The Dying of the Light

Narcissists Can Get Enmeshed in their Family of Origin Photo by  Nsey Benajah  on  Unsplash Often, you’ll hear of people talking about their narcissistic mate and how tied that person was to their family. There is some irony in the fact that they bend over backwards for the very people that made them narcissists. Their lives are significantly broken and they seem to have no loyalty to anyone except that family of origin. A decade ago I dated a woman who was professionally diagnosed with NPD. She was plagued by a shadow that she couldn’t come out from under which, affected every aspect of her life in very big ways. The shadow was the shadow of her father as she still feared his disapproval so much as an adult, she arranged her life around it. She grew up in a wealthy family where the parents displayed no real empathy, no real love, no real closeness — just high expectations, constant put downs, and an unattainable standard that she will never be able to achieve. The sad th...

 What will severe repeated narcissist injury do to a narcissist? Photo by  Marija Zaric  on  Unsplash It will send them into a collapse state that will lead to a dark, dark depressive state unlike the typical depression that a non-narcissist will get. This one isn’t just the absence of joy it is the prevalence of self-loathing that drives it. BPD depression sufferers can get a dose of this as well and if they have a BPD collapse then it'll be near identical because the common denominator of self-loathing induced depression. Depression for anybody else is typically the lack of joy, the absence of happiness, lack of energy, lack of desire to do anything and a lack of reward from the reward system for accomplishing anything. It doesn’t usually have a self-loathing component that drives the depression. It is for this reason that narcissists in comparison to all groups have a higher rate of suicide from depression. BPD does have a high rate of suicide as well, but a lot o...

  Why does the narc always win? They destroy you and then immediately replace you with someone else who loves them and gives them everything. Why don't they get hurt? Game Theory would indicate that the narcissist has the winning strategy. Their natural tendency to think of themselves first puts them in a position to mathematically always be in a better spot than anyone that thinks in terms of group benefits. In game theory, there is one theory called the Prisoner’s Dilemma which is a concept that describes how people with competing incentives will not choose the best option. Two prisoners can each choose to confess or not to a crime, and their decision will determine the length of their sentences. The best outcome for both is for both of them to stay silent but the possibility that the other will confess leads them to incriminate themselves. The final result of the math behind the equation reveals this: Narcissists are naturally set up to win. The equations when worked out, proved...