Characteristics of Narcissists

Characteristics of Narcissists I observe the character traits of narcissists.

See my post Understanding the Narcissist, His Self-love

Narcissists are very easy to identify if you know what to look for, and even if you are not specifically trying to detect a Narcissist, their overbearing personality makes it clear who they are. The Bible makes it very clear that God hates the arrogant. God specifically challenges the arrogant, that God Himself will make the arrogant and self-uplifted low, or to humble him in the eyes of all. In Mark 7:20-23, arrogance is listed beside and as bad as sexual immorality and murder.

Philippians 2:3 Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.

Proverbs 8:13 The fear of the LORD is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate.

Arrogance and narcissism is the opposite of holiness and piety. The egoist is a person who is constantly in competition with everybody else. He sees life as a struggle, and for him to “win,” he needs to be the constant focus of attention (worship, praise, exaltation, etc.). Narcissists are usually not very good preachers if you think a preacher should center everything on God. Narcissist preachers are always praising what they have done, what they are capable of doing, of their own achievements, glory, etc. And there are a lot of narcissistic preachers out there. You can guarantee yourself that you are looking at a narcissist when he parades his mansion, his private plane, etc. before you. Narcissists always like luxury and to live in pleasure and ease. They rarely put themselves out through hard work, and always there is a reason and a camera for when they do something like hard work. It is for self-promotion purposes.

The narcissist essentially has a world view that the world revolves around him. He is all that is important in the world.

Narcissists do not understand God’s part in their own lives

2 Corinthians 10:12 For we dare not make ourselves of the number, or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves: but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise.

1 Chronicles 29:14 But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort? for all things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee.

1 Corinthians 4:7 For who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?

If everything we have is a stewardship from God, God loaning us these things for a time to see what we do with them, then why boast? Moreover, on what basis can you boast if these were given to you? Even your physical body, strength, talents, abilities etc. are gifts of God to you. It is like playing Monopoly. At the start of the game before the first dice roll, somebody boasts about how much money they have, where is there anything to boast about in that? A person who does that doesn’t understand. But a narcissist does exactly that, and he fantasizes about he, him, and his. It becomes his passion, his obsession, and it reveals that he considers himself as his own god.

The narcissist believes that the world is their possession. Everything is to serve them. They are god in their own eyes, and it is a brutal reality that they fight against that everything and everybody does not just “lie down before them” and worship them.

A Narcissist Demands Others to Worship Him

But his own delusion is not enough for the narcissist, he must interact with other people, and the narcissist is typically an impatience person, because just standing in front of other people, they should realize his greatness and bow before him and praise and exalt him. When they don’t, the narcissist gets mad at them. Pagans!

Narcissists are people that are very difficult to live with. They demand others attend to their lives, while they really have no time, energy, nor desire to help others with their lives. You can hardly even tell with some people in life that they are there. They are quiet, they are content with whatever is offered them, and they are not demanding. The narcissist is poles apart from these kinds of people. They are picky, extreme in their preferences and what they allow into their own lives, and above all, they are demanding. They are always in the limelight. Sometimes they are audible loud, but they are always wanting the attention and the limelight in any setting.

The clear distinction of a narcissist is that the topic of any conversation that they participate in always takes the same turn. While any other topic of conversation can start the conversation, the conversation always has to be manipulated by them to put the focus on the narcissist. He will always bring the conversation back to himself in some way.

Narcissists typically use endorsements of famous and powerful people. To them, this is simply people recognizing that the narcissist is great. If you do not feed into that line for him, then he will mention other people that he would present you with what appears to other famous people who DO RECOGNIZE HIS GREATNESS, that endorse him, or seek to identify with him.

In the mind and world of a narcissist, they are considering themselves to be god. So people who are good in their eyes, recognize and worship them as some kind of god, and so those “followers” of the narcissist are special, elites, and “good.” Those people who do not recognize their greatness, are worthless, deemed nothing, attacked, ignored, and their advice and speech is not worthy of even listening to, much less taking to heart. This also plays out in how the narcissist “works” with other people. If he can use them, then they are desired. If they refuse to bow to his greatness, they are outcasts in his world and mindset. This goes beyond assigning them a classification of “outcast”, the narcissist actually gets angry with these unbelievers in their greatness. They want to see harm befall them.

Social Media was made for the Narcissist

Today’s social media was made for the narcissist. That is exactly what they look for. They want other people to “follow their lives” which is a type of worship of their persons. Their use of social media is very indicative of their thought processes. EVERYTHING THEY DO is as god doing it, so it is important. If the narcissist has a bad experience, he goes to the bathroom even, it is important that everybody knows about it and is foremost in their minds. While the narcissist doesn’t have a clue about “normal people’s normal lives”, they want everybody to be emotional about what they ate for breakfast, what they are doing today, etc. The slightest thing that displeases the narcissist is a major event.

A Narcissist cannot Tolerate Feedback that is not Worship and Exaltation of His Person

When a narcissist does things wrongly, he has to shift the blame to others, and he has to insist on exaltation of his person. He does not accept any criticism. If he cannot control the criticism, he typically acts like a child. “If you say bad things about me, I will take my marbles and go home.” He no longer participates nor does receive criticism. When it comes to accepting he has done something wrong, he finds it difficult to impossible to accept even the possibility of that.

You will very rarely see a narcissist extol the virtues of others. They do not praise others except if it can get them something for themselves, again self-glory.

