How can you have Low Self Esteem and be a Narcissist? One of my readers describes herself like that.
Hotchkiss identified what she called the seven deadly sins of narcissism:
- Shamelessness: Shame is the feeling that lurks beneath all unhealthy narcissism, and the inability to process shame in healthy ways.
- Magical thinking: Narcissists see themselves as perfect, using distortion and illusion known as magical thinking. They also use projection to “dump” shame onto others.
- Arrogance: A narcissist who is feeling deflated may “reinflate” their sense of self-importance by diminishing, debasing, or degrading somebody else.
- Envy: A narcissist may secure a sense of superiority in the face of another person’s ability by using contempt to minimize the other person or their achievements.
- Entitlement: Narcissists hold unreasonable expectations of particularly favorable treatment and automatic compliance because they consider themselves special. Failure to comply is considered an attack on their superiority, and the perpetrator is considered an “awkward” or “difficult” person. Defiance of their will is a narcissistic injury that can trigger narcissistic rage.
- Exploitation: Can take many forms but always involves the exploitation of others without regard for their feelings or interests. Often the other person is in a subservient position where resistance would be difficult or even impossible. Sometimes the subservience is not so much real as assumed.
- Bad boundaries: Narcissists do not recognize that they have boundaries and that others are separate and are not extensions of themselves. Others either exist to meet their needs or may as well not exist at all. Those who provide narcissistic supply to the narcissist are treated as if they are part of the narcissist and are expected to live up to those expectations. In the mind of a narcissist, there is no boundary between self and other.
So this was Shamelessly stolen from Wikipedia… A Narcissist is so consumed with fulfilling his own self image, that he never considers people outside of himself. It’s a black and white thing–you’re me or not me, or you’re with me or against me. The focus is on the “me” part. If the self image of the narcissist is low, he tries desperately to build it back up by attacking what he considers his competition. Self image is not the same as self esteem. Esteem is the feeling of worth. The image is how the person perceives himself. “I am the most important person in the room,” versus “Someone else is wearing a more expensive watch, so my watch doesn’t match my persona. I must get a better watch.”
There is a show called “Shameless” that I managed to get through 3 or 4 episodes. The star of the show did so many things he should have been ashamed of and wasn’t. His family was always having to clean up after him. Unfortunately, our culture has encouraged shamelessness. “You shouldn’t be ashamed of your body, everyone should be nude…especially if you’re young and well built.” “You shouldn’t be ashamed of your sexual preferences and should tell everyone what you do in private.” “You shouldn’t be ashamed of your addictive behavior, you can’t help it. You’re sick and we understand…here take a pill.” “You shouldn’t be ashamed if you break the law, it’s not a crime unless you get caught, then it’s someone else’s fault.” The point of the Alcoholics, Gamblers, and Narcotics Anonymous groups is to admit your faults and avoid shame so you can overcome them. People might not go to these because they can admit their faults and feel NO shame in society. There don’t appear to be people that enforce the mores of society, so the mores diminish. Instead of heaping shame on people that break the cultural mores, we arrest them. “There ought to be a law…!”
Welllll, you can’t legislate morality. The only way to enforce morality is to reintroduce shame.
Remember the dunce cap they had in schools? No one would dream of doing that now. It was a way of introducing mental accountability toward disregarding moral behavior. Remember the pillory? 
It was public humiliation and rather a painful punishment for crimes against the morals of the community. Sometimes the ears were nailed to the pillory so they couldn’t dodge the debris that was sent their way by the citizens of the community. Jails were reserved for those who were supposed to repay a debt. Jails were not the punishment. The shame continued after the public humiliation because some people were branded with their crimes, some were disfigured when their mangled ears were cut off, some had their noses slit and their tongues pierced with a hot iron poker. Shame drove people to adhere to the morals of the community. It was barbaric.
In a shameless society, we remove offenders of the laws (and there are so many laws!) from the society in hopes of reforming them. But we do not employ shaming them. We deny them access to freedom of movement, of choice, of environment and moral people. How does that reform them? They are told what to do and how to do it or they get punished some more. They make no choices on what to eat, where to go, and what to do when they get there, so they cannot learn that behavior. The most important aspect of their days are to survive to the next one. And everyone around them are also amoral, so they cannot interact with people and learn the moral behaviors they’d need to reform themselves.
