WHAT MAKES NARCISSISTS TICK

Understanding Narcissistic Personality Disorder
(NPD -- malignant narcissism)

In this painting by John William Waterhouse, we see a portrait of the malignant narcissist. He is someone totally absorbed in how he looks, sounds, seems. That's all that matters to him. Nothing else gets any of his attention.

What's so malignant about that? Look, who - or what - is he making love to? Not his lover, that's for sure.

What does this mean? It means that, unlike normal people, his actions don't express himself. Ever. Even in an intimate moment like this. To the contrary, he does everything solely for effect, while studying his reflection, to perfect how he looks, sounds, seems.

And so, in this interaction, the other party might as well not even be there as far as he's concerned. Look, he is getting 100% of Echo's attention without paying her one bit in return. Her breaking heart might as well be a twig breaking for all he cares.

So, something is obviously lacking in this parasite. It's that something that normally keeps the members of a species from regarding each other as food.

So that the narcissist can think he seems grand, he must make you seem insignificant by comparison. This is why malignant narcissists act as though it would kill them to compliment you, to thank you for anything, to tell you they love you, to listen to you, to say they're sorry for something, to give you credit for being right about anything, to put their arm around you, to take an interest in anything you do . . . and let's just cut to the chase: they act like it would kill them give you one bit of gratification. They won't even look at you: they pay more attention to a fly on the wall.

They gotta have it all, you see. Nobody ever taught them to share.

But treating you like you're nothing is just one of many ways they act out their fantasy that they are so grand that you are dirt under their feet. So, look out. Delusions of grandeur are hard to maintain and are constantly challenged by reality.

For example, do you have a fine reputation? Look out, that threatens the narcissist's delusion that he is the greatest, so he'll have to fix that fine reputation of yours. Do you excel at something? Look out, that threatens the narcissist's delusion that he is the greatest, so he'll have to sabotage your work. Do you have an outstanding personal virtue? Look out, that threatens the narcissist's delusion that he is the greatest, so he'll have to drag your virtue through the mud, attributing it to himself while he portrays it in you as a vice.

Yes, Pathological Envy is one of his middle names.

But treating others like nothing and destroying them aren't the only ways narcissists act out their fantasy and maintain their delusions of grandeur. Those delusions evaporate without constant reinforcement, so a malignant narcissist needs to prove he's God Almighty by trampling someone about as frequently as most other predators need to make a kill.

It's just more of the same. So that the narcissist can think he seems grand, he must crush you like a bug underfoot. Therefore, if you are down and out, look out, you're going to get kicked. Can he get away with abusing you behind closed doors? Look out. And if you try to complain, you'll be sorry, because he'll have the whole world conned ahead of time into viewing you as the malicious one who's imagining things.

Yes, Diabolo is another one of his middle names.

Malignant narcissists are everywhere - in politics, the arts, medicine, Hollywood, teaching, business, law enforcement, the clergy, and the assembly line. The smart ones make great climbers.

The typical brutal dictator, like Nero, Saddam Hussein, Josef Stalin, and Aloph Hitler, is or was a malignant narcissist. (They acted out how grand they were by trampling people by the millions.) But so is the typical street con artist, often described by law enforcement officials as the most sadistic of criminals in the art of mental cruelty. Pedophile priests are usually diagnosed as malignant narcissists. Serial bullies, serial adulterers, gold-diggers, love thieves. Character Assassin is every narcissist's middle name. Rapists, child abusers, serial killers. In fact, all psychopaths are malignant narcissists, but whether all malignant narcissists are psychopaths is still being debated.

As you can see from that list, even those who cross the legal line into physical or sexual violence are getting their kicks mainly out of mental cruelty.

In short, malignant narcissists are predators who hunt easy prey to plunder them in one way or another, mainly for ego gratification. Because they have to feel greater than you, they are competing with you for every bit of it. Any you get, they view as rightly belonging to them. So, they gotta take it away.

