The main terms and medical terms for clinical Narcissism are not without their problems. The main ones I see over and over again are Narcissism, Flying Monkeys and Love Bombing.
This essay addresses Narcissism itself – Drawing from the Greek myth of Narcissus who was cursed with being too physically beautiful, and ends up drowning in a pool trying to become one with his own reflection. He represents vanity and being self-absorbed. The real tragedy of the Narcissus story is the fate of his girlfriend, Echo. Unable to find Narcissus (who has sunk into the pool and died) she roams the mountains crying out for him until she fades away leaving only her voice calling out in her absence – the mythical origin of the ‘echo effect’.
Psychological Narcissism has nothing to do with physical appearances (though some Narcissists might have such gym-fitness fanatical obsession with looking good too). It is a love affair with the sound of their own voice, certainty that they know more than others, a confusion between knowledge and wisdom, and the notion that their perception of the World has to be imposed on others. A closer, more accurate role model is Jean Paul Sartre’s concept of The Look (aka, The Gaze) . This is where someone tries to get others to see them as they see themselves, which is impossible as others are external to us and seeing / Interpreting us through their own eyes. The Narcissist, the dominator, the Sadist, tries to force others to see him or her as if they were the Narcissist, looking back on himself. They try to mentor and manipulate others into being their clones. They get angry, passive-aggressive and intimidating because the others are showing ongoing displays of independence, and having a separate way to see reality. They don’t see the idealised look the look the Narcissist has for himself.
The psychological Narcissist won’t drown in his own reflection. He will try to get his Echoer to drown in his reflection. Echo won’t get to pine away alone in the mountains. The Narcissist would need her to fix her gaze on him so he can see her pain and exploit it or punish it when it is not reflecting his ‘look’.
A phrase drawn from The Wizard Of Oz, especially the first and most classic film depiction of the story. The Monkeys don’t appear much in the film, but they are the Wicked Witches minions, an air-force squadron sent out by her to spy on, attack or abduct her enemies. On her orders they fly out of her castle window to hunt for Dorothy, (Judy Garland’s character), her dog Toto and her faithful allies. The monkeys, seen as somehow created or magically altered by the witch, follow their orders blindly, unquestioningly, and totally.
Their unspecified origins aside, the story monkeys just do what most soldiers do – they follow orders and do their job.
A Narcissist’s Flying Monkeys are often just people hoodwinked, blinkered and brainwashed into failing to see the Narcissist for what he is. The Wicked Witch’s minions know who she is and what she expects of them.
Some (human) Flying Monkeys however may see the Narc for what he is and envy his power, possibly hoping to learn the skills to develop themselves as Narcs. They may well be Narcissists (at least as apprentices) themselves, often behaving just like him in his absence, though they rarely if ever out-narc the master.
Most human FM’s will genuinely not see themselves as FM’s at all. If ever openly called or accused of being FM’s they may feel insulted by the pejorative, negative connotations of the expression. They will be people the narc has hoodwinked into thinking he is a nice decent guy. The Narc wants to be The Fonz, the ultra-cool dude in the Happy Days TV show, right about everything, smooth talking, and with the sexiest girls just melting into his arms, but he isn’t the Fonz. He is just an imposter, and a con-man, though many still fall under his projected charisma to the point of defending him, forgiving and finding apologetic excuses for his faults, etc. They will laugh at his every joke, failing to see that they are often both cruel and projected at a limited number of people, namely those who do see through him, and find themselves detached from the circle of monkeys bonding round him.
Peer group pressure is powerful in flying monkey groups, the one not fitting in or conforming earns the narc’s displeasure and so ends up alienated by the monkeys, who would otherwise be his friends too. Most of the Oz FM’s know they are FM’s. Most of a Narc’s FM’s don’t believe they are being groomed and brainwashed into such a role. Ask most people if they have been brainwashed and they will say no. Most will be right, as they haven’t but most who are still brainwashed will also say no, and they are being honest as they never sensed it happening. I was brainwashed. I was in an actual cult in the early 1980’s. Had you asked me in 1983 if I was brainwashed, my answer would have been no, of course not, and I would have believed it. The Witch’s Flying Monkeys would freely admit their status. “Yes, I am simian. I have wings and I work for the witch.” The Narc’s monkeys will mostly wonder what you are accusing them of something so outrageous for.
