Wednesday, December 16, 2009
OFT & Which? call for independent regulation of lawyers as Justice Committee hears evidence on Legal Services Bill
Debating chamber Holyrood’s Justice Committee heard regulation must be taken away from the Law Society of Scotland. THE OFFICE OF FAIR TRADING has told the Scottish Parliament’s Justice Committee the Law Society of Scotland should be stripped of its regulation role, to give better consumer protection in any reformed legal services market, after constant revelations in the media and in consumer groups investigations & public surveys of the legal profession’s constant habit of covering up complaints against the rising numbers of ‘crooked lawyers’ working in Scotland’s many law firms.
Office of Fair Trading & Which? call for independent regulation of legal services in Scotland.
To view much more on this matter may I suggest read Peter Charbi's web site at:
LINK
Wednesday 16 December 2009
Saturday 12 December 2009
Hamish GROSSART HAS GENDER REASSIGNMENT by The SCOTSMAN!!
Copied from a blog someone is keeping for or on my ex husband Hamish Grossart which can be found at:
CLICK HERE
A well known comentator and protagonist in matters of seeking Justice rather than suitable outcomes, in the Scottish Courts said of yesterdays verdict in the Scottish Courts:
'Is The Spec losing their grip?'
'In an astounding development Edinburgh's secret legal illuminati, The Speculative Society, saw one of their more high-profile Members, merchant Banker Hamish Grossart, publicly shafted by Mr. McReadie, a mere Sheriff, at Perth'.
'Also in the same Courts Michael Fletcher may too have curtailed his prospects of ever being elevated to the rank of Senator of the College of Justice, the jocular name for the High Court Judges in Scotland who have presided over such travesties as Piper Alpha, Dunblane, Lockerbie, Shirley McKie, Skye Tolls and other gross miscarriages of justice, but let us hail a decent person in the judicial ranks at last'!
For details of the secretive and seemingly malign Speculative Society of Edinburgh, of which Sir Angus Grossart and his considerably less successful nephew Hamish Grossart are both members with some of the most 'dubious' characters in legal and banking circles in Scotland - and for a membership list with certain details and apparent links with Satanism as with the layout of St. Andrew Square, one of the most prestigious addresses in Scottish business circles, home of the failed Royal Bank of Scotland of which Sir Angus Grossart was a director, the bank has had to be subsidised by British tax payer to stay afloat.
For details & Membership of The Spec. CLICK HERE
There are those who question why the likes of Sir Angus Grossart are still seen as doyens of banking, having presided over such a debacle and why tax payers are expected to bail out the bank whilst he still boasts of the £90 Million he made in the good years!
'I never bugged his phone' –
banker Elaine Grossart's ex-wife sets record straight after court win
Date: 12 December 2009
By: Christopher Mackie
SHE is the former wife of a multi-millionaire banking tycoon, caught up in an acrimonious two-year divorce that has seen allegations of bullying, deceit and covert surveillance.
• Elaine Grossart won a £2.3m divorce settlement last year from
And yesterday, the tale of Elaine Grossart took a further twist as she was awarded substantial costs after a bitter court battle.
She then went on to issue a strenuous denial that she had ever bugged the phone of her former husband, Hamish Grossart – a member of one of Scotland's most prominent banking dynasties.
Her comments mark the latest instalment in the story of her marriage to, and divorce from, the nephew of Sir Angus Grossart, the founder of the Noble Grossart merchant bank and one of Scotland's most influential business figures.
At Perth Sheriff Court yesterday, Sheriff Michael Fletcher granted Mrs Grossart expenses believed to total more than £20,000.
At a hearing earlier this year, the sheriff threw out a civil case brought by accountant Andrew Hamilton, who claimed she owed him £7,931 in professional fees.
Mr Hamilton – a former friend of Mrs Grossart and principal of Edinburgh-based chartered accountant Andrew Hamilton & Co – said the money was due for advice during divorce proceedings that saw her land a £2.3 million deal in 2008.
She denied Mr Hamilton had acted as a "professional expert" and said any advice offered to her had been on an informal, friendly basis, without any contract being in place.
Despite claiming she was his client, the court heard Mr Hamilton admit he had failed to carry out proper money-laundering checks on Mrs Grossart – something he said was overlooked because she was "distressed" and "emotional".
Mrs Grossart, 52, told the court Mr Hamilton had been a part of her "Fife set", to which she had turned to discuss her former husband's "bad behaviour".
She claimed Hamish Grossart was a bully, who subjected her to "physical and sexual assault" and stopped her from dancing with other men at functions.
She also accused him of ordering her hair to be cut in a certain way.
Eventually, Mr Hamilton's case was dismissed, with Sheriff Fletcher dubbing him a "Bertie Wooster" character, likening him to the upper-class, but unreliable PG Wodehouse hero.
In reports of the hearings, Mrs Grossart was accused of hiring a private investigator to bug her husband's phone at Pitlour Estate in Perthshire, fearing he was hiding millions of pounds from her following their 11-year marriage. But speaking after her court appearance yesterday, she strenuously denied ever spying on her former husband.
"I did not bug my husband's phone, and I am not sure who planted this," she told The Scotsman.
"If that was the case, I would be in chains myself. It is a criminal offence to bug a phone, and I wouldn't even know where to start.
"You have to have possession of the phone to do it in the first place. I have never bugged his phone – it is a total travesty. If I had been known to tap the phone, I would have been dealt with very severely.
It is a complete untruth."
She added: "I want to set the record straight. I haven't done so in the past, because I have had more important things to do. It has been wrongly referred to in the press all through the case – the judgment is there and can prove that."
Mrs Grossart, who now plans to concentrate on her charity work, said the experience had been "emotional".
"I have got my expenses and I am delighted with the outcome," she said. "I am very relieved. I am at the end of a very long and hard road, and I am glad it is behind me and I can concentrate on what is important to me – being a mum and all the other things I am involved with."
Mr Hamilton described yesterday's sheriff court ruling as "very unfortunate". The exact figure due to Mrs Grossart will now be determined by an audit of the expenses she incurred during the process.
Hamish Grossart could not be contacted for comment.
To view the original of this article CLICK HERE
CLICK HERE
A well known comentator and protagonist in matters of seeking Justice rather than suitable outcomes, in the Scottish Courts said of yesterdays verdict in the Scottish Courts:
'Is The Spec losing their grip?'
'In an astounding development Edinburgh's secret legal illuminati, The Speculative Society, saw one of their more high-profile Members, merchant Banker Hamish Grossart, publicly shafted by Mr. McReadie, a mere Sheriff, at Perth'.
'Also in the same Courts Michael Fletcher may too have curtailed his prospects of ever being elevated to the rank of Senator of the College of Justice, the jocular name for the High Court Judges in Scotland who have presided over such travesties as Piper Alpha, Dunblane, Lockerbie, Shirley McKie, Skye Tolls and other gross miscarriages of justice, but let us hail a decent person in the judicial ranks at last'!
For details of the secretive and seemingly malign Speculative Society of Edinburgh, of which Sir Angus Grossart and his considerably less successful nephew Hamish Grossart are both members with some of the most 'dubious' characters in legal and banking circles in Scotland - and for a membership list with certain details and apparent links with Satanism as with the layout of St. Andrew Square, one of the most prestigious addresses in Scottish business circles, home of the failed Royal Bank of Scotland of which Sir Angus Grossart was a director, the bank has had to be subsidised by British tax payer to stay afloat.
For details & Membership of The Spec. CLICK HERE
There are those who question why the likes of Sir Angus Grossart are still seen as doyens of banking, having presided over such a debacle and why tax payers are expected to bail out the bank whilst he still boasts of the £90 Million he made in the good years!
'I never bugged his phone' –
banker Elaine Grossart's ex-wife sets record straight after court win
Date: 12 December 2009
By: Christopher Mackie
SHE is the former wife of a multi-millionaire banking tycoon, caught up in an acrimonious two-year divorce that has seen allegations of bullying, deceit and covert surveillance.
her former tycoon husband Hamish Grossart.
Picture: Phil Wilkinson
And yesterday, the tale of Elaine Grossart took a further twist as she was awarded substantial costs after a bitter court battle.
She then went on to issue a strenuous denial that she had ever bugged the phone of her former husband, Hamish Grossart – a member of one of Scotland's most prominent banking dynasties.
Her comments mark the latest instalment in the story of her marriage to, and divorce from, the nephew of Sir Angus Grossart, the founder of the Noble Grossart merchant bank and one of Scotland's most influential business figures.
At Perth Sheriff Court yesterday, Sheriff Michael Fletcher granted Mrs Grossart expenses believed to total more than £20,000.
At a hearing earlier this year, the sheriff threw out a civil case brought by accountant Andrew Hamilton, who claimed she owed him £7,931 in professional fees.
Mr Hamilton – a former friend of Mrs Grossart and principal of Edinburgh-based chartered accountant Andrew Hamilton & Co – said the money was due for advice during divorce proceedings that saw her land a £2.3 million deal in 2008.
She denied Mr Hamilton had acted as a "professional expert" and said any advice offered to her had been on an informal, friendly basis, without any contract being in place.
Despite claiming she was his client, the court heard Mr Hamilton admit he had failed to carry out proper money-laundering checks on Mrs Grossart – something he said was overlooked because she was "distressed" and "emotional".
Mrs Grossart, 52, told the court Mr Hamilton had been a part of her "Fife set", to which she had turned to discuss her former husband's "bad behaviour".
She claimed Hamish Grossart was a bully, who subjected her to "physical and sexual assault" and stopped her from dancing with other men at functions.
She also accused him of ordering her hair to be cut in a certain way.
Eventually, Mr Hamilton's case was dismissed, with Sheriff Fletcher dubbing him a "Bertie Wooster" character, likening him to the upper-class, but unreliable PG Wodehouse hero.
In reports of the hearings, Mrs Grossart was accused of hiring a private investigator to bug her husband's phone at Pitlour Estate in Perthshire, fearing he was hiding millions of pounds from her following their 11-year marriage. But speaking after her court appearance yesterday, she strenuously denied ever spying on her former husband.
"I did not bug my husband's phone, and I am not sure who planted this," she told The Scotsman.
"If that was the case, I would be in chains myself. It is a criminal offence to bug a phone, and I wouldn't even know where to start.
"You have to have possession of the phone to do it in the first place. I have never bugged his phone – it is a total travesty. If I had been known to tap the phone, I would have been dealt with very severely.
It is a complete untruth."
She added: "I want to set the record straight. I haven't done so in the past, because I have had more important things to do. It has been wrongly referred to in the press all through the case – the judgment is there and can prove that."
Mrs Grossart, who now plans to concentrate on her charity work, said the experience had been "emotional".
"I have got my expenses and I am delighted with the outcome," she said. "I am very relieved. I am at the end of a very long and hard road, and I am glad it is behind me and I can concentrate on what is important to me – being a mum and all the other things I am involved with."
Mr Hamilton described yesterday's sheriff court ruling as "very unfortunate". The exact figure due to Mrs Grossart will now be determined by an audit of the expenses she incurred during the process.
Hamish Grossart could not be contacted for comment.
To view the original of this article CLICK HERE
Copied from a blog someone is keeping for or on my ex husband Hamish Grossart which can be found at:
CLICK HERE
CLICK HERE
NARCISSISTS TRAITS DISCUSSED
Copied from a blog someone is keeping for or on my ex husband Hamish Grossart which can be found at:
CLICK HERE
Almost everyone has some narcissistic traits, but being conceited, argumentative, or selfish sometimes (or even all the time) doesn't amount to a personality disorder.
Narcissistic Personality Disorder is a long-term pattern of abnormal thinking, feeling, and behavior in many different situations. The traits on this page will seem peculiar or disturbing when someone acts this way -- i.e., you will know that something is not right, and contact with narcissists may make you feel bad about yourself. It's not unusual for narcissists to be outstanding in their field of work. But these are the successful people who have a history of alienating colleagues, co-workers, employees, students, clients, and customers -- people go away mad or sad after close contact with narcissists.
This is a compilation of observations I've made from various people I've known well for many years. Most of these traits apply to all of the narcissists I've known, but that doesn't mean that they'll all apply to the narcissists you know. My narcissists are all high-functioning -- that is, they've maintained gainful employment, marriages and family life -- and there may certainly be narcissistic traits that I haven't observed among the narcissists I've known. You can go directly to my full commentary on narcissists' traits or you can select what you're most interested in from the pink box below.
Narcissicism is a personality disorder and that means that narcissists' personalities aren't organized in a way that makes sense to most people, so the notes below do not necessarily go in the order I've listed them or in any order at all. Interaction with narcissists is confusing, even bewildering -- their reasons for what they do are not the same as normal reasons. In fact, treating them like normal people (e.g., appealing to their better nature, as in "Please have a heart," or giving them the chance to apologize and make amends) will make matters worse with a narcissist.
[For general discussion of cognition, affectivity, interpersonal functioning, and impulse control in personality disorders and NPD. It's also interesting to compare these traits below with characteristics of normal six-year-olds.]
The most telling thing that narcissists do is contradict themselves.
They will do this virtually in the same sentence, without even stopping to take a breath.
It can be trivial (e.g., about what they want for lunch) or it can be serious (e.g., about whether or not they love you).
When you ask them which one they mean, they'll deny ever saying the first one, though it may literally have been only seconds since they said it -- really, how could you think they'd ever have said that?
You need to have your head examined!
They will contradict FACTS.
They will lie to you about things that you did together.
They will misquote you to yourself.
If you disagree with them, they'll say you're lying, making stuff up, or are crazy.
[At this point, if you're like me, you sort of panic and want to talk to anyone who will listen about what is going on: this is a healthy reaction; it's a reality check ("who's the crazy one here?"); that you're confused by the narcissist's contrariness, that you turn to another person to help you keep your bearings, that you know something is seriously wrong and worry that it might be you are all signs that you are not a narcissist].
NOTE: Normal people can behave irrationally under emotional stress -- be confused, deny things they know, get sort of paranoid, want to be babied when they're in pain.
But normal people recover pretty much within an hour or two or a day or two, and, with normal people, your expressions of love and concern for their welfare will be taken to heart.
They will be stabilized by your emotional and moral support.
