Dealing with narcissistic personality is a common challenge we often face. Irregardless of where you are in life, there will always be someone who is difficult to deal with. But how does a person become tough to handle? Why are we dealing with more bullies or aggressive personalities?
In my previous post, I wrote about how to tell the difference between friend or acquaintance. And why you need to guard your energy from toxic people. This is my second post sharing my understanding of how a child grows into an aggressive adult with narcissistic personality.
Dealing with Narcissistic Personality: Early Warning Signs
They say from birth to seven years old, a child absorbs everything within it’s nurturing environment. I was brought up by two parenting styles. I was raised by a malignant narcissistic parent who became extremely violent and was hard to live with.
His authoritarian style of parenting was overly controlling, demanding and he rarely approved everything I did. Being the main witness to violence in my home, I was silenced by his strict discipline and fear.
My mom and I tried to escape my father’s reign, fearing for our life. But for 17 years, I lived and breathed his anxieties and insecurities until it became my own. Above all, I’ve learned a lot about this dynamic character.
But my mom’s unconditional love and gentle whispers, melted my hardened heart. It made a huge difference as I rebuild my life. Meant to Be is the first of my soon to be publish two book memoir. It is my story of transformation and how I found the courage to follow my dreams and make them come true.
And because of my childhood experiences, I surfed through life, spotting the signals that guided me to follow a flow. It showed me who my friends were and who I needed to keep away from.
Dealing with narcissistic personality can be challenging and I’ve notice one thing that they do that stands out. Whether it’s a parent, friend or acquaintances, they all do one thing that you can never miss.
The sure sign that you are dealing with a narcissist, is when out of the blue, a person yells at you, for no reason or explanation, leaving you feeling lost and confused. And you start to wonder, what have I done wrong to deserve this outburst?
A Self-Absorbed World
A narcissist is an emotional child with undeveloped compassion or empathy. When dealing with narcissistic personality, you must understand that their underlying need, is a yearning to be loved. And for this reason their childhood anxieties or trauma remains dormant in them. When they become adults, they will search for relationships or marriage to fill that void in them.
But they are incapable of giving love to anyone. Due to their inability to recognize what love is, they become suspicious of their partners motives. Finding fault in everything they do and slowly, they begin to push them away. Hence in some instances, the violence begins because they feel threatened. And we often think, these issues can be fixed but the truth is, it can’t.
They maintain a different mindset to others, almost to a point where they want to be acknowledged for their existence. When you believe you deserve an entitlement or special treatment to feel superior, that behavior is as good as rewarding children for being good and not pulling a tantrum. That dynamic attitude alone is alarming for me as I often see it not only in adults but in children as well. There seems to be no set values, no discipline or boundaries created to teach children, to learn a simple action like respect for another.
When Personalities Clashes
I’m not an expert in spotting or dealing with narcissistic personality and what I share here is my own personal account as experiences.
All of us have streaks of narcissism or an ego, to an extent. And only when you get to know a person better, you begin to unmask certain qualities that may not seem natural. Narcissist look after their own needs. Everything is conditional in their world. But what causes a person to become a narcissist?
It is suggested that Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NDP), arises with the combination of genetic elements and environmental impacts. Exposure to abuse, authoritative or overly indulgent parenting are factors that can increase dynamic behaviors where individuals become self-absorbed, craves recognition and constantly seeks attention.
Triggers from Environment
A Narcissist is someone who lives in a world of grandiose or as a victim. Their mask is a shield, to hide a painful childhood experience of the trauma that shocked them out of their skin, in their early years. And they remain stuck in a world, where they take on a reactive mode of defense to protect themselves, while reliving those childhood pain constantly.
But when these children grow into adults, if an event or a person stresses them, it triggers a reaction from within. Those repressed childhood anxieties, reappears to haunt them. And they react from triggers in the environment that impacts their mental state. In order to protect themselves from feeling vulnerable, they become aggressive and clash with everyone who they feel is a threat to them. And when they relive their childhood trauma, they start building defenses to protect themselves at all cost.
Breaking the Cycle
It has taken me two decades to feel comfortable in my own skin. To know who I am. And those years, were the toughest in my life as I fought for my sanity. Fear paralyzed me as I saw the world in my father eyes.
The best moments that helped me healed, were spent listening to my mom as she weaved inspirational stories of how my grandmother single highhandedly struggled to raise four children and survived the Japanese occupation in Singapore.
Do you believe that everything happens for a reason? Perhaps the challenges we face are meant to present us with a piece of puzzle to help us move forward. And to bring us into a deeper level of consciousness. Be brave, search through your pain and suffering, find the hidden treasure.
For me I’ve found the courage to face the fears I’ve inherited, to stop and listen to it’s messages, to move forward to live the life I was born to live. Alison
