FAQ #69
The Narcissist's Self-Defeating
And Self-Destructive Behaviors
Question:
The narcissist often engages in self-defeating and self-destructive behaviors. Can you tell me more about it?
Answer:
We can group such behaviors according to their underlying motivation:
The Self-Punishing, Guilt-Purging Behaviors
These are intended to inflict punishment on the narcissist and thus instantly relieve him of his overwhelming anxiety.
Self-punishing, guilt-purging behaviors are very reminiscent of compulsive rituals. The narcissist feels guilty. It could be an "ancient", early childhood, guilt, a "sexual" guilt (Freud), or a "social" guilt. In his infancy, the narcissist internalized and introjected the voices of meaningful and authoritative others - parents, role models, peers - that consistently and convincingly judged him to be no good, blameworthy, deserving of punishment or retaliation, or corrupt.
The narcissist's life is thus transformed into an on-going trial. The constancy of this trial, the never adjourning tribunal is the punishment. It is a Kafkaesque "process": meaningless, undecipherable and never-ending. It leads to no verdict, is subject to mysterious and fluid laws and presided over by capricious judges.
Thus the narcissist masochistically frustrates his deepest desires and drives, obstructs his own efforts, alienates his friends and sponsors, provokes figures of authority to punish, demote, or ignore him, actively seeks and solicits disappointment, failure, or mistreatment and relishes them, incites anger or rejection, bypasses or rejects opportunities, or engages in excessive self-sacrifice.
In their book "Personality Disorders in Modern Life", Theodore Millon and Roger Davis, describe the diagnosis of "Masochistic or Self-Defeating Personality Disorder", found in the appendix of the DSM III-R but excluded from the DSM IV. While the narcissist is rarely a full-fledged masochist, many a narcissist exhibit some of the traits of this proposed personality disorder.
The Extracting Behaviors
People with Personality Disorders (PDs) are very afraid of real, mature, intimacy. Intimacy is formed not only within a couple, but also in a workplace, in a neighborhood, with friends, while collaborating on a project. Intimacy is another word for emotional involvement, which is the result of interactions with others in constant and predictable (safe) propinquity.
Patients with personality disorders interpret intimacy as codependence, emotional strangulation, the snuffing of freedom, a kind of death in installments. They are terrorized by it. To avoid it, their self-destructive and self-defeating acts are intended to dismantle the very foundation of a successful relationship, a career, a project, or a friendship. Narcissists feel elated and relieved after they unshackle these "chains". They feel they broke through a siege, that they are liberated, free at last.
The Default Behaviors
We are all, to some degree, inertial, afraid of new situations, new opportunities, new challenges, new circumstances and new demands. Being healthy, being successful, getting married, becoming a mother, or someone's boss – often entail abrupt breaks with the past. Some self-defeating behaviors are intended to preserve the past, to restore it, to protect it from the winds of change, to self-deceptively skirt promising opportunities while seeming to embrace them.
Frustrating, Negativistic, and Passive-Aggressive Behaviors
Frustrating one's nearest and dearest has the dual "advantage" of simultaneously satisfying the narcissist's masochistic and sadistic urges. By withholding love, intimacy, and the fulfillment of other people's desires and needs, the narcissist torments them even as he obstructs his own gratification.
The
Negativistic (Passive-Aggressive) Personality Disorder is not yet
recognized by the DSM Committee. It makes its appearances in Appendix B
of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, titled "Criteria Sets and Axes
Provided for Further Study."
Some people are perennial pessimists and have "negative energy" and
negativistic attitudes ("good things don't last", "it doesn't pay to be
good", "the future is behind me"). Not only do they disparage the
efforts of others, but they make it a point to resist demands to perform
in workplace and social settings and to frustrate people's expectations
and requests, however reasonable and minimal they may be. Such persons
regard every requirement and assigned task as impositions, reject
authority, resent authority figures (boss, teacher, parent-like spouse),
feel shackled and enslaved by commitment, and oppose relationships that
bind them in any manner.
Passive-aggressiveness wears a multitudes of guises:
procrastination, malingering, perfectionism, forgetfulness, neglect,
truancy, intentional inefficiency, stubbornness, and outright sabotage.
This repeated and advertent misconduct has far reaching effects.
Consider the Negativist in the workplace: he or she invests time and
efforts in obstructing their own chores and in undermining
relationships. But, these self-destructive and self-defeating behaviors
wreak havoc throughout the workshop or the office.
People diagnosed with the Negativistic (Passive-Aggressive) Personality
Disorder resemble narcissists in some important respects. Despite the
obstructive role they play, passive-aggressives feel unappreciated,
underpaid, cheated, and misunderstood. They chronically complain, whine,
carp, and criticize. They blame their failures and defeats on others,
posing as martyrs and victims of a corrupt, inefficient, and heartless
system (in other words, they have alloplastic defenses and an external
locus of control).
Passive-aggressives sulk and give the "silent treatment" in reaction to
real or imagined slights. They suffer from ideas of reference (believe
that they are the butt of derision, contempt, and condemnation) and are
mildly paranoid (the world is out to get them, which explains their
personal misfortune). In the words of the DSM: "They may be sullen,
irritable, impatient, argumentative, cynical, skeptical and contrary."
They are also hostile, explosive, lack impulse control, and, sometimes,
reckless.
Inevitably, passive-aggressives are envious of the fortunate, the
successful, the famous, their superiors, those in favor, and the happy.
They vent this venomous jealousy openly and defiantly whenever given the
opportunity. But, deep at heart, passive-aggressives are craven. When
reprimanded, they immediately revert to begging forgiveness, kowtowing,
maudlin protestations, turning on their charm, and promising to behave
and perform better in the future.
Read Notes from the therapy of a Negativistic (Passive-Aggressive) Patient
From My Correspondence
I find it difficult to accept that I am irredeemably evil, that I ecstatically, almost orgasmically enjoy hurting people and that I actively seek to inflict pain on others. It runs so contrary to my long-cultivated and tenderly nurtured self-image as a benefactor, a sensitive intellectual, and a harmless hermit. In truth, my sadism meshes well and synergetically with two other behavior patterns: my relentless pursuit of narcissistic supply and my self-destructive, self-defeating, and, therefore, masochistic streak.
The process of torturing, humiliating, and offending people provides proof of my omnipotence, nourishes my grandiose fantasies, and buttresses my False Self. The victims' distress and dismay constitute narcissistic supply of the purest grade. It also alienates them and turns them into hostile witnesses or even enemies and stalkers.
Thus, through the agency of my hapless and helpless victims, I bring upon my head recurrent torrents of wrath and punishment. This animosity guarantees my unraveling and my failure, outcomes which I avidly seek in order to placate my inner, chastising and castigating voices (what Freud called "the sadistic Superego").
Similarly, I am a fiercely independent person (known in psychological jargon as a "counterdependent"). But mine is a pathological variant of personal autonomy. I want to be free to frustrate myself by inflicting mental havoc on my human environment, including and especially my nearest and dearest, thus securing and incurring their inevitable ire.
Getting attached to or becoming dependent on someone in any way - emotionally, financially, hierarchically, politically, religiously, or intellectually - means surrendering my ability to indulge my all-consuming urges: to torment, to feel like God, and to be ruined by the consequences of my own evil actions.
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This information was written by:
By: Dr. Sam Vaknin |
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