Summary

The text explores the narcissist's perception of love, which is fundamentally flawed due to their inability to see others as equals and their use of self-love as a defense mechanism against the pain of their traumatic upbringing.

Abstract

The article delves into the complex dynamics of how narcissists perceive love, arguing that they are incapable of loving others as equals because they view others as existing solely for their own benefit. This perspective is rooted in a traumatic childhood that often includes abuse, betrayal, or abandonment, leading narcissists to equate love with pain. The piece draws a parallel between the narcissist's love life and the myth of Narcissus, emphasizing that narcissists love themselves through the sabotage of relationships with others. It suggests that narcissism is a defense mechanism against love, stemming from a lack of empathy that could be both a result of and a predisposition to trauma. The text also touches on the neurological aspects of narcissism, indicating that narcissists have different brain structures related to empathy and impulse control. Healing for narcissists is proposed to involve the development of empathy, which is believed to be dormant within them, through therapy, self-discovery, and love.

Opinions

Narcissists are seen as incapable of genuine love for others because they do not view others as equals, but rather as extensions of themselves.
The article posits that narcissists' love for themselves is paradoxical, as it involves sabotaging love with others, much like the mythological Narcissus who was captivated by his own reflection.
The text suggests that narcissism is deeply connected to childhood trauma, which may be explicit (e.g., physical abandonment) or implicit (e.g., lack of empathy shown to the child).
It is proposed that narcissists' brains are structurally different, with areas associated with empathy and impulse control being smaller, which may be a neuroplastic effect of experienced trauma or a genetic predisposition.
The author believes that narcissism is a trauma-related condition and that healing must be understood in terms of love, which involves the narcissist learning to include empathy in their interactions and internal model.
The article implies that empathy is inherent in narcissists but lies dormant, and therapy and love can help awaken it.
The piece contrasts the narcissist's inner world, devoid of empathy, with the physical reality of gravity, suggesting that just as one can observe gravity without being subject to it, a narcissist can observe empathy without experiencing it.
The author speculates that narcissistic traits may have once served an adaptive function in early human societies, such as leadership, but have become dysfunctional due to a lack of love and the presence of trauma.
The text encourages the idea that narcissists must remember their true nature, which is fundamentally rooted in love, in order to heal.

How Narcissists See Love

Narcissists live in a world in which love fails. The Narcissist could love others if only they were equals. However, others exist for the sake of the Narcissist, so he cannot love them as equals because they aren’t equals.

When the guru Ramana Maharshi was asked how we should treat others, he replied,

There are no others.

Whereas the Narcissist would counter

There are only others.

For Narcissists, love is a problem of quantity; there is but one person to love, and the Narcissist happens to be him. The Narcissist paradoxically loves himself through sabotaging love with others. Hence the Narcissist knows only how to love himself, as the image from the eponymous myth depicts.

What the image does not tell us is that Narcissus’s father was Cephissus, the Greek god of rivers. Nor does it tell us that Narcissus was conceived when his father raped Narcissus’s mother, Liriope. Nor does it tell us what it was like to be raised by a single mother who associated Narcissus with her deepest love and her deepest pain. In her trauma, she may well have taught Narcissus that love is pain.

For when Narcissus sought love, he did so in a river: the symbol of his father: the symbol of his wound. The Narcissist seeks love not through his heart, but his wound. That is why being loved by a Narcissist wounds others. Analogously, the narcissus flower (daffodil) cannot be planted with other flowers. If injured, its sap is toxic to other flowers just as the wounded Narcissist is toxic to those close to him.

The Narcissist is attempting to love himself at the ruin of his love for others. His personality itself is a defense mechanism against love. We understand this by witnessing the world he grew up in: abuse, betrayal or abandonment — all of which are seen in Narcissus’s childhood demonstrates. This traumatic upbringing confuses in the Narcissist the difference between self-adulation and actually loving others.

Being unable to treat others as equals is a learned trait. The Narcissist’s teacher is his childhood trauma. This trauma may be explicit, such as a physical abandonment, or implicit, such as never having been shown empathy.