The FM’s are enablers and audience for the Narc. Without them to witness for him, defend him against the victim and act as his eyes and ears, the Narc loses his power. A reason why you might become a victim of a Narc is because he has failed to convert you into an FM. You see right through his spiel. You don’t fawn and patronise him or laugh at his every joke. You are the one who objects when he interrupts a conversation, or you show empathy to someone the Narc already targets. You dare to correct the Narc’s discussion points or call him out. He is threatened by your display of independence and non-conformity, and he will help make the monkeys reflect his displeasure too.
Taking on the Monkeys is a bit like being the hero of High Noon, the movie. In this classic Western, Gary Cooper is a sheriff in a typical wild west town. He has at some time arrested a man and put him in jail for many years. He learns the man is now free and coming to the town with a posse of trained killers, to get revenge on him. Knowing he will fare badly against the approaching gang on his own, the sheriff tries to get the other men of the town to help him. He has just an hour to get a counter-team together. From sheer cowardice, the men of the town make excuses not to help him, and though not directly in the kill-gang coming in, the men act as their enablers, withdrawing support, sitting on the fence. The lawman finally ends up taking on the killers alone, and being Gary Cooper, he wins.
Taking on the Narcissist, you may think pleading to your friends for assistance will be useful, but they will have excuses, not wanting to take sides, they will say he never did them any harm, that you are overreacting to something the narc said or did, if they believe he did it at all. Some may even warn the Narc that you are trying to challenge him, and you will end up facing him alone, with the Flying Monkeys not only sitting on the fence sitting, but often directly siding against you. And you are not Gary Cooper, you are outnumbered. Retreat, even if sacrificing lifelong friends, is often your best, if not only avenue of escape. Once you are gone, the Narc will turn on some of the monkeys as he needs victims, and the group will ultimately implode on itself. They may realise that you were right all along, which may or may not be too late for them to try to reconcile with and apologise to you if their pride allows it and if you feel like forgiving the hurt they caused you.
Youtube – The Flying Monkeys scene – The Wizard Of Oz https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQkAVR3eAL8
Youtube – A presentation on clinical flying monkeys. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vbcpgoWTtk
Love Bombing is a term rooted in religious cults. The Church Of Reverend Sung Myung Moon, known as the Moonies, practised what was also going on in many new religious movements but their members had a cynically coined name for the active recruitment technique, ‘Love Bombing’. A newcomer to one of their meetings or church services will often be greeted by ever-smiling, ever cheery young people, have his or hand shaken vigorously and possibly even get hugged a lot. The love and affection can get touchy-feely, overpowering and intense. The newcomer’s story of how they came to the church will wow the listeners as will everything about the newcomer. They will hear you first came in after meeting say John, or Jane. This will be treated quickly as very special. John and Jane only know ‘the bestest people’, and they are great judges of character. You must be so privileged, charming and special. Everyone is thrilled to be in your presence. You can end up feeling like an A-List movie star surrounded by adoring fans, even though it is people who have literally only just discovered you even exist. You’ll be asked about your life and work. If you have a job, it’ll be the bestest, and they may play on someone in the group doing or having done similar work. (it also gives them clues to your income that will help them decide your true financial worth to the cult). Your hobbies will be the best, whether you say you only watch football on TV or go out kite-surfing every weekend. The love bombing saturates you in excessive often cloying flattery, and affection. They will fall over themselves to do you favours, buying you a beer, or a meal, carrying your luggage for you and if you don’t drive, they will go out of their way to give you a car ride home (which also lets them clock your address). Everyone is suddenly your new best friend. If they don’t see you for a few days they will say they really missed you and got worried you might not come back, or indicate distress that they somehow offended you. It’s all faked manufactured sincerity. This can be maintained over months.
