Monday, February 3, 2014

Narcissist in Chief (It's all about Me)


      nar·cis·sist [nahr-suh-sist]  Show IPA
      noun
      1.
      a person who is overly self-involved, and often vain and selfish.
      2.
      Psychoanalysis . a person who suffers from narcissism, deriving erotic gratification
      from admiration of his or her own physical or mental attributes.

 From an article in Psychology Today states 6 signs that you are a narcissist. These are fascinating...

 http://www.psychologytoday.com

 Sign #1:  Unilateral listening. 

 What I want is all that matters.  When we make decisions together, what you want, your concerns, your feelings..these are mere whispers, inconveniences and irrelevancies.  When we discuss issues, my opinions are right.  Yours are wrong or else of minimal importance.  If you expect to have input, you are undermining me.                                                  

 Instead of listening in order to be responsive, narcissistic listening listens to dismiss, negate, ignore, minimize, denigrate or otherwise render irrelevant other people’s concerns.  One specific indicator: frequent responses that begin with "But....", which is linguistically a backspace-delete key.

 SIgn #2  It’s all about me. 

 I know more, I know better, I’m more interesting,  When we talk, it’s mostly about  me.  In conversations, I take up most of the air time. Almost all of my chatter is about what I have done, what I am thinking about.  If you begin to talk about yourself, I link back to something in my life so that the focus of the discussion again becomes all about me.  Maybe that's why people say I suck up all the air in a room.

 When I want something, I need to have it. Never mind how you feel about it; it’s all about me.  I’m big and important and you are merely also here, mostly to do things for me, like a third arm. 

 Narcissistic people are sometimes, and even often, generous. The difficulty with trusting a narcissist to take actions that are sympathetic to your interests comes at the times when what they want is contrary to what someone else wants. Odds are that at these times they will act in a manner that is selfish, that is, responsive only to their own concerns.

 Sign #3:  The rules don’t apply to me. 

 I can have affairs, cut into a line where others are waiting, cheat on my taxes, and ignore rules that get in the way of my doing what I want..  Rules are for other people to follow.

 Narcissists suffer from what I call Tall Man Syndrome.  They experience themselves as above others, so the rules don't apply to them.

 Sign #4:  Your concerns are really criticisms of me, and I hate being criticized.

 If you insist on my listening and taking your concerns seriously I’m likely to get mad.  Criticism hurts.  I can criticize others, and often do, but if you criticize me you’re hurting my feelings so I’ll hurt you back.

 Narcissists paradoxically manifest both an inflated idea of their own importance and quickness to feel deflated by negative feedback. 

 In addition, because they think everything is about them, they hear others’ attempts to talk about personal feelings as veiled criticisms of themselves. 

 The clinical term for taking others' concerns as personal criticism is called personalizing.  E.g., If she says "I'm feeling lonely,"  her narcissistic friend will hear the self-statement as an acusation, "You don't spend enough time with me."

 Sign #5:  When things go wrong between us, it’s always your fault. 

 I can’t be expected to apologize or to admit blame.  I’m above others and above reproach. You shouldn’t have… . Don’t threaten me with expecting me to say how I’ve contributed to a problem or I’ll get mad at you.

 Unwillingness to take responsibility for mistakes goes hand-in-hand with quickness to blame.  This trait may come from confusing the part with the whole. "If I've done one thing that's not right, then I must be all bad."  That's also all-or-nothing thinking.    

 Whatever the source of the sensitivity to criticism and difficulty admitting mistakes, the upshot is a tendency to blame others when anything has gone wrong.  Blaming and fault-finding in others feel safer to narcissists than looking to discover, learn and grow from their own part in difficulties.       

 While narcissists are quick to blame, they may be slow to appreciate.  Appreciation and gratitude are acts of giving.  Narcissists, as I mentioned above, often pride themselves on how much they give to others and may make demonstrative shows of generosity; at the same time, people close to them are likely to experience them more as takers.                         

 Sign #6:  If I’m angry, it’s your fault. 

 You made me mad. You didn’t listen to me.  You criticized me.  You’re trying to control me.  Your view is wrong.   So you need to apologize, not me. 

 I’m not responsible either for my anger.  If I’m mad, my anger is your fault. I'm only made because you ... "

 Some narcissists show major charm and social agility.  At the same time, these seemintly super-confident folks also can be quick to anger.  When they do become inflamed, they then immediately blame their anger on others.  

 What are typical anger triggers for people with narcissistic tendencies? 
Critical comments will do it.  As I said above, as much as narcissisitc folks see themselves as special, they also can be remarkably thin-skinned.  Any feedback that punctures their belief in total specialness can feel quite threatening. The immediate response will be to issue blame.

What is wrong with this man ?? He makes every event about him and the press just eats it up like it was ice cream on the 4th of July. And these are just from Twitter !! I have heard the term narcissist thrown around so I did a little research... and this is what I found !



SuperBowl Sunday
MLK Day
New Years Eve
Christmas
Remembering Sandy Hook
Honoring Nelson Mandela with a photo of the Obama family ?

50th Anniv of March on Washington for civil rights... maybe a pic of MLK or Rosa Parks instead ?


September 11th anniversary.... how about a photo of survivors?


Veterans on Veterans Day, WITH the President... "one of these things is not like the other"



After Oklahoma tornados.... not first responders but photo of him....


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