Not so with narcissists -- the surest way I know of to get a crushing blow to your heart is to tell a narcissist you love her or him.
They will respond with a nasty power move, such as telling you to do things entirely their way or else be banished from them for ever. ^
If you're like me, you get into disputes with narcissists over their casual dishonesty and cruelty to other people.
Trying to reform narcissists by reasoning with them or by appealing to their better nature is about as effective as spitting in the ocean.
What you see is what you get: they have no better nature.
The fundamental problem here is that narcissists lack empathy.
Lacking empathy is a profound disturbance to the narcissist's thinking (cognition) and feeling (affectivity).
Even when very intelligent, narcissists can't reason well.
One I've worked with closely does something I characterize as "analysis by eggbeater."
They don't understand the meaning of what people say and they don't grasp the meaning of the written word either -- because so much of the meaning of anything we say depends on context and affect, narcissists (lacking empathy and thus lacking both context and affect) hear only the words.
(Discussions with narcissists can be really weird and disconcerting; they seem to think that using some of the same words means that they are following a line of conversation or reasoning.
Thus, they will go off on tangents and irrelevancies, apparently in the blithe delusion that they understand what others are talking about.)
And, frankly, they don't hear all the words, either.
They can pay attention only to stuff that has them in it.
This is not merely a bad habit -- it's a cognitive deficiency.
Narcissists pay attention only to themselves and stuff that affects them personally.
However, since they don't know what other people are doing, narcissists can't judge what will affect them personally and seem never to learn that when they cause trouble they will get trouble back.
They won't take other people's feelings into consideration and so they overlook the fact that other people will react with feeling when abused or exploited and that most people get really pissed off by being lied to or lied about.
^
Narcissists lack a mature conscience and seem to be restrained only by fear of being punished or of damaging their reputations -- though, again, this can be obscure to casual observation if you don't know what they think their reputations are, and what they believe others think of them may be way out of touch with reality [see remarks on John Cheever elsewhere on this page].
Their moral intelligence is about at the level of a bright five- or six-year-old; the only rules they recognize are things that have been specifically required, permitted, prohibited, or disapproved of by authority figures they know personally.
Anyhow, narcissists can't be counted on not to do something just because it's wrong, illegal, or will hurt someone, as long as they think that they can get away with it or that you can't stop them or punish them (i.e., they don't care what you think unless they're afraid of you).
^
Narcissists are envious and competitive in ways that are hard to understand.
For instance, one I knew once became incensed over an article published in a national magazine -- not for its content exactly, but because she could have written something just as good.
Maybe she could have -- she hadn't, but that little lapse on her part was beside the point to her.
They are constantly comparing themselves (and whatever they feel belongs to them, such as their children and furniture) to other people. Narcissists feel that, unless they are better than anyone else, they are worse than everybody in the whole world.
^
Narcissists are generally contemptuous of others.
This seems to spring, at base, from their general lack of empathy, and it comes out as (at best) a dismissive attitude towards other people's feelings, wishes, needs, concerns, standards, property, work, etc. It is also connected to their overall negative outlook on life.
^
Narcissists are
(a) extremely sensitive to personal criticism and
(b) extremely critical of other people.
They think that they must be seen as perfect or superior or infallible, next to god-like (if not actually divine, then sitting on the right hand of God) -- or else they are worthless.
There's no middle ground of ordinary normal humanity for narcissists.
They can't tolerate the least disagreement.
In fact, if you say, "Please don't do that again -- it hurts," narcissists will turn around and do it again harder to prove that they were right the first time; their reasoning seems to be something like "I am a good person and can do no wrong; therefore, I didn't hurt you and you are lying about it now..." -- sorry, folks, I get lost after that.
Anyhow, narcissists are habitually cruel in little ways, as well as big ones, because they're paying attention to their fantasy and not to you, but the bruises on you are REAL, not in your imagination.
Thus, no matter how gently you suggest that they might do better to change their ways or get some help, they will react in one of two equally horrible ways: they will attack or they will withdraw.
Be wary of wandering into this dragon's cave -- narcissists will say ANYTHING, they will trash anyone in their own self-justification, and then they will expect the immediate restoration of the status quo.
They will attack you (sometimes physically) and spew a load of bile, insult, abuse, contempt, threats, etc., and then -- well, it's kind of like they had indigestion and the vicious tirade worked like a burp: "There. Now I feel better. Where were we?"
They feel better, so they expect you to feel better, too.
They will say you are nothing, worthless, and turn around immediately and say that they love you. When you object to this kind of treatment, they will say,
"You just have to accept me the way I am. (God made me this way, so God loves me even if you are too stupid to understand how special I am.)" Accepting them as they are (and staying away from them entirely) is excellent advice.
The other "punishment" narcissists mete out is banishing you from their glorious presence -- this can turn into a farce, since by this point you are probably praying to be rescued, "Dear God! How do I get out of this?"
The narcissist expects that you will be devastated by the withdrawal of her/his divine attention, so that after a while -- a few weeks or months (i.e., the next time the narcissist needs to use you for something) -- the narcissist will expect you to have learned your lesson and be eager to return to the fold.
If you have learned your lesson, you won't answer that call.
They can't see that they have a problem; it's always somebody else who has the problem and needs to change.
Therapies work at all only when the individual wants to change and, though narcissists hate their real selves, they don't want to change -- they want the world to change.
And they criticize, gripe, and complain about almost everything and almost everyone almost all the time.
There are usually a favored few whom narcissists regard as absolutely above reproach, even for egregious misconduct or actual crime, and about whom they won't brook the slightest criticism.
These are people the narcissists are terrified of, though they'll tell you that what they feel is love and respect; apparently they don't know the difference between fear and love.
Narcissists just get worse and worse as they grow older; their parents and other authority figures that they've feared die off, and there's less and less outside influence to keep them in check.
^
Narcissists are hostile and ferocious in reaction, but they are generally passive and lacking in initiative.
They don't start stuff -- they don't reach out.
Remember this when they turn and rend you! They will complain about the same things for years on end, but only rarely do anything to change what dissatisfies them so badly.
^
Narcissists are naive and vulnerable, pathetic really, no matter how arrogant and forceful their words or demeanor.
They have pretty good reasons for their paranoia and cynicism, their sneakiness, evasiveness, prevarications.
This is the one I get suckered on.
They are so out of touch with other people and what goes on around them that they are very susceptible to exploitation.
On the other hand, they're so inattentive, and so disconnected from what other people are up to, that they don't recognize when someone is taking advantage of them.
^
Narcissists are grandiose.
They live in an artificial self invented from fantasies of absolute or perfect power, genius, beauty, etc.
Normal people's fantasies of themselves, their wishful thinking, take the form of stories -- these stories often come from movies or TV, or from things they've read or that were read to them as children.
They involve a plot, heroic activity or great accomplishments or adventure: normal people see themselves in action, however preposterous or even impossible that action may be -- they see themselves doing things that earn them honor, glory, love, riches, fame, and they see these fantasy selves as personal potentials, however tenuous, something they'd do if they didn't have to go to school or go to work, if they had the time and the money.
As Freud said of narcissists, these people act like they're in love with themselves.
And they are in love with an ideal image of themselves -- or they want you to be in love with their pretend self, it's hard to tell just what's going on.
Like anyone in love, their attention and energy are drawn to the beloved and away from everyday practicalities.
Narcissists' fantasies are static -- they've fallen in love with an image in a mirror or, more accurately, in a pool of water, so that movement causes the image to dissolve into ripples; to see the adored reflection they must remain perfectly still.
Narcissists' fantasies are tableaux or scenes, stage sets; narcissists are hung up on a particular picture that they think reflects their true selves (as opposed to the real self -- warts and all).
Narcissists don't see themselves doing anything except being adored, and they don't see anyone else doing anything except adoring them.
Moreover, they don't see these images as potentials that they may some day be able to live out, if they get lucky or everything goes right: they see these pictures as the real way they want to be seen right now (which is not the same as saying they think these pictures are the way they really are right now, but that is another story to be discussed elsewhere).
Sometimes narcissistic fantasies are spectacularly grandiose -- imagining themselves as Jesus or a saint or hero or deity depicted in art -- but just as often the fantasies of narcissists are mediocre and vulgar, concocted from illustrations in popular magazines, sensational novels, comic books even.
These artificial self fantasies are also static in time, going back unchanged to early adolescence or even to childhood; the narcissists' self-images don't change with time, so that you will find, for instance, female narcissists clinging to retro styles, still living the picture of the perfect woman of 1945 or 1965 as depicted in The Ladies' Home Journal or Seventeen or Vogue of that era, and male narcissists still hung up on images of comic-book or ripping adventure heroes from their youth.
Though narcissists like pictures rather than stories, they like still pictures, not moving ones, so they don't base their fantasies on movies or TV.
Grandiosity can take various forms -- a narcissistic woman may believe herself to be the very model of perfect womanhood, the standard by which all others are measured, and she will try to force her daughters to be just like her, she will not be able to cope with daughters who are taller or shorter than she is, fatter or thinner, who have bigger or smaller feet, breasts, teeth, who have different favorite colors than hers, etc.
Narcissistic men can be infatuated with their own looks, too, (witness John Cheever, for instance; Almost Perfect) but are more likely than women to get hung up on their intelligence or the importance of their work -- doesn't matter what the work is, if he's doing it, by definition it's more important than anything you could possibly do.
Narcissists I've known also have odd religious ideas, in particular believing that they are God's special favorites somehow; God loves them, so they are exempted from ordinary rules and obligations: God loves them and wants them to be the way they are, so they can do anything they feel like -- though, note, the narcissist's God has much harsher rules for everyone else, including you.
[Many readers have questions about narcissism and religion.
Here is an interesting article on the Web: "Narcissism Goes to Church: Encountering Evangelical Worship" by Monte Wilson. "Modern American Christianity is filled with the spirit of narcissism.
We are in love with ourselves and evaluate churches, ministers and truth-claims based upon how they make us feel about ourselves. If the church makes me feel wanted, it is a good church. If the minister makes me feel good about myself, he is a terrific guy. If the proffered truth supports my self-esteem, it is, thereby, verified."]
[More on grandiosity.]
Narcissists have little sense of humor.
They don't get jokes, not even the funny papers or simple riddles, and they don't make jokes, except for sarcastic cracks and the lamest puns.
This is because, lacking empathy, they don't get the context and affect of words or actions, and jokes, humor, comedy depend entirely on context and affect.
They specialize in sarcasm about others and mistake it for wit, but, in my experience, narcissists are entirely incapable of irony -- thus, I've been chagrinned more than once to discover that something I'd taken as an intentional pose or humorous put-on was, in fact, something the narcissist was totally serious about.
Which is to say that they come mighty close to parody in their pretensions and pretending, so that they can be very funny without knowing it, but you'd better not let on that you think so.
[Interestingly, this is the only trait on this list about which there seems to be any controversy. Maybe I've just been unlucky! I've known narcissists who'll make fun of others, repeat jokes they've heard others laugh at, and laugh at jokes when others laugh, but knowing how to make people laugh is not necessarily the same as having a sense of humor.]
^
Narcissists have a weird sense of time.
It's more or less like they are not aware that the passage of time changes things, or maybe they just aren't aware of time's passing at all.
Years can pass without touching narcissists.
Narcissists often look, or think they look, significantly younger than they are; this youthful appearance is a point of pride to them, and some will emphasize it by either preserving the styles of their golden youth or following the styles of people the age they feel they "really" are.
That their faces don't show their chronological age is a good sign that they haven't been living real lives with real life's wear and tear on the looks of normal people.
The narcissists' years have passed without touching them. Bear in mind that narcissistic adults have had decades of not being in synch with the times or with other people, so that by now they are really out of it.
Sometimes it just seems like they have a highly selective memory -- which, of course, they do, sort of; they pay attention only to what has their name in it in the first place, so after 30 or 40 years, you shouldn't be surprised to hear a narcissist say something like, "Didn't the Beatles have a couple of hit songs while we were in high school?" or to suddenly discover that the narcissist doesn't know that M&M's have little m's on them or that smallpox was eradicated over 20 years ago. They are not being ironic: they really don't know.
They were off in their own little world of fantastic perfection. On the other hand, as far as I've seen, all that stuff really is in there, but is accessible only intermittently or unpredictably. Narcissists ordinarily have spotty memories, with huge and odd gaps in their recollections; they may say that they don't remember their childhoods, etc., and apparently most of the time they don't.
But they will have sudden accesses of memory, triggered by God knows what, when they remember details, everybody's names, what people were wearing, why the people in that picture from 1950 are standing the way they are, what the weather was like, etc. -- in other words, every once in a while, their memories will be normal. But don't count on it. ^
Narcissists are totally and inflexibly authoritarian. In other words, they are suck-ups.
They want to be authority figures and, short of that, they want to be associated with authority figures.
In their hearts, they know they can't think well, have no judgment about what matters, are not connected with the world they inhabit, so they cling fanatically to the opinions of people they regard as authority figures -- such as their parents, teachers, doctors, ministers.
Where relevant, this may include scientists or professors or artists, but narcissists stick to people they know personally, since they aren't engaged enough with the world to get their authoritative opinions from TV, movies, books or dead geniuses/saints/heroes.
If they get in trouble over some or another opinion they've put forth, they'll blame the source -- "It was okay with Dr. Somebody," "My father taught me that," etc.
If you're still thinking of the narcissist as odd-but-normal, this shirking of responsibility will seem dishonest and craven -- well, it is but it's really an admission of weakness: they really mean it: they said what they said because someone they admire or fear said it and they're trying to borrow that person's strength.
^
Narcissists have strange work habits.
Normal people work for a goal or a product, even if the goal is only a paycheck.
Normal people measure things by how much they have to spend (in time, work, energy) to get the desired results.
Normal people desire idleness from time to time, usually wanting as much free time as they can get to pursue their own thoughts and pleasures and interests.
Narcissists work for a goal, too, but it's a different goal: they want power, authority, adulation.
Lacking empathy, and lacking also context and affect, narcissists don't understand how people achieve glory and high standing; they think it's all arbitrary, it's all appearances, it's all who you know.
