2024-01-31 18:01:00
She’s a real person but, since I don’t have to name her, I’ll refer to her as Helen. It was a colleague of mine, an employee in the same position as me in a private company, eight years ago. While she was extremely friendly at first, a few days after her arrival at the office I began to realize that something was off about her behavior. For example, every time she opened her mouth to say something nice (“I’ll bring you ravani tomorrow”), that nice thing was accompanied by self-praise (“well, hey, look how good I make it, I’m awesome at ravani “).
To be honest, I immediately found this specialization in the Ottoman dessert a bit strange. The next day, she served me in my office without my asking, and she looked at me with every bite: “Well, hey, have you eaten such ravani? No, tell me!”. I dare to say that my trained palate was shouting at me that the woman in front of me was not at all good with pastry but, out of politeness and to get rid of her, I responded with a “perfect, my Helen, hello to your hands”.
While we worked for the same company – and although her presence there was short-lived – I managed to “learn” that she was “awesome” at hundreds of other things: In cleaning her cat’s hair from her “wonderful” coat, in her work tasks (“I’m also the first professional”), in diets (“my friend, Eleni will tell you why you don’t lose weight”). Yes, she sometimes spoke of herself in the third person.
On Facebook, she had close to 3,000 friends, and used it to show off everything she was doing: Her meetings with higher-ups at the company, her selfies with featured, popular music stars, her kinky stuffing, her new bag which she bought and stamped with her initials.
Mostly, though, I realized that she was incredibly good at orchestrating situations in her favor. She once went so far as to set up a whole campaign about how tired I am so that she would “sacrifice herself, despite her own workload” and go on a business trip to South Africa (which I wanted to go to) in my place. The reason; “To rest, poor fellow.”
She, after all, never needed rest; she always managed everything much better than the others, as if she was born with some gift that, frankly, I tried to spot in her but failed miserably.
I was reminded of Helen again recently, reading an article in a scientific journal about Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD). She met many of the prerequisites for ND without, of course, as I am not a mental health professional, being able to make a diagnosis as to whether her problem was behavioral or clinical.
The five signs that “point” to a narcissist
The arrogance. People with narcissistic behavior believe that they are superior to others, so when others do not behave as their subjects they become rude.
That they take special treatment for granted. Precisely because narcissists believe they are superior to others, they expect to always receive special treatment as if they “owe it to life.” They want their every wish satisfied and tend to bend any rules that prevent them from getting what they want.
The manipulative behavior. Narcissists (want to) manipulate others in a variety of subtle and subtle ways that are sometimes directly apparent and sometimes not. A certain pattern of behavior wants them to try, first, to please and impress their victim, so that they can then exploit or control them to their advantage. In other cases, they keep it at a distance for the same reasons.
The need for admiration. The first sign that makes you start to suspect that you are dealing with a narcissistic person is their constant need to be admired and praised by others recognizing their, uh, superiority. It’s this need for confirmation and a boost to his ego that causes him to constantly brag or exaggerate about his accomplishments, whether it’s a pan of rabani or an awkward encounter with an influencer who, he says, “we became directly attached”.
The complete lack of empathy. Narcissistic individuals are either unwilling or unable to empathize with other people’s concerns, needs, or desires. For example, Helen, while I was in the hospital with a problem with my back, commented in the office, after mentioning that she too has a big problem with her back but has never missed work: “Well, with middle of it fills out Excel sheets?’
Narcissists are also often possessed by fantasies of gaining excessive power, power and success, believe that others are jealous of them when in reality they are the ones who envy the achievements of others, are bigoted and seek the forced company of people of prestige.
What else you need to know about narcissism
Narcissism today is understood as a “spectrum” on which we are all placed, as we all engage in narcissistic behaviors that, in fact, can be beneficial to our development. These behaviors are rarely, if ever, pathological. Psychotherapy, therefore, is used to treat narcissism only when it crosses a threshold and the person behaving narcissistically is diagnosed as suffering from Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD).
Genetic and neurobiological factors have been proposed that may lead people to develop pathological narcissistic behavior while, according to a popular psychological approach, narcissists fall into two types – the grandiose and the vulnerable– depending on their childhood experiences, which are believed to lead to different ways of expressing their narcissism.
Grandiose narcissists, who are aggressive and boastful, as children may have been treated as if they were superior to others. Vulnerable narcissists, on the other hand, constantly vacillate from feeling inferior to feeling superior, are hypersensitive, misunderstanding, and feel offended when others do not treat them as if they are special. This behavior may be a result of neglect or abuse during childhood. Both types of narcissists may also suffer from other disorders, which is why psychotherapy is necessary.
#ways #understand #narcissist