A little personality quirk like
Passive aggression seems such a harmless little personality tick but it can
explode into a dangerous stuff if it is accompanied by huge levels of rage and
aggression, and a third element, the scariest one of all: NARCISSISM.
If you have a loved one whom you
suspect has a self involved or ‘narcissistic’ personality, it might be helpful
if you could read a description of those personality characteristics. They are
listed in the “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders” published
by the American Psychiatric Association.
Criteria For Narcissistic
Personality Disorder:
A pervasive pattern of grandiosity
(in fantasy or behavior), the need for admiration, and lack of empathy,
beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated
by five (or more) of the following syndromes:
1) A grandiose sense of self-importance- someone
who exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior
without commensurate achievements.
2) Preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited
success, power, brilliance, beauty or love.
3) Believes that he or she is “special” and
unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special
or high-status people or institutions.
4) Requires excessive admiration.
5) A sense of entitlement—unreasonable
expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his
or her expectations.
6) Interpersonally exploitative—takes advantage
of others to achieve his or her own ends. Feels that others should serve him.
7) Lacks empathy—is unwilling to recognize or
identify with the feelings and needs of others.
8) Often is envious of others or believes that
others are envious of him or her. (Author’s note: This of course is a deluded
narcissist. But even a degenerated, incompetent narcissist has these status
issues and lives in the continual fear of all the scorekeeping going on. I.e.
‘I keep score, they keep score, everyone is keeping score of the Status
quotient.’ The most upset narcissist is one who feels his status, qualities,
talents, IQ and his ‘cume’ are all not strong enough. That he’s deficient for
even his own requirements. This one fears that, (suspects that) the world may
get ‘on’ to his deficiencies. That is an extremely touchy narcissist. So Numer
eight is about ‘counting’ keeping score of status.
9) Shows arrogant, haughty behavior or attitudes.
REMIND YOU OF ANYONE YOU KNOW?
Remember, it only takes FIVE of these 9 to qualify as a narcissist.
If these self involved qualities
are combined with aggression, especially overt aggression, you have the formula
for a dangerous, sociopath and a violent person. Dangerous to others. Add some
degree of stupidity, and you may even have a reactive bully who beats his
family up. Add sexual psychopathy to all of these, you get the serial murderer.
Aggression by itself, without
narcissism, is not as dangerous. Many aggressive people know what others feel
so they are capable of repenting after hurting, and slowly gaining a desire not
to hurt people. A narcissist does not know or care what others feel. He’s numb
to empathy. That is why, when this element is added to other quirks, you can
get dangerous people who shouldn’t be on the street.
Relative to the dangers of this
modern world, I’m certain we’re all holding a mental picture from recent
headlines, things like Kozynski planting bombs, or the Atlanta park where
someone planted bombs in a crowd. Then there are people who shoot guns inside
McDonalds, or from atop the clock tower, killing hundreds of students at Texas
university (it happened in the fifties, we oldies remember that one.) You would
remember all the students who shoot up schools anually, or kill the teachers..
I
have some small experience with lunacy gained through my son who now is
in a state mental hospital. His only symptom was passive aggression, and that
only for the year before his entry into Patton Hosp (His arson of boss’s SHED
gave the state the ability to grab him and medicate him, for which I’m grateful
for now I’m told that if the delusionary paths in the brain are allowed to grow
deep and wide, with time, they are more irreversible.
In his year of covert aggression,
at home, he was also classically paranoid, often delusional. But never violent.
Aggressive, yes, but in the mild, quirky way that I describe in the piece the “SEMINAR ON
HOW TO BE A PASSIVE AGGRESSIVE.”
When my son crashed and burned, he
gave up the car and apartment, he came to live with me. He didn’t eat/ sleep
normally. He was quirky about food, tried to be vegan and eat soy grits, salad
and water. Then he’d top that off with Dutch beer. When he had to sell his
costly car, he’d ride around the city on bikes. Our city is 40 miles end to
end, so it was a lot of riding! He would get so tired that he’d be delusional.
