Narcissists Lack Emotional Depth

The Little Deer by Frieda Kahlo

< ------Okay. That's my portrait: the little dear who was ignorant about the beauty and tragedy of her ability to feel and feel deeply.

I’m not alone in my ignorance. Most people assume emotions are a common ground connecting us to one another. However, it’s important to know that the capacity for emotional depth and thus moral reasoning, is not universal. Unfortunately, we may only learn this after the archer landed five or six shots and expected us to stay on target for the seventh.

If there are people who are not imbued with deep emotions, how do we know if our feelings are being mimicked, targeted, or ruthlessly manipulated by imposters aiming for our heart space? Well, if we’re clueless about narcissism, we'll never see the arrows 'til we’re bleeding; or in the case of con artists: after we’re broke, humiliated and disillusioned.

The answer to protecting ourselves is not becoming as indifferent as the archer. At first, deer folks might react with rigid defenses protecting themselves from another attack. But rigid defenses are not a healthy solution. Not in the long run anyway. The answer to self-protection is becoming aware of our soft spots while educating our selves about ‘pathologicals’ who depend on our ignorance to guarantee they’ll get a good shot.

At this point, there are numerous websites offering free information about narcissists, sociopaths and manipulators. This pleases me no end. It’s my belief that the main reason people are targeted by intimate partners, cults, or organizations is because we are/were naïve about people with emotional voids where their hearts ought have been.

People make the assumption that feelings speak a common language whether we’re in southern Idaho, France, in a church, a seminar, or a cyber-group. We say we feel sad and people respond because they know what sad means without offering the details of our sadness. We say we feel happy and people respond by being happy, too. We say we feel cranky and people keep their distance; though there are those pesky codependent-types (the ones who can empathize with an ice cube) who still try to make other people feel better. That would be me, of course. “You feeling cranky today, sweetheart? Here, let me make ya laugh so we can both feel better.”

Being able to empathize is something I value, though I’ve had to reclaim my appreciation for empathy after losing my Pollyanna several years ago. Alanon updated my boundaries teaching me to let cranky people own their emotions without feeling responsible to fix their cranky. (Just a note to anyone who’s also been accused of being co-die simply because you’re a cheerleader type: Is the Cheerleader a Type ‘C’ personality? Or maybe we’re a B+ or a Type A- depending on how high we jump??)

Alexander Lowen writes: “I would define the narcissist as a person whose behavior is not motivated by feeling...acting without feeling is the basic disturbance in the narcissistic personality. The greater the denial of feeling, the more narcissistically disturbed the individual is.”

I’ve been reading Lowen’s book again. I didn’t know anything about Narcissism when finding this book in our home library. Lowen’s book was my introduction to the geographical flatland of the narcissist’s interior self. Where most people have a moral compass in their solar plexus, the narcissist has an emotional void. Where most of us have a heart, the narcissist has a frozen chicken nugget rarely thawing out since their blood runs colder than a Sub-Zero.

You may think I’m being snotty.

I am.

But that’s because I’m making a very important point: Narcissists do not have emotional depth. They have emotions because everyone has emotions, but their shallow emotions are as steadfast as nailing jell-o to a tree. They do not feel the solid tug of the gut pointing people towards right & moral behavior. Oh, they know the morally correct thing to do and they understand social rules and all, but they don’t feel the unbearable pain of remorse for having served themselves to the exclusion of others.

Narcissists pretend they have feelings by mimicking people's behaviors which is why they are called imposters. They are acutely aware of what YOU are feeling even if they can't feel it themselves. They have observed people's reactions to a specific emotion even if they do not experience that emotion themselves. So, if you’re feeling sympathetic towards a narcissist who hurt you, it’s likely because he wanted you to feel sympathetic. If you’re feeling sorry for a narcissist who hurt you, it’s because he set you up to feel sorry for him. He counts on your assumption that tears=guilt and guilt=remorse and remorse=changed behavior and changed behavior=love.

It doesn’t.

“Exploitativeness is common to all narcissistic personalities” ~Alexander Lowen

Narcissists get us to feel love for them without a loving response on their part. They get us to feel sorry for their victimization without reciprocal sorrow when they victimize others. They exploit people’s emotions, manipulate their feelings, pretend they are feeling when they aren’t.

Become intimately familiar with your soft spots. Protect the precious emotions that make you human, keep you tender, and establish a strong foundation for intimate and healthy relationships.

And don't be fooled. There is always something missing in the narcissist's emotional response (or lack thereof). Even as well as narcissists can mimic behaviors they've observed in others, something's not quite right. We can't put our finger on it...but we know something's off. Their performance is either exagerated or flat, but it's never just quite right.

Hugs,

CZBZ

Resource


Lowen, Alexander, M.D. Narcissism: Denial of the True Self. 1997 edition