Character Analysis: Narcissistic Personality Disorder

The name of Narcissistic Personality Disorder comes from the Legend of Narcissus, which tells the story of a man who sees his own reflection in a pond and falls in love with it. But this man does not fall in love with himself, he falls in love with his false self, which is a mere reflection. The narcissist’s false self is what he would like to be but cannot; someone who is invulnerable and perfect. His desire to make the false self seem real causes the narcissist to depend on other people to reflect this self back at him.

Personality disorders arise due to abuse in early childhood, which includes behaviours such as being engulfed, idolised, overprotected, and spoiled in addition to classic forms of abuse such as physical and sexual. The love given to narcissists in early childhood is conditional. Such children are permitted to exist only as an extension of the parent or not at all.

Consequently, this leads to feelings of being unlovable and the rejection of the true self. These children, then, in pursuit of perfection choose to exist as a false self they create in their heads. They imagine themselves as perfect and they try to reflect this unrealistic image to others as if it was actually them.

Perfectionism is one of the traits of Narcissistic Personality Disorder — people with this disorder struggle with very high levels of perfectionism and strive for unrealistic standards. Their self-esteem is quite low as a result because they feel the need to be perfect to feel good about themselves and since it’s impossible to feel perfect, they feel insecure most of the time.

According to attachment theory, children attach to their caregivers in three distinct ways known as secure, ambivalent, and avoidant. In adulthood, most of these children continue to display similar attachment patterns. There are four types of attachment in adults:

• Secure: positive view of self and others; can form close relationships
• Anxious-Preoccupied: negative view of self but positive view of others; the sense of self-worth dependent on gaining the approval and acceptance of others
• Dismissive-Avoidant: positive view of self but a negative view of others; dismisses the importance of close relationships
• Fearful-Avoidant: a negative view of self and others; lack of trust and apprehension about close relationships

The attachment style seen in this personality disorder is fearful-avoidant with dismissive features. Narcissists struggle with abandonment anxiety as well as fear of engulfment. They often present a dismissive façade to partners to hide their feelings of vulnerability and dependence.

Additionally, the grandiosity gap between narcissists’ false self and true self causes maladaptive behaviours such as attention-seeking and pathological lying as well as idealisation and devaluation of other people. For example, if criticised in the workplace, a narcissist may reframe this as his co-workers being too stupid to understand him or jealous of his talents to protect his fragile self-esteem.

This insensitivity towards others coupled with the need for constant positive feedback for self-affirmation often leads to the discontinuation of relationships early on.

Narcissists are abusive towards partners, but they can also end up victims of abuse themselves. The latter is because people with personality disorders attract each other a lot. Because narcissists are such perfectionists, they tend to have very high expectations from their partners. This leads to them being unsatisfied with their partners’ conduct and highly critical of them. Also, due to their insecurities, they are easily angered as they can feel offended by innocuous remarks. All of these ensure their partners are unsatisfied within the relationship and often feel the need to “walk around eggshells” in order not to trigger the narcissists’ rage.

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