Wait, Am I a Narcissist?
Most people have heard of gaslighting. It is often explained as having someone undermine your reality. I believe examples often use concrete things that make the term seem that only a bafoon could fall prey to such tactics. In fact, gaslighting commonly takes a more subjective form. Sure, those who harbor narcissistic traits may try to convince you that you are crazy by telling you the sky is red. However, it is far more straightforward and equally advantageous to exploit one's goodness by appealing to their conscience. They do this by bending your perception of yourself. If you spend any time on Facebook, you will find many memes and quotes about narcissistic abuse, and many of them hold merit. The problem is that projection, a standard tool in the narcissist's toolbox, uses the narcissist's own traits to explain your behavior. Because narcissism causes hostile attribution bias they believe others have bad intentions toward them. Believing the world is evil distorts the goodness of others for the narcissist. The projections of the narcissist leave those with a conscience thinking that their healthy defense mechanisms are, in fact, also narcissistic mechanisms of manipulation.
Let's look at a few examples of gaslighting and projection vs. healthy coping mechanisms:
The list makes it clear how actions taken to protect oneself from narcissistic abuse can look similar to the abuse itself. Knowing that confusion/gaslighting is the war tactic of a narcissist, consider that gaslighting often becomes self-perpetuating for the victim. By this I mean that as the narcissist forces their perspective on their victim, the victim begins second-guessing themselves. Once reality becomes so topsy-turvy that the victim cannot distinguish their actions from those of the abuser, they literally start gaslighting themselves.
The only real way to gain insight about people and steady the ground for ourselves is to consider the motivation behind behaviors- ours and theirs.
We must also be mindful that narcissism doesn't refer to someone:
* displaying social confidence
* being proud of real accomplishments
* taking care of physical appearance
*taking selfies
It is essential to understand that we all have narcissistic traits. The degree and commonality of our use of such characteristics indicate more than honing in on one incident we encounter. Making occasional snarky comments, having thoughts about revenge while angry, or exaggerating the praise one received from their teacher may be nothing more than a singular mood-directed reaction. Actual Narcissistic Personality Disorder is a constant trait of one's personality or a generalized attitude toward everyone else all the time.
Still, we must beware because even without full-on NPD, being subjected to a relationship with someone who has a lot of narcissistic traits has detrimental consequences on a person. There is oppression in a one-sided relationship. Givers will suffer self-righteous defensive attacks. Even people with some narcissistic traits work to maintain control of a relationship and will systematically try to eliminate any restored self-esteem in the other person. They can hold grudges forever and smile while forming revenge plans to discredit, undermine, and blame others for everything in their life. There is no end to their drive to salvage their reputation and maintain dominance over their relationships. Everything comes down to influence and control so that they may repair the damage done to their self-esteem by your empowerment and possible escape (Roark, 2012).
