Among all types of depression, narcissistic is the most common today. What is the reason for this?
“Narcissistic depression” … Do not you think that these two words contradict each other. After all, a “narcissus” is a narcissistic personality. And in depression, a person rejects himself, blames everything, even hates himself.
French psychologist Andre Green has divided depression into two types. Black – when a person’s self-esteem falls, he experiences guilt, pangs of conscience, anxiety, fear. And – white. Narcissistic personalities are just exposed to her. During this depression, a person feels as if he is falling into the abyss of the world. It seems that you have everything, but you have nothing to do with it. It’s like you are standing on the shore, and life swims past you like a ship with music, colorful lights, smart cheerful people.
This is a very serious condition. And the man is trying to dump him, to shake himself. It is no coincidence that extreme sports and recreation are so popular today: skydiving, diving, shark hunting, mountain climbing. These people put themselves on the line between life and death – the only way they are able to even feel for a short moment that they are alive.
Narcissus does not consider his condition to be depression. He’s just bored. And a person does not seek help until panic attacks, psychosomatic diseases appear, or until everything in life begins to crumble: family or business.
The trouble with the “daffodil” is that in fact, he does not love himself. And, accordingly, does not feel that someone can love him. Realizing this once, he chose a different path – to make it admired. Such a person tries to earn as much money as possible, to become famous; He dresses beautifully, rotates in secular circles. “Take everything from life”, “because you deserve it”, “become the best” – these slogans are undoubtedly created by “daffodils”. He seems narcissistic. But this is just an iris, inside of which there is a dry, not sprouted pea.
Why is it that today there are many such people?
We live in an era of narcissism. It began in the 70s of the last century. White depression existed before – remember at least Onegin, Pechorin, the heroes of Byron’s poems. But there were few such people. Most people were forced to survive. And for this – to join in groups with others.
Today, many live as before only a few in noble families. When there is no need to fight for existence, it is easier to be alone. It is no accident that in the most economically developed countries there is the largest number of single people. Good or bad is another story. But it seems that everything goes to the fact that many people prefer to live alone.
Well, I don’t think so many. Judging by surveys among our youth, the most important value remains the family, and not loneliness at all.
Of course, to become a “narcissist” is not enough to live in the years of narcissism. The sprouts of such a person are laid in early childhood – somewhere at the age of two years. Andre Green has the concept of the so-called “dead mother.” This woman, having a small child, for some reason suddenly became depressed. Maybe because of the death of the parents that happened at that moment; due to the departure of the husband or termination of pregnancy. In this state, she is next to the baby, but completely immersed in her thoughts: she can neither understand the child nor give him what he needs.
The kid does not know what the mother cares. But, desperate to get tenderness, care, he ceases to love her. And unknowingly devalues this feeling. Then it goes through life with the conviction: “It doesn’t matter to me whether they love me or not.”
In addition, new trends in the upbringing of the child had a great influence on the growth of narcissism. For example, it is now believed that breastfeeding should be as long as possible, because excommunication is a psychological trauma for the child. Yes it is. But a person must get used to injuries and be able to defend against them. In European culture, it was always customary to excommunicate at the age of one and a half years.
This is exactly the age when the child is ready to move to another level of development. But if this period is delayed, it will begin to grow with confidence that the world is always ready to satisfy all its desires on demand.
Or take such a benefit for mom as diapers. This is a whole revolution in the liberation of women: do not boil diapers, wash, iron. But today, the child wears diapers almost to school. But toilet practice is his first meeting with the law. Teaching the child to the potty, mother tells him: “You have no right to do what you want, and where you want. You must listen to the rules that we have. ” Parents did not do this in a year and a half, the child lives on the principle of pleasure: I can do everything that I want, then I do it.
It is clear why this is dangerous for a person’s personality: the world will not satisfy his desires on demand. But why are narcissistic personalities dangerous to society?
This type of people has no guilt or empathy with others. If a man drowns in front of the “daffodil”, he will not rush to save him. And he will be surprised if he hears claims against him: “I did not drown him.” The fact that most people exist at the level of instinct, for example, to save a fellow by reason, is absent from the “daffodil”.
In addition, among this type there are very cold, aggressive personalities: in order to achieve their goals, they are ready to go over their heads, over corpses. For them, people are just tools, tools of production. He did not need a man – he was thrown out. Today we see this all the time not only in the sphere of work, but also in personal life.
These, for example, are men who have not matured to a state of responsibility. As a wife, they choose a woman who would become for them a better mother than their own. Everything can go well. Until the moment the wife gives birth to a child and begins to pay more attention to the baby than her husband. This is where narcissism in its purest form manifests itself. How? Someone dared to prefer another? Someone excommunicated him? And such a man leaves, leaving a woman with a small child. Or in the literal sense – divorcing her. Or indirectly: turns a lover, begins to drink, take drugs, becomes a workaholic.
We are talking more and more about men, but how do women manifest narcissism?
Two options are possible. If a woman has a strongly masculine beginning, she herself succeeds: she becomes the director of “factories, factories, newspapers, ships”. She may get married at the same time, even, most likely, she will do it. Because the “daffodils” strive for social norms. Everything should be just like everyone else’s, only better: husband, child — not one, not two, but five, six.
If, with all her desire for power and money, a woman cannot achieve this herself, then she chooses a majestic, charismatic man and becomes, as it were, a part of him. We can often see such ladies among secular lionesses.