Your Selfish Point of View
One of the most powerful (from my perspective) and troubling (from your perspective) is the fact that my kind and me appear to act without any regard to logic. We appear to delight in ensnaring people by pretending to be something that we are not even though it seems completely genuine. We cause people to fall completely in love with us and then apparently turn on them, lashing out at them and hurting them. Indeed, we seem to delight in causing pain and chaos to everyone around us and we show no concern at such conduct. We behave in such a hypocritical fashion, chastising you for doing something and then doing the very same thing ourselves. We say one thing and do so with utter conviction and then in the next breath say something completely contradictory yet seem not to realise what we just done.
We act with impunity, taking at will and with no concern for what anybody else may suffer as a consequence of our actions. The list is long and worrisome. Trying to fathom out why we behave in this manner leaves you bewildered, exhausted, defeated and broken. This is all of course intentional. We behave in this manner in order to wear you down, provoke reactions from you and most of all so that you provide us with our precious fuel. Our apparent disregard for logic and reason causes massive consternation to you and your kind. This is because you are ruled by order and the need to understand. It is woven into your DNA and anything which deviates from this creates a significant problem for you.
Our behaviour makes no sense to you for one simple reasons. You are looking at the way we behave through your world view. You are imposing your values and your outlook on what we do. Why should it be the case that your world view should be regarded as the only one? Why should the way you look at the world be considered as the correct way of doing so? When did you become the arbiter of all? This is the high-handed arrogance which proves the undoing of your kind. Oh you will wail to anyone who will listen at how monstrous you have been treated, how we are evil people and the spawn of Satan. You sit in so-called support forums on the internet decrying our behaviour, writing page after page about what has happened to you and how horrendous you have been treated. All about you isn’t it? Oh I can hear your howls of protest now, at how you are a good person and that you do not hurt anyone. Do you not? How then is it that you injure me with your failure to behave consistently. You call me for it yet you are just as guilty if in fact not more so. You promise me so much at the outset and then you change the way that you behave so you do not give me what you once did. I do not change. I shine and dazzle and soar, but you make it all change, why do you do it? This failure hurts me as you reduce my fuel and force me to punish you for it. You force me to seek it from other sources when I would much rather keep obtaining it from you. You call into question my abilities and criticise me notwithstanding just how that behaviour wounds me. You hold yourself our as caring and considerate yet you do me these injustices. You hide behind your mask of empathy, telling the world you are the good person, the caring person and the one that looks our others yet this is just a ruse in order to wound me and my kind after everything we have done.
Perhaps if you stopped looking at the world from your own perspective and looked at it from mine you would start to understand. You talk so often about showing compassion and your ability to put yourself in the place of other people. Why do you not do this with me? You tell me you love me. I read about how many of you declare you loved my kind and me in a way that went beyond anything you had shown before. Sometimes I wonder. If you loved us in the way you say that you do, then why can you not put yourself in our shoes and then understand what it is we have to deal with. If you did this, you would start to see that our behaviour is completely understandable. It makes absolute sense when viewed from our perspective and not yours. I see no reason why you should not try this and then you will have gained considerable insight into why we behave as we do and then, should you still deem what we do as unacceptable then you can at least understand it and take evasive action can’t you? You will not have to decry us to all who will listen whilst and I think it is only right that I make this point, you are not helping yourself by wallowing in this moaning and self-pity and surrounding yourself with others who behave in a similar fashion. Providing blow by blow accounts of what we do in order to elicit sympathy but then asking why does he do this and why does he do that, is not getting you the answer because you are asking the wrong people. Ask me instead and I will tell you; view the world through our eyes and everything will make sense. It all comes down to one small word; fuel. That is why we act as we do. That is why we do the things we do and say the things we say and once you comprehend that it is all about fuel you will be looking at the world through our eyes and finally it will all make sense. Go on try it. I dare you or would you rather sit and milk sympathy and never move forward? Don’t say I never gave you the chance.
13 thoughts on “Your Selfish Point of View”
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I love this post!
As sickening as it feels, it does make sense when we understand the narcissists needs and accept that their instincts are different from our own.
I was having a conversation with HG in my daydreams and I said, “you’re not going to like what I’m about to say because I’m providing fuel to someone else, but I understand why you would feel that way and that you can’t help it.”
If you imagine times when it felt like you were losing so much control- how awful it felt and how you responded to it, then imagine feeling like that all the time but just in relation to everyone else and how they respond to you
Witch,
If someone stole your car because they wanted to get from A to B, (assuming that you have a car), would you calmly say to yourself, “I understand why the thief stole my car and that they couldn’t help it.”
Would you think, “I can imagine the times when it felt like I was losing control and couldn’t get to where I wanted to be. I remember how awful that feeling was. Therefore, I can accept that the thief couldn’t help it. He/she stole my car and now I’m going to call the police. I know the thief isn’t going to like me calling the police because I understand the thief’s need for fuel.”