So now you’re asking yourself, what does this have to do with narcissism and low self esteem? The notion of self esteem is at fault. We are taught humility and humbleness are attributes to be desired. But humble people are never held in high esteem in their own opinions. That would indicate that humble people never attain success on any level. This is ridiculous. We need to revise this. Humble have a realistic view of their place in the world. Narcissists believe they ARE the world. They believe they do deserve the adoration of the masses. Humble people don’t care who adores them. People held in high esteem by society earn their esteem by their actions and their thoughts. Narcissists will act in such a way to earn esteem by society. If Harry gives $10,000 to the homeless shelter and is praised in the newspaper, Barry will give $20,000 to bring the spotlight to himself. He doesn’t care what the thought behind the gift is, he’s looking on the act as if that was the only measure. The talented athlete competes because he loves the game. The narcissist competes for the trophy and the endorsements. The narcissist STARTS with the high self esteem as the impetus for his actions. The regular person builds his self esteem by aspiring to be a better version of himself.
The gifting of esteem to people is fleeting. “Never shame a child or you’ll damage his fragile self-esteem.” This is patently false. You can’t give self-esteem to people, you’re not in charge of that. You can give an indication of how you feel to a person, and if that person feels they’ve earned this accolade, it will boost their self esteem. The narcissists will be so consumed with how they feel at the moment, they have no regard for the events and the people around them.
So sometimes people attribute super powers to those with whom they are impressed. My tiny daughter went into the army, as well as her squirt of a little brother. When people find out they were in the service, they often comment, “I could NEVER do that.” They don’t consider going into the service as the beginning of a process where average people are transformed into a military machine. It’s like saying, “You DRIVE?! I could never do that–directing a 2000 pound hunk of metal through other 2000 pound hunks of metal going 60-80 miles an hour. That would require coordination and hyper awareness of your surroundings and wow, the reaction time you’d have to have to avoid collisions! You’re a better man than I!” 16 year-olds do this. 80 year-olds do this. I get that “I could NEVER do that” comment a lot. I do not have any more super powers than you do. But it also removes the super powers of the one giving the complement.
“Wow! You have 2 masters degrees and 2 doctoral degrees? I could never do that. I’m just a lowly salesman who earns $500,000 a year.”
“Wow! You can play all those instruments?! I could never do that. I’m just a lowly athlete that is on national television twice a week.”
“Wow! You hacked into the Pentagon? I could never do that. I just walked on the moon.”
They never say the last sentence of any of these. Instead of saying, “I could NEVER do that,” wouldn’t it be better to praise the person by saying instead, “That must have taken a lot of work! How did that affect your life?” The effect then would be that the person offering the compliment is thinking about your marvelous accomplishment and considering whether the effort to achieve it would bring him closer to his personal goals. He may have achieved something similar to get him to the place he is in life but took a different path. Instead of joining the Army or mastering all the instruments in the orchestra or becoming a hacker extraordinaire, he studied marine biology and discovered a new species.
How about instead of saying, “I could NEVER do that,” we instead respond by asking how they arrived at that decision, or how they got interested in that particular area.
I had this conversation after church Sunday. I talked to the ladies near me one of them said, “You have a lovely voice!” I returned the compliment because she and her friend had a very pleasant voices and sang in tune. I then suggested they should join the choir. “Oh NO! My voice is awful!” “I’ve been teaching voice for nearly 50 years. Why would you doubt me?” What they meant to say is, “I love singing, but I’m not interested in committing time to this activity. I prefer to sit in the congregation and not actively participate in the service. I would rather be on the education board.” Why didn’t they say that? I wouldn’t have continued to argue the point.
So if you have labeled yourself a narcissist with low esteem issues, or a person with low esteem with narcissistic issues, you can’t have it both ways. You are a realist. You know what it took to become the person you are. You have no super powers; you have the desire and interest to develop yourself in certain areas. Accept yourself for who you are and earn your self esteem by becoming this better person you envision yourself to be. Then do nothing shameful. Oh, and avoid labels. They never tell the full story.
solomonsadvisor 