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Whatup fam. But, in a non-insulting way. 

Back for another installment of “what’s been happening on the tr-motherfucking platforms this month!” And there are a few things to tell you.

1. We’ve transitioned into talking shit about abusers. Last month we discussed “adaptive narcissism,” this month we’ve moved into “maladaptive narcissism.” AKA pathological or malignant narcs, their internal structuring, and all the ways that leaves them crippled while also knocking at the knees of the people around them as they cannot stand on their own, from the inside-out.
2. Sooo… I’ve happenstancially created a duplicate free podcasting platform which may have fucked up or disappeared from your feed, because tech and I are mortal enemies. Sorry for any confusion, you may need to re-follow this podcast. The good news is, now there’s a public feed that’s clean and crisp and minimal, it contains only the bitesized monthly reports such as this one. And the other version of the stream is a bit messier because it has a bunch of extra info for you. View it on Spotify and you can subscribe – right there – to get current episodes that normally only hit the Patreon feed, in a handy transcripted video format. I’m also dropping some “extras” that don’t require a sub there. So you might want to find and hit “follow” on both of these “Complex PTSD: We Are Traumatized Motherfuckers” shows that come up when you search. I don’t know which one you’re listening to now. The one with the pink haired lady (me, when I started this project) is the one with the bonus and subscription only material on Spotify. Do with it what you please. 
3. Thirdly, I’ve been releasing a greater mix of heavy research and “lets cut the shit,” real talk episodes lately on Patreon, in an attempt to get back to what this show once was, to stop intellectualizing as a defense mechanism, and to better ground what we discuss in reality for your recovery – well, not pleasure – but, efficacy, entertainment, and sense of connection while you wander the woods of rewiring. So if my words have been too dry, abstract, and scientifically driven in the past… good news, I’m making a concerted effort to speak like a human again, after two years of feeling anything but. 

Alright, there’s more to say, but that’s enough for now. I hope you’ve held strong through this most chaotic and rapidly changing month of April. Holy shit, color me destabilized and using all my tools to stay associated each day while my nervous system hissed and screamed. But we’re still standing and our efforts in “self care” really got a refresher course. 

Now let’s talk about the disorganized, immature, personality structuring of narcissists that makes them impossible social companions, even if their self-serving antagonism and manipulation was somehow taken off the table. 

And it never is. 

If you’ve dealt with narcissists – and you probably have, considering you’re learning about complex PTSD – you’ve undoubtedly noticed something. You can’t trust them as far as you can throw several generations of interpersonal abuse patterns, tethering one individual to the bowels of hell and sometimes – it appears – satan himself. 

And while we damn and decry narcissists popularly, sending out warnings to the general public about their obsession-devaluation-discard patterns and methods of psychological punishment that amount to stockholm syndrome and introjected narc parts of our own over time… the question is, “But how much control DO they really have over any of it?”

Because the narcs I’ve known in real life have appeared to operate via a certain degree of “flailing,” from the inside-out, that so-happens to net and sink everyone around them while they use other humans as haphazard floatation devices… moreso than they’ve ever appeared to be evil geniuses, capable of creating or carrying out some dastardly scheme they’ve been consciously working on.

Yes, the narc will say one thing and do another. They’ll have a certain plan and spoken goals… that disappear without warning. They’ll promise and beg and plead in one direction, only to claim they remember none of it two weeks or days or minutes later. And they will most certainly do their damndest to appear to be one person, only to slowly – or very rapidly, if you watch carefully – reveal all the OTHER persons they actually contain behind that facade.

Which brings us to the point: Narcissists are lacking in integrity, and therefore are impossible to relate to consistently over time, even on their least personally abusive behavior. And that is because they lack integration. 

They are a party of people under one roof, and that roof is their skull. 

They have extreme, survival-driven, rigid, maladaptive personality parts. And those parts lack any variety of cohesion or collaboration. Which means, we’re dealing with many humans, represented by the face of only one, and they may have extremely different thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and behaviors from one another.

Leaving us with the impression that we’re dealing with one person who’s continually plotting, scheming, and deceiving us every time we turn our backs… which… yeah, can be true… but, I think it’s wise not to give them TOO much credit. To ascribe TOO much “intention” or “conscious effort” to their ploys. 

Because the fact is, you cannot have integrity without integration. And narcs have significantly to severely dis-integrated psyches. 

In the lit, this is called either a Neurotic personality organization, at the highest end of functioning, in which a person is “mostly integrated, but disintegrates unhealthily in particular areas of life.” A Borderline personality organization – which is split into high and low levels of differing dis-ease and disorder – at the lower level of functioning, in which the individual suffers greater breaks from reality, more isolated personality presentations, and heightened defense mechanisms as a general standard for living life. And bordering the Borderline structuring is Psychopathological personality organization, which is where criminality and the most extreme versions of interpersonal danger lie…. The antisocial and psychopathic individuals amongst us. 

