I Second That Emotion
The emotional spectrum afforded to my kind is limited. The bulk of the positive emotions that you experience have either been stripped away or moulded into one all-pervasive sensation and that is of power. Whereas you might experience joy, elation, happiness and delight, we feel power. That surging sensation which courses through us as a consequence of the receipt of fuel, be it positive or negative. Secure a promotion? I feel powerful. My football team wins? I feel powerful. I seduce a new victim? I feel powerful. I experience amusement, indeed, I have an excellent sense of humour but if I make you laugh through my sense of humour I feel a sense of power once again.
I do not feel sadness. I have, for the sake of gathering fuel, sat through numerous films which are described as tear-jerkers and entertained myself as I have alternated between watching the film and the reaction of the person, invariably an intimate partner, as their expression alters to one of compassion, sympathy and then the tears to begin to flow. I have watched the same film yet I feel nothing. I recognise that the scenes played out by the relevant actors are ones which would be labelled as moving, sad and upsetting, but I feel nothing. When I shift my gaze to the sobbing intimate partner besides me, I begin to feel something. I feel contempt for the weakness exhibited by becoming upset. Not only the fact that these tears flow at all but because they have been generated by acting. How readily people fall prey to what is acting, but I am thankful for that, because if they did not, my existence would be far more difficult. I experience a degree of amusement, because someone is moved by something which is not even real. At least when the tears fall because a pet has been run over in the street, or because a relative has exhaled their last breath on this earth, there is a genuine event which causes grief. Yet, it is always in others. You could flash a montage of images, snippets of footage which encapsulate what people would regard as tear-inducing responses, be they grief or joy and I would remain unmoved. It means nothing to me. The capacity to feel sadness, grief, woe and misery have been removed. I knew them once. I can vaguely remember, or at least I think I can remember, being sad. I do not know what the feeling is but I recall the image from the depths of my memory.
I do not know guilt. Remorse is a stranger to me. I feel no regret nor penitence. Compassion has never been available to me. As for empathy, I do not feel that either. I am, because of my heightened abilities and intelligence, able to understand how people must feel. I have spent many years watching and observing the way that people react to certain situations. I understand when happiness is expressed, I know when regret should be exhibited, I recognise when sadness should make an appearance but I do not feel any of them. If I see you in pain, I know I should demonstrate a concerned expression for you and ask how you are. That is the accepted societal expectation. During my seduction of you, I will indeed adopt that mask of concern and compassion in order to con you into thinking that I am a caring and warm person. I can don the mask which places my facial expression in the correct places. I am able to adopt the appropriate tone of voice and place my hands on you in the gentle manner which is associated with expressing concern for somebody yet despite all these learned expressions, words and gestures I feel no concern for you. I do not feel sorry for you, I do not share your pain, I am not worried about you. I know however that if I am to bind you to me and to extract fuel from you, through your expression of thanks and your gratitude for my apparent care of you, I am obligated to place the mask of compassion on. Of course, as such time as your devaluation commences, I see no need for the pretence and indeed my lack of compassion provides its own reward as your pain is increased by my dismissive attitude, refusal to help and contemptuous sneer.
The Lesser of our kind often do not even know what mask should be adopted and during the seduction stage rather than clumsily grope for an appropriate mask, they will prefer to vacate themselves from the situation, conjuring up some excuse as to why they cannot stay and help. The Mid-Range and the Greater of our kind understand that certain responses are preferred by you and therefore the masks will be brought forth and worn, but only in order to achieve what we want. If the situation dictates that our interests are better served without donning a mask, then that is what will happen.
People often make the mistake of assuming that we are totally devoid of emotion. That is wrong. Yes, there are many emotions, as I have explained above, which we do not possess, but we are not empty of all emotion. I know only too well the emotions of hate, malice, frustration, annoyance, irritation, shame, envy, fury and jealousy. Why am I afforded these emotions and not others? In my discussions with the good doctors and my own consideration of these matters it is evident that in my evolution to what I am, it is necessary for me to have these emotions because they are the catalyst for causing me to behave in the way that I do so I will drive forward, that I will be brilliant, charming and seductive, that I will be outrageous, grandiose, belligerent and destructive, because ultimately all of those things must exist in order to compel me to gather the precious fuel.
