Understanding Narcissists (Part 1)
Have you ever felt frustrated at your inability to solve problems in your life? Do you suffer from depression or anxiety and no matter how much try to deal with these experiences they don’t improve? Do you try talking to your spouse and no matter how hard you try it doesn’t seem to help your relationship, and often makes matters worse? Are you continually frustrated by the disturbing actions of those around you and feel a constant stress in your life?
This two-part article examines one of the fundamental reasons why we not only suffer, but continue to suffer without resolution. This first part of the article examines how this happens and why it is so fundamentally difficult to deal with.
To understand the nature of this particular difficulty, let us consider the “Myth of Narcissus” (Ovid) which goes briefly like this. A beautiful young boy falls in love with his reflection in a pool of water. The boy becomes so captivated by this reflection that he forsakes everything and everyone, and when he finally realizes that he can never have what he so desperately wants (the beautiful boy in the water) he draws a sword and kills himself.
As commonly interpreted, this myth is seen as providing a warning against positive self-absorption in which a person is so enamored and absorbed by his or her wonderful self they are incapable of appreciating or caring for others. But there is a more valuable dynamic portrayed here which is crucial in understanding why we so often struggle in our relationships with others and why the resolution of that conflict is so difficult.
As portrayed in the myth, Narcissus falls in love with his own reflection. What is essential to understand however is that this young boy falls in love with an image which he took to be real.
Had Narcissus understood this to be his own reflection, he would had a very different reaction to it. He might have gazed at himself for awhile and been rightly pleased with what he saw, or he may have perhaps become self-conscious and wondered if this was why others were so interested in him. But he wouldn’t have engaged in such desperate attempts to possess something he couldn’t have and in the process ignore everyone and everything around him.
The second part of this article looks at how this confusion plays itself out in real life.