So they try to attach themselves to people who already have what they want, meanwhile making a great show of working hard. Narcissists can put in a shocking amount of time to very little effect.
This is partly because they have so little empathy that they don't know why some work is valued more highly than other work, why some people's opinions carry more weight than others'.
They do know that you're supposed to work and not be lazy, so they keep themselves occupied.
But they are not invested in the work they do -- whatever they may produce is just something they have to do to get the admiration and power they crave.
Since this is so, they really don't pay attention to what they're doing, preferring the easiest thing at every turn, even though they may be constantly occupied, so that narcissists manage to be workaholics and extremely lazy at the same time.
Narcissists measure the worth of their work only by how much time they spend on it, not by what they produce. They want to get an A for Effort.
Narcissists lack empathy, so they don't know what others value or why.
Narcissists tend to value things in quantitative ways and in odd quantities at that -- they'll tell you how many inches of letters they received, but not how many letters or from how many correspondents; they know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
A narcissist may, in fact, hold himself to a grinding work schedule that gives him something like an addictive high so that, when wrought up, he can be sort of dazed, giddy, and groggy, making you wonder if he's drunk or otherwise intoxicated -- now, that's a real workaholic.
Usually, this excessive busyness appears to be -- and some will even tell you this -- an attempt to distract themselves from unpleasant or inconvenient feelings (i.e., it's a manic defense against depression -- and, note, with narcissists it's inaccurate to use "happy" or "unhappy" because their feelings are just not that differentiated; "euphoria" or "dysphoria" are as close as they get to ordinary pleasure or distress) or to make themselves unavailable to others' emotional needs.
^
Narcissists feel entitled to whatever they can take.
They expect privileges and indulgences, and they also feel entitled to exploit other people without any trace of reciprocation. ^
Some narcissists spend extravagantly in order to impress people, keep up grandiose pretentions, or buy favorable treatment, and some narcissists overspend, bankrupt themselves, and lose everything.
My personal experience is that narcissists are stingy, mean, frugal, niggardly to the point of eccentricity.
This is a person who won't spend $1.50 on a greeting card but will instead send you an advertising flyer that came with the newspaper.
This is a person who will be very conscious of her appearance but will dress herself and her children in used clothes and other people's cast-offs.
[Note: Thrift is not in itself a narcissistic trait; neither is a fondness for old clothes.
The important element here is that the narcissist buys clothes that other people she admires and wishes to emulate have already picked out, since she has no individual tastes or preferences.]
These are people who need labels or trademarks (or other signs of authority) to distinguish between the real thing and a cheap knock-off or imitation, and so will substitute something easy and cheap for something precious and dear and expect nobody else to know the difference, since they can't.
These are people who can tell you how many miles but not how many smiles.
Narcissists are not only selfish and ungiving -- they seem to have to make a point of not giving what they know someone else wants.
Thus, for instance, in a "romantic" relationship, they will want you to do what they want because they want it and not because you want it -- and, in fact, if you actually want to do what they want, then that's too much like sharing and you wreck their fun and they don't want it anymore.
They want to get what they want from you without giving you what you want from them. Period. If you should happen to want to give what they want to get, then they'll lose interest in you.
^
Something I had not connected with narcissism until I read about Reactive Attachment Disorder is that narcissists I've known have had unusual eating habits or appetites, including eating match heads, dry cake mix, chicken bones, raw meat, dog kibble, egg mash, bits of paper, wood pencils; some binge or gorge on ordinary foods, others seem always to be on one or another self-imposed, self-invented eccentric dietary regime.
This behavior does not seem to have much in the way of affective component compared to, say, "normal" eating disorders. ^
Narcissists are very disappointing as gift-givers.
This is not a trivial consideration in personal relationships.
I've seen narcissistic people sweetly solicit someone's preferences ("Go ahead -- tell me what you really want"), make a show of paying attention to the answer ("Don't you think I'm nice?"), and then deliver something other than what was asked for -- and feel abused and unappreciated when someone else gets gratitude for fulfilling the very request that the narcissist evoked in the first place.
I've seen this happen often, where narcissists will go out of their way to stir up other people's expectations and then go out of their way to disappoint those expectations.
It seems like a lot of pointless work to me.
First, narcissists lack empathy, so they don't know what you want or like and, evidently, they don't care either; second, they think their opinions are better and more important than anyone else's, so they'll give you what they think you ought to want, regardless of what you may have said when asked what you wanted for your birthday; third, they're stingy and will give as gifts stuff that's just lying around their house, such as possessions that they no longer have any use for, or -- in really choice instances -- return to you something that was yours in the first place.
In fact, as a practical matter, the surest way NOT to get what you want from a narcissist is to ask for it; your chances are better if you just keep quiet, because every now and then the narcissist will hit on the right thing by random accident.
^
It's very hard to have a simple, uncomplicated good time with a narcissist.
Except for odd spells of heady euphoria unrelated to anything you can see, their affective range is mediocre-fake-normal to hell-on-Earth.
They will sometimes lie low and be quiet, actually passive and dependent -- this is as good as it gets with narcissists.
They are incapable of loving conduct towards anyone or anything, so they do not have the capacity for simple pleasure, beyond the satisfaction of bodily needs.
There is only one way to please a narcissist (and it won't please you): that is to indulge their every whim, cater to their tiniest impulses, bend to their views on every little thing.
There's only one way to get decent treatment from narcissists: keep your distance.
They can be pretty nice, even charming, flirtatious, and seductive, to strangers, and will flatter you shamelessly if they want something from you.
When you attempt to get close to them in a normal way, they feel you are putting emotional pressure on them and they withdraw because you're too demanding.
They can be positively fawning and solicitous as long as they're afraid of you, which is not most people's idea of a real fun relationship.
I always have the problem that I get fed up and stay away from THEM long enough to forget exactly what the trouble was, then they come around again, and every narcissist I've known actually was quite lovable about half the time so I try it again.
A clue: Run for cover when they start acting normal, maybe expressing a becoming self-doubt or even acknowledging some little fault of their own, such as saying they now realize that they haven't treated you right or that they took advantage of you before.
They're just softening you up for something really nasty.
These people are geniuses of "Come closer so I can slap you."
Except that's not the way they think about it, if they think about it -- no, they're thinking, "Well, maybe you do really care about me, and, if you really care about me, then maybe you'll help me with this," only by "help" they mean do the whole thing, take total responsibility for it, including protecting and defending them and cleaning up the mess they've already made of it (which they will neglect to fill you in on because they haven't really been paying attention, have they, so how would they know??).
They will not have considered for one second how much of your time it will take, how much trouble it may get you into in their behalf, that they will owe you BIG for this -- no, you're just going to do it all out of the goodness of your heart, which they are delighted to exploit yet again, and your virtue will be its own reward: it's supposed to just tickle you pink to be offered this generous opportunity of showing how much you love them and/or how lucky you are to be the servant of such a luminous personage.
No lie -- they think other people do stuff for the same reason they do: to show off, to perform for an audience.
That's one of the reasons they make outrageous demands, put you on the spot and create scenes in public: they're being generous -- they're trying to share the spotlight with you by giving you the chance to show off how absolutely stunningly devoted-to-them you are.
It means that they love you; that's why they're hurt and bewildered when you angrily reject this invitation.
^
Appearances are all there is with narcissists -- and their self-hatred knows no bounds.
The most dramatic example I can think of is from John Cheever's journals.
Throughout his life he had pursued surreptitious homosexual activities, being transiently infatuated with young men who reminded him of himself in his youth, while also living in a superficially settled way as a married family man, a respected writer with an enviable suburban life, breeding pedigreed dogs and serving on the vestry of the Episcopal church.
When his secret life (going to New York City for a few days every now and then to pick up sailors and other beautiful boys for brief flings) came to scandalous light, his family sought to reassure him by telling him that they'd known about his homosexual activities for years.
Now, a normal person would be ashamed and embarrassed but also relieved and grateful that scandal, not to mention chronic emotional and marital infidelity, had not caused his wife and children to reject and abandon him -- but not the narcissist!
Oh, no, Cheever was enraged that they would ever have thought such a thing of him -- if they really loved him, they'd have bought his artificial "country squire" persona: they would have seen him as he wished to be seen: they would have believed his lies without question or doubt.
^
Narcissists don't volunteer the usual personal information about themselves, so they may seem secretive or perhaps unusually reserved or very jealous of their privacy.
All these things are true, but with the special narcissistic twist that, first, their real life isn't interesting to them so it doesn't occur to them that it would be interesting to anyone else and, second, since they have not yet been transfigured into the Star of the Universe, they're ashamed of their real life.
They feel that their jobs, their friends and families, their homes and possessions aren't good enough for them, they deserve better.
^
Narcissists not only don't recognize the feelings and autonomy of others, they don't recognize their own feelings as their own.
Their feelings are sort of like the weather, atmospheric, acts of God.
The narcissistic think that everyone's having the same feeling as they are.
This means that usually their own pain means nothing to them beyond the physical discomfort -- it has no affective component.
When they do get some painful affect, they think that God is punishing them -- they think that their trivial errors are worth God's specific attention to their punishment.
If you try to straighten them out, by telling them that your feelings are different, beware: their idea of sharing their feelings is to do or say something that makes you feel the way they're feeling and, as they make a point of not sharing anything desirable, you can expect something really nasty.
The sad fact seems to be that narcissists feel just as bad about themselves as they make others feel about them. ^
Narcissists are noted for their negative, pessimistic, cynical, or gloomy outlook on life.
Sarcasm seems to be a narcissistic specialty, not to mention spite.
Lacking love and pleasure, they don't have a good reason for anything they do and they think everyone else is just like them, except they're honest and the rest of us are hypocrites. Nothing real is ever perfect enough to satisfy them, so are they are constantly complaining and criticizing -- to the point of verbal abuse and insult. ^
Narcissists are impulsive.
They undo themselves by behavior that seems oddly stupid for people as intelligent as they are.
Somehow, they don't consider the probable consequences of their actions.
It's not clear to me whether they just expect to get away with doing anything they feel like at the moment or whether this impulsiveness is essentially a cognitive shortcoming deriving from the static psychic state with its distorted perception of time. ^
Narcissists hate to live alone.
Their inner resources are skimpy, static, and sterile, nothing interesting or attractive going on in their hearts and minds, so they don't want to be stuck with themselves.
All they have inside is the image of perfection that, being mere mortals like the rest of us, they will inevitably fall short of attaining. ^
To view the original article and further reading on those afflicted with Narcissism CLICK HERE
It has been my experience that my ex-husband Hamish shows many of the traits of the personality disorder Narcissism, an belief that has been confirmed by individuals who have known him over many years and have noted the trait as something of a genetic personality fault amongst others in the family.
My belief that the unfortunate Hamish Grossart had inheritted this genetic personality disorder would seem to be confirmed, not only by his behaviour, but also by medical reports. This would go a long way to explain his abusive, cruel and manipulative behaviour - his abuse of The Courts and anyone he can exploit to get his own way and his determination to destroy everything and anyone he can not control.
Those who suffer at his hands most clearly are those he can most readily exploit as with his children, ex wives and those personally involved with him - it may go a long way to explain his propensity for catastrophic failure which so heinously damages others in business and his apparent dependence on luck rather than ability.
Almost everyone has some narcissistic traits, but being conceited, argumentative, or selfish sometimes (or even all the time) doesn't amount to a personality disorder.
Narcissistic Personality Disorder is a long-term pattern of abnormal thinking, feeling, and behavior in many different situations. The traits on this page will seem peculiar or disturbing when someone acts this way -- i.e., you will know that something is not right, and contact with narcissists may make you feel bad about yourself. It's not unusual for narcissists to be outstanding in their field of work. But these are the successful people who have a history of alienating colleagues, co-workers, employees, students, clients, and customers -- people go away mad or sad after close contact with narcissists.
How many narcissists does it take to change a light bulb?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(a) Just one -- but he has to wait for the whole world to revolve around him.
(b) None at all -- he hires menials for work that's beneath him.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is a compilation of observations I've made from various people I've known well for many years. Most of these traits apply to all of the narcissists I've known, but that doesn't mean that they'll all apply to the narcissists you know. My narcissists are all high-functioning -- that is, they've maintained gainful employment, marriages and family life -- and there may certainly be narcissistic traits that I haven't observed among the narcissists I've known. You can go directly to my full commentary on narcissists' traits or you can select what you're most interested in from the pink box below.
Narcissicism is a personality disorder and that means that narcissists' personalities aren't organized in a way that makes sense to most people, so the notes below do not necessarily go in the order I've listed them or in any order at all. Interaction with narcissists is confusing, even bewildering -- their reasons for what they do are not the same as normal reasons. In fact, treating them like normal people (e.g., appealing to their better nature, as in "Please have a heart," or giving them the chance to apologize and make amends) will make matters worse with a narcissist.
[For general discussion of cognition, affectivity, interpersonal functioning, and impulse control in personality disorders and NPD. It's also interesting to compare these traits below with characteristics of normal six-year-olds.]
amoral/conscienceless
authoritarian
care only about appearances
contemptuous
critical of others
cruel
disappointing gift-givers
don't recognize own feelings
envious and competitive
feel entitled
flirtatious or seductive
grandiose
hard to have a good time with
hate to live alone
hyper-sensitive to criticism
impulsive
lack sense of humor
naive
passive
pessimistic
religious
secretive
self-contradictory
stingy
strange work habits
unusual eating habits
weird sense of time
Each of the above is dealt with below!
The most telling thing that narcissists do is contradict themselves.
They will do this virtually in the same sentence, without even stopping to take a breath.
It can be trivial (e.g., about what they want for lunch) or it can be serious (e.g., about whether or not they love you).
When you ask them which one they mean, they'll deny ever saying the first one, though it may literally have been only seconds since they said it -- really, how could you think they'd ever have said that?
You need to have your head examined!
They will contradict FACTS.
They will lie to you about things that you did together.
They will misquote you to yourself.
If you disagree with them, they'll say you're lying, making stuff up, or are crazy.
[At this point, if you're like me, you sort of panic and want to talk to anyone who will listen about what is going on: this is a healthy reaction; it's a reality check ("who's the crazy one here?"); that you're confused by the narcissist's contrariness, that you turn to another person to help you keep your bearings, that you know something is seriously wrong and worry that it might be you are all signs that you are not a narcissist].