If I did not become jealous of those in my social circle praising a friend, I would not feel compelled to draw the spotlight of attention on to me by upstaging that person, telling a glorious anecdote or causing a scene. If I was not jealous I would not take those steps and thus I would be denied fuel.
If I was not envious of my neighbour’s new sports car, I would not be driven to throw battery acid over it during the night and then watch from the window his horrified reaction on seeing the damage the next day. Again, I would gain no fuel.
If I felt no hatred towards you for failing me, I would feel no need to keep doling out the various prejudicial and abusive manipulations. Thus you would not be hurt, upset or frightened and I would gain no fuel.
If I felt no malice towards the world and its treatment of me, I would not be compelled to seduce people to provide me with that shield from the world and its outrageous injustices.
It is these negative emotions, the Dark Motivators, which cause me to always be driving forward. The absence of The Hindrances – remorse, guilt, empathy, regret etc. – means that I am not stopped or slowed in my ever onward march. I am not distracted from the sole and necessary task of gathering fuel.
This approach does not mean that my life is less fuel. I am still able to appreciate much that is beautiful, engaging, fascinating and scintillating in this world. I can appreciate the grandeur of centuries old architecture. I can appreciate the magnificence of a musical composition. I can appreciate the athletic prowess of a sprinter to win a gold medal at the Olympics. I can appreciate the taste of excellent cuisine. I can do this because of my higher function above others of my kind who have little or no interest in such spectacular elements of the world. Whereas you will enjoy the piece of music in that moment, I am using the experience of that piece of music to further my aims.
- I may tell you how brilliant a song is because I know that you will be pleased with me for telling you this and thus you will smile, appreciate me and give me fuel;
- I may use the experience of having heard the philharmonic orchestra play Scheherazade in order to boast about it to other people and draw fuel from their admiring and/or jealous responses;
- I may use the experience of knowing all of Depeche Mode’s music to be appealing to a target because she likes that music too, or just to demonstrate that I have a detailed interest in a particular band so that I am of greater interest to her;
- I may use the experience of having heard a particular song in concert to trump your tale about having heard a different one played in order to assert my superiority over you and draw a reaction from you and others.
You experience certain emotions when engaging in certain experiences. I experience a sense of power in that moment or if I do not, I store the experience to use it feel powerful when it is allied with something else, usually an appliance.
My kind mimic emotions because we are unable to feel so many of them. Thus we will second the emotions that we have seen you exhibit and make it seem as if we feel them. I know many of your emotions; I do not feel them. We second your emotions because we are reliant on your emotions to exist. It is something of a paradox that we have never cultivated certain emotions and/or we have been stripped of them in order to make us lean, effective and efficient, yet we also must receive those emotions from you in order to sustain us. We do not want to see your joy directed towards us for something we have said and done because we will then feel joy, but rather for the power that is unleashed as a consequence of your joy providing us with positive fuel. I am filled with hatred, jealousy, envy, fury and malice but that does not mean there is no room to accept your hatred towards me, indeed I welcome it. As a consequence of my manipulation of you, I want you to stand there screaming your hatred at me until your voice is hoarse and your eyes stand out from your face. The fuel I gain from such an intense expression of negative emotion is immense. Once again I appropriate your emotion and use it for my own purposes. Whether I take it in order to allow me to mimic and copy it, to make me appear more acceptable to other people or whether I seize your emotion as fuel in order to power me and allow my existence to continue, I will always find a use for your emotional output. I put to good use your emotions. I am the ultimate recycler.
