#idealisation

Didn’t I tell you? I was nothing but a "happy pill dispenser" to you. As your unhealthy attachment trauma you had with me wore off, you realise now that you never really loved me for who I am. How could you, you never wanted to know me. You simply loved the way I made you feel. You woke up from your dream and the drug wore off. Now you realise it, don’t you? It wasn't truly love you felt for me at all. It was the oxytocin all along. You’ll never be free from your addiction, though. You’ll just have to get your oxytocin elsewhere.

Narcissism is an aspect of personality that varies among individuals. Dr Malkin describes this general aspect of personality as the dispositional extent to which one is driven to feel special, unique, or exceptional. For most people, the extent and role of their narcissism places it within the normal subclinical range. However, some people are dysfunctionally narcissistic. Malkin describes dysfunctional narcissism, in general, as an addiction to feeling special, unique, or exceptional.

This should not be confused with the DSM’s Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), which is narrower, or more specific, than dysfunctional narcissism per se. NPD is a disorder of narcissism—it is a particular diagnosable manifestation of dysfunctional narcissism. NPD does not exhaustively capture dysfunctional narcissism, in all its forms. E.g. NPD is more strongly associated with a subtype of dysfunctional narcissism that has been called ‘overt’, ‘grandiose’, ‘overtly grandiose’, and ‘extroverted’ narcissism. In contrast, it is less strongly associated with the subtype that has been called ‘covert’, ‘vulnerable’, ‘covertly grandiose’, ‘fragile’, and ‘introverted’ narcissism.

Under the addiction-based construal, the dysfunctionality of dysfunctional narcissism is identified with the dysfunctionality that is seen with addiction more generally. E.g. when addictions are strong enough, addicted people will tend to do whatever it takes—including manipulating, cheating, exploiting, or attacking others—in order to get their high or avoid withdrawal, regardless of the cost to others. In the case of dysfunctional narcissism, the “high”, and the object of withdrawal, just so happens to be the feeling that one is special, unique, or an exception. Malkin highlights three areas of narcissistic dysfunction as it pertains to having effects on others (i.e. as it pertains to interpersonal relations): entitlement, exploitativeness, and empathy impairment.

In addition, the variety that is seen among individuals in their manifestations of dysfunctional narcissism can be reduced, under the addiction-construal, to a combination of (i) the variety that is seen, more generally, in how addictions manifest (due to differences in people’s learning histories and overall personalities), and (ii) the variety among individuals in how they might be caused to feel special, unique, or exceptional (due to differences in learning histories and overall personalities).

The addiction-based construal also carries the potential for a variety of possible causal pathways and vulnerability factors when it comes to developing dysfunctional narcissism, comparable to the variety of reasons that a person might develop an addiction. Even so, it is presumed that there must be specific antecedents that distinguish the development of narcissism (i.e. an addiction to feeling special, unique, or exceptional) from the development of other forms of addiction.

Separately, there do seem to be some things that are invariably present in the development of dysfunctional narcissism—antecedents that are apparently constant among narcissistic individuals. For one thing, it seems that all dysfunctionally narcissistic individuals have insecure attachment. Inter alia, this means that a dysfunctionally narcissistic person tends to not turn to others for help or comfort when she is in distress, and tends automatically to feel as though there is no one who could reliably make her feel better if she were feeling bad, vulnerable, or out of control. Accordingly, it looks as though dysfunctionally narcissistic people develop an over-reliance on feeling special, unique, or exceptional, as a dysfunctional way of coping with distress in the absence of secure attachment—i.e. as a dysfunctional way of compensating for the fact that they are unwilling or unable to get help and comfort from others.

our love story I glorified  thinking there was something otherworldly when we looked each other in the eye it all seemed pure and sweet 

oh how I deceive myself  our love was neither pure nor sweet it was not true it was not real  it was possessive and all-consuming 

that what we had is beautiful and passionate love must yet be the greatest lie the world has told us  oh we still have a lot to learn what it means to love someone truly 

Most of us are incapable of reactive shifts in our evaluations of others, such that our evaluations are suddenly taken to extremes.

E.g. to feel bad about ourselves in response to what someone says or does, or to think that someone is about to say or do something that will make us feel bad about ourselves, tends not to be enough to drastically change how we are viewing that person and whether we value that person. We tend to know that the former is independent of the latter—e.g. that a person might do or say something that makes us feel bad even though we value and think highly of her, and that her doing or saying this thing will tend to have little bearing on her overall nature. For most of us, this knowledge (that our own emotional reactions don’t dictate the personalities of others) fits with the ways in which we actually evaluate others, so that our evaluations of others are relatively stable and non-reactive.

But this is not true of everyone. Some of us are capable of reactive shifts in evaluations of others, such that those evaluations are suddenly taken to extremes. Some people might even do this automatically. For such people, feeling bad or expecting to feel bad about one’s self does tend to be enough to drastically change how another person is being viewed, and whether that person is valued. In particular, it tends to result in devaluation.

How is this possible? Why is it done? How does the capacity develop in the first place?

The answers to these questions might differ from case to case. However, if we are to think about such questions more generally, then the following is worthy of careful consideration.

To be able to quickly adopt an attitude of devaluative indifference is to have access to a powerful means of protecting one’s ego—albeit one that is exclusively short-term, and comes at the expense of one’s relationships, one’s integrity, and the emotional wellbeing of others.