For example, after going through a lot of studies, clinical data, scientific articles, journal entries of individuals with a confirmed diagnoses and also taking into account my own personal experience, I can conclude that the basis for Narcissistic, Borderline and even Antisocial personality disorder is an overwhelming, out-of-control sense of FEAR, or better TERROR which we also can define as the absence of trust. While Borderline individual will cope with this by begging and clinging and doing everything possible to avoid a sense of separation from an individual who they count as significant (while at the same time exposing that individual to such strong bouts of rage that can only be perceived as hate by the unfortunate recipient), Narcissistic personality will cope by erecting the wall of false persona to hide behind and sometimes by emotionally manipulating and seeking excessive signs of approval in order to feel more affirmed and protected, and Antisocial personality will deal with the overwhelming sense of horror by completely disassociating from the whole spectre of emotions, by presuming everyone in the whole world is psychologically organized the same way they are therefore expecting the worse, and sometimes by ignoring or even seeking out obviously dangerous situations as in equal measure a stimuli and a relief, as they will never compare to the inner world of silent horror the individual is forced to occupy.
This, of course, brings us to the main topic of this entry. Keeping in mind the request of my brave readers who suspect they bear many traits of Narcissistic Personality Disorder and would like to remedy the situation as best they can to share my thought on what particular steps could be taken, I am happy to share that I do indeed have another concrete piece of advice (btw, I also put it on my personal agenda, and if there will be anything useful to say I will share my experience in the later entries.)
So the advice is quite simple (but only in form of a phrase, not as an action :) ): consciously train yourself to trust more. If you notice, I did put in a few particulars: I didn't simply say "trust more" or even "learn to trust more" as it would imply a simplistic, as well as a somewhat too finite quality of the process. As I said before, as an action it is not as easy as simply hearing and intellectually processing the advice. Somewhere deep inside of you there is an imprint of a certain state and/or situation or perhaps (and more likely) a whole succession of situations and connected to them emotional states, that convinced you that the world and/or the people inside the world are inherently unsafe and can not be trusted. You lived with this internal "setting" for some time, and in some cases it served you really well, so there is a very slim chance that your unconscious (or even conscious :) ) side will agree to part with that deep inner perception easily.
Here is the dreaded (yet almost unavoidable) cliche: training yourself how to trust is a process. You are almost definitely going to experience bewilderment and a feeling that you do not even know that you do not know (typical for almost any kind of real learning), then frustration at the pace of the progress, and the fact that most people have no idea what you are going through (not all that new for people with NPD) and then also setbacks, wanting to forget it and give in and just hold on to what is familiar and also that (personally dreaded by me) sense of not having clear, sensible reason for going through all that mess, as we never even experienced the feeling and states of greater integration and true intimacy that supposedly should serve as a stimuli, an end goal and a "prize."
And no one but you will ever know what exact choices you should make to ever reach that goal, as you could only see the pointers from withing, yet, of course, some of us are not accustomed to feeling what is going on inside of us so well, and so we are bound to make a few wrong turns (if not go in circles) more than a few times.
Well, I do not blame you if all of this does not sound too appealing. :)
I, personally, decided to give it a go. Here I will share some of what I concluded, though I do want to say that I suspect this type of work varies a lot from person to person and I would sincerely encourage you to look within and decided how YOU going to go about it and what goals and priorities you as an individual will bring to this process.
So, for myself I think it is worth it to start by acknowledging that part of me that withstanded all the immense trauma I had to go through and still is protecting me in a way that is somewhat effective. I admire its loyalty, its will to endure and its honesty in a face of hostile circumstances.
Then I recognize that despite my still feeling like that wounded little child inside my outer circumstances have changed dramatically and that there is no reason for me to keep feeling like that right now.
Then I personally start working on my view of the whole world, not the specific person or situation that perhaps generated that reaction in the first place. In my opinion, when we go through a seriously traumatizing situation, our inner perception of the whole world as a (formerly) secure and friendly place changes - we feel betrayed not only (and perhaps not as much) by person as by our entire means of existence, our greater environment. For me personally it seems like it is the most significant, and perhaps the most difficult bond to repair.
So I started with my inner relationship with the world as a whole, and perhaps more importantly with the force, the main idea and the deepest meaning (for the lack of a better, more dynamic expression) of this existence and my life within it. I am not sure whether I am making myself clear, and perhaps I will edit this (out?) later, but those experiences are beyond words and so are often difficult to put in the inflexible frames of verbal expression.
All I can offer at the moment that I concluded that nature of our human existence is in unison with any other form of nature that we see: it is to grow and to strive and often in a very unkind if not downright brutal circumstance that we are challenged to survive or to yield to someone whose will to survive is stronger. In Eastern philosophical and spiritual traditions God is often depicted as someone who created the entire Universe to, in effect, entertain him- or herself, or, perhaps, to experience himself (or herself) in a capacity that is more controversial and polarized than his (her) usual all-encompassing, almighty and homogeneous state. :) It is a very cute theory, no? I always liked it and often came back to it in my mind. So it is if she (or he) just made a puzzle out of her (his) own existence.
What I am trying to say is that perhaps we should presume that a state where we are missing something is actually a norm within the circumstance we live in, and then a strive through a (sometimes overwhelming) difficulty is still an innate process and that by this means we are learning, growing and experiencing our ever-changing qualities. And though we do not always see meaning of this through our Ego-limited view, in a greater, infinitely more fluent, powerful scheme of things, a part of which we still embody, the strives and the challenges we are going through make a lot of sense.
All of this elaborate thought-structure was created to get around the fact that defenseless little creatures like children or kind, trusting people are often brutalized and traumatized in this strange world we all live in. If we were to learn to trust it, we must make a conscious choice to trust it despite the obvious inconvenience we have experienced before. And the more consciousness, good will and willingness to give up our little-minded Ego views we bring to the proces, the better the chances of us thriving. Of course, for some this whole assertion will not make any sense, and I have been there and thus perfectly understand them. However, this is what I personally "unearthed" when I decided to dig up my mistrust, my hurts and insecurities, and I could honestly say this brought the whole new quality to my perception of this world.
P.S. There will be a continuation of this topic. Please forgive me if this post reads a little uneven. I am going through a very painful situation and today I decided to write despite feeling more than a little upset :) (that is because if I was waiting until I feel fine I may never write a post :) ) Anyway, I will have more to share on this and a similar topic and so I am looking forward to seeing you soon!
Please share this post to raise awareness of Narcissism and its effects on relationships.
Thank you!
No comments:
Post a Comment