Narcissism - Psychological Causes

Psychological Causes

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Many believe that the curse of malignant narcissism is transmitted from generation to generation through narcissistic abuse of a child, especially before the age of reason. Though my own observations suggest an element of free will in the equation, no little child should be expected to deal with that and choose the right path.

A word of caution in jumping to the conclusion that parents are to blame, however. Narcissistic personality disorder hasn't been studied nearly as thoroughly as its near neighbor, psychopathy. In fact, recent study has brought into question whether they are distinct. Of course only a small subset of all psychopaths have been studied — mainly those in the prison population = those who have committed violent crimes and gotten caught. But leading researchers in psychopathy say that they sometimes come from fine homes.

So, what do we make of this? Anyone who has grown up in a home with a narcissistic parent knows that, to all outward appearances and as far as anyone on earth knows, it's an idyllic home. But inside it's Hell.

So, these researchers could be wrong: psychopaths/narcissists could all be coming from abusive homes. But not all the children from those homes turn out abnormal. So, there definitely is an element of choice in the matter. Indeed, if childhood abuse caused NPD, there would be almost no normal children of narcissists.

What's more, strange things do occasionally happen. Take the case of Ted Bundy, for example. He was born of a young unwed mother and raised as her brother, believing that his grandparents were his parents. This was because it was a great shame to have an illegitimate child back then. And doubtless that showed in his grandparent-parents' and sister-mother's faces. They probably didn't look at this infant as a bundle of joy bestowed on their lives. Moreover, what does this deception do to him when he finds out the truth? His real father rejected him. And so did his mother, didn't she? Yes, if she denied being his mother, she rejected him as her child. Ouch!

She didn't mean to, but she did. Not exactly "abuse," is that? But it was bound to give him a narcissistic identity crisis. (What Bundy says to psychologists of his grandfather-father sounds like the description of a malignant narcissist, but you can't take Bundy's word for any of that. Narcissists lyingly blame their parents as easily as they blame anyone else for their problems.)

In any case, two roads diverge in a wood when the time for choosing how to deal with it comes: some children choose one path, and some choose the other. Obviously, the more narcissistic the parents are, the more tempted down the wrong path a child will be.

It leads to Never Never Land (the land of a child's Magical Thinking), where he goes to lick his wounds. He never leaves.

His own guilt keeps him imprisoned there. It's the "demon at the door" that won't let him turn his life around and escape this runaway freight-train ride.

Why? Stop and think for a moment what kinds of things the budding little narcissist does to prop up his ego, to make himself feel grand and strong and important. He does what his narcissistic parent taught him to do, what the schoolyard bully taught him to do: hit on and disregard someone smaller. That makes you mighty. So, he does things like kick the puppy aside, right?

Here comes Puppy, running up to him with its eyes bright and tail wagging — only to get kicked.

I don't care how young you are, that's wicked. Does anyone ever accept the shame they deserve for doing something as malignant as that?

No. No one can bear to acknowledge what that means about them. So, instead, they just revise history. They go into denial.

That's the neat thing a child discovers about the mind: it's omnipotent; it can create the world. You can unknow anything you want. You can imagine anything you want. The mind is the ideal child's playground. It's a place to escape reality by playing "Pretend" in.

Therefore, who needs a conscience? Without one, he has a carte blanche to do anything he thinks he can get away with:

Imagine what he'll do to be mighty on a toddler if no one is looking. That toddler gets too much attention, and your budding little narcissist resents it for that.

Imagine what he does to be greater than his brother or sister. Narcissism carries sibling rivalry to the heights. So, imagine the lies he goes around telling about that brother or sister. Imagine how he even works to make Mommy and Daddy like him better than them. Imagine how he gets them into trouble for things they didn't do.

Imagine what he does to humiliate his little friends. Imagine how he sidles up to some kid everybody picks on and then takes advantage of the situation to lord it over that already downtrodden kid. And if he's bigger than the other kids, imagine what a bully he is in the schoolyard.