30 thoughts on “I Second That Emotion”
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I don’t know how to reply to your comment Zielum because it doesn’t give the option. I see what you are getting at. I did think personality is something that happens as a result of both nature and nurture but I also think it still is nurtured throughout life. My personality certainly is still fluid. I changed dramatically after my narc marriage. And after every narc exprience. What you are saying is that it is one and done. Its hard-wired from the age of say 7 and younger? I read in college that it is when our ethics are moulded, the base beliefs system. I also think you are trying to say it isn’t changable. Like autism or ADHD, they are something that exist no matter what, you just learn to cope. There is no sense wondering what would change in your life if you weren’t autistic, you cannot just “cure” it. On the same front, ADHD is not an “illness” and the personality traits resulting actually add to the diversity of thought and contribute to society in a way nuerotypicals could not. I see your suggested point.
I am not normal at all, btw. I have several nature and nuture conditions. Some diagnosed (ADHD), others truama-related to a wide array of physical and emotional abuse by family, friends, strangers, coworkers, bosses, etc. I never feel like I fit into the cookie cutter cut-out for me as far as what others in society expect of me in how to think, act, behave and what should be my motivation etc., whether it be personal or work life, nor do I want to fit into that as I don’t feel disadvantaged or broken or malfunctioning or anything like that, I just want acceptance and recognition as I am at the core. There is a bit of healing I need to do though in order to have healthy relationships, as you alluded to. By healthy I mean that no one is being hurt intentionally or as a result of preprogrammed emotional responses that no longer apply and are no longer required for protection. For example, my extra-empathic traits, I believe are mostly related to trauma with some basis in genetics. I do think I can identify the cause, heal, and learn new ways of rationally reacting to threats using logic as my programmed emotional response was created as a result of trauma and can be recognized as such and ignored in my decision-making process as those “threats” from the trauma point were identified and that as an adult, is no longer unavoidable. I can choose rationally and proven trustworthy people to build a relationship with. I was under the impression that narcissim and empath are two paths from the same trauma. They are coping mechanisms, adaptations. If they are learned, they can be remidiated. I am sure I can overcome my empathic traits that extend beyond the “normal” range. I understand now why they are doing that and what caused it and I know I can train myself logically and rationally to make choices that base in reason and not emotion and then learn to have the right emotions for the right people (those who earn trust and prove their love) instead of loving the wrong people instinctually trying to re-live a trauma cycle. As two branches born of the same tree, my empathic adaptations are a result of trauma. I attract/am attracted to narcs because that is what caused the trauma and there is a need to “resolve” it by causing a narc to love me (impossible I understand now). So by training myself to ignore initial attraction, which I know and understand is my instinct picking up on narcs and desiring the opportunity to resolve its emotional trauma by making this one love me, and instead use logic to date someone who is healthy until love forms as a result of healthy interaction and proven and demonstrated love over time as emotion can be trained, it can, and I can grow to be attracted to healthy love and stop being attracted to unhealthy dynamics by healing the trauma. I believe this. If I believe my super-empathy which drives unhealthy relationship dynamics where I am abused, used, and discarded can be healed, then certainly if we are two branches of the same tree, surely narcissistic adaptations can be healed as well. You both refer to abuse in childhood. You both speak of an abused child inside you stunting emotional maturity. Would not healing that unresolved emotional trauma from childhood not help the adaptation to no longer be necessary? You think if it happens in childhood it cannot be healed? It cannot be re-trained or reversed? I do think it can at my core. But maybe then you are right. Maybe my core is healthy and its possible for me where others know at their core, with all the understanding in the world of narcissim and its origins, if they know at thier core they cannot change, maybe the assumptions about it being related to nuture are wrong and all the two adaptations to the same dsyfunction and trauma are not true. I read about a narcissist in treatment who had hopes of no longer being classified as NPD, its actually where someone reffered to this site and I found it. I also read about the origins of empaths and narcissists and why the attractions exists on another site and I assumed since empaths were mentioned that all that was a given.
