Narcissism: The Austrian-born, American psychoanalyst Heinz Kohut stated that adult narcissistic psychopathy is the result of no parental empathy in formative years.
When you leave the hospital with your beautiful baby in England you are handed a red book. Maybe there should be a warning in that book. That, if you only feed your child and do nothing else, you will create something miserable, hurtful, and maybe dangerous. Not just to itself, but to humanity as well.
We can see a child develop as it is given nutrition, attention, nurture, love, reasoning skills, self-regulation, soothing skills (and more) from its caregivers. The result is an adult person who knows how to socialize, communicate, and can go on to be useful and contribute to society.
What do we find, when we look at a child whose environment was emotionally cold, and unloving, where examples of empathy and the above were not given or shown.? Do we see something else growing? Now, I am not a psychotherapist, but like many of us who have experienced a long-term relationship with an adult who exhibits superior narcissistic skills, and strategies. You become inquisitive and probably could do with taking a psychology degree. We find an adult with a void where the earlier-mentioned skills and emotions should be. Whilst you are in that world with such a person, your head can be in such a fog, that you do not realize what is in front of you. Whilst you are spinning around, feeling dizzy, you see many masks. Most will recognize that the victim mask is utilized more readily, for it has been there a long time. By the end of the relationship, they all merge to form something quite ugly.
Whilst talking to many others who have been around in cycles with a toxic person, we usually agree, that the most prominent one is that of the childlike, helpless, victim. Even when they sit in court, out it comes for it is their go-to shield, the armour they brought with them from childhood into adulthood. The child that never got the attention they so needed is now controlling everything they receive, or punishment prevails. You see the toxic being is in fact that child who had no empathy or parental guidance. Were they passed from pillar to post? Maybe even punished for being soft and cuddly, as the parents could not give what they did not have themselves. Some children who experience a difficult childhood go on to develop in my opinion, very sociopathic or toxic behaviours. And that's the difference, you see many have difficult childhoods. What makes some or even those spoilt in childhood go on to act this way. Is it living with the two constant extremes?
As an adult, they chose tyranny and that is sometimes where compassion for “victim mask ” must end. Just a thought….
And still, when we see narcissism played out on the stage we call a world, we choose to deliberately ignore it.
One might go on to say that since Heinz published his essays and the workings of his models, a very much larger part of the population exhibits these behaviours, which create a world where evil is seen and accepted.
Back to childhood
The parents, carers that surround you, and the tribe you grow up within greatly influence your developing inner world of the psyche. Whilst your mind is formulating itself, perhaps the neurons and the dendrons inside your head somehow end up in a certain place. Where the child's inner garden of the mind receives the most input. Therefore, the brain adapts to the world around you.
There are many types of neurons in the brain, that are by and large distributed in line from where they originated from. Which makes all things equal, at birth. The start of This Journey. Could there be research out there that shows where they lengthen into, and those neurotransmitters they use, showing up as a structure looking somewhat like branches of a very barren tree, growing in the wrong place? The desolate and cold childhood creates baby or child, growth in all the wrong places.
Could the juvenile-forming brain, end up with a tree-like structure in the wrong part of the inner world? I do not have an answer, but maybe you do.
Toxic behaviours can also be the outcome in those who were idolized, not given boundaries, consequences, and spoilt. The two extremes formed a human that might be very productive at work and excellent with policies and procedures. But their internal structure, as in the forest and meadows of the mind is lacking something. Maybe according to Taoism, the middle way.
Two wrongs do not make a right. Being treated in two extreme ways within the kinder years, it seems, does not bode well for any child. When an adult is playing out its narcissistic games, and dramas, the two wrongs still don’t make a right. This normally adds up to the triangulation of a third party. The Evil Triad, and malevolent tactics that very well, might have been witnessed by the child are then used initially by that child for its protection. As a decisive adult, they go viral…
Not only do we see this in our world or relationships in the workplace, churches, and other ego-attractive communities. But also, on a larger scale in the world. If we look back to the Second World War, we can see how the blind, and fearmongered, and ignorant in Germany were led to back a tyrannical government that annihilated so many innocent people. So, when we see the games played out by toxic persons in our small communities, and families, we can see they are a reflection of a society that wants to ignore the very beast that will tear humanity itself apart in the long run.
As you look at how the world is shaped, we are all responsible for this blindness. Why do we not remove blinkers from our own eyes?
So why do other people who have uncaring childhoods not score high on the narcissistic scale? Well, firstly, we all need some at a healthy level.
We, the ones who saw behind all those masks, maybe somehow were inspired to self-study, and dissect ourselves. Maybe the other outcome is the opposite of the toxic one and that is being a pushover, a Pollyanna, a codependent, someone with poor boundaries and that is where your lesson book opens. You may have ended up with a toxic being whilst in a naïve state, but you will be damned if you will ever entertain toxicity again.
The devil may appear at your door with its “victim” mask on now, but you smell it. You slam the door in its face.
Maybe you had someone in your childhood, a teacher, and a family friend who nurtured you and showed you there was more than this. That far away from this barren place called home, there was light beyond those hills.
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