Sometimes human beings do things to themselves that don’t immediately make sense. Like self-harm or self-sabotage. One of the most common is self-criticism. As part of narcissism, it can be quite a surprising thing to find. But it has hidden parts to play.
My partner is a musician, and a few days ago we talked about why we don’t feel joy when people praise our work. On one hand, we work hard to impress with what we do, and when the success we aimed for finally comes, it feels… fine. If we’re satisfied and can live with the consequences, that’s good. But we don’t feel joy — it’s like we’re not surprised by it, yet we still wonder if we’re missing something by not allowing praise to really reach us. As if everyone who enjoys receiving compliments is somehow wrong about life, and we’re the ones who have it right. That's how strong we feel about our inner judge :)
Thanks Valentina thats interesting and definitely sounds connected. I used to produce electronic music and can identify with that feeling. I can think of only one single time when i heard my music played in a club without feeling disappointed. Its almost as if the striving for recognition achieves a goal for us more than the recognition does.
This is wonderful analysis. Self criticism is one of the root cause of depression. I understand it as my Mother’s voice that still lives inside me and consistently criticizes me, never appreciates me. It is great to hear from you about how extremely self critical narcissists are and they pass that on to people who are close to them. I look forward to your posts and learn so much from them. Recently I revisited your post where you have compared Narcissistic people and psychotic individuals. You had mentioned that psychotic individuals become dis functional. I can identify with that. How come narcissists never become dis functional individuals? They never look within and believe that they are the perfect versions of themselves in their mind.
Thanks Bhavina, I think you are referring to my article about deception? In narcissism there is disfunction. But the strange thing with narcissism is that some areas of life become disfunctional, whilst in other areas, the person can perform well because of their narcissism. And then sometimes their whole functioning breaks down when their strategies for being great become too costly (for example drug addiction, prison). In psychosis, intellectual performance is often affected, but in narcissism, intellectual performance can be the focus of mental activity whilst emotional intelligence, (which we dont measure so much as a performance), is impaired. The article below goes into the difference in intellectual vs emotional impairment in narcissism.
My partner is a musician, and a few days ago we talked about why we don’t feel joy when people praise our work. On one hand, we work hard to impress with what we do, and when the success we aimed for finally comes, it feels… fine. If we’re satisfied and can live with the consequences, that’s good. But we don’t feel joy — it’s like we’re not surprised by it, yet we still wonder if we’re missing something by not allowing praise to really reach us. As if everyone who enjoys receiving compliments is somehow wrong about life, and we’re the ones who have it right. That's how strong we feel about our inner judge :)
Thanks Valentina thats interesting and definitely sounds connected. I used to produce electronic music and can identify with that feeling. I can think of only one single time when i heard my music played in a club without feeling disappointed. Its almost as if the striving for recognition achieves a goal for us more than the recognition does.
This is wonderful analysis. Self criticism is one of the root cause of depression. I understand it as my Mother’s voice that still lives inside me and consistently criticizes me, never appreciates me. It is great to hear from you about how extremely self critical narcissists are and they pass that on to people who are close to them. I look forward to your posts and learn so much from them. Recently I revisited your post where you have compared Narcissistic people and psychotic individuals. You had mentioned that psychotic individuals become dis functional. I can identify with that. How come narcissists never become dis functional individuals? They never look within and believe that they are the perfect versions of themselves in their mind.
Thanks Bhavina, I think you are referring to my article about deception? In narcissism there is disfunction. But the strange thing with narcissism is that some areas of life become disfunctional, whilst in other areas, the person can perform well because of their narcissism. And then sometimes their whole functioning breaks down when their strategies for being great become too costly (for example drug addiction, prison). In psychosis, intellectual performance is often affected, but in narcissism, intellectual performance can be the focus of mental activity whilst emotional intelligence, (which we dont measure so much as a performance), is impaired. The article below goes into the difference in intellectual vs emotional impairment in narcissism.
https://open.substack.com/pub/simonrogoff/p/where-are-all-the-dumb-narcissists?r=27zldx&utm_medium=ios
Thanks Neural Foundry