Each of us, to varying degrees, lives with a level of unawareness. We fill in the gaps of our unawareness by avoiding or, essentially, accepting deception or partial truths. Eventually, life will challenge our beliefs and our view of reality. In those moments, we have the opportunity to adjust, to rethink, and redirect our actions in accordance with newly revealed truths. We all exist in cycles; dynamic experiences that go around and around. As they go around, we may run into walls. Eventually, a healthy person questions themselves as to why they keep running into a wall. The narcissist blames the wall.
From a standpoint of personal responsibility, it is our duty to understand that we may be deceived in some way by our own perspective and to embark on a journey for truth. Every client who seeks counseling has encountered this stumbling block in their life. Their feelings are telling them something about themselves, and their objective experience in life is not aligning. As they enter therapy and begin to unravel their experiences, an objective party reflects back truth, helping them sort out what’s going on. Essentially, helping them take responsibility.
However, in order to do this, the individual must have some semblance of honesty and a part of themselves that is not living in self-deception. Simply admitting that certain things are done wrong or that behavior needs to change is not enough. There must be a connection to personal responsibility and an understanding of the nature of their relationship to the world in which they are engaging.
The narcissist exists under a total eclipse. They are not in touch with reality at all, and therefore, every ounce of their being is outside of their awareness. Meaning there is no help for them until tragedy strikes, and even then, the likelihood that they will see themselves in relation to what’s happening and take ownership is slim. Yes, it’s aversion to shame, yes, it’s pride, yes, it’s egocentric, but that’s just us on the outside explaining what we are seeing. That is not their experience because they are so deceived and disconnected from objective reality; there is no connection for them. Another person’s efforts to explain how they are being experienced does nothing to prompt them to say, “Oh! I see what you’re talking about, let me change.”
Yes, it triggers shame when they’re held accountable and reality checks in, but they’re not aware that their experience of shame is about them and that it’s their responsibility to do something about it. Because their entire experience is internalized they are only aware that you are shaming them, and therefore, you are the bad person. The feeling they are having is about you, not them and so you are the problem they have to get away from or rage out on. No matter how much you try to describe the fact that the sun is behind them, they are the dark side of the moon, facing you and the eclipse lives on.
Individuals like this are feeding off your effort. They can use anything you say to mean whatever they want it to mean to preserve their narrative. You will not be heard, you will not be understood, and you will not receive a sense of true connection and reconciliation in conflict. You will agree with them thus costing you a piece of yourself, or your words will be used against you to perpetuate a victim mentality and justify their acting out. It’s always lose lose. We have to stop running into the wall and begin to see this pattern playing out, while facing our own areas of deception and take responsibility for them.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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From The Good Men Project on Medium
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