The trauma may be the cause or effect of a neurologically marked person, or both. Just as Cain is marked on his head for his sin, the Narcissist is marked in his brain. We know from MRI studies that areas in the brain associated with impulse control and empathy are smaller in Narcissists. This begs the question: Is this differing brain structure a neuroplastic effect of experienced trauma, the genetically predispositioned cause of narcissism, or both? We have yet to definitively ascertain whether the aetiology of narcissism is nature (genetic predisposition), nurture (childhood trauma, narcissistic parenting) or a combination such as their mutuality or epigenetic effects. But we know it is trauma-related. Narcissism is understood in terms of trauma, so healing it is understood in terms of love.

Neurology gives knowlege, psychology offers wisdom: Being narcissistic does not take any more conscious effort for the Narcissist than being non-narcissistic does for others. It is a way of being. If I were to put you in a world without Vitamin C, you would get scurvy. If that world were instead missing empathy, you would get narcissism. That world, of course, is the Narcissist’s heart.

The Narcissist’s Inner World

String theorists simulate universes under differing conditions. If gravity were stronger; if fusion were brighter; if carbon were rarer. From these differing conditions, they construct universes in which there are, for instance, no stars, no atoms, no matter. Establish different parameters, and you will establish a different Universe.

Every human has an internal working model: an internalized understanding of how the outer world is constructed and so, how to navigate it. Those whose models differ from others’ to the point of not being able to function socioeconomically are categorized as mentally ill. For personality disorders, that dysfunction centers on relationships. For Narcissists, that epicenter is an absence of empathy.

Just as string theorists can construct a reality missing gravity, narcissists construct an inner reality missing empathy. Once that empathy is missing, all other narcissistic traits, from stonewalling to gaslighting, emerge just as once gravity is established, behaviors such as walking and sitting emerge.

The dissonance that occurs between a Narcissist and his victim comprises two individuals sharing the physical reality of gravity but not the psychological reality of empathy. Just as one in gravity could not relate physically to one for whom the force did not exist, a Narcissist cannot relate psychologically to an empathetic human — other than through exploitation. ‘You are the means to my end. Others are the means. I am the end.’

But wait! I must be neglecting the reality that narcissists know how to mimick or exploit empathy in others. They read people like shadow therapists and create neurosis that therapists will later, hopefully, resolve them. I would note that the individual for whom gravity does not exist can observe it in others without having it be a part of his own reality. He could even note ways to navigate a reality to his benefit in which the other 99% of people experience gravity just as the Narcissist notes advantageous ways to navigate a psychological reality in which the 99% of people who do not qualify for Narcissistic Personality Disorder experience empathy.

Why is Empathy Missing?

My own understanding, along with those of many other clinicians, is from an evo-devo (evolutionary development) perspective; ‘narcissism’ may have evolved in 1% of the population to comprise qualities of leadership. A typical tribe of 100–200 early humans would have 1 or 2 individuals who knew how to navigate power structures, were capable of alpha male displays, could promise and charm others, and terrified those who crossed them. These may well have provided the function, not dysfunction, of leadership traits in 50,000 BC. Enter the Tribal Chief. To boot, most Narcissists are males, ambitious and uncannily convincing.

Perhaps the nature of those early human genes for leadership, coupled with the modern nurture of abusive childhoods and toxic parenting, yield what we now call Narcisstic Personality Disorder. Perhaps all kinds of traits are a function in the right environment so long as the one embodying those traits is loved. Perhaps it is a lack of love that creates dysfunction out of an earlier function. Could you imagine an abused Michael Jordan as a soldier? A traumatized Elon Musk as a general? The characteristics for extremes in achievement are not distinguished by their impact through virtue or vice.

This begs the question:

What Does it Mean for a Narcissist to Heal?

The Narcissist’s pathology is defined by a lack of empathy. His healing comprises learning to include empathy in his interactions, his beliefs and behaviors, his internal working model. Through therapy, through his hero’s journey, through love, he learns what it means to have empathy, starting with one key relationship: sometimes the one with a caring therapist.

But where does this empathy come from? It cannot be inserted into his inner world from without. Nor is it taught like the apprehension of a skill. It must have always been there. The Narcissist has empathy, but it is dormant. Therapy and healing allow him to live it.

The only way to heal a Narcissist is to remember that at his core, he isn’t one. Hence Narcissists must remember who they really are. They are love.

Read the other half of this narrative: How Borderlines See Love.

Also read When You Should be a Borderline, and When Being a Narcissist Makes Sense.

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