I guess for me to be convinced it isn’t possible to heal from the nuture and train your mind and emotions to respond the world differently, whether as an empath or a narc, I would have to see plenty solid scientific research and anecdotal evidence. I guess that won’t happen because as HG says, narcs don’t want to change so we will never know. I do want to change. I also don’t think he is accurate as there are narcs on the internet who do want to change and are working to change with no carrot on any stick forcing them to or no threat of fuel restriction or monetary penalty requiring the change. I have noted both you and HGs beleif at your core that you cannot change, and your narc traits are innate. I will store the info and use it to measure as I gain more knowledge. I am flexible in my beliefs and I change when I think it is appropriate based on new information and new experiences proving my false beliefs as false. I apoligize if you know I am wrong, I just don’t know yet and I never take others’ beleifs as my own without first gathering enough proof on my own to decide I may need to adjust. Its a personal process of discovery, which I thank you for contributing to.
There you are K,
The one who can find a needle in a hay stack!
I was just telling my friend about HG. He is going to tell me more about something that happened to him as a child tomorrow that haunts him. I was trying to find more articles to point him towards about parental narcissists. I have a feeling narcissism might be involved. Hes very uneasy about what hes going to tell me. I asked him if ihe was being controlled/emotional abuse and hes confused not sure. I just want to help him if it is the case
Gypsy Heart
This article explains parental narcissists very well.
https://narcsite.com/2017/06/30/keep-it-in-the-family-2/
Gypsy Heart
This one is really good, too.
https://narcsite.com/2017/11/10/the-parental-hoover-3/
Hi Z, you’re use of neurotypical is unusual. Neurotypical (here at least) denotes the abscence of Autistic traits and ASD’s are not considered personality disorders. They are innate and genetic and not caused by environmental factors but rather relate to neurology. Personality disorders (of all kinds) are created due to environmental factors, plus (some people think), a genetic predisposition. I also think that there are some errors/confusion about narcissistic and empathic traits v’s NPD or BPD, in my view, those concepts and labels are not interchangeable. I relate to HG’s idea of a spectrum from CoD to NPD, but I doubt it is linear apart from the empathy part. Theoretically CoD’s are at the opposite end of the spectrum to Narcissists and unless the spectrum is circular (which I can’t rationalise) 2 of the labels you’ve considered are opposites. Just my thoughts, I found what you wrote very interesting – no criticism intended.
Z
I also think, as you state, personality is established at a young age, but growth and change inevitably happens with maturation and life experience. Whilst our ‘traits’, be they empathic or narcissistic are evident from from an early age, but our behaviour and responses can change. That is why, I think, an empath who does not have a disordered personality who might be predisposed to behaviours (like falling for narcissists for instance) find it difficult to accept that a narcissist can’t change or be saved/healed. This simply doesn’t fit with our world view as we are capable of changing our behaviours and responses – as evidenced by the lovely folk on this site.
Just my experience, I have never met a person with a personality disorder who has changed their behaviour and responses effectively as an adult. I have however, met children who have attachment dosorders (because of abuse or neglect) change their behaviour and responses (at least to a degree) if given the right help prior to adolescence.
NotMe!,
I know nothing of the ASD community and I was not aware of their use of ASD vs. NT; I hope I haven’t been offensive in that regard. I’m used to frequenting Cluster B (NPD, BPD, ASPD, HPD) groups that use NT to describe those without a PD– NT being less of a mouthful than non-disordered.
No criticism taken! I’ve come to view all of the disorders as somewhat circular because 1) I mostly focus on Cluster B which does indeed have similar core traits to each other, and 2) the more I research, the more I find what appears to be overlap. It could just be a faulty perspective. But take for instance, love:
Is love not, at its core, narcissistic? You care about someone because of how they make you feel. You find value in their traits because you relate to them, or they counterpoint your own in a way that feels good. You want to provide for them because you trust that they will provide for you and care for you.
I was not raised with unconditional love. I don’t know if that would change my perspective–most likely, yes. But I do not understand it, so in a way, I find it difficult to believe that it exists. From my point of view, there is little difference between empathic traits and a narcissistic need to be cared about. Not surprising–all humans need a healthy dose of ego for survival. But I personally feel it’s more than that.