NOTE: Normal people can behave irrationally under emotional stress -- be confused, deny things they know, get sort of paranoid, want to be babied when they're in pain.
But normal people recover pretty much within an hour or two or a day or two, and, with normal people, your expressions of love and concern for their welfare will be taken to heart.
They will be stabilized by your emotional and moral support.
Not so with narcissists -- the surest way I know of to get a crushing blow to your heart is to tell a narcissist you love her or him.
They will respond with a nasty power move, such as telling you to do things entirely their way or else be banished from them for ever. ^
If you're like me, you get into disputes with narcissists over their casual dishonesty and cruelty to other people.
Trying to reform narcissists by reasoning with them or by appealing to their better nature is about as effective as spitting in the ocean.
What you see is what you get: they have no better nature.
The fundamental problem here is that narcissists lack empathy.
Lacking empathy is a profound disturbance to the narcissist's thinking (cognition) and feeling (affectivity).
Even when very intelligent, narcissists can't reason well.
One I've worked with closely does something I characterize as "analysis by eggbeater."
They don't understand the meaning of what people say and they don't grasp the meaning of the written word either -- because so much of the meaning of anything we say depends on context and affect, narcissists (lacking empathy and thus lacking both context and affect) hear only the words.
(Discussions with narcissists can be really weird and disconcerting; they seem to think that using some of the same words means that they are following a line of conversation or reasoning.
Thus, they will go off on tangents and irrelevancies, apparently in the blithe delusion that they understand what others are talking about.)
And, frankly, they don't hear all the words, either.
They can pay attention only to stuff that has them in it.
This is not merely a bad habit -- it's a cognitive deficiency.
Narcissists pay attention only to themselves and stuff that affects them personally.
However, since they don't know what other people are doing, narcissists can't judge what will affect them personally and seem never to learn that when they cause trouble they will get trouble back.
They won't take other people's feelings into consideration and so they overlook the fact that other people will react with feeling when abused or exploited and that most people get really pissed off by being lied to or lied about.
^
Narcissists lack a mature conscience and seem to be restrained only by fear of being punished or of damaging their reputations -- though, again, this can be obscure to casual observation if you don't know what they think their reputations are, and what they believe others think of them may be way out of touch with reality [see remarks on John Cheever elsewhere on this page].
Their moral intelligence is about at the level of a bright five- or six-year-old; the only rules they recognize are things that have been specifically required, permitted, prohibited, or disapproved of by authority figures they know personally.
Anyhow, narcissists can't be counted on not to do something just because it's wrong, illegal, or will hurt someone, as long as they think that they can get away with it or that you can't stop them or punish them (i.e., they don't care what you think unless they're afraid of you).
^
Narcissists are envious and competitive in ways that are hard to understand.
For instance, one I knew once became incensed over an article published in a national magazine -- not for its content exactly, but because she could have written something just as good.
Maybe she could have -- she hadn't, but that little lapse on her part was beside the point to her.
They are constantly comparing themselves (and whatever they feel belongs to them, such as their children and furniture) to other people. Narcissists feel that, unless they are better than anyone else, they are worse than everybody in the whole world.
^
Narcissists are generally contemptuous of others.
This seems to spring, at base, from their general lack of empathy, and it comes out as (at best) a dismissive attitude towards other people's feelings, wishes, needs, concerns, standards, property, work, etc. It is also connected to their overall negative outlook on life.
^
Narcissists are
(a) extremely sensitive to personal criticism and
(b) extremely critical of other people.
They think that they must be seen as perfect or superior or infallible, next to god-like (if not actually divine, then sitting on the right hand of God) -- or else they are worthless.
There's no middle ground of ordinary normal humanity for narcissists.
They can't tolerate the least disagreement.
In fact, if you say, "Please don't do that again -- it hurts," narcissists will turn around and do it again harder to prove that they were right the first time; their reasoning seems to be something like "I am a good person and can do no wrong; therefore, I didn't hurt you and you are lying about it now..." -- sorry, folks, I get lost after that.
Anyhow, narcissists are habitually cruel in little ways, as well as big ones, because they're paying attention to their fantasy and not to you, but the bruises on you are REAL, not in your imagination.
Thus, no matter how gently you suggest that they might do better to change their ways or get some help, they will react in one of two equally horrible ways: they will attack or they will withdraw.
Be wary of wandering into this dragon's cave -- narcissists will say ANYTHING, they will trash anyone in their own self-justification, and then they will expect the immediate restoration of the status quo.
They will attack you (sometimes physically) and spew a load of bile, insult, abuse, contempt, threats, etc., and then -- well, it's kind of like they had indigestion and the vicious tirade worked like a burp: "There. Now I feel better. Where were we?"
They feel better, so they expect you to feel better, too.
They will say you are nothing, worthless, and turn around immediately and say that they love you. When you object to this kind of treatment, they will say,
"You just have to accept me the way I am. (God made me this way, so God loves me even if you are too stupid to understand how special I am.)" Accepting them as they are (and staying away from them entirely) is excellent advice.
The other "punishment" narcissists mete out is banishing you from their glorious presence -- this can turn into a farce, since by this point you are probably praying to be rescued, "Dear God! How do I get out of this?"
The narcissist expects that you will be devastated by the withdrawal of her/his divine attention, so that after a while -- a few weeks or months (i.e., the next time the narcissist needs to use you for something) -- the narcissist will expect you to have learned your lesson and be eager to return to the fold.
If you have learned your lesson, you won't answer that call.
They can't see that they have a problem; it's always somebody else who has the problem and needs to change.
Therapies work at all only when the individual wants to change and, though narcissists hate their real selves, they don't want to change -- they want the world to change.
And they criticize, gripe, and complain about almost everything and almost everyone almost all the time.
There are usually a favored few whom narcissists regard as absolutely above reproach, even for egregious misconduct or actual crime, and about whom they won't brook the slightest criticism.
These are people the narcissists are terrified of, though they'll tell you that what they feel is love and respect; apparently they don't know the difference between fear and love.
Narcissists just get worse and worse as they grow older; their parents and other authority figures that they've feared die off, and there's less and less outside influence to keep them in check.
^
Narcissists are hostile and ferocious in reaction, but they are generally passive and lacking in initiative.
They don't start stuff -- they don't reach out.
Remember this when they turn and rend you! They will complain about the same things for years on end, but only rarely do anything to change what dissatisfies them so badly.
^
Narcissists are naive and vulnerable, pathetic really, no matter how arrogant and forceful their words or demeanor.
They have pretty good reasons for their paranoia and cynicism, their sneakiness, evasiveness, prevarications.
This is the one I get suckered on.
They are so out of touch with other people and what goes on around them that they are very susceptible to exploitation.
On the other hand, they're so inattentive, and so disconnected from what other people are up to, that they don't recognize when someone is taking advantage of them.
^
Narcissists are grandiose.
They live in an artificial self invented from fantasies of absolute or perfect power, genius, beauty, etc.
Normal people's fantasies of themselves, their wishful thinking, take the form of stories -- these stories often come from movies or TV, or from things they've read or that were read to them as children.
They involve a plot, heroic activity or great accomplishments or adventure: normal people see themselves in action, however preposterous or even impossible that action may be -- they see themselves doing things that earn them honor, glory, love, riches, fame, and they see these fantasy selves as personal potentials, however tenuous, something they'd do if they didn't have to go to school or go to work, if they had the time and the money.
As Freud said of narcissists, these people act like they're in love with themselves.
And they are in love with an ideal image of themselves -- or they want you to be in love with their pretend self, it's hard to tell just what's going on.
Like anyone in love, their attention and energy are drawn to the beloved and away from everyday practicalities.
Narcissists' fantasies are static -- they've fallen in love with an image in a mirror or, more accurately, in a pool of water, so that movement causes the image to dissolve into ripples; to see the adored reflection they must remain perfectly still.
Narcissists' fantasies are tableaux or scenes, stage sets; narcissists are hung up on a particular picture that they think reflects their true selves (as opposed to the real self -- warts and all).
Narcissists don't see themselves doing anything except being adored, and they don't see anyone else doing anything except adoring them.
Moreover, they don't see these images as potentials that they may some day be able to live out, if they get lucky or everything goes right: they see these pictures as the real way they want to be seen right now (which is not the same as saying they think these pictures are the way they really are right now, but that is another story to be discussed elsewhere).
Sometimes narcissistic fantasies are spectacularly grandiose -- imagining themselves as Jesus or a saint or hero or deity depicted in art -- but just as often the fantasies of narcissists are mediocre and vulgar, concocted from illustrations in popular magazines, sensational novels, comic books even.
These artificial self fantasies are also static in time, going back unchanged to early adolescence or even to childhood; the narcissists' self-images don't change with time, so that you will find, for instance, female narcissists clinging to retro styles, still living the picture of the perfect woman of 1945 or 1965 as depicted in The Ladies' Home Journal or Seventeen or Vogue of that era, and male narcissists still hung up on images of comic-book or ripping adventure heroes from their youth.
Though narcissists like pictures rather than stories, they like still pictures, not moving ones, so they don't base their fantasies on movies or TV.
Grandiosity can take various forms -- a narcissistic woman may believe herself to be the very model of perfect womanhood, the standard by which all others are measured, and she will try to force her daughters to be just like her, she will not be able to cope with daughters who are taller or shorter than she is, fatter or thinner, who have bigger or smaller feet, breasts, teeth, who have different favorite colors than hers, etc.
Narcissistic men can be infatuated with their own looks, too, (witness John Cheever, for instance; Almost Perfect) but are more likely than women to get hung up on their intelligence or the importance of their work -- doesn't matter what the work is, if he's doing it, by definition it's more important than anything you could possibly do.
Narcissists I've known also have odd religious ideas, in particular believing that they are God's special favorites somehow; God loves them, so they are exempted from ordinary rules and obligations: God loves them and wants them to be the way they are, so they can do anything they feel like -- though, note, the narcissist's God has much harsher rules for everyone else, including you.
[Many readers have questions about narcissism and religion.
Here is an interesting article on the Web: "Narcissism Goes to Church: Encountering Evangelical Worship" by Monte Wilson. "Modern American Christianity is filled with the spirit of narcissism.
We are in love with ourselves and evaluate churches, ministers and truth-claims based upon how they make us feel about ourselves. If the church makes me feel wanted, it is a good church. If the minister makes me feel good about myself, he is a terrific guy. If the proffered truth supports my self-esteem, it is, thereby, verified."]
[More on grandiosity.]
Narcissists have little sense of humor.
They don't get jokes, not even the funny papers or simple riddles, and they don't make jokes, except for sarcastic cracks and the lamest puns.
This is because, lacking empathy, they don't get the context and affect of words or actions, and jokes, humor, comedy depend entirely on context and affect.
They specialize in sarcasm about others and mistake it for wit, but, in my experience, narcissists are entirely incapable of irony -- thus, I've been chagrinned more than once to discover that something I'd taken as an intentional pose or humorous put-on was, in fact, something the narcissist was totally serious about.
Which is to say that they come mighty close to parody in their pretensions and pretending, so that they can be very funny without knowing it, but you'd better not let on that you think so.
[Interestingly, this is the only trait on this list about which there seems to be any controversy. Maybe I've just been unlucky! I've known narcissists who'll make fun of others, repeat jokes they've heard others laugh at, and laugh at jokes when others laugh, but knowing how to make people laugh is not necessarily the same as having a sense of humor.]
^
Narcissists have a weird sense of time.
It's more or less like they are not aware that the passage of time changes things, or maybe they just aren't aware of time's passing at all.
Years can pass without touching narcissists.
Narcissists often look, or think they look, significantly younger than they are; this youthful appearance is a point of pride to them, and some will emphasize it by either preserving the styles of their golden youth or following the styles of people the age they feel they "really" are.
That their faces don't show their chronological age is a good sign that they haven't been living real lives with real life's wear and tear on the looks of normal people.
The narcissists' years have passed without touching them. Bear in mind that narcissistic adults have had decades of not being in synch with the times or with other people, so that by now they are really out of it.
Sometimes it just seems like they have a highly selective memory -- which, of course, they do, sort of; they pay attention only to what has their name in it in the first place, so after 30 or 40 years, you shouldn't be surprised to hear a narcissist say something like, "Didn't the Beatles have a couple of hit songs while we were in high school?" or to suddenly discover that the narcissist doesn't know that M&M's have little m's on them or that smallpox was eradicated over 20 years ago. They are not being ironic: they really don't know.
They were off in their own little world of fantastic perfection. On the other hand, as far as I've seen, all that stuff really is in there, but is accessible only intermittently or unpredictably. Narcissists ordinarily have spotty memories, with huge and odd gaps in their recollections; they may say that they don't remember their childhoods, etc., and apparently most of the time they don't.
But they will have sudden accesses of memory, triggered by God knows what, when they remember details, everybody's names, what people were wearing, why the people in that picture from 1950 are standing the way they are, what the weather was like, etc. -- in other words, every once in a while, their memories will be normal. But don't count on it. ^
Narcissists are totally and inflexibly authoritarian. In other words, they are suck-ups.
They want to be authority figures and, short of that, they want to be associated with authority figures.
In their hearts, they know they can't think well, have no judgment about what matters, are not connected with the world they inhabit, so they cling fanatically to the opinions of people they regard as authority figures -- such as their parents, teachers, doctors, ministers.
Where relevant, this may include scientists or professors or artists, but narcissists stick to people they know personally, since they aren't engaged enough with the world to get their authoritative opinions from TV, movies, books or dead geniuses/saints/heroes.
If they get in trouble over some or another opinion they've put forth, they'll blame the source -- "It was okay with Dr. Somebody," "My father taught me that," etc.
If you're still thinking of the narcissist as odd-but-normal, this shirking of responsibility will seem dishonest and craven -- well, it is but it's really an admission of weakness: they really mean it: they said what they said because someone they admire or fear said it and they're trying to borrow that person's strength.
^
Narcissists have strange work habits.
Normal people work for a goal or a product, even if the goal is only a paycheck.
Normal people measure things by how much they have to spend (in time, work, energy) to get the desired results.
