Your narcissist hates himself, so cant love you

[Hazy111]

Latest abridged from Sam Vaknins twitter account on Your narcissist hates himself, so cant love you  Thought  some may interested

It is impossible to love others if you do not love yourself. All love is self-love: regarding yourself through the eyes of your lover allows you to apprehend yourself as an external object and delineate your boundaries, to become, to regulate your sense of self-worth internally, and to take on the world, becoming a better version of yourself.

Narcissism is not self-love: no self to love and incapacity to love (they fail to generate self-object or object representations). They can cathect (to invest emotion or feeling in) but never love.

Narcissism is self-loathing: the child rejects his helpless self and his lack of self-efficacy and is ashamed of it. He creates the False Self which is everything the narcissist is not. Narcissism is a form of dysphoria, prolonged grief over an internalized bad object.

[NarcKiddo]

My uNPD mother has very occasionally actually said to me that she loathes herself. I think I was supposed to respond with reassurance that she is wonderful.

[square]

I agree that you cannot love others if you do not love yourself. I don't see love of others as self love, though, I see it more like having the skills to love yourself teaches you how to love others.

For example, my self talk that helps me emotionally regulate ("you did okay, it'll work out, etc") can also be soothing to others when I say similar things to them. I have the skills to comfort myself, and I can use them to comfort others. My H does not seem to have this skill for himself and therefore cannot comfort me either. It's just an example but arguably this is one component of self love and love for others.

[Prototypian]

This makes a lot of sense.  I've not had close relationships with Narcs but I've worked with a couple.   They always seem worried that someone else was more successful or knew more or was right or was receiving accolades.   And that probably stems from a feeling of low self esteem which also equates to low self love.

[Poison Ivy]

You could feel compassion but not think you have to (or can) do anything about the person's self-loathing. I'm not saying you should respond in this way, but it is definitely one possible response.

[Prototypian]

I always feel compassionate.  No matter what someone does or how the hurt me I wish they didn't have trauma or pain.   I'd be the worst judge or justice ever.

[Cat of the Canals]

I don't mean to start a debate, but I'm not sure how this quote is helpful? What am I supposed to do with this? Feel compassion for my uPDw becasue she loathes herself?

I think there are many of us here (myself included) who find the psychology behind PDs interesting and helpful. I am a "why" person. I like to understand how things work, so I've spent countless hours trying to figure out why my mother behaves the way she does.

Also -- and maybe this is heightened when one is specifically raised by a narcissist -- we have spent the entirety of our pre-FOG lives wondering if or thinking that we are the problem. That there is something wrong with us that makes us inherently unlovable or disappointing somehow. So it can be very freeing for a child of a narcissist to learn that the lack of love never had anything to do with us. Our narcissist parent couldn't love us because of their own damage.

I don't consider this type of explanation as an excuse of any kind. My mother is still an adult that I hold fully accountable behavior.

I was going to add that the notion of having compassion for them is a separate issue entirely, but now that I've thought about it for a minute, I'm not so sure. When I think about what must have happened to my mother to make her this way -- the way she must have been just as miserable and alone as a child as I was --  I feel sad for her. When I consider how broken she is, and yet she will never ever take responsibility for it or seek help, that also makes me sad. She behaves as if she wants closeness with her family but pushes us away at every turn with her crappy behavior.

[moglow]

While the psychology behind it is indeed interesting [at times] and even helpful [at other times], at the end of the day I'm not personally a fan of Vaknin or anyone else who presumes to speak for ALL of any group whatever that group may be. This person's writings are presented as the end-all be-all when that's still one person's research and insight - and those of a self-proclaimed narcissist at that.


I suspect it's been stated here many times before: Our "problem" as [presumed] nons is our very compassion for others. That's what's kept us mired in the chaos for so long. We've excused and minimized and sought answers for years, if not decades, while the soul who feels similarly unloved sits there and stirs it.

[Pepin]

I agree with the statement.  However, there seems to be a bit of confusion about what love really means -- especially to the narcissist.  For my CN MIL, her way of supposedly expressing love was to have connection (yes, connection if healthy) but she twisted connection into manipulation.  While she seemed to enjoy doing things for others, it was done from a place of self serving and control.  In turn, the receivers (i.e. DH and some siblings)  believed this was love.  While she did things for others, she also demanded a lot in return be done for HER.  And along the way, she quietly bowed out of giving and it became a relationship only of her demands.  This is a woman who had zero love for herself.  She made it seem like she was a caring and genuine individual....but beneath that veneer was a woman who treated herself so poorly and who also set out to make anyone around her pay the price because she couldn't obtain what they had.

[bloomie]

This is developing into an interesting and helpful conversation and at the same time our guidelines are clear around generalizing:

You are welcome to ask questions about what you think is going on in the mind of a particular person you are close to. However, broad generalizations about entire groups of people who suffer from personality disorders, such as "they can't help it" or "they have no feelings" are misleading to others. Members who repeatedly post such generalizations are subject to moderation and will be asked to refrain.

Please keep the convo around a particular person you are close to and let's stay away from generalizations pretty please.

Now my .02 for what is it worth... I don't think we can reliably say what is in the heart and mind of another person - what motivates them - what their emotions are and self perceptions are when they are unable to consistently engage and communicate with honesty, self awareness, respect, empathy, and a reasonable level of reciprocity.

What does guide me is their consistent choices and behaviors over time. With two people in my circle with strong N tendencies and behaviors I would say after observing them for many years - they have do show the capacity to love and a great deal of empathy - it is just almost exclusively directed inward onto themselves.

[Poison Ivy]

I did not love my late father-in-law, the person in my family who seemed most likely to have an NPD. I did feel compassion for him because of what I knew about his youth (information he self-reported) and his later years. Regardless of any compassion I felt for him, I went very low contact with him and did not see him in person for the final 10 years of his life. I still believe that he played a major role in the breakdown of my marriage.

[Cat of the Canals]

Thank you all for your thoughtful responses. I must wrestle personally if I can show compassion for my wife, which I don't feel now. But that's probably my own issue and pain, not the fault of that author or any of you.

I also believe every scenario is different. As much pain as PDmom has caused me, I don't think she has ever intended any of it. However, there is someone else in my past who willfully and knowingly inflicted abuse, and I have a much harder time finding compassion for that person.