And he’d hold onto those crooked ‘views’, that there were Bigfoot apes in the
canyons that there was a werewolf under the bridge. (Thoughts a 10 year old might have but he was in his mid
twenties!) Skewed though these beliefs were, they had come upon him when he was
delusional and when he’d rested and eaten, and was NOT delusional, he still
believed the ‘truth’ of what he’d seen. He incorporated them into his VIEW of
reality!
ALL those STUPID, TIMID NEUROTICS
that I described in the second half of the article on PA’s ? They are probably
variations of the classic “covert” or “TIMID” agressive that the WEBSITE I
mentioned has on it. The polite, civilized version of P.A. that most doctors
meet.
THEN there is this OTHER GROUP of
crazies, the sociopaths who make life on earth a misery. They are SMART neurotics
who are NOT TIMID (Boston Strangler, Ted Bundy, The Hillside killers of L.A.)
These bozos are not only overtly aggressive but also total narcissists. So
let’s separate those two bunches right there. SHY AGGRESSIVE AND BOLD
AGGRESSIVE.
Now, we stand up all the timid
stupid neurotics who are eternally covert in their aggression. They yank
tendrils, they don’t pull heads off. THEY ‘get off ‘ by’irritating’ the folks
near them. They deliberately throw a WRENCH into the works so ‘nothing around
them goes smoothly. They enjoy that, make a ‘living’ doing that. DOES ONE OF
THEM OCCASIONALLY MAKE A BIG MISTAKE? You betcha. Remember the guy who sank the
VALDEZ? As he drank his tenth beer he said to himself ‘screw’em all.’ So what
if I’m pilot? I get my beer. I’m entitled.’ And they sink us all. Accidentally
he killed a trillion seagulls and a zillion fish and a gadzillion oysters and
clams and salmon up in Alaska and put thousands out of work for a few years.
HOW MANY of those petty aggressives
are out there having that extra reefer, that third beer, leaving their post at
the Coulee Dam so that the bells go off and zonko is sleeping and 2000 people
downline drown as their houses are swept away. PUHLENTY. These CHERNOBYLS
happen all the time.
There is a lack of reverence and
respect in the petty timid neurotics..just enuf to make them not be at their
post. Do any of these timid guys ever
totally lose it, and instead of just screwing up, grab a knife and cut out
someone’s heart?
I don’t know. There are spectrums.
Bundy was very aggressive, very overt. My son is very timid. Gentle. He will
not only brake for a stray cat, he’ll take it home and make a life commitment
to it. I envy you your youth, your
educational degrees and career. I’ve had a small life. I don’t know enuf
crazies even working my turf as a stargazer in Hollywood. But if you want to
meet a big long line of crazies, get a psych degree and go into clinical
psychology.
Speaking of which, There was once a
book by Dr. Charlotte Wolf, palms of crazy kids from instiutions. I read it
(well it was mainly photos and hand prints so I scanned it) in the 50’s. I was
mega impressed, as I was a zealous student palmist.
Well here’s where I think there is
a divine plan. My son LUIS was born with that kind of strange palm and a
horoscope from HELL. Having read that Dr. Charlotte Wolf book, I was in shock.
The signs were there. 27 years later he bloomed into a nut. He wasn’t a nut
earlier. Just didn’t want to go to school, unsocial, no friends (and handsome
as blazes) A loner.
DO ALL LONERS become passive
aggressives? I don’t know. You however may end up the premiere
psych world worker, writer, author,
documentary maker, interpreter of new
research in articles, books, ......the liason between the world of pop opinion
and psych. And I volunteer to be your secretary, typist, editor, working as I
do on PC’s typing fast, using a headset to transcribe tapes. I am the best
ghostwriter around. I know how to market books, the works.