Normal people desire idleness from time to time, usually wanting as much free time as they can get to pursue their own thoughts and pleasures and interests.
Narcissists work for a goal, too, but it's a different goal: they want power, authority, adulation.
Lacking empathy, and lacking also context and affect, narcissists don't understand how people achieve glory and high standing; they think it's all arbitrary, it's all appearances, it's all who you know.
So they try to attach themselves to people who already have what they want, meanwhile making a great show of working hard. Narcissists can put in a shocking amount of time to very little effect.
This is partly because they have so little empathy that they don't know why some work is valued more highly than other work, why some people's opinions carry more weight than others'.
They do know that you're supposed to work and not be lazy, so they keep themselves occupied.
But they are not invested in the work they do -- whatever they may produce is just something they have to do to get the admiration and power they crave.
Since this is so, they really don't pay attention to what they're doing, preferring the easiest thing at every turn, even though they may be constantly occupied, so that narcissists manage to be workaholics and extremely lazy at the same time.
Narcissists measure the worth of their work only by how much time they spend on it, not by what they produce. They want to get an A for Effort.
Narcissists lack empathy, so they don't know what others value or why.
Narcissists tend to value things in quantitative ways and in odd quantities at that -- they'll tell you how many inches of letters they received, but not how many letters or from how many correspondents; they know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
A narcissist may, in fact, hold himself to a grinding work schedule that gives him something like an addictive high so that, when wrought up, he can be sort of dazed, giddy, and groggy, making you wonder if he's drunk or otherwise intoxicated -- now, that's a real workaholic.
Usually, this excessive busyness appears to be -- and some will even tell you this -- an attempt to distract themselves from unpleasant or inconvenient feelings (i.e., it's a manic defense against depression -- and, note, with narcissists it's inaccurate to use "happy" or "unhappy" because their feelings are just not that differentiated; "euphoria" or "dysphoria" are as close as they get to ordinary pleasure or distress) or to make themselves unavailable to others' emotional needs.
^
Narcissists feel entitled to whatever they can take.
They expect privileges and indulgences, and they also feel entitled to exploit other people without any trace of reciprocation. ^
Some narcissists spend extravagantly in order to impress people, keep up grandiose pretentions, or buy favorable treatment, and some narcissists overspend, bankrupt themselves, and lose everything.
My personal experience is that narcissists are stingy, mean, frugal, niggardly to the point of eccentricity.
This is a person who won't spend $1.50 on a greeting card but will instead send you an advertising flyer that came with the newspaper.
This is a person who will be very conscious of her appearance but will dress herself and her children in used clothes and other people's cast-offs.
[Note: Thrift is not in itself a narcissistic trait; neither is a fondness for old clothes.
The important element here is that the narcissist buys clothes that other people she admires and wishes to emulate have already picked out, since she has no individual tastes or preferences.]
These are people who need labels or trademarks (or other signs of authority) to distinguish between the real thing and a cheap knock-off or imitation, and so will substitute something easy and cheap for something precious and dear and expect nobody else to know the difference, since they can't.
These are people who can tell you how many miles but not how many smiles.
Narcissists are not only selfish and ungiving -- they seem to have to make a point of not giving what they know someone else wants.
Thus, for instance, in a "romantic" relationship, they will want you to do what they want because they want it and not because you want it -- and, in fact, if you actually want to do what they want, then that's too much like sharing and you wreck their fun and they don't want it anymore.
They want to get what they want from you without giving you what you want from them. Period. If you should happen to want to give what they want to get, then they'll lose interest in you.
^
Something I had not connected with narcissism until I read about Reactive Attachment Disorder is that narcissists I've known have had unusual eating habits or appetites, including eating match heads, dry cake mix, chicken bones, raw meat, dog kibble, egg mash, bits of paper, wood pencils; some binge or gorge on ordinary foods, others seem always to be on one or another self-imposed, self-invented eccentric dietary regime.
This behavior does not seem to have much in the way of affective component compared to, say, "normal" eating disorders. ^
Narcissists are very disappointing as gift-givers.
This is not a trivial consideration in personal relationships.
I've seen narcissistic people sweetly solicit someone's preferences ("Go ahead -- tell me what you really want"), make a show of paying attention to the answer ("Don't you think I'm nice?"), and then deliver something other than what was asked for -- and feel abused and unappreciated when someone else gets gratitude for fulfilling the very request that the narcissist evoked in the first place.
I've seen this happen often, where narcissists will go out of their way to stir up other people's expectations and then go out of their way to disappoint those expectations.
It seems like a lot of pointless work to me.
First, narcissists lack empathy, so they don't know what you want or like and, evidently, they don't care either; second, they think their opinions are better and more important than anyone else's, so they'll give you what they think you ought to want, regardless of what you may have said when asked what you wanted for your birthday; third, they're stingy and will give as gifts stuff that's just lying around their house, such as possessions that they no longer have any use for, or -- in really choice instances -- return to you something that was yours in the first place.
In fact, as a practical matter, the surest way NOT to get what you want from a narcissist is to ask for it; your chances are better if you just keep quiet, because every now and then the narcissist will hit on the right thing by random accident.
^
It's very hard to have a simple, uncomplicated good time with a narcissist.
Except for odd spells of heady euphoria unrelated to anything you can see, their affective range is mediocre-fake-normal to hell-on-Earth.
They will sometimes lie low and be quiet, actually passive and dependent -- this is as good as it gets with narcissists.
They are incapable of loving conduct towards anyone or anything, so they do not have the capacity for simple pleasure, beyond the satisfaction of bodily needs.
There is only one way to please a narcissist (and it won't please you): that is to indulge their every whim, cater to their tiniest impulses, bend to their views on every little thing.
There's only one way to get decent treatment from narcissists: keep your distance.
They can be pretty nice, even charming, flirtatious, and seductive, to strangers, and will flatter you shamelessly if they want something from you.
When you attempt to get close to them in a normal way, they feel you are putting emotional pressure on them and they withdraw because you're too demanding.
They can be positively fawning and solicitous as long as they're afraid of you, which is not most people's idea of a real fun relationship.
I always have the problem that I get fed up and stay away from THEM long enough to forget exactly what the trouble was, then they come around again, and every narcissist I've known actually was quite lovable about half the time so I try it again.
A clue: Run for cover when they start acting normal, maybe expressing a becoming self-doubt or even acknowledging some little fault of their own, such as saying they now realize that they haven't treated you right or that they took advantage of you before.
They're just softening you up for something really nasty.
These people are geniuses of "Come closer so I can slap you."
Except that's not the way they think about it, if they think about it -- no, they're thinking, "Well, maybe you do really care about me, and, if you really care about me, then maybe you'll help me with this," only by "help" they mean do the whole thing, take total responsibility for it, including protecting and defending them and cleaning up the mess they've already made of it (which they will neglect to fill you in on because they haven't really been paying attention, have they, so how would they know??).
They will not have considered for one second how much of your time it will take, how much trouble it may get you into in their behalf, that they will owe you BIG for this -- no, you're just going to do it all out of the goodness of your heart, which they are delighted to exploit yet again, and your virtue will be its own reward: it's supposed to just tickle you pink to be offered this generous opportunity of showing how much you love them and/or how lucky you are to be the servant of such a luminous personage.
No lie -- they think other people do stuff for the same reason they do: to show off, to perform for an audience.
That's one of the reasons they make outrageous demands, put you on the spot and create scenes in public: they're being generous -- they're trying to share the spotlight with you by giving you the chance to show off how absolutely stunningly devoted-to-them you are.
It means that they love you; that's why they're hurt and bewildered when you angrily reject this invitation.
^
Appearances are all there is with narcissists -- and their self-hatred knows no bounds.
The most dramatic example I can think of is from John Cheever's journals.
Throughout his life he had pursued surreptitious homosexual activities, being transiently infatuated with young men who reminded him of himself in his youth, while also living in a superficially settled way as a married family man, a respected writer with an enviable suburban life, breeding pedigreed dogs and serving on the vestry of the Episcopal church.
When his secret life (going to New York City for a few days every now and then to pick up sailors and other beautiful boys for brief flings) came to scandalous light, his family sought to reassure him by telling him that they'd known about his homosexual activities for years.
Now, a normal person would be ashamed and embarrassed but also relieved and grateful that scandal, not to mention chronic emotional and marital infidelity, had not caused his wife and children to reject and abandon him -- but not the narcissist!
Oh, no, Cheever was enraged that they would ever have thought such a thing of him -- if they really loved him, they'd have bought his artificial "country squire" persona: they would have seen him as he wished to be seen: they would have believed his lies without question or doubt.
^
Narcissists don't volunteer the usual personal information about themselves, so they may seem secretive or perhaps unusually reserved or very jealous of their privacy.
All these things are true, but with the special narcissistic twist that, first, their real life isn't interesting to them so it doesn't occur to them that it would be interesting to anyone else and, second, since they have not yet been transfigured into the Star of the Universe, they're ashamed of their real life.
They feel that their jobs, their friends and families, their homes and possessions aren't good enough for them, they deserve better.
^
Narcissists not only don't recognize the feelings and autonomy of others, they don't recognize their own feelings as their own.
Their feelings are sort of like the weather, atmospheric, acts of God.
The narcissistic think that everyone's having the same feeling as they are.
This means that usually their own pain means nothing to them beyond the physical discomfort -- it has no affective component.
When they do get some painful affect, they think that God is punishing them -- they think that their trivial errors are worth God's specific attention to their punishment.
If you try to straighten them out, by telling them that your feelings are different, beware: their idea of sharing their feelings is to do or say something that makes you feel the way they're feeling and, as they make a point of not sharing anything desirable, you can expect something really nasty.
The sad fact seems to be that narcissists feel just as bad about themselves as they make others feel about them. ^
Narcissists are noted for their negative, pessimistic, cynical, or gloomy outlook on life.
Sarcasm seems to be a narcissistic specialty, not to mention spite.
Lacking love and pleasure, they don't have a good reason for anything they do and they think everyone else is just like them, except they're honest and the rest of us are hypocrites. Nothing real is ever perfect enough to satisfy them, so are they are constantly complaining and criticizing -- to the point of verbal abuse and insult. ^
Narcissists are impulsive.
They undo themselves by behavior that seems oddly stupid for people as intelligent as they are.
Somehow, they don't consider the probable consequences of their actions.
It's not clear to me whether they just expect to get away with doing anything they feel like at the moment or whether this impulsiveness is essentially a cognitive shortcoming deriving from the static psychic state with its distorted perception of time. ^
Narcissists hate to live alone.
Their inner resources are skimpy, static, and sterile, nothing interesting or attractive going on in their hearts and minds, so they don't want to be stuck with themselves.
All they have inside is the image of perfection that, being mere mortals like the rest of us, they will inevitably fall short of attaining. ^
To view the original article and further reading on those afflicted with Narcissism CLICK HERE
It has been my experience that my ex-husband Hamish shows many of the traits of the personality disorder Narcissism, an belief that has been confirmed by individuals who have known him over many years and have noted the trait as something of a genetic personality fault amongst others in the family.
My belief that the unfortunate Hamish Grossart had inheritted this genetic personality disorder would seem to be confirmed, not only by his behaviour, but also by medical reports. This would go a long way to explain his abusive, cruel and manipulative behaviour - his abuse of The Courts and anyone he can exploit to get his own way and his determination to destroy everything and anyone he can not control.
Those who suffer at his hands most clearly are those he can most readily exploit as with his children, ex wives and those personally involved with him - it may go a long way to explain his propensity for catastrophic failure which so heinously damages others in business and his apparent dependence on luck rather than ability.
Copied from a blog someone is keeping for or on my ex husband Hamish Grossart which can be found at:
Narcissistic Personality Disorder - Grandiosity is the hallmark of Narcissism
Copied from a blog someone is keeping for or on my ex husband Hamish Grossart which can be found at:
CLICK HERE
What is a personality disorder?
[from Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edition, 1994, commonly referred to as DSM-IV, of the American Psychiatric Association. European countries use the diagnostic criteria of the World Health Organization.]
An enduring pattern of inner experience and behavior that deviates markedly from the expectation of the individual's culture, is pervasive and inflexible, has an onset in adolescence or early adulthood, is stable over time, and leads to distress or impairment.
A personality disorder is a pattern of deviant or abnormal behavior that the person doesn't change even though it causes emotional upsets and trouble with other people at work and in personal relationships. It is not limited to episodes of mental illness, and it is not caused by drug or alcohol use, head injury, or illness. There are about a dozen different behavior patterns classified as personality disorders by DSM-IV. All the personality disorders show up as deviations from normal in one or more of the following:
(1) cognition -- i.e., perception, thinking, and interpretation of oneself, other people, and events;
(2) affectivity -- i.e., emotional responses (range, intensity, lability, appropriateness);
(3) interpersonal functions;
(4) impulsivity.
Narcissistic Personality Disorder
While grandiosity is the diagnostic hallmark of pathological narcissism, there is research evidence that pathological narcissism occurs in two forms, (a) a grandiose state of mind in young adults that can be corrected by life experiences, and (b) the stable disorder described in DSM-IV, which is defined less by grandiosity than by severely disturbed interpersonal relations.
The preferred theory seems to be that narcissism is caused by very early affective deprivation, yet the clinical material tends to describe narcissists as unwilling rather than unable, thus treating narcissistic behaviors as volitional -- that is, narcissism is termed a personality disorder, but it tends to be discussed as a character disorder. This distinction is important to prognosis and treatment possibilities. If NPD is caused by infantile damage and consequent developmental short-circuits, it probably represents an irremediable condition. On the other hand, if narcissism is a behavior pattern that's learned, then there is some hope, however tenuous, that it's a behavior pattern that can be unlearned. The clinical literature on NPD is highly theoretical, abstract, and general, with sparse case material, suggesting that clinical writers have little experience with narcissism in the flesh. There are several reasons for this to be so:
-- The incidence of NPD is estimated at 1% in the general population, though I haven't been able to discover the basis of this estimate.
-- Narcissists rarely enter treatment and, once in treatment, progress very slowly. We're talking about two or more years of frequent sessions before the narcissist can acknowledge even that the therapist is sometimes helpful. It's difficult to keep narcissists in treatment long enough for improvement to be made -- and few people, narcissists or not, have the motivation or the money to pursue treatment that produces so little so late.
