Back Stage Access (perception is not reality)

A person with Narcissistic Personality disorder or NPD is locked into a disturbed and disorganized way of thinking. Such individuals are programmed to ignore the truth and by extension morality, because the only reality they are permitted to occupy is the space of parental expectations.

There are two developmental pathways that can lead to Narcissistic personality disorder. The first path can develop when a child is severely abused. The second is when a child is spoiled and overprotected to the extent that they are prevented from developing a personality in accordance with social rules and/or laws of nature.

How to Deal with a Narcissistic Sister?

Both developmental paths, whether its pain or privilege, can lead the child to invent a false self or image that is emotionally bulletproof as a way of dealing with the emotional wounds of an abnormal upbringing. 

Over time the child’s organic identity, or what we call fitra in the Islamic tradition, is intentionally and slowly mutilated. It is at this point that a deeply wounded ego is tempted to strike the Faustian bargain or what we refer to in urban legends as a  ‘pact with the devil.’

This “pact” is the impetus for the emergence of an emotionally self-sufficient false self, because that which is false cannot experience pain. This false self is one of perfection, fully equipped with all the trappings of moral superiority. 

Of course, This is not a conscious process but rather a defense mechanism that evolves in response to abnormal circumstances manufactured by others; typically, authority figures.

Abuse in the form of pain is one path to developing narcissism.  The other path is unearned privilege (as in the child who ‘can do no wrong’). 

Without a healthy exposure to the pangs of reality, such children are robbed of the self-worth and healthy pride that would naturally evolve in response to the normal struggles of life.

These children grow to become deeply and pathologically insecure; A condition they alleviate by fortifying themselves with a false personality structured around the idea that their inherited attributes carry some kind of moral and political significance.

Therefore, you will find that personality disorders are more prevalent in certain cultures than in others.

They are, for example, not only prevalent in the upper echelons of the white supremacist subculture but also common in many of the Gulf regions of the Middle East where entire generations are being raised without a sense of reality outside of the one that is being socially engineered for them by those who wish to maintain a particular status quo. 

How to Identify a Narcissist

 Many narcissists are pathological liars, but since they do not have experience with a reality outside of the shifting universe governed by their abuser’s mood swings, they habitually conflate truth with falsehood, sometimes not even consciously.