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Friday, August 7, 2020

A visual metaphor of the overt narcissist

Metaphors or images give us the ability to visualise concepts.  I want to give you a visual metaphor that describes the overt narcissist; the person who is quite openly narcissistic, even as they appear charismatic, humorous and initially connected.

Imagine for a moment a hollow porcelain ball.  Perhaps we can picture a bowling ball, just without the finger holes... and hollow, not solid.  (We’ll come to hollowness soon.)

Let’s deal with the ball’s exterior for a moment.  The ball’s exterior is very hard; it’s made of porcelain after all.  But porcelain is very brittle and quite easily cracked, but only under an immense amount of pressure.  It will usually withstand just about anything.  It has the appearance of being impenetrable. For all intents and purposes, it is impenetrable.  What it is in appearance, it is in actuality, but only under about 98% of circumstances.  It is impenetrable in every single way until it isn’t, and then it’s a catastrophe.  So the outer surface of the ball is incredibly hard.  But the wall of the ball is thin, super thin.

Imagine the ball being so hollow it is absolutely empty inside.  It is a void in there.  Absolutely vacuous.  If we could break through the ultra-hard outer surface, to reach the inside, which is almost antimaterial, the ball would suddenly cease to be.  The outer surface would vanish, and the ball would have disappeared like a mirage.  Break the outer surface, and you quickly find there is nothing there; no substance whatsoever.

Welcome to a picture of a narcissist.  They exist to control every circumstance as a means of portraying their power, and they thwart any move that would see them appear as normal or less-than — they must always project upon others that they’re more-than.  Their personality is the impenetrable porcelain outer surface, and there is no way inside, unless whether by intent or by accident, a person exposes the reality of the narcissist where they are psychologically naked and seen as the vacuous being that they are.

Anyone who has substance within themselves is able to be weak and then vulnerable, because they have a trust that their inner person won’t implode upon examination.  This one doesn’t fear being exposed, because they don’t pretend to have it all together in the first place.  But the overt narcissist has no such safe and self-accepted inner world.  They cannot be vulnerable, because the outer porcelain surface cannot let others in.  The outer porcelain surface protects the inner nothingness from exposure.  This is why when a narcissist is exposed there is rage and revenge, until by lightspeed thrift they revert to denial and the fabrication of strength as that impenetrable surface reappears as if it was always there.  This is one proof you’re dealing with the narcissist.  They are never wrong.  (Unless by allowing you to be right, that they’re seen as superior — i.e. virtuous.  Sense the manipulation?  We can always ask, “Did they just get the upper hand by allowing me to think what they got me to think?”)

What are the consequences of dealing with hollow porcelain balls?

Because there is no capacity for vulnerability in the overt narcissist, and there is no ability for them to be vulnerable, they cannot ever be wrong, and they cannot therefore relate.  Try relating with someone who can never be, or is never, wrong.  Or, with someone who is always somehow superior, who always has the upper hand, who is always the head.  There is no way an effective bipartisan relationship can be had with a person who is always relationally superior.  This is the chief claim against complementarianism and patriarchal society — that one gender is leader over the other.  It’s a construct that enables narcissism.

Because the rub of the green must always go with a narcissist, you must always be satisfied with second-best.  It is possible to have a relationship with a narcissist, but only when we know who we are dealing with, and we accept that we are in fact stronger than they are when they insist we be weaker than they are.  Yes, it’s a conundrum!


 

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