Another side of it will be the confessional one, where members may see you as someone they can tell their troubles too; confiding in you about having taken drugs, feeling bad about a terminated pregnancy, once self-harming or attempting suicide, though seeing the cult as having rescued them from all that.
Their candid stories can make you open up to relate similar stories from your own past, recent or distant. This will move them to further hugs (and in some,but by no means all cults the flirting can extend to full on sexual intimacy though it remains all faked and controlling).
Your confessed material is relayed covertly to cult elders, and can later be used to guilt trip you and in some cases even as outright blackmail material.
The often glorious ego massaging honeymoon period that is love bombing wil stop, sometimes suddenly and brutally to be replaced with angry rebukes. You will be made to feel as if you have let everyone down after all the love and sacrifice and self-honesty they have shared. You are then trapped in trying to recapture that magical love-atmosphere, and it will then be switched on and off like a tap, as a system of carrot-stick punishment and reward to engineer you to where they want to be. That is in a nutshell how many cults operate.
A Narcissist love bombs in a similar way; they gain friends with flattery, affection, showering someone with gifts, putting you on a pedestal. A romance can be a whirlwind. Many (but certainly not all) love at first sight relationships are actually results of such control and love bombing.
In a cult, a group controls the individual. The Narcissist flips that by being an individual who can love bomb a group, though with particular individuals singled out for more attention than others. He will become the life and soul of the party. He might use clever tricks, even actual magic conjuring tricks to get everyone watching him. He is a supremely cool dude, but a smooth talking con-man, the kind of guy who could sell you the Brooklyn Bridge. Suddenly, he owns the room. If he’s invited to parties, other friends will agree to attend on the promise that he is coming, and offers to show more of his clever tricks and offers generous gifts to some guests. He necomes an indispensible assett, a selling point.
The Narc will quickly notice that some guests at the party seem less impressed by his hard sell self-promotion, the ones who see only a shady used car salesman selling a brightly striped sports car with a busted gear box. That person is then treated as the party-pooper, the one not getting, or in on the joke. The rest of the group starts to ignore the individual, or even rebuke them. The Narc will play on this to the max. The individual single out will be made to feel detached, secondary, or even full on excommunicated. It isn’t paranoia, as they are out to get you. It can fuel paranoia and suspicion though. A Narc gaslights, and makes you doubt your own sanity. You don’t fit in, the group likes the narc and you don’t so you assume you are the one who is wrong and not fitting in is your fault. It’s actually your saving grace, not a fault. You are seeing through the scam. You know the emperor has no new shiny clothes, and that he is actually just naked.
With a one to one relationship, the love bombing might be maintained right to the wedding, but the object of the narc’s control expresses doubts, disagreement, or shows a wish to do something other than the narc desires, the affection is withdrawn, replaced with silence or possibly some other punishment up to actual violence, but also with a sliding scale of name calling, blaming, guilt-tripping, insults, withdrawal of favours, exposure to peer group pressure from others (the flying monkeys in particular), emotional blackmail, and a threat to separate or divorce entirely. The Narc may well start love bombing others, sharing the affection once exclusively given to the partner he claimed he only had eyes for. As the love bombing is withdrawn, it is replaced with a vacuum or with abuse, both of which amount to hate bombing which should be a cue to the victim to get out of there but the desire for a return to the happier times runs strong and other ties, through family, friends, finance, home ownership, children, etc and possibly threats of retribution, if not actual acts of retribution, can trap the victim for the long run, if not permanently or until pushed too far, they finally escape. The important thing is for you to get yourself out. You want to help the other victims but you can’t any more than you can get someone free from quicksand while you are also sinking into it.
Youtube – Narcissistic Love Bombing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKEjiyDivcc
Got myself my own self-appointed unprovoked troll.
