I am an extremely selfish, immature, controlling person. I am engaged and want to cure my condition so that I don’t make her life miserable. I am in therapy but I relapse all the time and throw temper tantrums over little things that ruin days. What should I do?
You’d have to find out why you are narcissistic. Carl Jung once said something that I have found to be extremely true in my own life “Neurosis is always a substitute for legitimate suffering”, meaning neurotic behavior (panic, narcissism, egoism, addictiveness, etc) are attempts to avoid the pain of abandonment, powerlessness, humiliation, violation, rejection, etc. that happened in a person’s past.
Look up the concept of ego defense mechanisms, maybe you will find something about what pain and anxiety a person is trying to hide from that could cause narcissism.
That is assuming that is the cause. I have no idea.
Do you have issues with abandonment? I think that is a major cause of borderline personality disorder, I would assume behavior like you are describing (controlling, manipulative, demanding, tantrums) might be tied to that too.
Sure, I had a traumatic childhood… you name it. How am I supposed to use that to cure myself?
I guess it means that you use your destructive narcissistic behaviors because certain events in your current life cause all the painful emotions you’ve repressed from your childhood to come up. So you may be using narcissism to hide from whatever pain and helplessness you’ve repressed as a kid.
The treatment is the slow process of letting those painful emotions come up and sitting with them while feeling compassion for yourself and being in an environment filled with other people who understand what you are going through and won’t judge you. If you have enough self acceptance, self understanding and self compassion you eventually won’t need to use destructive behaviors to hide from your own feelings like fear of violation, abandonment, rejection, etc.
This is assuming my armchair, anonymous psychoanalysis is right.
My advice may be basic, but at least recognizing your behavioral shortcomings is half the battle! Not that we can truly see ourselves, but the pure narcissists I have known have absolutely no sense of how terrible they are towards others. I applaud that you recognize your own behavior. For starters, maybe you can just make a promise each morning to do more for others. And, if you don’t make your goal today, try try again tomorrow. Each day, you’ll be a little more better of a person. Good luck, and don’t give up!
Beyond this, there is always professional help to help you become a better you.
What kind of therapy are you getting?
I wonder if cognitive-behavioural therapy might be a practical option for identifying and managing your moods, thoughts and behaviour?
I agree it’s a great start that you recognise you have a problem and that it affects those around you.
/not a mental health professional by any stretch of the imagination.
You said you’re already getting therapy. Good!
Now, the questions are:
Do you trust your therapist and feel that the method he uses is useful for you? There’s more than just Lay-on-a-couch Freud, or Lets sit in a circle together group therapy. Urscream has gone out of favour, but Watzlawick pioneered in Palo Alto a short-therapy approach that might be useful.
If you lack in any way trust that your therapist or his method is actually helping you, then switching might be best. However, that doesn’t mean that you feel comfortable - therapy is often a painful process.
Do you feel that things are being shaken up and stirred? Do you honestly feel that things are improving compared to before you started? Even if it goes slowly, if there are improvments, keep going! That’s the right way.
Lastly, I can understand that this is not easy, but have you told your partner that
a) you recognize you have problems
b) that you are getting treated
c) but that it will take some time till it’s cured
so that she can have patience with you and will not be scared off by you flipping out?
Because therapy is sometimes painful, stirring up old memories, things can get worse before they get better. It also takes a lot of energy to cope with the therapy, which you then lack towards building the new relationship.
Knowing all that will give her a different choice in her reaction toward your behaviour.
There’s this thing that really sucks for me, but is also the reason I want to marry this girl: She won’t let me get away with it.
She argues with me, tells me I am wrong, have delusions of grandeur. She brings me back to earth. All of which I truly hate her for and will stew over for hours thinking of dumping her. I seem to forget that I want her to be the mother of my children because she is so smart and kind and amazing.
Basically, I do not know what love is or how to love. All I know is how to be abusive and lap up praise and attention. All I see women’s purpose as is to feed my ego and submit to me.
My ex wife was a doormat, but even she eventually left me. My new fiance’ is not a doormat. She expects me to grow up. I am just afraid I am so selfish that I will never get over this resentment for her telling me I’m not perfect and that trying to let go of my childish spoiled ways will somehow kill me or that I just won’t be able to and will end up being miserable and making her and any kids we have miserable too.
I also hate my mother for raising me to be this way. If I had been raised properly I’d not have these problems. Now I have to re-raise myself in my late 30s.
What I really need is a quick way to get myself out of a bad mood when it happens. They tell people to “count to 10”. In my case, even if I counted to 1000 this little demon would just hold the issue and wait for me to finish counting and then shove it back in my face again.
She knows… she’s very patient. It just killed me when she said last night “I just always imagined that the man marrying me would want to.” - I must not be too much of a narcissist because I really felt her pain. I just don’t know how to act like I want to marry her when I am so scared and am processing so much else.
Like, I got all pissed off this morning because I tried to wake her up and wanted to make her breakfast and she said she wanted to sleep for another 10 minutes. I literally stewed over it till she woke and then said “I’m afraid being with you is going to make me miserable for my whole life.” I’m sure she was like “well good morning to you too!” But then she laid with me and cuddled for like an hour and I even made her late for work. I will criticize her for not making enough money at her job but at the same time she could be making so much more if she had a better relationship she didn’t have to worry about. I’m shooting myself in the foot and she is getting caught in the crossfire.
I’ll second the recommendation to check out CBT. It specializes in recognizing and interrupting unproductive/harmful thoughts, and learning how to cope with and replace them with more accurate observations. It sounds like you’re experiencing a lot of that, stewing over things and then bursting out with big pronouncements of stuff you’ve built up in your head. Search Amazon for cognitive behavioral therapy workbooks.
