My name is Sam Vaknin, and I am the author of Malignant Self-Love, Narcissism Revisited.
The narcissist’s false self requires constant doubts of narcissistic supply.
Narcissists crave attention and lots of it.
The narcissist’s sense of entitlement and innate superiority collide painfully with his unmitigated dependence on other people, for the regulation of his labile, fluctuating sense of self-worth and the maintenance of his grandiose fantasies.
The narcissist needs other people to say to him, yes, you’re great, you’re brilliant, you’re perfect, you’re omnipotent, you’re omniscient.
Narcissists who are also psychopaths, antisocial, or schizoids, choose to avoid the constant hurt and injuries entailed by this conflict by withdrawing completely from society, physically as well as psychologically.
They go into a cocoon of self-delusion, confabulated narratives and vivid dreams of triumph and revenge. They become lone wolf narcissists and they prey on society at large by indiscriminately victimizing, abusing and attacking any person unfortunate enough to cross their path.
Inevitably, the lone wolf narcissist is in a constant state of deficient narcissistic supply, very much like a junkie deprived of access to his rug of choice.
If you are not in touch with society, there’s no one there to tell you how great you are.
This overwhelming, unquenched, vampiric hunger, coupled with a normal psychotic state, renders the lone wolf narcissist dangerous to others.
This kind of narcissist, his aggression often turns to outright violence, his frustration to vindictive rage, his addiction to narcissistic supply drives him to coerce people, often randomly selected, to serve as sources of adulation, affirmation and support.
His detachment evolves into a loss of touch with reality, cognitive deficits and utter misjudgment of his environment and milieu.
This kind of narcissist seeks fame and celebrity by all means available to him, even by resorting to crime and terrorism.
But what are schizoids?
Schizoids enjoy nothing and seemingly never experience pleasure. They are what we call unhedonic.
Even the nearest and dearest often describe schizoids as robots or machines.
But the schizoid is not depressed or dysphoric, he is merely indifferent.
Schizoids are uninterested in social relationships and they are bored or puzzled by interpersonal interactions.
They are incapable of intimacy and they have a very limited range of emotions and affect.
Rarely does the schizoid express feelings, even negative or positive, he is rarely angry, but he is also rarely happy.
Schizoids never pursue an opportunity to develop a close relationship, they are asexual, they are not interested in sex.
Consequently, they appear to others to be called aloof, bland, stunted, flat and zombie-like.
They derive no satisfaction from belonging to a close-knit group, family, church, workplace, neighborhood or nation.
They rarely marry, rarely have children.
Schizoids are loners, given the option of the invariably pursue solitary activities or hobbies.
Inevitably, they prefer mechanical or abstract tasks and jobs that require such skills.
Many computer hackers, crackers and programmers are schizoids.
Some mathematicians and theoretical physicists are schizoids, solitary persons.
Schizoids are inflexible in their reactions to changing life circumstances and developments, both adverse and opportune.
Faced with stress, schizoids may disintegrate, decompensate and experience brief psychotic episodes or a depressive illness.
This is also common of the narcissists.
Schizoids have very few friends or confidants, they trust only first degree relatives if they trust at all.
But even so, they maintain no close bonds or associations, not even with their immediate family.
Schizoids pretend to be indifferent to praise, to criticism, to disagreement and corrective advice.
But deep inside, they are absolutely not.
Schizoids are creatures of habit, frequently succumbing to rigid, predictable and narrowly restricted routines.
From the outside, the schizoid’s life looks rather less adrift, not goal-oriented.
Like people with Asperger’s syndrome, schizoids fail to respond appropriately to social cues and rarely reciprocate gestures or facial expressions such as smiles.
As the diagnostic and statistical manual puts it, schizoids seem socially inept or superficial and self-absorbed.
If this sounds familiar, it’s because this also describes perfectly the narcissists.
So, many narcissists are schizoids and even more are psychopaths.
On this channel, I have a video that explains the also subtle differences between narcissists and psychopaths.
Still, like narcissists, psychopaths lack empathy and regard other people as mere instruments of gratification and mutiny or as objects to be manipulated.
Psychopaths and narcissists have no problem to grasp ideas or formulate choices, needs, preferences, causes of actions and priorities, but they are shocked when other people do exactly the same.
Most people accept that other people have rights and obligations, but the psychopath rejects this quid pro quo.
As far as the psychopath is concerned, only might is right.
People have no rights and he, the psychopath, has no obligations that derive from the social contract.
The psychopath holds himself to be above conventional morality and, of course, above the law.
The psychopath cannot delay gratification.
He wants everything and he wants it now.
His whims, urges, catering to his needs and the satisfaction of his drives take precedence over the needs, preferences and emotions of even his nearest and nearest.
Consequently, psychopaths feel no remorse when they hurt or defraud others. They don’t possess even the most rudimentary conscience.
They rationalize, they are often criminal behavior and intellectualize. They have great explanations and reasons for everything they have done or misdone.
Psychopaths fall prey to their own primitive defense mechanisms, such as narcissism, splitting and projection.
The psychopath firmly believes that the world is a hostile, merciless place drawn to the survival of the fittest and that people are either all good or all evil.
The psychopath projects his own vulnerabilities, weaknesses and shortcomings onto other people and he forces them to behave the way that he expects them to behave.
This defense mechanism is known as projective identification.
Like narcissists, psychopaths are abusively exploitative and incapable of true love or intimacy.
Narcissistic psychopaths are particularly ill-suited to participate in the give and take of civilized society.
Many of them are misfits or criminals. White-collar psychopaths are likely to be deceitful and engage in rampant identity theft, use of aliases, constant lying, fraud and corn artistry, again for pleasure.
Psychopaths are irresponsible. They are unreliable. They do not honor contracts, undertakings and obligations. They are unstable and unpredictable. They rarely hold the job for long. They almost never repay their debts or maintain long-term intimate relationships.
Psychopaths are vindictive. They hold grudges. They never regret or forget a thing. They are driven and they are dangerous.
I wrote this in the Open Sight Encyclopedia.
Always in conflict with authority and frequently on the run, psychopaths possess a limited time horizon and seldom make medium or long-term plans.
They are impulsive and reckless, aggressive, violent, irritable and sometimes the captives of magical thinking, believing themselves to be immune to the consequences of their own actions.
Thus, psychopaths often end up in jail, having repeatedly flouted social norms and codified laws.
Partly to avoid this fate and evade the law, partly to extract material benefits from unsuspecting victims, psychopaths habitually lie, steal others’ identities, deceive, use aliases and con for personal profit or pleasure as a diagnostic and statistical mechanism.
And if this sounds familiar, it’s because it characterizes the narcissist as well.
Psychopaths are said to be fearless in some quark. Their pain tolerance is very high.
Still, contrary to popular perceptions and such psychiatric orthodoxy, some psychopaths are actually anxious and fearful.
A psychopathy is a defense against an underlying and outpervasive anxiety, either hereditary or brought about by early childhood abuse.
And in this sense, they are also, again, similar to narcissism.
When we have a confluence of these three, narcissism, schizoid disorder and psychopathy, we have extremely dangerous individuals, totally explosive.
The univoker, for instance, is an example of such.
