Contrary to popular belief, narcissism isn’t really just about self-obsession. Nor is narcissism synonymous with sociopathy. Narcissism is a specific strategy to battle chronic shame and deep feelings of unworthiness. And it’s a strategy that we’ve all employed at times. But when it becomes persistent, you get labelled as a “narcissist” or a “toxic person”.
I should know, I am a narcissist (more or less). Which means, I adopted this shame avoidance strategy early in life and it is still often my default reaction to feelings of unworthiness. But at my core, I am and always was a normal, caring human being. My natural empathy just got obscured at times by the overwhelming urgency of this narcissistic need.
Narcissism is essentially an endless PR campaign. I used it to try to convince myself and everyone around me that I was the opposite of how I often felt. Shame was telling me I was innately flawed, so narcissism countered that by advertising that I was actually innately talented! The shame-induced feeling of being worse than others created this fictional hierarchy in my mind that said some humans must have more inherent value than others. So it became my goal to prove that I was one of those innately valuable humans. That I was at the top of the hierarchy. I did this by pursuing fame, success, attractiveness, talent, popularity, attention, etc. I did this by constantly elevating myself and even cutting others down in subtle ways.
Much like the very first episode of this podcast on Vanity, narcissism appears like self-obsession, but only because you are always looking at yourself as if through the eyes of others. You focus on appreciating whatever it is about yourself that you think and hope others are also appreciating. You get this reassuring hit of worthiness every time you admire your own superficial wins, but it’s only temporary. So like an addiction, you need to constantly admire yourself in order to buoy your self-esteem above the void of shame beneath. You do this because shame makes it feel like you need to be “worthy” to survive. So it’s like you’re constantly fighting for your life, and it leaves no time or energy leftover to think about others beyond what they think about you.
