The Wounded Vulnerable Narcissist

The Wounded Vulnerable Narcissist

Many people are very self-critical and most, while acknowledging  they might indeed feel this way “sometimes”,  seem to be reluctant to do any work on these feelings or behaviors, other than “being positive” about themselves. And usually this means that “being positive” is the generic feel good kind of “thing” rather than being specific and realistic. Generic feel good statements (given either through self –talk or as complements from friends and new age teachers) are really not useful other than a quick hit of feel good emotions and perhaps as a distraction from some current uncomfortable emotions or challenges. For some reason, people seem to feel that if they actually go into their feelings, rather than continuing to bury them and attempting to live on top of what will become a self-perpetuating swamp land, that they are now being “negative” or perhaps will in fact “manifest” negativity (all the new age nonsense jargon).  People speaking in generic generalities should be seen as red flags. Getting specific is hard, it takes mindfulness. Even getting specific about the “positive” is hard. Many people break down into tears when asked to specifically list (do inventory) on the qualities they have that they are proud of or happy with. Nothing gets healed by being generic or by layering sugar on top.  Nothing gets healed by changing your conscious thinking because the unconscious and sub-conscious material will still be at work in your life except you are turning a blind eye to it all meaning that Spirit will now have to send an extreme situation to you in order to wake you up and force you to face the specifics, reality, evidence.   Why do people dread shadow work? Shadow work only increases the light, your light, always.  Always.

The other side of being self-critical and layering sugar on top of stinking thinking and stinky emotions is to exaggerate your wounded self. This is the beginning of the wounded narcissist. Now you are the most horrible person who had done terrible things, more so than most people when in reality your “terrible” behaviors, actions, decisions are well within the norm of most of the population. Low self –esteem demands that you be special and being special in the “I am a horrible person” is also a form being special and is also a kind of grandiosity and arrogance. Being “the best” (overly positive) and being “the worst” are flip sides of the same coin.  A damaged person who has not worked on healing his/her wounds from childhood and/or from life. Maturity, being at peace with your Self, gives you a balanced picture of who you are, a good person who has also some character defects (to use the language of 12-Step) and a good person who has made mistakes that hurt others or yourself.

Minimizing your wounds as a way to not deal with them is an unhealthy choice but so is beginning to live your life through the stories of your wounded self. Exaggerating your wounds, or forming a permanent or semi-permanent identity around your victim-hood is a form of boasting and can actually become an obstacle to healing if all you do is tell your story and do not do the hard work of healing. And sadly victim story telling (without working on healing) is currently very popular. Yes #metoo happened, but it has also been happening to women for centuries, especially women of color.  And yes you have to present as a super victim in order to win your court case as that is how our legal system is built, to compensate victims. And yes you were victimized and hurt. But at some point it is time to heal and move on to build a new and better and stronger Self. You can keep the scar with pride but many people peddle the scar as a way to manipulate the feelings of others and receive benefits emotionally and financially and as a way to dodge personal responsibilities. After all, what kind of cruel person would ask a wounded victim to take responsibility emotionally or financially for themselves when they are so hurt?  In some cases, like veterans coming back from wars, they are truly disabled for life. That is valid if you are truly crippled. But right now in our culture, it is unfortunately very popular to be peddling one’s self as a victim. Even forming an identity around “I am a survivor” (of being a victim) can be manipulated into a kind of grandiosity and arrogance, a false badge of honor used to “get things” from others or as a way to not be held accountable for…….well, anything.

Some of the sure signs of a poor relationship or a fake relationship with your Self are the use of such vocabulary as “I deserve” or the use of affirmations because if you really feel a certain way, you don’t have to work on affirming it!  Saying something doesn’t make it true and in fact encourages you to not explore how you are really feeling and then heal. Just saying it does not magically brainwash you into making it “manifest” because underneath your spoken words are your unspoken, unconscious true feelings.  Besides, if you “deserve” it, “It” would already be in your life.  Grandiosity and arrogance are the flip side of low self-esteem, or even self-loathing or self-hate.  When you do not have confidence or belief in your Self you will find yourself going over the top in both behaviors and language to make yourself feel “special” either as a horrible person or reciting over the top affirmations to compensate for the lie you are telling yourself or you are feeling, deep down inside, in the shadows.

