Is Being Self-Concerned Bigheaded, SELFISH, or Narcissistic?

The wide spectrum of narcissism (and lack of it) and its profound impact on our harmful habits, self-worth, and relationships, is the subject today. Learn about the delicate balance between selflessness and self-importance, and how different influences shape our narcissistic tendencies.  This episode gives insights into personal growth, self-worth, and how our level of self-centredness can fluctuate throughout our lives.

Another podcast you might love: How do I Stop Self-Criticism?

Citations
Rethinking Narcissism - Dr. Craig Malkin

Transcript

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Today I'm gonna talk about narcissism. Hi, this is Shelley Treacher from Underground Confidence. In this podcast, I help people to recover from the emotional side of comfort eating, having a relationship with a narcissist or someone who shows narcissistic traits could surely make you wanna comfort eat. Narcissism. This is a word that's used a lot in our culture, and it certainly can be a destructive illness, a personality disorder, but it isn't always when we use this word. Much like any other personality traits, there's a spectrum of narcissism and actually it can be healthy for us to have a certain amount of this. Many of the people that I work with simply don't have enough. And there are definitely ways that a certain healthy amount of narcissism can help us. We all have a drive to feel special. That's something that's really normal for every human being And research actually shows that most people think of themselves as special and unique. Feeling special boosts our confidence. I, I, feeling special or feeling good about yourself is something that I help people with every day. What better way to get over rejection, heartbreak, or pain than learning to appreciate yourself? But as I say, narcissism is a spectrum because it's all about how much we think we are better than others. It's healthy, normal, and necessary even to think well of ourselves, to have a positive view of ourselves. And of our partners and our friends, but it's when either party becomes dependent on this, that the relationship gets ruined. Narcissism is the loss of capacity to see anybody else's point of view except your own. At the full end of the spectrum, a person with this personality disorder would show a complete lack of remorse and a tendency towards manipulation of others. This kind of person is arrogant and grandiose. But it's opposite where someone may have a complete lack of self and of feeling special can also be dangerous. Although with this case, it's not dangerous to others. It's dangerous to yourself. Our health and happiness relies on being able to see our own point of view and somebody else's. A lot of my podcasts have been about having a sense of self and knowing what you need and being able to respond to that. Comfort. Eating can quite literally stuff down your sense of self and your needs, and at the opposite end of the spectrum, we need to be very selfless. Sometimes, for example, if our baby is crying, I can't relate to this by having children, but I do still have my cat and I can really relate to the fact that I've had to put myself second. A lot more recently, I've been having to stay in to look after her and literally judging sometimes every hour, whether it is okay to leave her. Whilst at the same time, assessing how much I need to go out and do sociable things and nice things for myself in order for me to be happy. How much to nurture our children or our cats has been a subject of much debate for a long time. We are influenced by a stiff upper lip tradition that believes if we nurture too much, then our children will become narcissists. Research actually does show that this isn't true, but we're also influenced by a religious background from Buddhism to Christianity where selflessness is highly valued. I certainly have had a lot of clients who have been taught not to put themselves first simply through a religious upbringing. And we have a more modern view of needing self-awareness, which I believe is essential for any good relationship. If you can reach out to yourself, you can reach out to others. I literally feel like I'm living testimony of this, but I also see it every day in my clients. And then there's the relationship that we have with our parents. As children, we kind of need to think that our parents are perfect, that they can do everything. We need to look up to them. Even in adult life, we need mentors. One of the things that new clients often come into therapy with is a terror that in some way we're gonna be putting their parents down. I, people often don't wanna talk about their history in case this is what will happen. Perhaps it's scary to admit that our parents aren't perfect? And it is in childhood where becoming a full on narcissist or the other end of the spectrum, not having a sense of self begins to develop. With a secure upbringing, the need for self perfection fades as we realize that there cannot be perfection. Nobody can be perfect, but with abusive or sadistic parents, the child is gonna feel small and unworthy and might look for admiration wherever that they can get it. They might become vulnerable or fragile, but arrogant. The young and developing narcissist defends themselves from showing shame, sadness, loneliness, or fear, because the fear of the rejection that they might have from their parents is very strong for them. So they shield themselves by feeling more special. A more extreme narcissist is really easy to spot. You know, these people, they're in politics, but most narcissists are not easy to spot. It's just the obvious ones. The subtle ones are more prolific. They're often quiet, charming. They have a little warmth, a little empathy. These are everyday people. Mild narcissists may be able to change too, depending on motivation. It's a learned habit, a more extreme narcissist. It is defined by arrogance and disregard and seems kind of cold or dead inside and may have aggression. They may get angry if you disagree with them or don't praise them. What can often denote whether somebody is full on narcissist or just has a couple of mild traits is the resentment level that they have. It's becoming obvious, isn't it? Hey, that the kind of person that the narcissist is attracted to is the kind of person who doesn't have any sense of self? Therapy, and happiness is all about finding a middle ground for both parties. In the book, I'm reading about Narcissism by Craig Malkin, which I would thoroughly recommend. He talks about different kinds of narcissist. There's the obvious extrovert narcissists, and there are introverted narcissists. These people are more covert, vulnerable, and fear criticism, so they shy away from people