automatic and ritualistic. … Narcissism is ridiculous. Narcissists are pompous, grandiose, repulsive and contradictory. There is a serious mismatch between who they really are, their true accomplishments, and how they regard themselves. The narcissist doesn’t merely THINK that he is far superior to others. The perception of his superiority is ingrained in him, it is a part of his every mental cell, an all-pervasive sensation, an instinct and a drive.

 

He feels that he is entitled to special treatment and to outstanding consideration because he is such a unique specimen. He knows this to be true – the same way one knows that one is surrounded by air. It is an integral part of his identity. More integral to him than his body.

 

This opens a gap – rather, an abyss – between the narcissist and other humans. Because he considers himself so special and so superior, he has no way of knowing how it is to be human, neither the inclination to explore it. In other words, the narcissist cannot and will not empathize. … It leads to ruthlessness and exploitativeness. Narcissists are not ‘evil’ – actually, the narcissist considers himself to be a good person. Many narcissists help people, professionally, or voluntarily. But narcissists are indifferent. They couldn’t care less. They help people because it is a way to secure attention, gratitude, adulation and admiration. And because it is the fastest and surest way to get rid of them and their incessant nagging. … The narcissist may realize these unpleasant truths cognitively – but there is no corresponding emotional reaction (emotional correlate) to this realization. There is no resonance. It is like reading a boring users’ manual pertaining to a computer you do not even own. There is no insight, no assimilation of these truths.

 

Still, to further insulate himself from the improbable possibility of confronting the gulf between reality and grandiose fantasy (the Grandiosity Gap) – the narcissist comes up with the most elaborate mental structure, replete with mechanisms, levers, switches and flickering alarm lights.

 

Narcissism isolates the narcissist from the pain of facing reality and allows him to inhabit the fantasyland of ideal perfection and brilliance.”