Your other point about personality and growth appear to confirm what I was saying, that disordered individuals are intrinsically made that way (both genetic and environmental factors), am I right in assuming? I think another side of that is that disordered individuals developed that way as a survival mechanism. We learned how to effectively live in “harmony” with our (often themselves disordered) parents/family/caregivers; the “disordered” part comes into play when we go out into the big wide world and are met with all kinds of people who aren’t like our abusers. We don’t know how to “normally” interact with them–we’re specialists in a new environment that doesn’t necessarily need or work well with our expertise. So we seek out people and situations that work for us–that allow us to play the role we’re designed to play. Hence narcs seek out empaths and codependents. Although I will say that narcs, of all the cluster B disorders, have their shit together the most, and are much more adaptable to the world. Whereas histrionics and borderlines have low EQ and blindly find the right people, and paths (psycho/social) (ASPD) don’t really give a shit about about fitting in to begin with.
So, it makes sense that growth would be mightily difficult for disordered individuals, because our wiring tells us that these traits are direly important to survival. It’s hard to overcome something that your subconscious fully believes is so necessary. Our childhood taught us that if we did not develop and hold onto these adaptations, we would perish–and we would have. Now some therapist is telling us to just let go of it? Lol.
HG, I wonder what your childhood was like that caused the inner stifling of emotions.
My sisters and I learned not to show any true emotions to our parents. Both positive and negative came with a punishment.
When we expressed positive emotions, we were immediately cut down with either a completely apathetic response, or else a biting remark meant to instill shame for whatever good experience we were joyful about. This was paired with a barrage of “I did such and such for you, and this is the thanks I get?” after anything “kind” they did for us.
Negative emotions were simply not allowed. We were not allowed to talk back (immediate slap to the face), we were not allowed to step back from said slap. We were not allowed to voice any criticism of them or negative opinion. They were excellent at reading our body language though. My mom, after a bout of yelling over the latest petty thing we’d done wrong, upon sensing my seething anger, would lean in close to my face and sneer, mocking my rage. “Oh, are you mad? Yes you are, I can see it written all over your face. Whew, boy are you mad! Life sucks, huh?” All while grinning in that stupid way, even laughing at times. I can’t even begin to describe the hatred I felt.
This is why, when I first came into contact with NPD individuals (via FB groups), I found myself sympathetic (not that they needed it) rather than affronted. We all just do what we can to survive.
Keep reading my work, here and in my books and you will learn more about my childhood.
HG,
On it!
Thank you HG, for the universal truth-reminder that Life is based on Individuals not the community-society-systems, racial profiling, generational-familial conditioning and religious righteousness.
Sheherezade – excellent clarinet part 💛💕
Wow. Thank you. I can hardly imagine. At least now I know when he sings a love song and I’m consumed, overwhelmed by emotions in a way like nothing else, with admiration and love and longing, that when he sings it to someone else, he doesn’t feel anything either. It means nothing. His words aren’t real expressions, even when he sings them. He doesn’t identify with lyrics and emotions conveyed through music, even on a subconscious level. Well, maybe hate music. Some Rock and Rap. Rage, abuse, sexual objectification in order to humiliate. The dark emotions you described.
I wonder what you’d look like if you didn’t need fuel. If you didn’t need a mask. What would your relationships look like if you choose authentically? If you showed up as yourself and never needed to manipulate. Would you have relationships at all? Fuel is a distraction, it’s not diabilitating. You’re still going somewhere and I assume that’s all your own imagining and desire untainted. But what of all the interruptions from requiring a filling of your tank. All the coordinating to ensure there is a station available at all times. If you never had to stop for gas, if you never had to run a multinational corporation of fuel stations that serve only one customer, yourself, what would you do with your extra time? How would your life change? I just wonder who you are underneath it all.
I could wonder the same about myself. If I didn’t have such deep emotion distracting me, or the desire to please discarding my true self as if other people’s contentment is more valuable than mine, wasting my life and taking myself out of the game to serve another –what I could do, be, and how my life, goals, reality, and future could change dramatically.
Hope,
I think what you’re implying (correct me if I’m wrong) is a belief that all people are, beneath the surface, “normal” healthy humans, and that any disorder or disadvantageous set of traits is something added on top of it that, with time and effort, could be removed, leaving the healthy person the only thing left.