The world needs more pop info on
this theme, a way for parents to detect
the child ‘recently’ ‘pole vaulted ‘ into the schizophrenic side of the fence
person. This disease strikes in the mid-20’s most often. That recently
‘tripping out’ person should be very motivated to quickly self medicate. To get
a person who’s enjoying the tripping to self-medicate would take books, videos, films, classes that underscore the
dangers of letting the inevitable delusional process take over.
I remember a film from the fifties,
“Clock Work Orange”. Stanley Kubrick did it, on reprogramming crazy violent
boys with state sponsored aversion therapy. It’s a classic. Rent it! Recent
arrivals int the world of delusions, schizophrenia, need to get into some new
kind of lecture or study group FAST. One that will train them to consult
shrinks, talk stresses over, discuss their aberated views before they take
over, take medication and ‘manage’
their disease. I personally believe schizophrenia can be managed. My son has
returned to seeming near-normalcy with his medication.
I worked for and studied with a
famed screenwriter with many Oscars who was a genetic shizoid. Over thirty years that I worked with him, I
heard his history. His mother had been locked up in a Manhattan loony bin right after his birth and kept there on and
off for decades. He didn’t show signs of the family disease often, but we who
knew him—knew that he had it. He had visions and delusions easily and often,
provoked by vodka or gin. He had a devilish mouth on him, a sense of humor that
was devastating. Cruel. Heartless. He was a card carrying narcissist but over
the years, he’d learned to contain his wit, his killer remarks and hide the
religion of self interest. But occasionally, he’d throw caution to the winds
and land zingers on bosses and co-workers (and this in a mega ego film
business) and his behavior almost got him pushed out of the train.
However, he still pretty much knew how
to manage his illness. He ate protein three times a day to stay grounded,
unleashed his drinking at 4 pm so he could shoot into the psychotic parabola
all night, then fall asleep and wake sane again.
He earned a lot of money and awards
writing his delusions down on paper and worked til age 85 and died rich at age
90. I was his typist, writing student, he took me everywhere. (I wish I had
taken notes and could have been Boswell to a real Johnson!) After hearing all
his ideas, world concepts, I knew that he was completely nuts. I saw how
paranoid he was about how other writers in the Guild felt about him. He was
allergic to all men in his profession. In any meeting he couldn’t be certain
that he wouldn’t give his utter contempt away, so he refused to hang out with
fellow guild members. At Guild meetings he had actually reversed the ‘special
rights and special programs for minority writers’ program. Turned it around!
Got it taken away! The absolute height of ungenerousness.The guild was very
liberal and he earned a terrible rep there, ran for office and lost! (Duh.) In
private, he’d tear the gladheart liberals apart. His big mouth almost got him
fired from the Arafat /Rabin bio pic by producer, Ms. Streisand when she asked
him, ‘how do your friends feel about your working with me. What do they want to
know?’ And he couldn’t help himself. He responded, “they ask which part you’re
playing.” (Meaning Arafat or Rabin.) She didn’t even smile.
Inappropriate remarks, racism,
paranoia, aggression, delusions, lack of generosity, are these the features of
the schizoid? Or does being a general awful human being slowly turn you into a
mad man. Who was the wiseman who said, ‘whom the Gods abhor they drive mad.’
Which came first the egg or the chick? And what if it turns out that all the
nasty quirks in humanity are just insanity? Touchy synapses in the brain, a
brain quicker to go into low blood sugar than other brains. Maybe a trick
pancreas. We can induce delusions in anyone. Take away food and sleep and give
caffeine, sugar, alcohol. The healthy human turns schizoid. Has delusions. Does
it follow that all schizoids are sensitive to brain blood sugar? More sensitive
than the rest of us?
Until the organic constituents of
this disease are understood, the mysteries of delusion are mapped, organic brain chemistry is the most probable
area to look for clues. Meanwhile, in this increasingly addicted and sleepless
Starbucks generation, threatening to give us a tidal wave of madness,
prevention is the best bet. Anyone in the madness-preventing business can
expect to make a lot of money and become quite famous, and attract huge grants
from the federal govm’t.
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