Recently I had a conversation with a friend on the phone about narcissistic behavior.  There was a specific incident that had just happened at an awards program.  My friend asked me why narcissists behave in this way; she was referring mainly to individuals in the public eye.  At first I said the young man was acting out as a way to get attention.  Even though it was negative, it is a way to get attention.  I intuitively felt this was not a new way of communicating for this young man or narcissists in general.  She expressed how much it bothered her and our conversation ended.

I thought about it for a while.  After our conversation I became cognizant that a narcissist places their emotional needs over the feelings and desires of others.  And yes you can call this selfish, immature and self-centered, and you would be right, it is. What I have witnessed about narcissists is their feelings, their desires, anger, and frustrations are more important than those around them.  It’s as if the narcissist needs to act out their feelings which usually are abusive and disrespectful to those around them at the time of the outburst.  Coming from a self obsessed person, they see this as O.K. to do.

What I typically do is I look to see both sides of why something is happening.  In this case it is narcissistic behaviors being demonstrated and people getting abused.  The other side of it is what made these people narcissistic?  So I decided to get some of my books out on narcissistic behaviors.  In fact one of them I suggest is:  Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled--and More Miserable Than Ever Before by Jean Twenge and Keith Campbell.  Jean has a chapter on “Raising Royalty” that explains what has created the increase in narcissism.

What I needed to be reminded of was narcissists suffer from a lack of self confidence, lack of sympathy, lack of understanding, lack of self esteem, and lack of self worth.  Now granted it looks differently to you when you are involved in what I call an emotional outburst episode with them.  However I am talking about deep inside of the person.  Somewhere along the path the person became a narcissist as a result from being made to believe he was of less importance than his caretakers or guardians.  And whether the wounding came from physical abuse or emotional abuse, abuse is abuse and it will have its long lasting effects in the lifetime.  So I look at the narcissists with a compassionate heart and look at it as if they have a disease and I need to try to be as understanding as I can be and at the same time distance myself to prevent being abused myself.  After all, once you understand the narcissist thinks he is not going to be held accountable for his actions you can understand why he will repeatedly manipulate others to get his way.

For those who are curious about their own personalities, I suggest using the webpage  http://www.Personality100.com  and to find out more you can go to http://similarminds.com/personality_disorder.html and for $39 you can get a good picture of the unconscious mind.

Personally I use prayer to try to help heal the narcissists and I pray it will help them until a therapy comes that can help them heal their pain.  Maybe you will want to join me as the numbers of narcissists are increasing says the Journal of Personality August 2008.