-- Because of the influence of third-party payers (insurance companies), there has been a strong trend towards short-term therapy that concentrates on ameliorating acute troubles, such as depression, rather than delving into underlying chronic problems. Narcissists are very reluctant to open up and trust, so it's possible that their NPD is not even recognized by therapists in short-term treatment. Purely anecdotal evidence from correspondents and from observations of people I know indicates that selective serotonin-reuptake inhibitors, such as Prozac, aggravate narcissists' grandiosity and lack of social inhibition. It has also been suggested that self-help literature about bolstering self-esteem and getting what you want out of life or that encourages the feeling of victimization has aggravating effects on NPD thinking and behavior.
-- Most clinical writers seem unaware that narcissists' self-reports are unreliable. This is troubling, considering that lying is the most common complaint about narcissists and that, in many instances, defects of empathy lead narcissists to wildly inaccurate misinterpretations of other people's speech and actions, so that they may believe that they are liked and respected despite a history of callous and exploitative personal interactions.
[from Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edition, 1994, commonly referred to as DSM-IV, of the American Psychiatric Association. European countries use the diagnostic criteria of the World Health Organization.]
A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy.[jma: NPD first appeared in DSM-III in 1980; before that time there had been no formal diagnostic description. Additionally, there is considerable overlap between personality disorders and clinicians tend to diagnose mixes of two or more. Grandiosity is a special case, but lack of empathy and exploitative interpersonal relations are not unique to NPD, nor is the need to be seen as special or unique. The differential diagnosis of NPD is made on the absence of specific gross behaviors. Borderline Personality Disorder has several conspicuous similarities to NPD, but BPD is characterized by self-injury and threatened or attempted suicide, whereas narcissists are rarely self-harming in this way. BPD may include psychotic breaks, and these are uncharacteristic of NPD but not unknown. The need for constant attention is also found in Histrionic Personality Disorder, but HPD and BPD are both strongly oriented towards relationships, whereas NPD is characterized by aloofness and avoidance of intimacy. Grandiosity is unique to NPD among personality disorders, but it is found in other psychiatric illnesses. Psychopaths display pathological narcissism, including grandiosity, but psychopathy is differentiated from NPD by psychopaths' willingness to use physical violence to get what they want, whereas narcissists rarely commit crimes; the narcissists I've known personally are, in fact, averse to physical contact with others, though they will occasionally strike out in an impulse of rage. It has been found that court-ordered psychotherapy for psychopaths actually increases their recidivism rate; apparently treatment teaches psychopaths new ways to exploit other people. Bipolar illness also contains strong elements of grandiosity. See more on grandiosity and empathy and its lack below.]The disorder begins by early adulthood and is indicated by at least five of the following:
Translation: Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) is a pattern of self-centered or egotistical behavior that shows up in thinking and behavior in a lot of different situations and activities. People with NPD won't (or can't) change their behavior even when it causes problems at work or when other people complain about the way they act, or when their behavior causes a lot of emotional distress to others (or themselves? none of my narcissists ever admit to being distressed by their own behavior -- they always blame other people for any problems). This pattern of self-centered or egotistical behavior is not caused by current drug or alcohol use, head injury, acute psychotic episodes, or any other illness, but has been going on steadily at least since adolescence or early adulthood.
NPD interferes with people's functioning in their occupations and in their relationships:
Mild impairment when self-centered or egotistical behavior results in occasional minor problems, but the person is generally doing pretty well.
Moderate impairment when self-centered or egotistical behavior results in: (a) missing days from work, household duties, or school, (b) significant performance problems as a wage-earner, homemaker, or student, (c) frequently avoiding or alienating friends, (d) significant risk of harming self or others (frequent suicidal preoccupation; often neglecting family, or frequently abusing others or committing criminal acts).
Severe impairment when self-centered or egotistical behavior results in: (a) staying in bed all day, (b) totally alienating all friends and family, (c) severe risk of harming self or others (failing to maintain personal hygiene; persistent danger of suicide, abuse, or crime).
1. An exaggerated sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)
Translation: Grandiosity is the hallmark of narcissism. So what is grandiose?
The simplest everyday way that narcissists show their exaggerated sense of self-importance is by talking about family, work, life in general as if there is nobody else in the picture. Whatever they may be doing, in their own view, they are the star, and they give the impression that they are bearing heroic responsibility for their family or department or company, that they have to take care of everything because their spouses or co-workers are undependable, uncooperative, or otherwise unfit. They ignore or denigrate the abilities and contributions of others and complain that they receive no help at all; they may inspire your sympathy or admiration for their stoicism in the face of hardship or unstinting self-sacrifice for the good of (undeserving) others. But this everyday grandiosity is an aspect of narcissism that you may never catch on to unless you visit the narcissist's home or workplace and see for yourself that others are involved and are pulling their share of the load and, more often than not, are also pulling the narcissist's share as well. An example is the older woman who told me with a sigh that she knew she hadn't been a perfect mother but she just never had any help at all -- and she said this despite knowing that I knew that she had worn out and discarded two devoted husbands and had lived in her parents' pocket (and pocketbook) as long as they lived, quickly blowing her substantial inheritance on flaky business schemes. Another example is claiming unusual benefits or spectacular results from ordinary effort and investment, giving the impression that somehow the narcissist's time and money are worth more than other people's. [Here is an article about recognizing and coping with narcissism in the workplace; it is rather heavy on management jargon and psychobabble, but worth reading. "The Impact of Narcissism on Leadership and Sustainability" by Bruce Gregory, Ph.D. "When the narcissistic defense is operating in an interpersonal or group setting, the grandiose part does not show its face in public. In public it presents a front of patience, congeniality, and confident reasonableness."]
In popular usage, the terms narcissism, narcissist, and narcissistic denote absurd vanity and are applied to people whose ambitions and aspirations are much grander than their evident talents. Sometimes these terms are applied to people who are simply full of themselves -- even when their real achievements are spectacular. Outstanding performers are not always modest, but they aren't grandiose if their self-assessments are realistic; e.g., Muhammad Ali, then Cassius Clay, was notorious for boasting "I am the greatest!" and also pointing out that he was the prettiest, but he was the greatest and the prettiest for a number of years, so his self-assessments weren't grandiose. Some narcissists are flamboyantly boastful and self-aggrandizing, but many are inconspicuous in public, saving their conceit and autocratic opinions for their nearest and dearest. Common conspicuous grandiose behaviors include expecting special treatment or admiration on the basis of claiming (a) to know important, powerful or famous people or (b) to be extraordinarily intelligent or talented. As a real-life example, I used to have a neighbor who told his wife that he was the youngest person since Sir Isaac Newton to take a doctorate at Oxford. The neighbor gave no evidence of a world-class education, so I looked up Newton and found out that Newton had completed his baccalaureate at the age of twenty-two (like most people) and spent his entire academic career at Cambridge. The grandiose claims of narcissists are superficially plausible fabrications, readily punctured by a little critical consideration. The test is performance: do they deliver the goods? (There's also the special situation of a genius who's also strongly narcissistic, as perhaps Frank Lloyd Wright. Just remind yourself that the odds are that you'll meet at least 1000 narcissists for every genius you come across.) [More on grandiosity.]
2. Preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
Translation: Narcissists cultivate solipsistic or "autistic" fantasies, which is to say that they live in their own little worlds (and react with affront when reality dares to intrude).
3. Believes he is "special" and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)
Translation: Narcissists think that everyone who is not special and superior is worthless. By definition, normal, ordinary, and average aren't special and superior, and so, to narcissists, they are worthless.
4. Requires excessive admiration
Translation: Excessive in two ways: they want praise, compliments, deference, and expressions of envy all the time, and they want to be told that everything they do is better than what others can do. Sincerity is not an issue here; all that matter are frequency and volume.
5. Has a sense of entitlement
Translation: They expect automatic compliance with their wishes or especially favorable treatment, such as thinking that they should always be able to go first and that other people should stop whatever they're doing to do what the narcissists want, and may react with hurt or rage when these expectations are frustrated.
6. Selfishly takes advantage of others to achieve his own ends
Translation: Narcissists use other people to get what they want without caring about the cost to the other people.
7. Lacks empathy
Translation: They are unwilling to recognize or sympathize with other people's feelings and needs. They "tune out" when other people want to talk about their own problems.
In clinical terms, empathy is the ability to recognize and interpret other people's emotions. Lack of empathy may take two different directions: (a) accurate interpretation of others' emotions with no concern for others' distress, which is characteristic of psychopaths; and (b) the inability to recognize and accurately interpret other people's emotions, which is the NPD style. This second form of defective empathy may (rarely) go so far as alexithymia, or no words for emotions, and is found with psychosomatic illnesses, i.e., medical conditions in which emotion is experienced somatically rather than psychically. People with personality disorders don't have the normal body-ego identification and regard their bodies only instrumentally, i.e., as tools to use to get what they want, or, in bad states, as torture chambers that inflict on them meaningless suffering. Self-described narcissists who've written to me say that they are aware that their feelings are different from other people's, mostly that they feel less, both in strength and variety (and which the narcissists interpret as evidence of their own superiority); some narcissists report "numbness" and the inability to perceive meaning in other people's emotions.
8. Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him
Translation: No translation needed.
9. Shows arrogant, haughty, patronizing, or contemptuous behaviors or attitudes
Translation: They treat other people like dirt.
[Some descriptions and explanations on this page are based on material from What is a personality disorder? by Paul J. Hannig, Ph.D., The Online Journal of Psychiatry, Narcissistic Personality Disorder, and (defunct) Internet Mental Health questionnaire for diagnosis of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. For a firsthand account of what it's like to have NPD, see "Malignant Self-Love - Narcissism Re-visited" by Shmuel (Sam) Vaknin, Ph.D.]
To view the original of this article with many links CLICK HERE
It has been my experience that my ex-husband Hamish shows many of the traits of the personality disorder Narcissism, an belief that has been confirmed by individuals who have known him over many years and have noted the trait as something of a genetic personality fault amongst others in the family.
My belief that the unfortunate Hamish Grossart had inheritted this genetic personality disorder would seem to be confirmed, not only by his behaviour, but also by medical reports. This would go a long way to explain his abusive, cruel and manipulative behaviour - his abuse of The Courts and anyone he can exploit to get his own way and his determination to destroy everything and anyone he can not control.
Those who suffer at his hands most clearly are those he can most readily exploit as with his children, ex wives and those personally involved with him - it may go a long way to explain his propensity for catastrophic failure which so heinously damages others in business and his apparent dependence on luck rather than ability.
What is a personality disorder?
[from Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edition, 1994, commonly referred to as DSM-IV, of the American Psychiatric Association. European countries use the diagnostic criteria of the World Health Organization.]
An enduring pattern of inner experience and behavior that deviates markedly from the expectation of the individual's culture, is pervasive and inflexible, has an onset in adolescence or early adulthood, is stable over time, and leads to distress or impairment.
A personality disorder is a pattern of deviant or abnormal behavior that the person doesn't change even though it causes emotional upsets and trouble with other people at work and in personal relationships. It is not limited to episodes of mental illness, and it is not caused by drug or alcohol use, head injury, or illness. There are about a dozen different behavior patterns classified as personality disorders by DSM-IV. All the personality disorders show up as deviations from normal in one or more of the following:
(1) cognition -- i.e., perception, thinking, and interpretation of oneself, other people, and events;
(2) affectivity -- i.e., emotional responses (range, intensity, lability, appropriateness);
(3) interpersonal functions;
(4) impulsivity.
Narcissistic Personality Disorder
While grandiosity is the diagnostic hallmark of pathological narcissism, there is research evidence that pathological narcissism occurs in two forms, (a) a grandiose state of mind in young adults that can be corrected by life experiences, and (b) the stable disorder described in DSM-IV, which is defined less by grandiosity than by severely disturbed interpersonal relations.
The preferred theory seems to be that narcissism is caused by very early affective deprivation, yet the clinical material tends to describe narcissists as unwilling rather than unable, thus treating narcissistic behaviors as volitional -- that is, narcissism is termed a personality disorder, but it tends to be discussed as a character disorder. This distinction is important to prognosis and treatment possibilities. If NPD is caused by infantile damage and consequent developmental short-circuits, it probably represents an irremediable condition. On the other hand, if narcissism is a behavior pattern that's learned, then there is some hope, however tenuous, that it's a behavior pattern that can be unlearned. The clinical literature on NPD is highly theoretical, abstract, and general, with sparse case material, suggesting that clinical writers have little experience with narcissism in the flesh. There are several reasons for this to be so:
-- The incidence of NPD is estimated at 1% in the general population, though I haven't been able to discover the basis of this estimate.
-- Narcissists rarely enter treatment and, once in treatment, progress very slowly. We're talking about two or more years of frequent sessions before the narcissist can acknowledge even that the therapist is sometimes helpful. It's difficult to keep narcissists in treatment long enough for improvement to be made -- and few people, narcissists or not, have the motivation or the money to pursue treatment that produces so little so late.
-- Because of the influence of third-party payers (insurance companies), there has been a strong trend towards short-term therapy that concentrates on ameliorating acute troubles, such as depression, rather than delving into underlying chronic problems. Narcissists are very reluctant to open up and trust, so it's possible that their NPD is not even recognized by therapists in short-term treatment. Purely anecdotal evidence from correspondents and from observations of people I know indicates that selective serotonin-reuptake inhibitors, such as Prozac, aggravate narcissists' grandiosity and lack of social inhibition. It has also been suggested that self-help literature about bolstering self-esteem and getting what you want out of life or that encourages the feeling of victimization has aggravating effects on NPD thinking and behavior.
-- Most clinical writers seem unaware that narcissists' self-reports are unreliable. This is troubling, considering that lying is the most common complaint about narcissists and that, in many instances, defects of empathy lead narcissists to wildly inaccurate misinterpretations of other people's speech and actions, so that they may believe that they are liked and respected despite a history of callous and exploitative personal interactions.
[from Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edition, 1994, commonly referred to as DSM-IV, of the American Psychiatric Association. European countries use the diagnostic criteria of the World Health Organization.]