I’m going to take a wild guess and say that these thoughts would not be your reactions.
HG says in this post: “We act with impunity, taking at will and with no concern for what anybody else may suffer as a consequence of our actions.”
When I read this post, the main thing I see is projection.
What you say makes an awful lot of sense witch.
Alexis and Witch,
Considering your views in your comments here, I would like to ask you a question. It relates to something I witnessed recently. It would be very interesting to hear your views about it.
I was recently in a supermarket doing some grocery shopping. While shopping, there was a mother and father shopping with a newborn baby in a pram. The baby boy, who was only several weeks old, was crying constantly. The newborn baby’s cry was a screaming, lurching kind of cry that went on and on and on.
The parents ignored the baby and kept shopping, casually and calmly strolling down the supermarket aisles, selecting their groceries as they went. They made no attempt – at all – to comfort, touch, hold or communicate with the screaming newborn.
The question I’d like to ask you is this…
Whose needs do you ‘understand’ in this scenario and does it ‘make sense’ to you that the mother of a screaming newborn is oblivious to her baby’s cry?
Hi Wisernow:
I have read the first 3 years of a child life is the most important as it is when the ego starts to form. I believed a crying baby needs lov and attention to make them feel important and was not at the belief until older they made st learn responsibility. I was not a Hoover mom, if you fall off a bike and scrape your knee. Ok. It’s not life threatening and by trusting them to ride, you build up strength in yourself. You become strong, capable. Now my Aunt had 11 children and they slept upstairs. All are filled with empathy and college educated and good people. Did she let the baby cry to sleep? She must have been amazing if she did. Did the elder sisters step in? I don’t know. But if the couple let a baby cry at a supermarket, we don’t know if they were attentive parents once home. For me? Yes I would have reacted to a baby now a toddler throwing a tantrum. I would not reward the table run…
Hi Contagious,
Thank you for your reply. However, my question was directed to Alexis and Witch.
Nevertheless, the lack of a response from them still communicates their replies.
Contagious, with regard to your reply, you say that “a crying baby needs love and attention to make them feel important.”
A crying baby needs love and attention for much more profound reasons than to make them feel important.
Consistent caring attention, reciprocal communication, and calm emotional responses regulate a baby’s nervous system and emotions. These things actually provide them with the stability and safety to grow. They give newborns and older babies the ability to develop their cognitive brain functions so that they learn to self-regulate and have more self-awareness and self-control over their instincts and emotions.
Without such consistent attention and engagement from a caregiver, a newborn baby’s vulnerable nervous system is overactivated, which elevates the baby’s adrenaline and cortisol levels (among other things). These elevated levels then become the baby’s ‘normal’ levels compared to babies who did receive consistent attention and engagement.
It is SO VERY important to provide a newborn baby with stability, safety, unconditional positive regard, and attention.
“But if the couple let a baby cry at a supermarket, we don’t know if they were attentive parents once home.”
The newborn in the supermarket was crying for an extended period of time. While I was shopping and heard the baby’s cry, it continued non-stop for at least 15 – 20 minutes. It was constant.
If neither the mother nor father of the baby responded to the crying in that space of time in public, then I believe they would be just as neglectful and indifferent at home.
It was distressing to me to listen to the crying and to see the parents do nothing to comfort their own baby.
Consider this opposite scenario:
In Australia, there are hospitals and organisations that require and call for volunteers to provide services in which the volunteers (or paid professionals) hold, comfort and cuddle premature and sick newborns and healthy newborns as well. The volunteers, who are vetted beforehand, provide support to all family members during a hospital stay. With the parents’ consent and approval, these volunteers comfort and settle newborns or sick babies.
Another example: research has shown that skin-to-skin touch settles and regulates a baby’s nervous system faster during and after medical procedures such as injections or routine check-ups compared with a baby receiving no touch or contact.
Yet another example: newborns are biologically ‘hardwired’ to look at and imitate faces and facial expressions. They are born with a need to connect to other people and bond with a caregiver. Reciprocal facial expressions and engagement provide a newborn with positive psychological development and emotional regulation and correspondence.
These are just several things I have learned in my casual reading about newborns. I’m sure there are more reasons why newborns absolutely *need* caregivers to be caring, attentive and engaging in order to grow and develop in healthy ways.