For those of you actually working on yourself, you can use the mindfulness of catching yourself exaggerating how you are perceiving yourself, your actions, your behaviors, your decisions and instead see that need to exaggerate as a red flag that you are really feeling horrible about your Self at the moment, in the current situation.  What you can do in that moment is stick to the facts, evidence. Notice your stories. Notice when you are trying to convince yourself of something and exaggerating or even fabricating stories.  Be conscientious in describing evidence, facts. Not interpreting and dressing up what happened.  “My husband is acting weird. I am sure he is having an affair.” Until you have the facts, you are not a victim. Wait and see.  “I lost my job. I am sure my co-worker did _________.”  If you don’t actually know why go there?  Most people exaggerate in a way that not only manipulates others; it also terrorizes your Self. You tell yourself stories of conspiracies, worst case scenarios that you are suffering and will suffer more and that people hate you etc. For now, don’t exaggerate. Stick to the facts. Notice your stories, what you are telling yourself, and notice your feelings.   And, get some help!

Celebrating the Self is completely different than grandiosity and arrogance. Celebration of the Self is typically intensely personal and usually shared in private with the Self or with those who are intimate in your life.  People do not, for example, go on FB and share the details of how amazing they are making love, or being a great parent, or how fantastic their college paper was. People share this with those that matter in their lives.  When you encounter public grandiosity or arrogance, or hear it from a stranger you just met, or catch hearing yourself advertising yourself to a stranger or acquaintance you are definitely dealing with someone who is not friends with their true Self and you might even be dealing with a narcissistic personality disorder (which is a severe form a wounded self now turned predator or perpetrator).

If you want to grow as an awakened being in this life, you will have to step out of this current (dysfunctional) cultural norm.   Heal. Learn new ways to care for your Self and your new scars.  If you catch yourself exaggerating your conditions (physical, emotional, financial etc.) look inside to see what is going on and why you are needing the attention you will get with exaggerating. Yes the other side of this is that truly wounded people tend to “minimize” what happened to them, especially if the wounds are from childhood. So what is being described here is not a simple subject that can be handled after you read something like this short article. Typically in a tribal setting you would have access to a council of elders to help you heal and learn.  In our time zone, you need to find (and usually pay for) an elder, a healer, to help you rebalance. 12-Step meetings are the closest things we have currently that resemble seeking out a council of elders.  

This is a complicated topic to address, with many twists and turns and a short article like this can only get you to think and reflect. The “answers” are not simple and will be different for each person and each set of circumstances. Try to heal alone, it will take longer, and you will have to make all the mistakes yourself rather than working with the council of those who have been through this before you.  If you are wounded it will be difficult to distinguish when you are listening to Spirit trying to Guide you  to something in you that still needs attention and healing.  The walking wounded are filled with mistrust therefore, until they hit bottom most wounded people try to “heal” themselves (often by self-medicating with weed, mushrooms, alcohol, sex, “positive stories”, etc.)  Self-medicating is a form of control.  Wounded people do try to control their own healing because of their trust issues; however the “wounds” will be in control of their choices.  The wounds become their misguided “guidance.  This cycle only ends when the wounded finally bottom out. You can participate in your own healing, and you should, however you cannot control your own healing.  Until they bottom out, the walking wounded, or the self-medicating wounded will fear handing over their healing to Spirit and following that Guidance. Until one bottoms out even if Spirit sends you a Teacher, the wounded will typically turn and run away because their wounds have taught them to fear everyone and to not trust humans.  If you recognize yourself here, hopefully you will find the courage to heal rather than having to bottom out first.

Journey on.