If that’s indeed what you’re expressing, I feel it’s ultimately not the case. We’re all born blank slates; the second we come into the world (actually, while still in the womb), our personalities and traits are being shaped. We become either healthy, or unhealthy. Creating a healthy individual is just as complex a process as creating an unhealthy one. A disordered person can eventually learn to think and act more “normal” (neurotypical), but that is what is added on top of the disordered base, not the other way around.
That is incorrect.
We are not born as blank slates. There is a genetic predisposition which interacts with the environment. We are a product of genetics and environment. This causes different outcomes – some are labelled as healthy (by the prevailing majority perspective) and others unhealthy (those who belong to the minority perspectives).
Lol yes, aside from genetic predisposition of course.
That makes the personality develop in more complex ways (like a chemistry experiment with multiple variables), but the outcome is still the same: Personality is largely set in early childhood, and that personality will be either “healthy” or “unhealthy”. No one is born with “healthy” or “unhealthy” predispositions; it’s all about how the specific innate traits are fostered–which ones are shut down/stifled, which ones are encouraged. Even “negative” traits (predisposition), such as abnormally high sensitivity, can be fostered into positive strengths to result in a healthy person–an artist or therapist, perhaps.
zielum, I think genetics are a huge part of the equation. I do not have all the answers of course (no one does) but what one becomes is not a simple question of how innate traits are fostered. Innateness is powerful. Two genetically similar people can be raised in the same environment and turn out very differently (siblings) or in different environments but be eerily the same (studies of separated twins). In fact, innateness is exactly why transgender rather than transgendered is preferred, right? It’s not as if you were born one way and then this other set of traits ‘happened’ and you ‘became’ something else. Correct? It’s that you and all of us are always in the process of florescence, the seeds planted in the womb, which is a social as well as a biological environment. HG has some great insights into the interplay between environment and genetics with respect to narcissism. Maybe K can find the right links for you (K is our resident librarian/archivist and very good at what she does!)
Agreed.
I know you have given this topic a lot of thought, HG. How narcissists come to be is a fascinating topic.
Indeed it is SMH.
SMH,
The original argument I was making was more about the fact that personality, healthy or unhealthy, is fairly set at a young age, and there’s no way to “strip” the unhealthy parts away to “reveal” a healthy self underneath, since they’re not stacked like that–they’re integral.
You could argue, along your reasoning, that the self is indeed innate and the environment adds to it in adverse ways, resulting in a “stacked” setup, whereby the environmental influences could later be stripped, leaving just the innate self.
But that would contradict your reasoning, as from what I understand, you’re inplying the innate self is going to be fairly set regardless of environmental influences (they do play a part but not nearly so strongly). Again meaning there is no “stacked” setup.
I made the original argument because OP was wondering what HG would be like without all the malignant narcissism. I’m thinking that there would be nothing–or at least, not a full self. He has basically said as much in his writings. If my personal experience is anything to go by–HG describes it as a “creature”. Myself, it’s a scared little child, the one who never had any control, the one who is still hurt by anything and everyone around him. He is rocking in the fetal position in the dark, crying. He is who I lock away. He is the one who feels the hurt of a wounding. He is the one I cannot let surface. If you were to strip all of my coping mechanisms away, all’s that would be left is that scared child–not a healthy, capable adult. My assumption is that it would be the same for HG, but with his creature. Do correct me if I’m wrong, HG. But that is what I was going off of; that regardless of how personality is set, once it is set, you can only add to it–not strip away. Therapists teach new skills; they don’t “reveal” old forgotten skills. Not on the quest to change a person from disordered to healthy, at least.
