Spotting Active Addiction in Friends, Family, and Clients | Sex and Intimacy

Spotting Active Addiction in Friends, Family, and Clients | Sex and Intimacy

Envy

This article is written by Randi Kreger in Psychology Today.  It is part of a series on narcissist personality disorder. I believe that we all have traits of narcissism however we are able to utilise our empathy and compassion - most people are ruled by their narcissist traits as their self esteem and self worth is in tact. Unfortunately in the narcissist's experience this is not the case and there is a lack of insight and awareness. Denial is safer - can't go there.

Envy is at the core of my being: seething, foaming-at-the-mouth, destructive, morbid, and potent. I envy other people's happiness, possessions, accomplishments, status, spot in the limelight, contacts, you name it. I disguise my envy. I rationalize and intellectualize it. I do my utmost to ruin the source of my frustration while pretending to be his or her friend. I lie sleepless at night, rebelling impotently against the injustice of it all, that any one should surpass me, perfect as I am.
My pathological spite drives me to extremes of behavior: I plot and provoke and collude and spread malicious gossip and strive to damage my opponent and reduce him. I imagine his downfall in great detail and revel in his forthcoming misery and humiliation. I spend inordinate amounts of time, resources, and mental energy on nurturing my envy and mollifying it.
Sam Vaknin, author of Malignant Self-Love: Narcissism Revisited
Narcissists must be superior to others in every single way. So when someone else has something they don't have that they want: admiration, status, skills, objects, etc.--the narcissist sees it as a major threat. Like so much else in the narcissistic mind, it is unconscious, discounted and denied, which makes it more treacherous for the object of his envy. Sandy Hotchkiss, author of Why Is It Always About You, says, "To admit to envy would be to acknowledge inferiority, which no good narcissist would ever do."
So what he do? Unless he can take credit for the other person's good fortune (such as "my son must get that great quality from me") he:

• Feels contempt for those he envies and puts them down vociferously--sometimes to their face, sometimes not. This restores his upside down world where he's always on top.
• Can't share in the other person's happiness, which disappoints others or make them doubt themselves. Narcissists even envy others when they're the center of attention for a sad reason (deaths of loved ones, illnesses) and don't support them in their time of crisis.This is often a "light-bulb moment" and the last straw for partners who end the relationship.
• Fantasizes about his own success (another DSM-IV narcissistictrait).
• Indulges in self-soothing activity (gambling drinking, sex) to ward away feelings of defectiveness and shame.

 A vulnerable narcissist says:

When I see a plain-looking man with an attractive woman, I am instantly jealous. What the hell does he have that I don't that he gets that and I get nothing? When I am really down,  looking at couples--not even attractive couples--makes me feel hurt. It's like for all that I have seen and understand about how people work and use it to manipulate them, I can't do the very most basic thing and just find someone who likes me for me. People do it all the time! Everywhere! Anyone! Looks, background, personality (or lack of), job aside, people find mates. I swear if I wasn't a narcissist I would be totally invisible.

 Partners of narcissists say:

• When an article about me was published in the local newspaper, he remarked that it was only in the community section that "only old people read." He will also remark negatively about people at his work who he thinks are unjustly in higher positions than he is, as he is 'much more intelligent' than them.
• When I would go out with my coworkers, who didn't put him on a pedestal, he would constantly text me and want my attention. It was my perception he would do this because he envied me having coworkers who were respected by others.
• All of the people he hung around with were younger than him and looked up to him. He never clicked with people his own age because they didn't think he was better than them.
• To avoid being envious, he was always the first one to purchase a new gadget that came out, and he bought more than one so he could look like a big shot when he gave them away.
• He has told me he is envious of my faith. I can have peace inside and a good attitude even if the world around me is a mess. I know he turns up the charm and brags to make women interested/envious of him and his lifestyle.