Your self respect. Your good name. Your success.

This is the mentality that stands out so glaringly in the rapist: from the gutter, they gotta tear you down off that pedestal and treat you like dirt to prove they're better than you.

That ain't natural. It ain't natural to hate innocence. It ain't natural to attack people who are no threat to you and have done you no harm. It ain't natural to treat the other members of one's own species as prey. But psychopaths and malignant narcissists do.

Most of them get their jollies without leaving visible bite marks in their victims. Most never push the envelope of risk-taking to the point of violent crime. Instead they drive lovers, children, employees, schoolmates all the way to suicide through mental cruelty calculated to deliver sadistic emotional and psychological abuse. They cross the line into physical or sexual violence only when they think they can get away with it and when safer forms of treating people like dirt no longer deliver the high they are addicted to.

Whether by choice or not, psychopaths and malignant narcissists are able to do this because they have no human feeling whatsoever for anyone. Except themselves: they have very, very tender feelings for themselves. But none for anyone else, not even their own children. They view human beings as objects, tools, to exploit for their gratification, to perfect that image of theirs that they are so obsessed with.

So, for example, if telling people that you beat your wife makes a malignant narcissist look better than you, he will do so without a second thought or pang of conscience. What's it to him if that damages you and makes a social outcast of you?

For, like a child of three, he doesn't relate to other people: he treats you like a screw driver there for him to use or abuse for his sake. He disregards the consequences to you, because he refuses to grow up and know that there is a thinking, feeling person inside other people and that they exist for their own sakes, not his. So your rights and feelings and welfare are no of consideration to him whatsoever. He'll break you just lightly as he'd stomp an ant.

Never forget that for a moment. Forgetting it is as dangerous as walking into a hungry tiger's cage forgetting that he is predator.

Narcissists and psychopaths often try to hide this brutal inhumanity and total lack of empathy by mimicking human emotions, often melodramatically. They are extremely sneaky and manipulative, mainly because they've been practicing these arts nonstop from about the age of six.

Unless they are so powerful they needn't hide what they are, they go to great lengths to portray themselves as the very opposite of what they are. They are pathological liars who tell bizarre lies. They often react to things in a bizarre way that makes you pinch yourself. Yet despite these warning signs that there is something wrong with them, and despite the mental maturity level of a little child before the Age of Reason, they almost always pass for normal.

One-to-three in every 20 people you meet are malignant narcissists. If they sucker you into getting too close and then rip your guts out, it isn't because of anything you did or anything about you they don't like: it's just because you were there and vulnerable (unable to defend yourself).

This doesn't have to happen. We have only to face the fact that people like this are out there and follow our instincts, paying heed to the warning signs of bad faith, using common sense in deciding whom to trust and believe. For, the good news about predators is that when they see you're suspicious, they head off in search of easy prey - you know, that sucker they say is born every minute.

The purpose of this Website, blog, and book is to help the average person understand a mental illness about which little has been written for a general audience. It describes and explains malignant narcissism in plain English with everyday examples, in a way that is clear and meaningful to the average person. You will find many examples of narcissistic behaviors and learn why people with Narcissistic Personality Disorder act the way they do.

If this is your first visit to "What Makes Narcissists Tick," please visit this brief introduction.

The rest of "What Makes Narcissists Tick" online is divided into ten main sections:

What is NPD?
Red Flags of Narcissism
The Essence of Narcissism
The Danger of Narcissism
Meet the Narcissist: A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing
In the Looking Glass
The Narcissist's Strategy
The Credibility of What You hear about NPD
Must I Leave Him/Her?
The Important Stuff.

The book "What Makes Narcissists Tick" has much more. The blog gives you an opportunity to share your own insights and experience in dealing with narcissists.
(editor's note: Kathy's book may no longer be available since her death; the link to her original blog, as long as it lasts, is here. This site is a mirror.)
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