Acknowledging Your Inner Narcissistic Sociopath

           For the past ten years there has been a narcissistic sociopath on the national stage in the US. He and the others like him with whom he surrounds himself are a trigger for many. I’m often asked by clients and readers how to deal with this.

When you are emotionally triggered, you are projecting. Projection means you see in others something you don’t want to see in yourself. If you are not triggered, you are merely observing. So, first sort that out. To see someone’s behavior and merely not like it or to feel it does not express your values, is not to be triggered, so it is not projection. But when you have a strong emotional response, you see in someone something you don’t want to see in yourself. And when you get in touch with that, you will no longer project and no longer be triggered. (This is a form of what is known as “shadow work” or dealing with the unacknowledged dark side of your own mind.)

Most psychological disorders are universal traits taken to the extreme. They rise to the level of disorder because they interfere with the normal, healthy function of one’s life—or would if one was not enabled by those close to them. For example, all egos are self-centered, but a narcissist displays ego’s self-centeredness to the extreme. They hold up a mirror to all egos and expose what any ego has the potential to be. What ego does not have an aspect that longs to be free to think only of itself? But what ego also does not want to admit this? Well, a narcissist will admit this and say they are being honest where others are not. There, perhaps, is the trigger: Unacknowledged, undesired admiration. “No, no, that can’t be in me!!!!” But it is. You, too, are self-centered. It’s only a matter of degrees. When you see this, you will see the source of your projection and trigger.

Humans are social animals, and empathy is for the survival of humanity. But as A Course in Miracles points out, ego doesn’t like even human love, human “joining” because it hints at the unity of truth. A sociopath is one who lacks empathy. It might be harder to find your inner sociopath if empathy comes naturally to you. For those who have empathy, a lack of empathy is baffling. It’s just there, how can you not feel it? But there are moments, aren’t there? There are times you overlook someone else’s pain. Not deliberately, maybe, but, well, you just didn’t notice! Just like a sociopath. Or you push the empathy away, you don’t want to feel for them. Take, for example, the followers of the narcissistic sociopath on the national stage. His pull is so strong to his followers because he gives them something they feel they lack: self-esteem. They feel so inadequate that they don’t care that his policies go against their best interests because he fills a void that is larger than anything else for them. Their self-esteem is so low that they feel they can rise up only through cruelty and trampling over others. Now can you empathize? Maybe not with the methods, but with the desperation to feel good about yourself? If you didn’t before, if you didn’t bother to find out what motivated them and just hated them, perhaps you can understand just a little bit what it is to be a sociopath—and maybe you are triggered because you didn’t want to see that it is potential in you, too. And maybe it is envy here, too, because ego doesn’t want to care, it wants to squash the empath in you.

Ego wears masks to hide itself, not just from others, but from itself as well. Those masks hide the source of the triggers. “But I’m a decent person!” Yes, but…not always, right? Maybe you don’t act on dark thoughts and feelings, but they are there and so is the potential to act on them. You make a choice, but you are triggered when others don’t make the same choice because you don’t want to see you made a choice. You are not inherently decent. You’ve grown up, you’ve learned to “tame” the darker side, but it is still there in you. And if you are triggered you are in denial about your darkness and it still has power over you. But if you claim it, if you acknowledge that you, too, are just like them except you made another choice, its power will be gone. 

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