Upon writing that, I understand a key thing I was overlooking. Neurotypicals, which I assume most of you are (empath is not a disorder), are healthy to begin with, and then they’re hurt or abused and make some transgressions, but they can and will make a recovery back to their old healthy self. With disordered individuals, there is no old self to recover to–our disordered selves *are* our old selves.
zielum
This is a very good article that explains how the Narcissistic personality is created.
https://narcsite.com/2019/03/12/to-control-is-to-cope-narcissism-and-its-creation/
Thank you, K! Muah. And yes, zielum, I see what you are saying. However, I am not sure empaths make a recovery back to their old healthy self, as that is what we are all struggling with here. The brain IS plastic, which is how we all became narc addicts in the first place, but it is not clear to me to what extent things can be ‘reversed.’ Some of us have previous histories of addiction making us susceptible, but others do not. Further to that, we all have coping mechanisms though I think someone with a personality disorder, as opposed to simple narcissistic traits (which a lot of us have) probably has a brain that is wired completely differently. Maybe we are all on a spectrum of sorts. I think of HG’s spectrum as being like a clock face, with co-dependents and malignant narcissists at the extremes. Normals are somewhere in the middle – kind of ‘neutral’ but still on the spectrum. I am not sure I would easily recognize a normal, though I am sure they are all around me.
SMH,
Hm…to be honest, I don’t know much about empaths. I assumed you guys were mostly neurotypical, just with a few traits that just went a little overboard–overly caring, overly trusting, overly sensitive, overly “feelz”. Could you tell me more about empaths, from your own perspective?
zielum, I did not know much either until I got here. From my perspective you are correct but mostly regarding overly ‘feelz.’ I don’t see empaths as being just givers or even always positive, though we do tend to have those traits. We mainly have a lot of Emotional Thinking, which we do not recognize for what it is because it seems ‘normal’ to us, and we act accordingly. This gives fuel to narcs. There are different kinds of empaths just as there are different kinds of narcs. The combinations are almost endless!!
SMH,
That is an interesting take on empaths–that it’s mostly to do with Emotional Thinking–i.e., low emotional intelligence (EQ). I don’t mean that in a bad way; I have low EQ as well, though I’m working on it. It’s simply an indicator of how well you can identify, interpret, and control your emotions. When we let our emotions run rampant, we are exhibiting low EQ.
I say it’s interesting because by that metric, all Borderlines are empaths…even though I have a nagging suspicion that Borderlines are actually narcissistic at their core (this view could be skewed by my own experience–part of why I can’t determine what I am. A narc once told me that they’d never encountered a narcissistic Borderline without them also having strong narc traits overall). Argh, I feel like I’m being circular in my logic…I’ll havta think on this one a bit.
Also–Thank you 🙂 That’s what isolation will do lol and I’ve felt isolated from other humans for my entire remembered life. I live inside my head, so I’ve got a lot of time to think and consider. I think you’re also doing a fantastically good job at engaging–I’ve tagged you as a member I like lol. There’s just something wonderfully inspiring about debating human nature, everyone taking turns to share their views and allowing give-and-take interactions to further understanding.
zielum, I am also not really sure about the relationship between being neurotypical and being an empath, but it is an interesting question. I could see that someone who is not neurotypical could still be an empath but from what I have seen here, most empaths are neurotypicals. Still, most people in the world are neurotypicals, so I wouldn’t know what to make of it. Maybe HG has some thoughts on this.
By the way, I am impressed at how much thought you have given all of this, your openness and your eagerness to absorb information. I am not being condescending about your age or anything. It’s just that most people who arrive here are in the throes of a narc relationship or have just ended one, and are a complete mess!
My pleasure SMH! Muah!
I watched HG’s video reading of that article; I related to nearly everything he said.
His views are, of course, just one perspective in a sea of voices out there that covers narcissism. What I found interesing is his lack of emphasis on the “Golden Child” scenario. If you read a lot of the official material, or those who parrot it, you’ll find they really only ever mention the Golden Child scenario as a cause of narcissism. Since I wasn’t raised that way (though I was treated as the most academically promising of us three kids), it always made me wonder how I could possibly have developed narcissistic traits if this was apparently the only way. I did find tidbits here and there that offered slightly different causes, but nothing loud and proud. HG’s article on control as a coping mechanism is wholly enlightening in that way, and as per usual, his work far outshines most others in terms of depth and clarity.
Thank you.