A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy.[jma: NPD first appeared in DSM-III in 1980; before that time there had been no formal diagnostic description. Additionally, there is considerable overlap between personality disorders and clinicians tend to diagnose mixes of two or more. Grandiosity is a special case, but lack of empathy and exploitative interpersonal relations are not unique to NPD, nor is the need to be seen as special or unique. The differential diagnosis of NPD is made on the absence of specific gross behaviors. Borderline Personality Disorder has several conspicuous similarities to NPD, but BPD is characterized by self-injury and threatened or attempted suicide, whereas narcissists are rarely self-harming in this way. BPD may include psychotic breaks, and these are uncharacteristic of NPD but not unknown. The need for constant attention is also found in Histrionic Personality Disorder, but HPD and BPD are both strongly oriented towards relationships, whereas NPD is characterized by aloofness and avoidance of intimacy. Grandiosity is unique to NPD among personality disorders, but it is found in other psychiatric illnesses. Psychopaths display pathological narcissism, including grandiosity, but psychopathy is differentiated from NPD by psychopaths' willingness to use physical violence to get what they want, whereas narcissists rarely commit crimes; the narcissists I've known personally are, in fact, averse to physical contact with others, though they will occasionally strike out in an impulse of rage. It has been found that court-ordered psychotherapy for psychopaths actually increases their recidivism rate; apparently treatment teaches psychopaths new ways to exploit other people. Bipolar illness also contains strong elements of grandiosity. See more on grandiosity and empathy and its lack below.]The disorder begins by early adulthood and is indicated by at least five of the following:
Translation: Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) is a pattern of self-centered or egotistical behavior that shows up in thinking and behavior in a lot of different situations and activities. People with NPD won't (or can't) change their behavior even when it causes problems at work or when other people complain about the way they act, or when their behavior causes a lot of emotional distress to others (or themselves? none of my narcissists ever admit to being distressed by their own behavior -- they always blame other people for any problems). This pattern of self-centered or egotistical behavior is not caused by current drug or alcohol use, head injury, acute psychotic episodes, or any other illness, but has been going on steadily at least since adolescence or early adulthood.
NPD interferes with people's functioning in their occupations and in their relationships:
Mild impairment when self-centered or egotistical behavior results in occasional minor problems, but the person is generally doing pretty well.
Moderate impairment when self-centered or egotistical behavior results in: (a) missing days from work, household duties, or school, (b) significant performance problems as a wage-earner, homemaker, or student, (c) frequently avoiding or alienating friends, (d) significant risk of harming self or others (frequent suicidal preoccupation; often neglecting family, or frequently abusing others or committing criminal acts).
Severe impairment when self-centered or egotistical behavior results in: (a) staying in bed all day, (b) totally alienating all friends and family, (c) severe risk of harming self or others (failing to maintain personal hygiene; persistent danger of suicide, abuse, or crime).
1. An exaggerated sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)
Translation: Grandiosity is the hallmark of narcissism. So what is grandiose?
The simplest everyday way that narcissists show their exaggerated sense of self-importance is by talking about family, work, life in general as if there is nobody else in the picture. Whatever they may be doing, in their own view, they are the star, and they give the impression that they are bearing heroic responsibility for their family or department or company, that they have to take care of everything because their spouses or co-workers are undependable, uncooperative, or otherwise unfit. They ignore or denigrate the abilities and contributions of others and complain that they receive no help at all; they may inspire your sympathy or admiration for their stoicism in the face of hardship or unstinting self-sacrifice for the good of (undeserving) others. But this everyday grandiosity is an aspect of narcissism that you may never catch on to unless you visit the narcissist's home or workplace and see for yourself that others are involved and are pulling their share of the load and, more often than not, are also pulling the narcissist's share as well. An example is the older woman who told me with a sigh that she knew she hadn't been a perfect mother but she just never had any help at all -- and she said this despite knowing that I knew that she had worn out and discarded two devoted husbands and had lived in her parents' pocket (and pocketbook) as long as they lived, quickly blowing her substantial inheritance on flaky business schemes. Another example is claiming unusual benefits or spectacular results from ordinary effort and investment, giving the impression that somehow the narcissist's time and money are worth more than other people's. [Here is an article about recognizing and coping with narcissism in the workplace; it is rather heavy on management jargon and psychobabble, but worth reading. "The Impact of Narcissism on Leadership and Sustainability" by Bruce Gregory, Ph.D. "When the narcissistic defense is operating in an interpersonal or group setting, the grandiose part does not show its face in public. In public it presents a front of patience, congeniality, and confident reasonableness."]
In popular usage, the terms narcissism, narcissist, and narcissistic denote absurd vanity and are applied to people whose ambitions and aspirations are much grander than their evident talents. Sometimes these terms are applied to people who are simply full of themselves -- even when their real achievements are spectacular. Outstanding performers are not always modest, but they aren't grandiose if their self-assessments are realistic; e.g., Muhammad Ali, then Cassius Clay, was notorious for boasting "I am the greatest!" and also pointing out that he was the prettiest, but he was the greatest and the prettiest for a number of years, so his self-assessments weren't grandiose. Some narcissists are flamboyantly boastful and self-aggrandizing, but many are inconspicuous in public, saving their conceit and autocratic opinions for their nearest and dearest. Common conspicuous grandiose behaviors include expecting special treatment or admiration on the basis of claiming (a) to know important, powerful or famous people or (b) to be extraordinarily intelligent or talented. As a real-life example, I used to have a neighbor who told his wife that he was the youngest person since Sir Isaac Newton to take a doctorate at Oxford. The neighbor gave no evidence of a world-class education, so I looked up Newton and found out that Newton had completed his baccalaureate at the age of twenty-two (like most people) and spent his entire academic career at Cambridge. The grandiose claims of narcissists are superficially plausible fabrications, readily punctured by a little critical consideration. The test is performance: do they deliver the goods? (There's also the special situation of a genius who's also strongly narcissistic, as perhaps Frank Lloyd Wright. Just remind yourself that the odds are that you'll meet at least 1000 narcissists for every genius you come across.) [More on grandiosity.]
2. Preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
Translation: Narcissists cultivate solipsistic or "autistic" fantasies, which is to say that they live in their own little worlds (and react with affront when reality dares to intrude).
3. Believes he is "special" and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)
Translation: Narcissists think that everyone who is not special and superior is worthless. By definition, normal, ordinary, and average aren't special and superior, and so, to narcissists, they are worthless.
4. Requires excessive admiration
Translation: Excessive in two ways: they want praise, compliments, deference, and expressions of envy all the time, and they want to be told that everything they do is better than what others can do. Sincerity is not an issue here; all that matter are frequency and volume.
5. Has a sense of entitlement
Translation: They expect automatic compliance with their wishes or especially favorable treatment, such as thinking that they should always be able to go first and that other people should stop whatever they're doing to do what the narcissists want, and may react with hurt or rage when these expectations are frustrated.
6. Selfishly takes advantage of others to achieve his own ends
Translation: Narcissists use other people to get what they want without caring about the cost to the other people.
7. Lacks empathy
Translation: They are unwilling to recognize or sympathize with other people's feelings and needs. They "tune out" when other people want to talk about their own problems.
In clinical terms, empathy is the ability to recognize and interpret other people's emotions. Lack of empathy may take two different directions: (a) accurate interpretation of others' emotions with no concern for others' distress, which is characteristic of psychopaths; and (b) the inability to recognize and accurately interpret other people's emotions, which is the NPD style. This second form of defective empathy may (rarely) go so far as alexithymia, or no words for emotions, and is found with psychosomatic illnesses, i.e., medical conditions in which emotion is experienced somatically rather than psychically. People with personality disorders don't have the normal body-ego identification and regard their bodies only instrumentally, i.e., as tools to use to get what they want, or, in bad states, as torture chambers that inflict on them meaningless suffering. Self-described narcissists who've written to me say that they are aware that their feelings are different from other people's, mostly that they feel less, both in strength and variety (and which the narcissists interpret as evidence of their own superiority); some narcissists report "numbness" and the inability to perceive meaning in other people's emotions.
8. Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him
Translation: No translation needed.
9. Shows arrogant, haughty, patronizing, or contemptuous behaviors or attitudes
Translation: They treat other people like dirt.
[Some descriptions and explanations on this page are based on material from What is a personality disorder? by Paul J. Hannig, Ph.D., The Online Journal of Psychiatry, Narcissistic Personality Disorder, and (defunct) Internet Mental Health questionnaire for diagnosis of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. For a firsthand account of what it's like to have NPD, see "Malignant Self-Love - Narcissism Re-visited" by Shmuel (Sam) Vaknin, Ph.D.]
To view the original of this article with many links CLICK HERE
It has been my experience that my ex-husband Hamish shows many of the traits of the personality disorder Narcissism, an belief that has been confirmed by individuals who have known him over many years and have noted the trait as something of a genetic personality fault amongst others in the family.
My belief that the unfortunate Hamish Grossart had inheritted this genetic personality disorder would seem to be confirmed, not only by his behaviour, but also by medical reports. This would go a long way to explain his abusive, cruel and manipulative behaviour - his abuse of The Courts and anyone he can exploit to get his own way and his determination to destroy everything and anyone he can not control.
Those who suffer at his hands most clearly are those he can most readily exploit as with his children, ex wives and those personally involved with him - it may go a long way to explain his propensity for catastrophic failure which so heinously damages others in business and his apparent dependence on luck rather than ability.
Copied from a blog someone is keeping for or on my ex husband Hamish Grossart which can be found at:
Narcissistic individuals are obsessed & skilled liars
Copied from a blog someone is keeping for or on my ex husband Hamish Grossart which can be found at:
CLICK HERE
Kim & Steve Cooper
Narcissistic individuals are obsessed by the fantasy of an ideal and perfect relationship and are skilled liars, so if the above symptoms describe your partner you should be aware that:
he/she may have secret crushes, be having affairs, using pornography and/or conducting ‘cyber’ affairs (all the while lying that they are single) all without your knowledge. If you notice their mind often appears elsewhere, and they show other symptoms of this disorder, this may be the reason.
Not all individuals showing the symptoms of NPD are physically abusive, it is a significant indicator however that you may end up part of a violent marriage ...
“The physical abuse is not always perpetrated by the narcissist either. It is normal to become very angry with someone who manipulates and puts you down.”
Narcissism looks like this...
“You and your children are treated very different in private than in public.”
In public you may be ignored while your partner gives all of their attention to others, but pretends to be the perfect husband, father, wife or mother ...
“in private they are sarcastic, haughty, insulting and put people down (even friends) behind their back.”
Maybe you know my husband Steve and I from “The Love Safety Net,” our popular online movies or radio show? Well today I will share with you some of our history which I believe may help if you are having problems with chronic fighting and/or abuse in your family or your marriage.
If you live with someone who puts you down and insults you, there is information here that will help you bring peace and security back to your home and your life. Please take your time and read what we have to share carefully as you will not find this information anywhere else.
Does Someone Close to You Suffer from Narcissism? ...
“Our story involves narcissism or NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder), a major factor in domestic abuse and chronic fighting and we have gone public with our experience to help others learn to recognise and deal with this all too common problem.”
After years of conflict, I was directed to read information on-line which led me to suspect Steve was suffering from Narcissism or NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder).
“When I talked to a professional mental health worker about my suspicions, he agreed and told me outright that I should divorce Steve and that there was no cure. Even worse I was treated like a fool for thinking he could get better.”
Despite this (and even though his behaviour was hurting me) I refused to abandon him. In my heart I knew that leaving was the wrong thing for me to do. There HAD to be answers. I received lots of professional help and advice, learned a lot about psychology (and made tons of mistakes) until finally discovered from a local police officer the first of the steps that I would take to end the fighting and bring peace to our lives.
First I am going to tell you a little about narcissism, but please note that I am not saying this was all Steve’s fault. Later in my story you will learn about codependence which I know now was my role in our problems. These are problems I believe that you can overcome as we did.
Someone with symtoms of NPD will also show little or no regard for your well-being or feelings and may act as if they are superior and more popular than you (and show favouritism between the kids) while often being cold, arrogant, withdrawn and unavailable.
“The criticism, insults and lack of involvement or concern for your well-being and feelings may cause you and/or your children to feel rejected, hurt, humiliated, powerless, ashamed, angry and can also lead to mental health and psychological problems and addictions within your family.”
A narcissist will act as if they should never be questioned and that they deserve things that they haven’t worked for or earned or trade on other peoples honesty and hard work and they may lie and manipulate people for attention, acting a bit too good to be true.
“Indeed they can be very charming and even humble in public and this will fool people and few will believe you if you disclose how they talk to you in private or the things they say behind other peoples backs.”
I write from our experience, but there are narcissistic women as well; the statistics say that there are more men than women with narcissism, our audience however is about 50/50.
“Female narcissists cause their male partners just as much pain and humiliation and cause just as much chaos and destruction in their own lives and the lives of the people close to them.”
If you are a man dealing with a woman in your life who displays this behaviour, we certainly feel for you.
“It is not black and white or men versus women either. Most of us have narcissistic tendencies which can affect our relationships badly. Learning to deal with Steve’s narcissism helped me face my immature and selfish side too.”
A narcissistic partner or family member will lie and paint a bad picture of you. They do this to justify their own bad behaviour and try and gain sympathy from others while kidding themselves that it is the truth.
“You may have no idea of all of the lies they are telling you or the lies and exaggerations they may be telling others about you.”
If your partner creates fights when you try to discuss money, you should be aware that they may be hiding credit cards or money transactions from you. They will pretend these fights are your fault, but this is really an attempt to cover their own guilt by trying to put the blame on you.
“Obsession with fantasy is part of what makes them unavailable, impatient and angry with you and is a major symptom of narcissism. You may not want to consider this possibility, I know I didn’t believe it until the evidence was right in front of me ... and then I was shattered.”
It is even normal after years of this treatment (especially if you discover that they have been cheating on you, after years of insults, rudeness and blaming you for everything wrong in their life) for you to want to harm them or wish them dead. This is obviously very serious and so getting (the right) help and support is very important, but can be nearly impossible to find. We care and are we are here to help, so if your are facing these problems, please bookmark this page right now (so you will be sure to be able to find it later) and then continue reading.