Knowing full well what I had been through in recent years, this creep turned up late last year at a social gathering I was at, promptly shaking hands with everyone in the room, though twice walking past me to do it, finally ‘noticed’ I was there, held out his hand as if to shake mine, but then pulled his hand back, grimaced and mumbled, so only I could hear him, “ew, yuck, no, not you, I don’t think so” and flounced out of the room. About 20 minutes later he came back, mumbled three times that it had just been a ‘joke’ and stomped out again still not having offered to shake hands with me, effectively literally treating a stoma wearing recovering cancer patient like a mediaeval leper.
stoma
It’s just such wilfully hateful hurtful insensitive empathy free crap that pushes the victims of bullying into suicide attempts or other depressive behaviour. I would hope one day to have the spineless spiteful craven coward sit down and explain to me in simple terms just why he thought such behaviour was funny (to him alone) or in any way appropriate in the 21st century, though I doubt if he’ll ever actually grow a pair and do so, Though I would listen quite calmly while he tried to state his motives, thinking and anything remotely resembling an apology (whether I might believe or accept any of it is another matter). Not expecting our paths to cross for a while.
He’s a total narcissist. I directly challenged him about it at another party, and he denied any memory of the event, – not no I didn’t do it, but ‘can’t remember’. His girlfriend’s dad had a stoma until recently, so he certainly would remember. Told the hosts of the original party and they were not remotely surprised, even telling me he has a habit of doing such things, but concluded I was being oversensitive, overreacting and refused to help me by saying anything to admonish him for upsetting guests under the umbrella and protection of their hospitality.
Having seen Narcissistic tendencies in my abuser I looked up in various sources just what makes a Narcissist to find his behaviour and personality ticks so many boxes it is amazing so few few recognise how problematic and toxic he can be.
stoma kit
Boastful, pedantic, competitive, targeting, directs negativity, calls people behind their backs, tries to be the life and soul of the party, an abuser, rarely shuts up, feigns generosity to some but not to others, denies, sees any upset he causes as trivial, minimises importance of anything that matters to his target, zero empathy, drains emotional vitality like a psychic vampire, makes someone else feel bad to make himself feel better, sarcastic, invalidating, dismissive, incapable of listening, interruptive, Domineering, controlling, vengeful, jealous, gaslighting, influencing others by belittling, talking about you behind your back, targets your self-worth and self esteem, every mistake, imperfection and hesitation, weakness. Always negative, never positive. If you achieve something he won’t congratulate you, and when friends buy or read your books, he won’t, or if he does, it will be in secret, and only if the book fails will he be quick to rub it in. This is someone who will see you fall, or fail and rub salt in your wounds. It is easy to kick someone who is already down.
Normally if you mistrust, dislike or feel offended by someone, you steer clear of them, but because the Narcissist is often very strongly tied to your social group(s), and knows your family or friends they are bound to be places you go, and he arrives and gets in your face. Simply moving to another room, or avoiding conversation becomes nigh on impossible. They will often see you in a happy comfortable conversation with someone else and gatecrash the scene, making themselves very much the centre of the discussion or activity, even verbally shutting you out of the activity, reduced to being their audience. Disturbingly, others seem to welcome this, and fail to notice those driven out, like the weak zebras in the herd left behind as easy prey for the lions. It can leave you feeling as if you were never really accepted in the group at all, that they found you dull, boring, and the Narcissist is somehow saving them from the tedium of your presence. Your struggle with cancer becomes less a focus of conversation than the Narcissist’s grazed knee. You having been to Niagara Falls ends up shut down as a conversation topic in favour of a description of a trip to Cleethorpes because the Narcissist can be charismatic enough to make the presentations of this stuff so captivating. The Narcissist may not notice what you think or feel or they might be fully tuned to it, even giving eye and smile indications of pleasure at your increasing unease and alienation. They want to make you feel small, unwanted, unappreciated, hurting inside, to massage their own egos and feel the opposite.
Ideally, you need to disengage, and detach from such people, and even their hangers on. Seeing your other friends reduced to the Narcissist’s ‘flying monkeys’ is horrible. The people around you start to become desensitised and indifferent to often quite blatant and ongoing rolling mockery, derision, sneering and contempt. The cruelty of the Narcissist is bold and often hides in plain sight.