That's what any kid with no conscience and an inferiority complex will do.

All too soon, like Macbeth, he passes the point of no return. For, there are some things a person can do that you just do not repent. These bottomless acts are treacherous betrayals and predatory acts that have done permanent damage to brothers, sisters, playmates or pets and other animals who had every reason to trust him — that class of offenses so sickening that Dante found the guilty parties' souls in hell from the moment they chose to do the deed, though their bodies still wandered the earth as living persons.

Why? Because they are unconscionable. So, what does a kid (or anyone) do with them? The only thing he can do with the unconscionable = relieve his conscience of them. It's easy.

One thing you do is prove it wasn't stupid and wrong by doing it again, and worse, tomorrow. And you keep doing that as often as necessary to prove you're shameless.

Another thing you do is get rid of your guilt and shame by projecting it off onto a scapegoat. You say to yourself, "I'm not that bad. Not as bad as" ... cast a quick look around ... "So-and-So over there." Projection is a kind of baptism, isn't it? You cleanse yourself by scraping yourself off and smearing So-and-So.

Preferably, you pick a So-and-So with the corresponding virtue instead of the vice you're smearing on him. That way you kill two birds with one stone: you not only "cleanse" yourself, you obliterate a shining virtue in someone else that puts you to shame. In fact, when you attack him, you project that bad deed on him too, accusing him of attacking you and pretending that he is the malicious one.

In other words, you get caught up in a vicious cycle of bad behavior that has you doing a worse thing today because of a bad thing you did yesterday. It's a runaway freight-train ride, because this crazy way of getting rid of guilt and shame only increases it. Hence, you become a one-man witch hunt that gets furiouser and furiouser as you get drunk on the blood of your scapegoats.

You are like Macbeth seeing the blood on his hands, frantically washing and washing and washing in — guess what? Nothing but blood.

Consequently, at a young age a narcissist not only has done such unrepentable things, he also already has mortal enemies as a consequence. These are people he's victimized who want nothing more than to expose him for what he is.

And not just for revenge: since much of the damage he does is by lying about others, these are people who can undo the damage he has done to them only by exposing him for what he is.

What's more, there's always the danger that people he has lied to will compare notes and discover what he is.

So, from an early age, a narcissist has a past. His whole life is a race to keep one step ahead of his past. So, he is paranoid and with good reason.

If his victims succeed in saving themselves from the degrading reputation he has laid on them — which they can do only by exposing him for what he is — everyone will abhor him. Therefore, he must "block the kick" by making sure those people never are viewed as having any credibility. Everyone must view them as liars and crazy.

Hey, even a kid of only seven or eight years old will figure this out. Which is one big reason why malignant narcissist is practically synonymous with professional character assassin.

What he does to "protect" himself from his "enemies" (i.e., those he's victimized and now fears retribution from) increases the danger he's in. Now he has to become a little con artist who gets between people to break lines of communication so Person A won't compare notes with Person B revealing what he says to each about the other.

In fact, eventually people do get suspicious and start comparing notes. This results in periodic upheavals in his life, during which virtually everyone in his class or workplace rises up in outraged hatred and drives him away with all the vehemence of a town riding someone out on a rail. Unfortunately, no real good comes of it, because nobody will clue in his family on what he is.

And so guilt/shame and the vicious cycle of increasing it by trying to ditch it through projection rides herd on him all the way through the tragedy that is his whole life.

He can never admit, even to himself, what he has done and how malignant he has become. If he did, he'd have to kill himself, "without even leaving a note" as one narcissist told me while she was in college.

Indeed, who would leave a note that said, "I am killing myself because I abhor myself and can't bear being evil." Therefore, like Macbeth, he is so "deep in blood already" that to save himself by admitting the truth so he might turn his life around is a more horrible proposition that riding that runaway freight train to its calamitous end.

© 2004 � 2008, Kathleen Krajco � all rights reserved worldwide.
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It was last updated on 3/6/2008.
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