Well, it looks like you’re making a good start. As others have said, knowing you have a problem and wanting to fix it is half the battle.
I am so not a qualified therapist, and definitely not your therapist, but I can’t help noticing a couple of things. First, it looks as though you’re feeling under a certain amount of time pressure to fix this problem: you want to marry this woman, and are you scared you’ll lose your chance if you can’t get over yourself fast enough?
It’s good to have an emotional incentive to improve, but always remember that you can’t start from anywhere except where you are right now. There’s no magic way to solve your problems immediately. If she loves you enough and has enough confidence in you to help you wait and work to the point where you can be a decent and loving husband, that’s awesome. If she doesn’t, that will suck, but it won’t be your fault or her fault. We have all missed chances in our lives due to just not being ready for them, and we have to accept that that can happen. (Hope it doesn’t happen to you, though!)
Second, I know this will be difficult, but it’s probably most constructive to spend as little time as you can manage hating your mother. You know, some people are born with strong psychological tendencies of one sort or another that almost amount to full-blown emotional disability. There’s no guarantee (at least not from where I’m sitting, i.e., firmly mired in complete ignorance about you and your personal history) that it was your mother’s parenting style that made you this way. It’s possible that you might have turned out abusive and needy even if she had treated you differently, just because of innate psychological issues that you would not have been able to resolve before adulthood anyway.
Or, maybe you wouldn’t have. In any case, there’s nothing that either you or your mother can do to change your childhood now, so your best bet is to try to stay away from blame and resentment as much as possible, and use your fundamental intelligence, integrity and good-heartedness to lift yourself up from where you are.
As for a “quick fix” for a bad mood: IME, there isn’t a quick fix for a bad mood, but there can be one for bad behavior. Have a serious talk with yourself (and your therapist, and your girlfriend) about what kinds of response to a frustrating or pissing-off situation are acceptable. And then keep reminding yourself that those are your standards and you’re not going to fall short of them.
Yes, I know that you want to break free from even thinking “YOU FUCKING BITCH WHY ARE YOU PISSING ME OFF SO MUCH I HATE YOU GODDAMMIT!!!” when she inadvertently trips your hair-trigger temper. But your immediate task is not to avoid thinking it, but rather to avoid saying it (and similar things like “you’ll make me miserable for my whole life”, well thanks jerk, love you too).
You are (or are becoming) a mature and decent grown-up, and you do not throw tantrums like a toddler when you don’t immediately get something you want. Hold fast to that, and even if your inner toddler is having the mother of all screaming fits inside you, he cannot make you descend to his level.
And the miracle of it is that when you persevere in not letting the inner toddler dictate your behavior, his tantrums will start to get weaker and he will gradually have less control over your thoughts. You will come to believe that who you really are is more the grown-up than the toddler, and you won’t need to rely on him to express your emotions.
Good luck. Don’t give up.
Assuming you are in the U.S. and curious about CBT you can start here:
http://nacbt.org/searchfortherapists.aspx
I don’t think you can be ready for a committed relationship - marriage and children - until you get a handle on this. It is totally excellent that you realise there’s a problem - but you do not sound, to me, like someone willing and able to enter marriage and fatherhood yet.
I’d also figure out a way to reconcile your rage and blame towards your mother. Because if you don’t it will continue to taint every relationship you have. That is some toxic shit right there, and at some point you need to gain control and power over your emotions, otherwise you will forever blame your female partner instead of taking responsibility.
Right now you are not taking control and responsibility. In fact it looks limke part of the reason you “love” your fiancee is because she takes on that role for you. Leaving you again a victim and not responsible for how you feel. Right?
Seems to me you are starting to take some healthy steps towards being a self-actualized adult, but you have a ways to go yet.
Stop being a dick?
Stop laying blame on other people while you’re at it. There are millions of people out there who had shitty parents that get up every morning and manage to go the whole day without being assholes.
Find why you let yourself do that, find the cure.
Moved from GQ to IMHO. Opine away.
samclem, Moderator
You’re in therapy to learn about your feelings and how to deal with them. But what you can do right now, conciously and deliberately, is control your behavior.
The first thing you can do is, whenever you get mad because something isn’t going your way, STFU.
The next thing you can do is, whenever you feel the need to belittle and criticize her, STFU.
You’re an adult. You’ve probably figured out by now that screaming at a cop when you get pulled over, or screaming at your boss over a work issue is not productive, is not going to get you what you want and will most likely get you in trouble. So, I hope, you’ve learned to control your behavior in professional relationships. Try doing the same thing in your personal relationships.
How did you get the label “Narcissistic” anyway? From my understanding narcissists don’t have any understanding of their own problems and don’t care anyway. If your therapist gave you this label, is she or he a psychiatrist who can diagnose such personality disorders?
Maybe the counselor said that you have some narcissistic tendencies. That’s a little different. The fact that you can see and acknowledge your own unpleasant and unacceptable behaviors is very hopeful.
Your problem sounds more like your temper rather than just selfishness. Have you every read a book on how to fight fairly? There really are some practical “rules” for this sort of thing that make sure that both of you can communicate and be heard without wrecking each other.
You might also want to see an endocrinologist. Sometimes this isn’t all about your background. Focus on the present.
In addition to all the good advice and insights offered here in this thread, I would also suggest that it will be very beneficial for both you and your girlfriend in the long-term if you wait a couple years before marrying and a couple more before having children. Just sayin’.