When it comes to #Narcissism, most individuals who have any level of #NPD (or “Narcissistic Personality Disorder”) do not have an emotional IQ much older than the age of 6. If they are a malignant narcissist or a #narcopath, one can also expect a dangerous level of cleverness to their personality (but with the irrationality of a toddler) when having to deal with them intellectually speaking or in any emotional sense.
The Atlantic reports, “The notion that people smarts might help you succeed got a boost a quarter century ago, when the phrase “emotional intelligence”, or EI, entered the mainstream.” Since the phrase officially made its way into both pop culture and academic fields back in 1990 following the release of a widely read study [1], the term was popularized by Daniel Goleman’s 1995 book [2].
“Since then, scores of researchers have shown how being in touch with feelings—both your own and other people’s—gives you an edge: compared with people who have average EI, those with high EI do better at work [3], have fewer health problems [4], and report greater life satisfaction [5]…” shared the source in a recent news post titled “When Emotional Intelligence Goes Wrong.”
Out Of The Fog, a Narcissistic Abuse Recovery forum, shares news and reviews about how to go gray rock and overcome trauma. Regarding emotional IQ, one of their forum members shared the following explanation of what EQ — as opposed to IQ — actually is:
Emotional Intelligence Consists of Four Main Attributes
Self-awareness – The ability to recognize our own emotions – how they affect our thoughts and behaviors, identify our strengths and weaknesses, and cultivate self-confidence.
Self-management – The ability to control impulsive feelings and behaviors, manage our emotions in healthy ways, take initiative, follow through on commitments, and adapt to changing circumstances. Emotional resilience and flexibility.
Social awareness – The ability to understand the emotions, needs, and concerns of other people, pick up on emotional cues, feel comfortable socially, and recognize the power dynamics in a group or organization. Empathy.
Relationship management – The ability to develop and maintain good relationships, communicate clearly, inspire and influence others, work well in a team, and constructively manage conflict.
All people who are Narcissists by nature are physically incapable of experiencing a full range of emotions. If they are Narcissists by nurture, they may be able to have behavioral impact awareness moments (where they regret being caught for an act), but the remorse they feel comes from an egocentric place due to misguided and/or illogical, toxic, and dysfunctional thinking habits alone.
EQ versus NQ (Narcissist Quotient).
It’s always important to keep in mind that when one is forced to deal with a Narcissist or Cluster B personality type person (in general) that the narcy person’s pinnacle of self-actualization Abraham Maslow defined is not likely to be the same as a person whose temperament falls into the range of normal.
Narcissistic personalities are all so egocentric they truly have a hyper-inflated sense of both grandiosity and self-importance. Constantly attention seeking to fill an emotional void created by their brain echoing nonsensical “me, me, me” gibberish during times other more average and functional humans would be relishing the quiet time to do some self-reflecting, they manufacture chaos and make people feel either crazy or frustrated everywhere they go.
A pervasive sense of misguided and self-centered entitlement plagues the Narcissist, then forces them (at least as the excuse they tell themselves in their own mind) to lash out and rage at non-worshiping others. They are the ultimate crazy monarch figure, emperors, empresses, and overlord drama queens, these ones.
Narcissistic Abuse Recovery is possible.
Once you learn to spot the warning signs someone has a personality disorder, avoiding them in real life by identifying the red flags early on begins to get easier. While there is no point obsessing about the past, there is also no valid reason why a person cannot or should not self-educate themselves about various personality types and conscientiously seek to avoid becoming a narcissistic supply source for an emotional predator.
Simply understanding that no matter how old they are (chronologically) people with NPD seldom mature emotionally above the age of six can be profoundly empowering for a victim of narcissistic abuse who has been targeted. Rather than taking an abusive person’s words to heart and emotionally and psychologically abusing themselves with their abuser’s blame-shifting and re-victimizing gaslighting words, victims can shift from the mentality of having been harmed to having learned.
In that moment, one ceases to be a victim and embraces the “survivor” role of the lifelong learner.
At that moment, the most fragile and defeated among us rise up, take a deep gasping breath and notice the sun is still rising and setting in all its glory.
That is the moment… THIS IS THE MOMENT.
Staying focused in the immediate NOW perspective.
When you make the switch from thinking of yourself as a product of your environment, you start to figure out who you are or were before the world and toxic family members polluted your mind, body, and soul with their dysfunctional habit patterns. Before someone selfishly told you NO — to something they could have just as easily and more lovingly agreed to or encouraged your self-confidence by saying YES.
That is the moment strong people who are victimized eventually come to recognize.
That is the moment the mind, heart, body, and soul make a cosmic shift. That is the moment you develop empathy — rather than sympathy — for others. That is the moment you become a survivor by wholeheartedly embracing your success after spending sometimes years or decades of your life living wracked with shame, guilt, or paralyzing fear due to mentally and emotionally embracing the concept of “victimhood”.
Survivors embrace the journey in all its glorious dark and light spectral parts. Keep the faith and educate. Trust your intuition… and always remember you have been able to survive 100% of your bad days thus far. Mother Theresa did not walk around complaining about her thighs or all the people in the world who made disrespectful jokes, remarks, or comments about her.
Mother Theresa did not walk around complaining about her thighs or all the people in the world who made disrespectful jokes, remarks, or comments about her. Forget that stick figure Bill character. Be more like her. She’s got time for people, lots to do, sets healthy boundaries, and is not afraid to go gray rock and no contact when and if it comes time to socially estrange or freeze out an abuser.
