Oneself: Overcoming Narcissistic Abuse (ePub)

It was a bizarre sight, even for a McDonald's drive-thru: a white Jeep sitting about four feet from the order sign. The vehicle before it had ordered and moved forward, leaving plenty of space for the Jeep driver to advance. Of course (as always seems to be the case in this situation), the Jeep headed a long line of waiting vehicles.

Thus, I waited for an appropriate amount of time for those possibilities to play out. They did not. I looked more closely, astonished to see the Jeep driver looking forward while talking to his passenger. He knew he needed to move up. Yet, he didn't. This was so unusual that I decided to just watch. Here the Jeep sat, not able to order what it so clearly had come to McDonald's to order, whatever that might be. His wish would simply not materialize in this moment, and he would continue to deny any vehicles behind him to just grab some breakfast and move forward. In fact, the driver in this vehicle appeared to not be engaged in anything that would facilitate progress.

Why the hell would someone do this? What could they possibly want?

What he wanted, much more than a coffee, was our attention. He had no care whatever of how he might be inconveniencing others with his strange behavior. This was a game, and we were his playthings. He would not let us eat until we noticed him on terms of his choosing. Only when he got that would he conduct himself appropriately. In this case, any attention qualified. It didn't matter to the individual that I reacted negatively. This person was not as busy, or immersed, as he pretended to be. The moment was only about what he wished and how he would get it.

That's how narcissists behave. Before the reader guffaws and dismisses the relevance of it, consider how many people exhibit socially-selfish behaviors that cross so many boundaries to disrespect. Their wishes trump all else, they fantasizing about their omnipotence, and importance. How many such people appear to have no reason whatsoever, that we can observe, for possessing such glorification of self? In fact, I would bet a hypothetical dollar that your own reaction to these people has often been, "Dead beat." That would constitute a natural, healthy reaction.

The man in the Jeep may have been a mild narcissist. Maybe he was actually nice but could display a dysfunctional degree of selfishness once in a while. In that case, it is clearly best to just dismiss the childishness and continue.

However, this book exists to define narcissism as a 21st-Century plague-in-the-making. Whether the individual is a closet nuisance, or a pathological destroyer of lives, humanity must recognize the potential of this societal scourge. Not all narcissists destroy lives, but they all make life harder for the rest of us. They feel completely entitled to do so, because they actually believe that they are innately superior to others. As the condition moves from mild to pathological on the continuum, narcissists represent a real threat to our happiness. Perhaps one way to access, and assess, the presence of narcissism is to evaluate the presence of unhealthy selfishness around us.

When a person pushes others' buttons for attention, without any empathy at all, how can the individual be more kind? If the narcissist feels innately superior, how will he treat any other person as an equal, one whose needs are worth considering? How does he rehabilitate when his fantasy is his reality? Victory lies in the depth of wisdom. It always has. Narcissism is a psychological construct; wisdom is an organic component of reality. Acknowledge your own fears, and you transcend your narcissist. Act on depth, and you insure yourself against narcissistic exploitation.