Wednesday 28 October 2015

Monday 19 October 2015

Tony Veitch. A case of Narcissistic Personality Disorder or something more severe.

Tony Veitch today 'Hey guys I woke up this morning to a series of extremely offensive and abusive posts attacking me for my past and asking why so many 'losers' would follow my page. Well, to those sad individuals who continue to try and bring me down, guess what it won't work. I have worked my ass off to re build my life and career and learn from what was a hideous relationship! I am now in the dream job and I'm happy again. The fact that some appear clearly jealous or insecure about their own lives is their issue not mine . It must eat you up that 152,000 people have embraced me and my page. To them I say a massive thank you ! To the haters , send all the abuse you want, I will just ban you and continue to love life again. Time to grow up.'

Found reading this today so incredibly relevant to loads of work I am doing personally and professionally on narcissistic personality disorder and other more extreme dangerous personality disorders such as sociopathology and psychopathology.  I had not heard of this person until this morning when friends reposted his facebook feed as above.  This guy reportedly broke his wife's back in 4 places during an assault and moving on from this maintains somehow how he has been the victim showing absolutely no insight whatsoever into what he has done.

People with narcissistic personality disorder have become trapped at a very low level of functioning. I believe perhaps it comes from our failure to negotiate a very early stage of childhood at a time whereby we 'fairly' felt ourselves to be the centre of the universe at that time. Reasonable for someone of about the age of 1. With hopefully compassion given this stage is negotiated and we learn to realise how others are important etc etc.  There are other theories on this such as whether there is in fact different brain wiring with people who grow up to have fully developed narcissistic personality disorder.

People with this disorder very rarely go into therapy since they believe they are right, as does this person.  They typically pair up with people who have some degree of co-dependence.  We need to be careful not to victim blame here but people will typically be targeted due to some weak point they have.  This will be the person that typically ends up in therapy following the abuse.  We can call this person the co-narcissist.  There is a good article on co-narcissism on the links of my site.  If you feel you may know someone who is a narcissist or feel impacted maybe see this link and see if it resonates with you as a potential co-narcissist  www.newbeginningstherapy.co.nz

Male narcissism plays out typically like this guy.  The brute, male dominator, the centre of attention.  Think of the dysfunctional alpha male, ruling by physical strength.  Narcissists are most commonly male , atleast most commonly identified as male.  I wonder how much of this links in though with how there is a pressure on males to be this kind of alpha male to some degree. So there is some part of negative male pressure and stereotyping somehow links in here somehow.

Female narcissists are similar in that they also totally lack empathy for others (the main identifier of narcissism).  They similarly lack remorse or any insight into their behaviour and everything that happens is always someone elses fault.  They think they are completely right, 100%.  The difference with male narcissism is that in the female type the typical ruling on physical strength is more typically changed to more in the way of emotional manipulation. Although male narcissists do their share of that too. Again this is where our gender conditioning mixes in.  Female narcissists will also play the role of the victim and the martyr to suck people in more typically.

I work with victims of narcissists constantly and just some narcissists. Victims of narcissists leave and feel like they've been through some kind of emotional holocaust and embark on some huge courageous process of healing and recovery to get over what has happened and this realisation that the person they thought they loved was never that person at all.

When I saw this today I felt the infuriation people had when seeing this and the disbelief that still somehow this person identifies as being the victim in it all.  I felt all this too while at the same time I have found on my journey of becoming a therapist this needing to realise how real pathological mental health is.  I noted some of the posts questioning on whether he may be a narcissist.  My assessment would be that he most certainly would be atleast that. Someone who breaks his wife back in 4 places for whatever supposed reason he no doubt has then has the capacity to write about it as a 'hideous relationship' showing no remorse for what 'he' did is certainly diagnosable in my view.

It's important to recognise how much such pathological mental health is around us and how it is such a real thing.  Not to fear monger but just to be aware of who you are friends with and who you are trusting and people who really add to your life or just take as Narcissists do.

Healthy mental health (something not talked about as often as it could be) is characterised by a quest for meaning, a state of balance.  There aren't really the same highs and lows as there are in pathological mental health.  It is more seen to be realistic, centred and an awareness of the joys and also pain of life and an understanding of our own mortality and a realistic feeling of who we are, what we can offer and our value and limitations.  This seems something this guy has little or no sense of at all.

I have wrote various blog posts on becoming centred and finding meaning in our lives and being aware of who we let in etc to avoid being victims to such people. There are some great facebook groups around survivors of narcissistic abuse I'd recommend anyone to have a search if you feel you have been in a relationship with someone like this.  It can be very resonating and therapeutic for people. 

There are also great book resources I would recommend.  'How to do no contact like a boss' is available online. Also 'It's all about him' and 'Its all about her' similarly available online.  It's important to recognise that whereas most identified people with narcissistic personality disorder are men that there is becoming an increase in identified females and victims of female narcissism.

If you see www.lifethatworks.com there are some ideas on dealing with narcissists.  Again to emphasise this is a very real thing. The only way out is no contact and detachment.  There is sadly no reasoning and this is such a hard thing to deal with. Due to them always thinking they are right you cannot really challenge them but only say things that don't buy into their games. The site linked gives good info on that. Empathising and feeling you can help will only lead to you being more and more used up.  The term 'Emotional Vampires' is a great one and there is a book called just that. These people do just bleed you dry.  That's what they thrive on.  They most often target our caring nature and our belief that if we are good to them then they will come through, but they don't.

People detaching from narcissists go through big grief processes and are suddenly able to contact their intuition and have this feeling how their whole world was just taken over.  They are able to recover and then make more constructive relationships. There is light at the end of the tunnel for the victim.

Julia Cameron in 'The artists way' writes well on this from a different space identifying the narcissist as 'the crazy maker' and about removing crazy makers then becoming in touch with our creative selves. Anyone can do a test for narcissism on someone they may be thinking may be one. See here for the test and the strategies.

Note: I am a qualified Counsellor and have studied a degree in Psychology.  I do not give diagnosis professionally as I am not a Psychologist.  However from my professional and personal experience I work with them and will give my opinions and assessments based on this.