If you confide to your friends about how you feel or felt about a mutual friend treating you badly, the friends can become incredibly defensive, but not to you – they form a protective barrier around the Narcissist. You’ll find yourself told things like, ‘It is or was just a joke. You’re too sensitive. You wouldn’t feel like this if you were not already depressed or having anxiety issues’. Don’t go round with this stuff or others will start to hate you.
If challenged, the Narcissist will say similar things. If you draw attention to them fat shaming you, they will say they were only expressing concern for your health because they feel you should lose some weight. That you find them fuelling your anxiety will lead them to see it as a duty to keep needling you as when you are less distressed by their pokes at your expense, you are improving. They will see themselves as helping you develop a thick skin, which all gives them a licence to carry on doing what they are doing, treating it as if they are mentoring you and doing you a favour, despite having no consent to do so.
A Narcissist often speaks authoritatively, as if the only expert present on any given topic, and if a topic arises that they have little knowledge of they will pooh pooh it as irrelevant and trivial and insist on talking on something else, namely the stuff they feel confident they can dominate and control the discussion on. They are very good at taking conversation off at tangents to steer it into their territory. They secure the high ground in a conversation played like a role playing game. They are not there to chat, but to win. Much of the conversation becomes a monologue, with lots of I think, I know, I believe…. It’s all me me me.
A Narcissist actually lacks self-esteem and feels insecure, but presents the opposite view, weakening someone else’s self esteem, and self-worth. If meeting someone already feeling, quite openly in a low place, the Narcissist will push the right buttons to make it worse for them.
The Narcissist will monopolise conversation and social company, acting as leader and spokesperson. He will micro-manage the behaviour of the people around himself (or herself of course). In a relationship, the Narcissist will speak for the partner who often becomes shy and passive in the company of the alpha. A Narcissist given promotion to actual leadership can become a dangerously tyrannical manager.
If you manage to dent the Narcissist’s armour by proving them incorrect on some even minor point or behaviour they can get incredibly spiteful, resentful and eager for revenge. Blame, weakness, and tears are for you, not for them so a momentary reversal that shows them as they really are for even a second, has to be dealt with brutally. Somehow the problem they cause will be reinterpreted as someone else’s fault, often the fault of the person raising the concerns in the first place. The Narcissist is very good at playing persecuted misunderstood saint, and may get others to think his challengers are the real narcissists, jealous and embittered of his righteousness, authority and superior knowledge.
They crave admiration, praise, and acceptance. They have to constantly show themselves the best, fastest, most stable, secure.
Having been in a cult, I see the Narcissists as behaving remarkably like a guru or religious leader, setting up followers and admirers, and also selecting scapegoats, and targets for showing to be unworthy.
The Narcissist craves attention. They often arrive later than most guests at a social event to make a dramatic grand entrance, as though somehow the event was dull without them and they are the red carpet guests everyone has waited for. They don’t just slip quietly into the room, but loudly declare their presence to break everyone away from what was going on already to swing attention their way. They may start monopolising the private party music system, changing tracks to ones they like, even without checking with the hosts first. I was at a party where a guest arrived with a portable karaoke machine, and without checking with the hosts, plugged it in and started his own karaoke night. The host was too polite to call him out so their party turned into his party. I would have hurled him and his karaoke machine out on the spot.
The Narcissist grandstands, reacting with exaggerated mannerisms, laughing loudly at his own jokes. If someone else tells a joke, he may immediately repeat and riff on it, making it his own, and behaving as if his approval or lack of it is what gets the joke accepted or rejected as witty or funny.
Sometimes a Narcissist realises he needs some task or information that he can best or only get from you. He will ask you for it and then immediately hurtle off to make use of it wherever he was with someone else. At one event, a Narcissist started to tell another guest the amusing story about an imminent Victorian philosopher who, on his death, got stuffed as a taxidermy exhibit and put into a glass case, which is still on display to this day. In telling the story, which is true, he realised he couldn’t remember the man in question’s name, but knowing that I have a degree in philosophy, he realised that he had no choice but to get the information from me. He effectively put the person he was talking to on hold and ran to me, yelling and pointing at me rudely. “Philosopher!” Securing my exasperated attention he asked me who the Utilitarian philosophers were. I told him, John Stuart Mill, and Jeremy Bentham.