so, These people think they're better than everyone. They think they have unrecognized gifts that nobody's noticing. They also think they're attuned to the world, but they are fragile, just like the extrovert narcissist. They're hypersensitive or moody, and they have a seething, bitter resentment. They have to be the best at everything. The best dancer, the best musician, the best at their job, the. But whichever narcissist they are, they clinging to feeling special. They just do it differently. At the opposite end of the spectrum people who have very little sense of self, constantly fear looking needy. Because they were taught that their needs weren't important and that they shouldn't have any, but people feel good when you allow them to compliment you. I remember I had a birthday party once. I hate having Happy Birthday sung to me. I. Just don't like standing around listening to people sing at me. It's a weird experience for me, but this friend on my birthday wanted to sing Happy Birthday to me. So she whipped everyone up to sing Happy Birthday, and it happened. And then afterwards I told her that I really didn't like it because she could see on my face that I looked really tense. We actually fell out over that. And now reading this about narcissism, I can understand why. Maybe she didn't feel received by me, and I know what that's like. I love giving compliments to people, and if they don't receive it, it is disappointing. There's an opportunity for connection that's missed there. One of the structures of therapy is to bring in celebration for how far you've come and to recognize how well you're doing. I to encourage that healthy sense of narcissism or self-worth. And it's worth saying here that you can have different levels of narcissism at different times in your life. Different things can trigger you to be a bit more narcissistic and more self concerned. Like, when you are feeling ill or when you are hormonal. I can definitely contest being in the menopause. I've felt that I am much more important than I used to be or I should be to the people around me. It's such a rollercoaster, but I definitely need a little more self-care and so I'd,, I want care from the people around me as well. And this is, I believe, healthy narcissism. It's when you can't ask for support at those times that you really don't have enough of it. I have a very dear friend who once confided in me that if he was dying, if he had cancer and had a terrible illness, that he wouldn't tell anybody. He wouldn't tell me. He wouldn't tell his best friend. He wouldn't tell his family. He wouldn't tell anyone. He'd just slip away quietly because he wouldn't wanna be a burden to anyone. This is perhaps not enough entitlement. So you might be wondering at this point, where are you on the spectrum, which probably in itself shows that you are not a great big narcissist. As a narcissist would rarely question themselves in the same way as someone who had a lot of self-doubt might. Craig Malkin's book actually includes a test. Which has some really sensible, in-depth ways of assessing where you are on the scale. I did the test. Happy to say I came out healthy. There are three sections to the test. The first section is about narcissistic deficits. The important questions to answer here are about whether you know what you want in relationship and what your opinions are. How highly would you rate yourself on these? The second section is about healthy narcissism. This section is about dreaming big, but not at the expense of others and about being able to reign yourself in when people say you're bigheaded. How much can you do both of these things? The last section assesses extreme narcissism. Here you'll find questions about struggling to give emotional support, seeing themselves as better than others, being argumentative, uncooperative, and having a fluctuating sense of self-esteem, being approval, seeking selfish, unemotional except for thrill seeking, being angry, boastful, and attacking when self-image is threatened. I am not expecting any of you listening to have many of these traits, but you may be in relationship with one. This sense of entitlement and convincing themselves, the narcissist, that they are better than others requires others. Sometimes you'll spot a narcissist by them waiting for you to stop talking so that they can start. As I say, this starts in childhood. This is not a nature nurture debate. Of course, we may be born with certain characteristics, but nurture certainly has an effect. We have a choice of which way we're gonna go and our nurturing points, the direction. No matter whether you're an introvert or an extrovert, you'll be affected by your privacy being invaded. Or by your needs not being reflected, you learn that your own identity is sacrificed and so you either join them or you suffer. You don't matter in any meaningful way to your parents. So you find a way to feel good about yourself, and that could involve going either way. How this has a surprising similarity with comfort eating is that it's an addiction on both ends of the scale. It's a dependency one way or another on feeling special. The narcissist needs a codependent, and the codependent needs a narcissist where the narcissist leaves the codependent feeling too needy as if they've been too selfish. The codependent can only be noticed for what they do for others. The way in the middle security is to learn to express feelings and have them reflected back. This is the antidote for narcissism or codependency. This is something that neither of them have really experienced very much I but have the potential to. Today I've talked about narcissism as a spectrum. I've talked about having a healthy sense of self-worth and narcissism, and I've talked about being arrogant, resentful, and having an unhealthy sense of narcissism. I've also talked about having too little self-worth or narcissism. I talked about some of the influences on whether we have narcissistic traits or not. I. Including our history in our childhoods and society, and I talked about the relationship between narcissists and codependence, and I talked of healing through learning to open up and express yourself. Just like any addiction, comfort, eating included, the answer lies. In creating a genuine sense of being special just for being you. Next week I'll be talking about how to cope with a narcissist during which you'll hear some of my experiences with narcissists in the past. I'm looking forward to telling you about that. Meanwhile, if I can help you with the emotional side of your comfort eating. Please check out my app, underground Confidence on all the app stores or on the web app. Thank you so much for listening today. I will see you next week. This has been Underground Confidence with Shelley Treacher.