Wiser now:
As for me, I agree. It’s a baby. I always was there at all times. But I do know a friend who had a colicky baby and it cried a lot. Her neighbor called social services. Babies do cry. And she was a great mom and has two lovely kind giving, sweet young women. I mean babies can die if neglected. There are studies of orphans in Russia that weren’t held or loved and they have BOTH physical and mental illnesses. I don’t get how psychologists can tell that narcissism begins at 0-3. HGs take 0-9 seems more likely. DNA ok but nurture … it seems like personality would grow. But I still personally believe that if you respond to a baby you are giving them safety, and making them feel important among the biological developments. It’s a simple take Wisernow. I always responded. But I hear you, it’s tough to see a baby or child at risk. Yet we know they are…as narcissism isn’t going away. You know, if I was there, I would have walked over to the baby. Asked the mom if I could help while she was so busy and told the mom… motherhood is hard, let me hold the baby while you checkout. Children surround me and the mothers love it. It takes a village but if not family so much you can do. You can try…
Hi Contagious,
Thank you for your reply.
You make some good points. Yes, babies do cry. I am also familiar with your point about babies suffering mental and physical health issues or even dying due to being neglected in Russian orphanages.
With regard to my earlier comment, please re-read it for comprehension. In particular, please take note of the following part:
“The parents ignored the baby and kept shopping, casually and calmly strolling down the supermarket aisles, selecting their groceries as they went. They made no attempt – at all – to comfort, touch, hold or communicate with the screaming newborn.”
To make it easier to picture the scene:
– there were two parents shopping – the mother and the father.
– both parents were casually and calmly strolling down the supermarket aisles (not busy; not stressed at all; and not waiting at the checkout).
– both parents wilfully ignored the baby. There was no attempt – at all – to communicate with the baby in any way.
Or the baby could have been suffering from colic. In that case, the baby might have been screaming for hours and the parents knew that no amount of comfort would have helped.
Hi AP,
Yes, the baby was at the appropriate age and could possibly have had colic.
The baby may not have had colic though, and may have simply been hungry or distressed or there may have been some other reason.
Even though it may have been colic, a baby still needs soothing and comfort and emotional engagement.
With or without colic, a baby’s emotional regulation and nervous system is still developing. There would still be an emotional effect and emotional memory from being ignored and left to cry for long periods without any soothing, engagement or touch from a caregiver.
AP,
Even though it may seem to you that “no amount of comfort would have helped”, please take a minute to picture this scenario:
Imagine that an adult suffering from an unexplained illness is distressed because he or she is in pain. The person then visits a hospital’s emergency department in an attempt to alleviate their suffering.
At the hospital, a doctor responsible for treating the person asks them what the matter is. The person says they don’t know but it’s painful and it’s causing them great distress.
Imagine if the doctor measured the person’s vital signs and then said, “well, I can’t find anything wrong with you and I can’t help you. You may as well go back home, be alone and cry and moan until you tire yourself out and fall asleep because nothing else will help your situation anyway.”
Doing this would be considered cruel and callous in relation to a full-grown, independent adult. Why is it considered acceptable for a totally dependent newborn baby?
Hello WiserNow,
of course it is plausible, maybe even likely, that that baby was neglected in this situation by the parents, but let me continue to argue the other side here: If the baby was suffering from colic, or even if it was not, there could also be an option that this particular baby would just have screamed louder if the parents had tried to soothe it or hold it. I do not know enough about the effects of being left to cry for long periods except that it was the accepted practice of hard-working parents for hundreds of years, but I would wager that it would not be highly traumatic in the case of a one-time event that lasted less than half an hour. Those stressed parents needed to get their shopping done as well or the baby would not get fed.
Your example with the ER doctor is not comparable, because an adult can tell the doctor where it hurts and for how long and can describe the situation. All a baby can do is cry and maybe repeat or avoid certain movements. The adult can go and talk to another doctor, except in very remote locations, and it is not all that unusual for one doctor not to find the cause of the problem and send the patient away without a diagnosis. If this doctor talked to the patient like you describe it, he would quickly acquire a reputation for rudeness and unhelpfulness and likely go out of business unless he was either the only doctor available within travelling distance or such a brilliant and famous physician that he could allow himself that kind of behaviour.
I think it’s a cycle of abuse. They were raised with abuse and that’s the air they breathe. We have all felt out of control, depressed, angry etc… but it’s the abuse they dole out over time that defines them. They can’t be cured. I do wonder if like psychopaths however that counseling ( usually court ordered) can tone it down a notch or two. ??? Meds? Abuse such as hitting, yelling, silent treatment, name calling, lying, stealing, gaslighting lesser but still not nice… word salad, blame shifting, projection and denial ( lie by omission). It’s not mature. It’s arrested development. An inability to cope with life’s vicissitudes. And abuse is as natural to them as breathing. I don’t think they can stop in general. Maybe if a soldier or cop is in front of them but you just know in time they will be themselves again. I also think they have an internal cycle. 🔁 n other words it might not be external stressors or other people that causes the acting out but the inner demons. Someday good. Others bad. Amazing the effect genes and parenting have on a child.
Love baked cakes, cookies, pies and muffins. Just prefer some more often than others and am violently allergic to others. Enjoy what you can!