“Bentham,” he exclaimed, getting the right name, and ran back to resecure control of the conversation he was in. I was simply a tap to switch on and off when he needed me, while the poor chap being ‘educated’ was left dangling and being played at will too.
The Narcissist is often utterly devoid of Empathy. If you find yourself grieving, be it for a deceased family member, pet, or loss of a job, end of a relationship etc, that is likely to mean you become a focus of attention for others who will want to offer empathy, sympathy, support and a sense of warm acceptance. The Narcissist will see this simply as an inconvenient lack of focus on him, and will often offer no or little support or encouragement, and may even express open insensitivity and annoyance towards you.
The toxicity of a Narcissist knows no bounds. Though they feign zero interest in you, they may actually be taking some considerable interest in you, looking for your weaknesses, and flaws and insecurities. They develop an uncanny knack for knowing what triggers you and sends you spiralling into emotional distress. They may well sound out your friends, examine your social network posts and if you have penned autobiographical material, they may well have secretly perused that too.
You will find yourself on the defensive. The Narcissist and often his flying monkeys will dismiss your deeply ingrained distress as some trivial thing, saying ou are fretting about something that doesn’t matter, advising you to just let it go until the next time, (when they will extend it on to the next time after that and so on ad infinitem).
Attempting to have a mature, rational, heart to heart candid discussion face to face to establish boundaries with a Narcissist will be treated as a jape. They will simply mock your concerns, deny or fail to recollect incidents you refer to in illustrating the things you worried over and they will be eager to cut the conversation or hearing short, (from fear that you might actually get some critical points to strike home).
The psychic vampire that is the Narcissist can be total. They are selfish, and don’t give a damn for the feelings of others, or if you live or die.
As the flying monkeys often congregate around the Narcissist, you can end up feeling as if you are the one in the wrong. Clearly you are not conforming, as your very awareness that there is something off about the Narcissist, and your individualism can be weaponized against you in itself. You become the only soldier marching in step, but others can resent you being proved right in your unease towards the Narcissist when they have invested much time and energy in giving him a platform for his agenda. It can reach the point where you have to detach yourself, not just from the Narcissist, but from friends enamoured by him too. Don’t allow the threat of uncomfortable peer group pressure draw you into the whirlpool. If others are prepared to reject you, be prepared to look them in the eye and say ‘to Hell with you then,’ You don’t have to take or tolerate abuse to maintain a veneer of acceptance.
The Narcissist is a gaslighter, someone who likes to make others mad, or at least look mad. The term comes from a theatre and cinema melodrama. A man drives his wife insane, by hiding things, interfering with the gas lighting to make it flicker and spook her out, and other covert acts of cruelty and abuse. The full film is in Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYmtzaHwCKo
Things to do.
1/. Find out everything you can about the Narcissist. 2/. Look out for who else he targets for some level of abuse as well as you. (keep any information found confidential though unless you have consent otherwise). 3/. Go Grey rock, that is be impenetrable, and minimise communication with the Narcissist. They like to get you arguing, and reacting emotionally to their bait, so respond to them as little as possible. If you can be somewhere they are not, do so. If in a room with others reply to them as much as possible with just yes, no, or a nod of the head or mmm. Don’t give them fuel for their fire. 4/. Block and don’t invite them to your social media pages. (you may need to block the pages of their partners and some other mutual contacts too). If they say they can’t find your pages, just shrug and say how sorry you are to hear that.
As for others, watch out for friends who are on the sharp end of cutting remarks, being pushed out of conversations, the subject of jokes and sarcasm from the same source all the time. If someone is being mean to a friend, defend the friend, or you do not deserve to have friends. If someone has a reputation for being cold and nasty to others check into it to see if it is true and if you find it so deal with them, even to the point of making them leave.
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