Malignant Self Love | Page 5

In our habits we see our history, all the time and
effort invested. Habits are encapsulated versions of our acts, intentions,
emotions and reactions. They are mirrors reflecting back that part in us
that formed the habit.
Hence, the feeling of comfort: we really feel comfortable with our own
selves when we feel comfortable with our habits.
Because of this, we tend to confuse habits with identity. When asked
WHO they are, most people resort to describing their habits. They
relate to us their work, their loved ones, their pets, their hobbies, or
their material possessions. Yet, all of these do not constitute an identity.
Their removal does not change one's identity. They are habits and they
make the respondent comfortable and relaxed. But they are not part of

his identity in the truest, deepest sense.
Still, it is this simple mechanism of deception that binds people
together. A mother feels that her offspring are part of her identity
because she is so used to them that her well-being depends on their
existence and availability. Thus, any threat to her children is interpreted
by a mother as a threat to her person. Her reaction is, therefore, strong
and enduring and can be recurrently elicited.
The truth, of course, is that children ARE a part of their mother's
identity in a superficial manner. Removing them would make her a
different person, but only in the shallow, phenomenological sense of
the word. Her deep-set, true identity is unlikely to change as a result.
But what is this kernel of identity that I am referring to? This
immutable entity which is the definition of who we are and what we are
and which, ostensibly, is not influenced by the death of our loved ones?
What is so strong as to resist the breaking of habits that die-hard?
It is our personality. This elusive, loosely interconnected, interacting,
pattern of reactions to our changing environment. Like the mind, it is
difficult to define or to capture. Like the soul, many believe that it does
not exist, that it is a fictitious convention. Yet, we know that we do
have a personality. We feel it, we experience it. It sometimes
encourages us to do things - or prevents us from doing them. It can be
supple or rigid, benign or malignant, open or closed. Its power lies in
its looseness. It is able to combine, recombine and permutate in
hundreds of unforeseeable ways. It metamorphoses and the constancy
of its rate and kind of change is what gives us a sense of identity.
Actually, when the personality is rigid to the point of being unable to
change in reaction to changing circumstances - we say that it is
disordered. A personality disorder is the ultimate misidentification.
The individual mistakes his habits for his identity. He identifies himself
with his environment, taking behavioural, emotional, and cognitive
cues exclusively from it. His inner world is, so to speak, vacated,
inhabited, as it were, by the apparition of his True Self.
Such a person is incapable of loving and of living. The personality
disordered sees no distinction between his self and his habits. He IS his
habits and, therefore, by definition, can only rarely and with an
incredible amount of exertion, change them. And, in the long-term, he
is incapable of living because life is a struggle TOWARDS, a striving,

a drive AT something. In other words: life is change. He who cannot
change is not really alive.
"Malignant Self-Love - Narcissism Revisited" was written under
extreme conditions of duress. It was composed in jail as I was trying to
understand what had hit me. My nine years old marriage dissolved, my
finances were in a shocking condition, my family estranged, my
reputation ruined, my personal freedom severely curtailed. Slowly, the
realisation that it was all my fault, that I was sick and needed help
penetrated the decades old defences that I erected around me. This
book is the documentation of a road of self-discovery. It was a painful
process, which led to nowhere. I am no different - and no healthier -
today than I was when I wrote this book. My disorder is here to stay,
the prognosis is poor and alarming.
The narcissist is an actor in a monodrama, yet forced to remain behind
the scenes. The scenes take centre stage, instead. The narcissist does
not cater at all to his own needs. Contrary to his reputation, the
narcissist does not "love" himself in any true sense of this loaded word.
He feeds off other people, who hurl back at him an image that he
projects to them. This is their sole function in his world: to reflect, to
admire, to applaud, to detest - in a word, to assure him that he exists.
Otherwise, they have no