All of these personality structures share at least two things:

1. They describe disorganized, disintegrated psychic spaces. The human contains pockets of fragmented traits, memories, beliefs, desires, goals, needs, and so on. For narcissists, many of those parts were created in the shape of the narcissists who came before them – introjected abusers who remain in their brains, forever… which, thus, spawn the creation of overcompensatory parts, meant to counteract all the shame being spit by those abusive portions of their minds. Long story short: revisit our episodes on fragmented personalities, IFS, and parts. Narcs are full of highly isolated, extreme, rigid ones that do not get along and, when the narcissist is comfortable, strategically mask each other so that the person doesn’t ever have to see the reality of who they really are.
2. They are all, by definition, less than “mature personality functioning.” Which is a level of personality organization that I didn’t bother to mention earlier, because none of the narcs have it… and probably none of US have it, either. No offense. CPTSD problems. 

All of this means? 

Narcissists have unstable, incomplete, extreme versions of “self,” that they use to move through the world.

Those discrepant editions of self are not under our control any more than they are under the narc’s control. We do not CAUSE them to act abusively or defensively. Their behaviors towards us are NOT reflections of us. They’re reflections of the past. 

But, also recognize that the narcissist is not in touch with their mind enough to be enacting a grand master plan of abuse, unless they fall into that level four psychopathological category. The sudden display of their growdier parts are, in most cases, reactionary rather than pro-actionary. 

And, lastly, that narcissists do NOT have this “integrated and authentic sense of self” that we’re all aiming for… UNLESS, that is, they have sufficient external reinforcement to falsely support whatever part of them they desire to see as their full self. 

They have a story (or a million of them) that they’ve created about themself, in order to explain away anything unpleasant and maintain a positive view of their own being. This helps them to manage their disorganized psychic parts when things are going well. But when anything challenges those stories, the narc will fall apart because their perception of self will begin to shake and crumble. Their mind, in all its portioned off bits, has been developed to avoid this very event – to never have to address their shame, pain, or fear. So, as reality begins to filter in and those wounds start to pain them, the narc can fall into a mental, emotional, and/or physical crisis very rapidly. Flying high one day, underground the next. 

UNLESS they can change their environment, to change the feedback they’re receiving from the environment, to convince a reigning part of themself that they are still as great as they previously thought they were. Which is where the manipulation, coercion, and control tactics come in. A desperate attempt to get you to confirm “I’m good though, aren’t I? I’m big and strong and smart, right? You pay me respect and do as I say, don’t you?” 

And if you do not? They discard. 

Whatever relationship existed before? Whatever mutual plans or promises? Whatever values or belief systems you both shared?

Out the window! Because they contain too many dissimilar, reactively developed, highly rigid, personality parts with no centralized sense of self to enable such things as “accountability, honest reflection, or critical thinking,” in order to sustain the personality traits of the person they pretend to be. 

And. Back to that “they do not have a MATURE personality organization” point…. You might consider the whole song and dance pretty childish. Because it is. Because they contain a multitude of child parts that were never integrated into an adult model, but they masquerade as “the adult they think they should be.” So, in a big way, narcissists are trying to project the person they NEED you to believe they are, all the way down to their oldest, most subconscious, mental and emotional programs. 

Children demand extrinsic validation and reinforcement from others to feel safe. Children use repeat, escalating, behaviors to try to elicit the responses they want from others. Children throw poorly-planned tantrums when their efforts don’t work with no consideration for negative or long term consequences. Children vacillate through emotional and behavioral programs in rapid, reaction to what’s happening around them – or within them – that they don’t have the capacity to understand. And children become vengefully minded when they feel slighted in ways that they assess “unfair” or perceive themselves unable to counteract.

So do narcissists. 

And that’s why to us it appears that they are purposely living nightmares, attempting to drive us into institutionalization, with their unpredictable and often undue (because they’re disconnected from modern reality) behaviors. 

Because they are rigidly programmed in immature, survival-driven ways.

Because those diverse sets of instructions do not interact with each other in order to form a more collected, cohesive, consequentially-wise central personality. 

Because they lack an intrinsically driven sense of self and rely on the stories they make up – about YOU and everything else – to keep functioning. 

Because there is no integrity without integration. 

And narcs have little to none of either one.

Or, at least that’s my perspective. 

Alright, we’re talking a lot about narcs over at patreon.com/traumatizedmotherfuckers in the literature and in real life. Jump in if you’re curious about their defense mechanisms, abilities to make decisions, learning, and ego boundaries – the upcoming shows I have blueprinted for the next few months. 

And hang around if you’re hoping for more connective conversations about this backasswards process of complex trauma recovery, throughout all your parts and then integrated with your real, physical, life. 

Ps – you might want to check out that “messier” public platform, for a freebie episode on using aspects of so-called adaptive narcissism for your OWN integration efforts. My gift to you, if you have the gumption to do a quick search on Spotify. Hey – it’s free!

Til we talk again next time.

Hail YOUR self. Even if the narcs around you set a very disingenuous, disintegrated, example. 

Remember your power – they rely on YOU for their self-supporting story telling. So, play a different character or remove yourself from the tale, altogether rather than aiming for THEIR character development. 

Hail your autonomy and choice in having or ending relationships. 

Hail Archie and Marcus Barks.

And Cheers y’all.