Narcissists are very adverse to criticism. Why would you criticize god, they think?

Narcissists do not practice “introspection”. This is where a person honestly looks at his own life, what he has done, his character, and finds faults and corrects them. Would god who is perfect in every way find fault with him? Well, first of all, the narcissist is not God. But the point is that their is no self-reflexion to find what is wrong and could be improved. As a human, this makes the narcissist difficult to work with, and as far as working in some relationship with a narcissist, like being an employee under him, it makes life impossible.

When it comes to how they do things, they are perfectionists. They excessively want everything that can be attributed to them to be excellent. They do not do this for the God in heaven, but for “their god“, their own egos.

If you put yourself in the narcissist’s position, in his way of thinking, he can do no wrong because right and wrong are defined by whether it pleases god, the narcissist. That is how he thinks. Whatever happens that turns out wrong, it HAS TO BE the blame of others, not the narcissist. Everything that is good, HAS TO BE in praise to the narcissist.

The narcissist is a very religious person in a way. When you define religion as the worship of god, and then declare that the narcissist is that god that has to be worshiped, then he is totally religious.

Some narcissists are very “loud” in the promotion of themselves, while a few are very quiet about it. They simply put themselves first in every thought. While you may not see these so clearly as narcissists, over time in dealing with them, that becomes very apparent in their character. They couldn’t care less for anybody else. But they show their narcissism by always having to have their way in all matters.

Narcissists are often leaders. It is not that they are better leaders, but leaders are the focal point of a group of people, and they love being that focal point for others to follow them.

Narcissists are eliteists

An elite is somebody special, and usually the reason is non-definable in reality. The king of England is an elite. Why? Because of his forefathers. But what made them elites? We go around in circles because being special is really hard to define. Maybe a child with downs syndrome is special, and he is special because is has something bad that has happened in his life. But even though people give him special treatment, he is looked down upon really.

A narcissist thinks he is elite, “just because.” God cannot be asked to define why he is special. But our true God created everything with a word, and He upholds everything, and He judges everyone. You can go on forever extoling the virtures of our true God, but when you consider narcissists as being gods, you find no place to enter that thinking. There is just nothing special about them except their own pride and arrogance, which is an abomination and not anything good.

Here we also need to observe that at the start, they are not great, and in the progress of time, they are not special in their abilities and talents. They just don’t produce greatness with their own efforts. They are lower than lazy.

The narcissist has no compassion for others

God wants us to consider others as being better than ourselves, but that is the diametric opposite of what a narcissist is. A narcissist cannot put himself in other people’s place and understand how they feel. That would not “fit” their mindset that the narcissist is god himself. The narcissist has to be first and foremost. Narcissists “read” others, their actions, their words, their facial expressions as aggression toward the narcissist’s god, himself.

Philippians 2:3 Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.

God wants us to show our true salvation, the character of God dwelling with us through holiness, pity, and the Holy Spirit. But God evaluates us as to what we really are. He wants to see the qualities of God within us.

Mark 12:30 And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.
Mark 12:31 And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.

While we can extol the virtues that we have, where is the proof? The proof is in how we treat others. In that point, the narcissist greatly fails, because he uses others for his own purposes.

A narcissist cannot understand or experience love as between two people, like the Bible talks about. It ALWAYS HAS TO BE ONE WAY, others loving and worshiping him. For a narcissist to love somebody else, that would be against his religion.

One of the traits of a true Christian is joy. Joy is a good feeling not because of the situations of life that have gone in your personal favor, but because you see a good thing, and feel good about it. This is seen in relationships with other people, and when good things happen to them, a good Christian can feel empathy for them, feel good for them. Usually this results in a greeting, or a word of happiness for their good fortune in life.

A narcissist finds it extremely hard or impossible to feel good about somebody else’s fortune. He has to somehow turn it back to himself, and this is hard. A parent that has a son or daughter that does good in school for their hard work is a difficult situation for the narcissist. “You did good because you are my child, and my genius is coming through even though it is through my children.”

Narcissists are not Team players

Narcissists are control freaks. They have to have a say in all decisions, and many times, they demand that they alone are the ones who understand and should be making the decisions. They have no idea of what a team is, except if you are talking about a support team for the glory of their greatness.

A team pulls toward their forces for the accomplishing of a goal. The narcissist will not join a team as a rule. The team joins them in promoting what the narcissist wants. That is how the narcissist sees he working with other people.

The Narcissist is Reckless

Narcissists are typically very active because they see worship of themselves as the motivating element of their own lives. Therefore, “they must shine their greatness to others.” The actual element here is recklessness, with much irresponsibility, and impulsivity. They want to “be great,” but life doesn’t lend itself so easily to greatness.

Part of the problem for the narcissist is the slowness that others show towards his greatness, and their lack of enthusiasm in making him great in the world’s eyes. So the narcissist has to resort to exploitation, aggression, and deceit to get something like greatness for himself.

Narcissists are not responsible for errors, only Success

The typical character of a narcissist breeds and amplifies itself “on success”. Therefore they are always successful, at least in their own eyes, and all problems are shifted to somebody else.

The problem with narcissists is that they are never responsible for bad decisions or problems. They simply cannot handle it because they are their own god. God never does anything wrong.

Characteristics of Narcissists

See my post Understanding the Narcissist, His Self-love

Narcissists are very easy to identify if you know what to look for, and even if you are not specifically trying to detect a Narcissist, their overbearing personality makes it clear who they are.

 

Characteristics of Narcissists