The Pitters' Place

Narcissism is a lack of self-awareness/honesty, which can come from a lack of self-compassion. The end.

Doesn't the idea of narcissists being incapable of self-compassion sound counter-intuitive?

Not to me, not particularly. Although I'm not really sure I get what you're saying, and I don't think Keanu Reeves would either.

I get that narcissism comes from a lack of self-compassion, but I don't think the self-honesty and awareness fit into there. Narcissim generally stems from a lack of self-esteem and is a compensatory behaviour, which I think requires self-awareness, though it may be mistaken awareness. e.g. being overly-critical and conscious of one's flaws motivates the person to make themselves seem better than they are, which manifests in narcissistic behaviour.

I include self-honesty/awareness because narcissists are incapable of taking responsibility for bad shit they might do. They just make excuse after excuse, or blame someone else for their own behavior. There's a difference between 1) being conscious of one's own flaws in a sort of tough love*, compassionate way(which gives you the chance to grow from that knowledge - that kind of self-confrontation and awareness, where you are forced to hold yourself accountable for your own bs, is what builds character), and 2) being somewhat aware of certain flaws that one is overly-critical of and are too painful to fully acknowledge, and so one is desperate to avoid acknowledging them(and then has cognitive dissonance when confronted with one's own flaws, so tries to twist reality by inventing or insisting on a false identify). There's a sort of paradox, where one can be so overly-critical of their own flaws, that it becomes difficult to hold them accountable for shit they do - because they are so reactive and/or create an alternate identify to compensate. And so they don't learn to hold themselves accountable and develop character.

I think lack of self-compassion leads to willful self-deception, and anything that challenges the self-deception is painful. Reminds me of a quote I heard recently: "the truth only hurts when you're lying to yourself." I think narcissists have a powerful guilt-complex that leads to cognitive dissonance and self-deception.

It also makes me think of toxic masculinity. Because traditional masculinity encourages men to be tough on themselves and suppress natural vulnerabilities, which leads to dependency on false identities - identities that are so fragile that any minor challenge to it is a perceived as a deeply painful offense. And that lack of self-compassion leads to lack of compassion for others.

* - For flaws you can/should attempt change, at least. Some "flaws" are harmless.

I think one problem is conflating the different subtypes of narcissistic personality disorder, when each has different causes and manifests in different ways:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissis ... r#Subtypes

That might explain some of the contradictions if certain narcissistic behaviours don't commonly happen together, though I agree with your assessment regarding the paradox that emerges from being overly self-critical.

I do/did fit the pattern of compensatory narcissism and it did result from a lack of self-compassion and excessive self-criticism, but its nature was also that I'd automatically blame myself for any failures, which then reinforced the whole cycle of needing to compensate for it. The seeming lack of accountability is thus also a facade in some cases, though it's not the sort of positive accountability that involves character growth - it's not "I did something wrong, and this is how I can do better" but "I suck at everything and don't deserve to live, but I need to pretend that everything is great and I'm awesome so that people won't find out how much I actually suck."

I agree about toxic masculinity. Some of the offense is likely also rooted in jealous insecurity when seeing other men who don't feel that same self-policing pressure to maintain that facade, and thus result in violence as a way to enforce that same punishment that they themselves were subject to. It's not even limited to feminine men, since I've seen men threaten to beat up other traditionally-masculine men just for crying.

Oh yeah, I'm definitely oversimplifying. I'm just pointing out a few of the patterns and interesting contradictions I see.

Your last point is very interesting too, because I was going to add that narcissists also treat everything like it's a zero-sum game. They're incapable of looking at themselves honestly(because they have a paradoxical contempt for themselves, deep down), so they take it out on other people. They are like vampires in the sense that they need to dominate others to sustain their fragile false identities(and their false identity relieves the pain they feel inside). And that sounds very much like toxic masculinity to me.

To be fair, I think we all have some narcissistic aspects of our personalities(and people can become more and less narcissistic). It's just that a clinical narcissist (*cough* Trump *cough* Vegas *cough*) is on the extreme end of the spectrum.

I also see patterns of narcissist thinking in the various social oppressions - not just toxic masculinity(which is partly why I think everyone pretty much has a narcissistic component in their personality). Like a normalized narcissism.

This is also why when I see someone behaving in an unnecessary callous/narcissistic way, I always think "this motherfucker must really hate themselves". And it's not one of those patronizing things people say about terrible people to make themselves feel better(like "Aww, I feel sad for you that you have to act out like this. Your life must suck"), I really think it's true as hell.

Also, to clarify, I'm not saying these components will necessarily lead to narcissistic behavior(I think depression in some ways could be seen as another offshoot of lack of self-compassion), but they are common components that are probably counter-intuitive to most people. And I think lack of self-compassion(which extends to lack of compassion for others) is a major one.

And this is also why I've said before that a narcissist who is not successful at "dominating" others(whatever that may mean to them) - in an attempt to relieve the pain that comes from self-awareness and lack of self-compassion - is basically a ticking time bomb. Unless they can develop self-compassion, they have to lash out in some way.

Meeting a real life psychopath was the weirdest experience of my life.

You saw that guy reasoning and how weird it is, he is an expert of making himself the victim after threatening to rape you which is why I blocked him. He is now saying Im getting arrogant. Fucking dumbass, hate him so much. Someone should kill him for me.

I really wanted to make a joke about Whitey until you mentioned the rape threat.

Thanks for ruining my joke.

But, yeah the victim-complex is one of the tactics they use to escape accountability for their shitty behavior.

As you were saying...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ralf-mich ... 35926.html