“We want to see you moving past feeling resentful and wanting to punish you partner (or wanting revenge) to feeling secure and good about yourself and moving into a new time in your life where you are loved, respected and valued in your family, community and your home.”
If your partner is narcissistic there are people who will tell you that the only answer is to ‘leave and have no contact’, but this is very dangerous advice. This is exactly how to provoke and escalate rage and physical (and emotional) abuse and domestic violence in couples with these problems. It may also result in stalking. Even worse the perpetrator of the violence and stalking might be you, as partners of narcissists are often enraged by how callously their partners can ‘cast them aside' with no explanation.
“More people are killed or injured in domestic disputes when leaving their relationship or in the two months after leaving than at any other time.”
If you want to leave, of course that is OK, but please get our advice first on how to do this safely and how to get closure. You need to consider that setting up house somewhere else may put you on even less sure footing than you are already and is no guarantee that the fighting will cease or that you will be safer. Statistics show instead that it will in fact often make the fighting worse.
Confronting your partner with evidence they may have this disorder is NOT the solution.
Do you sometimes worry that yourself or your partner will need years of therapy to get better? I once thought that this would be the only thing that would help Steve, but thankfully I was wrong and it was other very different things which turned our marriage around. I struggled with this problem for years on my own and it was one of the hardest times of my life.
There is NO evidence of therapy being successful in treating narcissism, so you don’t need to try and coerce your partner into therapy. Personality disorders are best helped with a reparative relationship. This is why we sometimes call our approach ‘parenting the adult’; Just as learning new parenting skills can help your child feel safe and learn better behaviour, you can learn new ways of responding and relating to your partner that will help de-escalate the fighting.
Narcissists don’t think anything is wrong with them and so will not stick with therapy anyway (and we believe this is why many professionals don’t believe there is any effective treatment for NPD), so please, if symptoms on this page sound like you or your partner, don’t rush out to find a psychologist, psychiatrist or doctor (or get lost in the gloom online while searching for information on this subject) until we get the chance to give you some sound practical guidance. Don’t worry, soon we will direct you where to get help and guide you step by step on how to do this correctly, without making the mistakes that most people do.
I talk about each step in detail, exactly what to do, and the common mistakes to avoid when you join my free email list.
I hope that by sharing our experience it will protect you from some of the mistakes we made and the bitter and nasty people I ran into when I first discovered Steve was NPD. We have information for you to put to use immediately if you are facing this problem (and advice on how to find the best professionals to help you). I look forward to sharing the steps I took to fix our marriage even when everyone said it was hopeless
“It took us a long time to go public with our story, but after things had been better with us for a few years we decided that we just couldn’t stay quiet any longer.”
We saw so many people suffering that we decided we had to speak up. It was truly embarrassing at first, but getting emails every day (like the ones you will read over the next few pages) has more than made up for this.
3 Vital questions to know you are not the abuser and
3 Things to stop doing immediately (which only make the fighting worse)
1.
Bullet Immediately after subscribing we will send you an email with a link to a (free) private page which will give you the 3 questions and lots more information including a check list of points that will help you better see what narcissism (and codependence) looks like.
All of this is completely free and only 2 simple steps away.”
We have lots of practical advice to offer and you will never spend hours again searching for information on narcissism. Family breakdown is probably the biggest problem in the community and we work diligently to provide you with the most up-to-date information available as cheaply as we possibly can. We are real people and we genuinely want to help you get on the road today to better relationships and a happier life.
I also want to share with you what I have learned about codependence (which our team also calls emotional dependence), which is a term used to describe people who are repeatedly attracted to people with NPD. Codependence and Narcissism are sometimes called ‘a dance’ (of destruction and despair) ...Have you had difficulty forming happy and peaceful relationships? Has attracting lasting love been painful for you? Do you often feel emotionally neglected and in despair? Have you had more than one troubled relationship in your life?
I want to share with you how I overcame these problems and put a stop to the abuse and how this changed everything for me and also helped Steve.
You can check out all the details here
Thanks for reading and please hang in there,
Your Friend,
Kim Cooper
To view the original of this article CLICK HERE
It has been my experience that my ex-husband Hamish shows many of the traits of the personality disorder Narcissism, an belief that has been confirmed by individuals who have known him over many years and have noted the trait as something of a genetic personality fault amongst others in the family.
My belief that the unfortunate Hamish Grossart had inheritted this genetic personality disorder would seem to be confirmed, not only by his behaviour, but also by medical reports. This would go a long way to explain his abusive, cruel and manipulative behaviour - his abuse of The Courts and anyone he can exploit to get his own way and his determination to destroy everything and anyone he can not control.
Those who suffer at his hands most clearly are those he can most readily exploit as with his children, ex wives and those personally involved with him - it may go a long way to explain his propensity for catastrophic failure which so heinously damages others in business and his apparent dependence on luck rather than ability.
Copied from a blog someone is keeping for or on my ex husband Hamish Grossart which can be found at:
Kim & Steve Cooper
Narcissistic individuals are obsessed by the fantasy of an ideal and perfect relationship and are skilled liars, so if the above symptoms describe your partner you should be aware that:
he/she may have secret crushes, be having affairs, using pornography and/or conducting ‘cyber’ affairs (all the while lying that they are single) all without your knowledge. If you notice their mind often appears elsewhere, and they show other symptoms of this disorder, this may be the reason.
Not all individuals showing the symptoms of NPD are physically abusive, it is a significant indicator however that you may end up part of a violent marriage ...
“The physical abuse is not always perpetrated by the narcissist either. It is normal to become very angry with someone who manipulates and puts you down.”
Narcissism looks like this...
“You and your children are treated very different in private than in public.”
In public you may be ignored while your partner gives all of their attention to others, but pretends to be the perfect husband, father, wife or mother ...
“in private they are sarcastic, haughty, insulting and put people down (even friends) behind their back.”
Maybe you know my husband Steve and I from “The Love Safety Net,” our popular online movies or radio show? Well today I will share with you some of our history which I believe may help if you are having problems with chronic fighting and/or abuse in your family or your marriage.
If you live with someone who puts you down and insults you, there is information here that will help you bring peace and security back to your home and your life. Please take your time and read what we have to share carefully as you will not find this information anywhere else.
Does Someone Close to You Suffer from Narcissism? ...
“Our story involves narcissism or NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder), a major factor in domestic abuse and chronic fighting and we have gone public with our experience to help others learn to recognise and deal with this all too common problem.”
After years of conflict, I was directed to read information on-line which led me to suspect Steve was suffering from Narcissism or NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder).
“When I talked to a professional mental health worker about my suspicions, he agreed and told me outright that I should divorce Steve and that there was no cure. Even worse I was treated like a fool for thinking he could get better.”
Despite this (and even though his behaviour was hurting me) I refused to abandon him. In my heart I knew that leaving was the wrong thing for me to do. There HAD to be answers. I received lots of professional help and advice, learned a lot about psychology (and made tons of mistakes) until finally discovered from a local police officer the first of the steps that I would take to end the fighting and bring peace to our lives.
First I am going to tell you a little about narcissism, but please note that I am not saying this was all Steve’s fault. Later in my story you will learn about codependence which I know now was my role in our problems. These are problems I believe that you can overcome as we did.
Someone with symtoms of NPD will also show little or no regard for your well-being or feelings and may act as if they are superior and more popular than you (and show favouritism between the kids) while often being cold, arrogant, withdrawn and unavailable.
“The criticism, insults and lack of involvement or concern for your well-being and feelings may cause you and/or your children to feel rejected, hurt, humiliated, powerless, ashamed, angry and can also lead to mental health and psychological problems and addictions within your family.”
A narcissist will act as if they should never be questioned and that they deserve things that they haven’t worked for or earned or trade on other peoples honesty and hard work and they may lie and manipulate people for attention, acting a bit too good to be true.
“Indeed they can be very charming and even humble in public and this will fool people and few will believe you if you disclose how they talk to you in private or the things they say behind other peoples backs.”
I write from our experience, but there are narcissistic women as well; the statistics say that there are more men than women with narcissism, our audience however is about 50/50.
“Female narcissists cause their male partners just as much pain and humiliation and cause just as much chaos and destruction in their own lives and the lives of the people close to them.”
If you are a man dealing with a woman in your life who displays this behaviour, we certainly feel for you.
“It is not black and white or men versus women either. Most of us have narcissistic tendencies which can affect our relationships badly. Learning to deal with Steve’s narcissism helped me face my immature and selfish side too.”
A narcissistic partner or family member will lie and paint a bad picture of you. They do this to justify their own bad behaviour and try and gain sympathy from others while kidding themselves that it is the truth.
“You may have no idea of all of the lies they are telling you or the lies and exaggerations they may be telling others about you.”
If your partner creates fights when you try to discuss money, you should be aware that they may be hiding credit cards or money transactions from you. They will pretend these fights are your fault, but this is really an attempt to cover their own guilt by trying to put the blame on you.
“Obsession with fantasy is part of what makes them unavailable, impatient and angry with you and is a major symptom of narcissism. You may not want to consider this possibility, I know I didn’t believe it until the evidence was right in front of me ... and then I was shattered.”
It is even normal after years of this treatment (especially if you discover that they have been cheating on you, after years of insults, rudeness and blaming you for everything wrong in their life) for you to want to harm them or wish them dead. This is obviously very serious and so getting (the right) help and support is very important, but can be nearly impossible to find. We care and are we are here to help, so if your are facing these problems, please bookmark this page right now (so you will be sure to be able to find it later) and then continue reading.
“We want to see you moving past feeling resentful and wanting to punish you partner (or wanting revenge) to feeling secure and good about yourself and moving into a new time in your life where you are loved, respected and valued in your family, community and your home.”
If your partner is narcissistic there are people who will tell you that the only answer is to ‘leave and have no contact’, but this is very dangerous advice. This is exactly how to provoke and escalate rage and physical (and emotional) abuse and domestic violence in couples with these problems. It may also result in stalking. Even worse the perpetrator of the violence and stalking might be you, as partners of narcissists are often enraged by how callously their partners can ‘cast them aside' with no explanation.
“More people are killed or injured in domestic disputes when leaving their relationship or in the two months after leaving than at any other time.”
If you want to leave, of course that is OK, but please get our advice first on how to do this safely and how to get closure. You need to consider that setting up house somewhere else may put you on even less sure footing than you are already and is no guarantee that the fighting will cease or that you will be safer. Statistics show instead that it will in fact often make the fighting worse.
Confronting your partner with evidence they may have this disorder is NOT the solution.
Do you sometimes worry that yourself or your partner will need years of therapy to get better? I once thought that this would be the only thing that would help Steve, but thankfully I was wrong and it was other very different things which turned our marriage around. I struggled with this problem for years on my own and it was one of the hardest times of my life.
There is NO evidence of therapy being successful in treating narcissism, so you don’t need to try and coerce your partner into therapy. Personality disorders are best helped with a reparative relationship. This is why we sometimes call our approach ‘parenting the adult’; Just as learning new parenting skills can help your child feel safe and learn better behaviour, you can learn new ways of responding and relating to your partner that will help de-escalate the fighting.
Narcissists don’t think anything is wrong with them and so will not stick with therapy anyway (and we believe this is why many professionals don’t believe there is any effective treatment for NPD), so please, if symptoms on this page sound like you or your partner, don’t rush out to find a psychologist, psychiatrist or doctor (or get lost in the gloom online while searching for information on this subject) until we get the chance to give you some sound practical guidance. Don’t worry, soon we will direct you where to get help and guide you step by step on how to do this correctly, without making the mistakes that most people do.
I talk about each step in detail, exactly what to do, and the common mistakes to avoid when you join my free email list.
I hope that by sharing our experience it will protect you from some of the mistakes we made and the bitter and nasty people I ran into when I first discovered Steve was NPD. We have information for you to put to use immediately if you are facing this problem (and advice on how to find the best professionals to help you). I look forward to sharing the steps I took to fix our marriage even when everyone said it was hopeless
“It took us a long time to go public with our story, but after things had been better with us for a few years we decided that we just couldn’t stay quiet any longer.”
We saw so many people suffering that we decided we had to speak up. It was truly embarrassing at first, but getting emails every day (like the ones you will read over the next few pages) has more than made up for this.
3 Vital questions to know you are not the abuser and
3 Things to stop doing immediately (which only make the fighting worse)
1.
Bullet Immediately after subscribing we will send you an email with a link to a (free) private page which will give you the 3 questions and lots more information including a check list of points that will help you better see what narcissism (and codependence) looks like.
All of this is completely free and only 2 simple steps away.”
We have lots of practical advice to offer and you will never spend hours again searching for information on narcissism. Family breakdown is probably the biggest problem in the community and we work diligently to provide you with the most up-to-date information available as cheaply as we possibly can. We are real people and we genuinely want to help you get on the road today to better relationships and a happier life.
I also want to share with you what I have learned about codependence (which our team also calls emotional dependence), which is a term used to describe people who are repeatedly attracted to people with NPD. Codependence and Narcissism are sometimes called ‘a dance’ (of destruction and despair) ...Have you had difficulty forming happy and peaceful relationships? Has attracting lasting love been painful for you? Do you often feel emotionally neglected and in despair? Have you had more than one troubled relationship in your life?
I want to share with you how I overcame these problems and put a stop to the abuse and how this changed everything for me and also helped Steve.
You can check out all the details here
Thanks for reading and please hang in there,
Your Friend,
Kim Cooper
To view the original of this article CLICK HERE
It has been my experience that my ex-husband Hamish shows many of the traits of the personality disorder Narcissism, an belief that has been confirmed by individuals who have known him over many years and have noted the trait as something of a genetic personality fault amongst others in the family.
My belief that the unfortunate Hamish Grossart had inheritted this genetic personality disorder would seem to be confirmed, not only by his behaviour, but also by medical reports. This would go a long way to explain his abusive, cruel and manipulative behaviour - his abuse of The Courts and anyone he can exploit to get his own way and his determination to destroy everything and anyone he can not control.
Those who suffer at his hands most clearly are those he can most readily exploit as with his children, ex wives and those personally involved with him - it may go a long way to explain his propensity for catastrophic failure which so heinously damages others in business and his apparent dependence on luck rather than ability.
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