Malignant Self Love | Page 8

shakier.
Some people explicitly state that they do not love themselves at all.
Others confine their lack of self-love to certain traits, to their personal
history, or to some of their behaviour patterns. Yet others feel content
with who they are and with what they are doing.
But one group of people seems distinct in its mental constitution -
narcissists.
According to the legend of Narcissus, this Greek boy fell in love with
his own reflection in a pond. Presumably, this amply sums up the
nature of his namesakes: narcissists. The mythological Narcissus was
rejected by the nymph Echo and was punished by Nemesis, Consigned
to pine away as he fell in love with his own reflection. How apt.
Narcissists are punished by echoes and reflections of their problematic
personalities up to this very day.
They are said to be in love with themselves.
But this is a fallacy. Narcissus is not in love with HIMSELF. He is in
love with his REFLECTION.
There is a major difference between True Self and reflected-self.
Loving your True Self is a healthy, adaptive and functional quality.
Loving a reflection has two major drawbacks. One is the dependence
on the very existence and availability of a reflection to produce the
emotion of self-love.
The other is the absence of a "compass", an "objective and realistic
yardstick", by which to judge the authenticity of the reflection and to
measure its isomorphic attributes. In other words, it is impossible to tell
whether the reflection is true to reality - and, if so, to what extent.

The popular misconception is that narcissists love themselves. In reality,
they direct their love to second hand impressions of themselves in the
eyes of beholders. He who loves only impressions is not acquainted
with the emotion of loving humans and is, therefore, incapable of
loving them, or himself.
But the narcissist does possess the in-bred desire to love and to be
loved. If he cannot love himself - he has to love his reflection. But to
love his reflection - it must be loveable. Thus, driven by the insatiable
urge to love (which we all possess), the narcissist is grossly
preoccupied with projecting a loveable image of himself unto others.
This image has to be compatible with his self-image (the way he "sees"
himself).
It is maintained through the investment of a reasonable proportion of
the resources and energy of the narcissist. An image, which would take
most of the narcissist's time and energy to preserve, would be highly
ineffective because it would render him vulnerable to external threats.
But the most important characteristic of such an image is its lovability.
To a narcissist, love is interchangeable with other emotions, such as
awe, respect, admiration, or even mere attention. An image, which
provokes these reactions in others - is both "loveable and loved", as far
as the narcissist is concerned. It satisfies his basic requirement: that it
should give him something to love which would feel like self-love.
The more successful this image (or series of successive images) - the
more the narcissist becomes divorced from his True Self and married to
the image.
I am not saying that the narcissist does not have this central nucleus of
a "self". All I am saying is that he prefers his image - with which he
identifies himself unreservedly - to his self. A hierarchy is formed. The
self becomes serf to the Image.
This is exactly the opposite of the common notions concerning
narcissists. The narcissist is not selfish - his self is paralysed.

He is not tuned exclusively to his needs. On the contrary: he ignores
them because many of them conflict with his omnipotent and
omniscient image. He does not put himself first - he puts his self last.
He caters to the needs and wishes of everyone around him - because he
craves their love and admiration. It is through their reactions that he
acquires a sense of distinct self. In many ways he annuls himself - only
to re-invent himself through the look of others. He is the person most
insensitive to his true needs.
The narcissist consumes his mental energy incessantly in this process.
He drains himself. This is why he has no energy left to dedicate to
others. This fact as well as his inability to love human beings in their
many dimensions and facets - transform him into a mental recluse. His
soul is fortified and in the solace of this fortification he guards its
territory jealously and fiercely. He protects what he perceives to
constitute his independence.
Why should people indulge the narcissist? And what is the
"evolutionary", survival value of preferring one kind of love (directed
at a symbol, an image) to another (directed at one's self)?
These questions torment the narcissist. His convoluted