Negative Narcissism: When The World Conspires Against You

When a person boasts of his beauty, intelligence and other traits and characteristics that he may have, he is considered a narcissist, arrogant and hateful person. Now, what happens to those people who are always with thoughts like “ everything happens to me; the world conspires against me; I do not attract attention except for my defects “? Well, they may be a case of negative narcissism.

To properly distinguish between each type of narcissism, it is convenient that we do a brief review of what we generally identify as narcissism. 

Narcissism is almost always recognized by a series of characteristics within a normal personality, although it is also a personality dysfunction and is simply defined as excessive love for oneself in which one’s abilities and resources are overestimated, with an imperative need from feeling admired and recognized, to a form of pathology called narcissistic personality disorder.

The myth

The origin of the term comes from the Greek myth of Narcissus, who was an extremely attractive young man, capable of making both women and men fall in love with his mere presence. This made him too vain a person, unable to see the worth and beauty in things or people except in himself.

One day Narcissus went to the forest to hunt deer. There the nymph Echo saw him, who fell in love with him as soon as she saw him. Echo confessed his love to him, but he rejected her just as he rejected anyone else. Disappointed, Echo left and recounted the event to Nemesis, the goddess of justice and vengeance.

Nemesis was enraged and decided to take revenge. For this reason, he made Narcissus approach a stream and see there his beautiful face reflected in the water and in this way he could not stop looking at himself, falling in love with his own reflection. Unable to resist her own beauty, she finally threw herself into the water and died. In the stream where the young man fell, a beautiful flower was born, which now bears his name.

Daffodils and daffodils

People with narcissistic personality disorder have an inordinate and exaggerated sense of their own importance, therefore they are only focused on themselves. They also lack empathy and at the same time have a great need for attention and admiration, which generates problematic relationships in various areas of life, such as work, studies, friendships, family, etc.

Behind that armor with which they appear to be the center of the universe, they are people with a weak, vulnerable, powerless self-esteem who need to find recognition and appreciation from others. Daffodils, seeking to be esteemed, end up being rejected, since their personality style generates reactions of rejection in others. In short, his attitude is hateful to people, as they feel disqualified by “genius in all aspects of life.”

Many narcissists are under the label of braggarts, false modest and humble, petulant, arrogant, who go through life generating antipathy, when they seek admiration. They are unhappy, very touchy, and easily disappointed when they don’t get the attention they think they deserve.

Most of the authors describe this type of disorder by the following characteristics:

• Envy.
• Prepotency.
• Arrogance.
• Fantasies of success and power.
• Exaggeration of achievements.
• Belief that you are superior.
• Manipulation of people.
• Search for beauty and perfection.
• Contempt and disqualification of others.
• Need for excessive and constant admiration.
• Boasting of yourself and your belongings.
• Need for their superiority to be recognized, even without achievements to justify it.
• Monopolization of conversations in social gatherings.
• Inability or unwillingness to recognize the needs and feelings of others because they are overly self-centered.

Negative narcissism: what does it consist of?

The characteristics that apply to narcissistic disorder sustained in the need for appreciation and admiration of the environment, also apply to negative narcissism.

People with negative narcissism are those who think that the world revolves around them, far from believing the gods of this galaxy, they think that others do things to them, that the world conspires against them. It does not occur to them to think that, simply, things happen to people beyond their lives and that everything is not centered on them.

For example, a woman who thinks that her husband neglects her, that he never pays attention to her or does not concentrate when she speaks to him. It did not occur to her that her husband may be depressed or have an attention deficit. Nor does he imagine that perhaps his behavior is not only like that with her, but with more person and that, therefore, he is not making any personal attack on him.

Another example may be that of a mother or father who, faced with the erratic behavior of the child, feels guilty because he believes that he is a bad father. The more you think this way, the more guilty you will feel about your “deficit” in the role of dad. Then, the less he will ask the son what is happening or what the son’s problem is, because he will always give prominence to what happens to him as a father with that son’s behavior.

People with negative narcissism have low self-esteem that leads them to be aware of the environment and be dependent on it. Therefore, they are extremely attentive to the behaviors and attitudes of people towards them, thus believing that everything revolves around them and they do not take into account that others have a life and their actions are not a plot towards them.

Environment satellites

Another way to appreciate narcissism for the negative can be the following. There are people who enter a meeting and if they are observed they believe that others think negatively about them or that they have attracted attention due to some defect, such as being disheveled, having wrinkled, stained clothes, etc.

A traditional narcissist would say: “They look at me because I am the best in this meeting, they realized that my clothes are designer.” While a narcissist for the negative would say: they look at me because I have dressed in a ridiculous way.

Without realizing it, negative narcissists become satellites of the environment: they revolve around others, they are susceptible to the comments of others and they take them as directed towards them, they seek recognition and appreciation, they do things looking at the response to their helpful behaviors to gain recognition.

Sometimes, they become paranoid that they believe that others are conspiring against them and are prone to generating self-fulfilling prophecies, because this dependence ends up suffocating or causes others to defend themselves or to be extremely careful about what they say in relation to them for seeing them too fragile and sensitive to any comment.

In short: we are not the center of the universe, neither for the positive, nor for the negative. The need to excel and self-centeredness in both classic and negative narcissism is a sign of insecurity and personal devaluation, and they do not lead to a good outcome, but rather hinder relationships, impede empathy and impoverish life.