Narcissistic personality disorder and its association with suicide

A narcissist is a person who can be described as being so much preoccupied with matters of their personal adequacy, prestige and power. In most cases, they are self centered, thinking more and highly about themselves and are less ‘mindful’ of others. Therefore, narcissistic disorder is a personality condition in which the affected individual is characterized by a high sense of self-relevance, inflated need for admiration, extreme cases of self-involvement, and lack of empathy for others. Most of the individuals who are very successful in life are in nearly all cases are considered as being narcissist. Not all however can be categorized as being in this category but if their behavior which reflects the characteristics of this group of people persists for a good period of time they automatically fall in this category.

This condition occurs to individual mainly in their later adulthood or adolescent ages most commonly due the low self esteem that result at such ages. The main problem encountered by those affected by this abnormal personality behavior is the existing gap between the ideal self and the real self. Since they work to maintain their ego, anxiety breeds up leading to development of self defensive mechanisms so that they can at least maintain the ego, which unfortunately turns out to be disastrous on their part. Vulnerability in self-esteem makes those with such a disorder too much sensitive to criticism and or defeat. Although sometimes they may never show it outwardly, criticism haunts these individuals leaving them with a feeling of humiliation, emptiness, hollowness, and degradation. In other circumstances, they react with rage or defiance as defensive mechanisms. Though the feeling of low self esteem sets in later in life, there some of the basic foundational causes, which happen mainly in the initial stages of human development that are not dealt with then, but are later on as a person grows to adulthood they manifested leading to the suicidal attempts.

Permissive parents who time and again keep on giving excessive praise to the child, makes most of such children to grow up with an unrealistic view of themselves. They think that they have the qualities that there parents said to them thy posses yet its untrue. As this persists, some may even relax in working hard in achieving their dreams in life because they grow up believing they are geniuses and need less effort to attain success. However, in life parents will not be there always. as the reality unfolds later in life, they can label themselves as failures since their ‘expectations’ have not been attained and some can be tempted to believe that death is their best place to grant them rest from the ridicule they might receive from their peers.

In addition, if a child is idealized, it can also lead to such personality disorder. An idealized child grows up in life with an undoubted expectation that such a pattern will never come to a stop. It may compel the child into ignoring their self-expression in the endeavor to meet the targets and expectations set by the parent so that they can win their love and approval and prioritization. This separates the child from the real self and unluckily the self has to come to manifestation one tome in life. Any departure from these states triggers pain which can lead to pro-gressive “giving up” (Joffe & Sandler, 1965). The later gap which exists between the ideal self–state and the contrasting unfolding true development of life can force an individual into a state powerlessness and worthlessness. This can be a major driving force to the condition of absolute giving up. Finally, an individual can make up their minds to terminate their lives so that they can do away with or avoid these embarrassing states of giving up and the thoughts of failure.

Due to their characteristics, these types of individuals tend to have very extreme expectations in life especially with the changes which come with the adolescent stage of development (Baumeister, 1990). However, when not attained, there is a psychological pain associated with the inability to meet such extreme self-expectation. At such an age, when one’s strength to work towards such dreams fades it can be manifested as a perceived inability to achieve previously achieved goals, responsibilities, or physical accomplishments. The feeling associated with such a state where someone is in a position to judge him as a useless chap is unbearable to more adults. A person views their life as a complete waste and no sort of encouragement can not help come out, in some extreme cases. This idle yet thoughtful mind with a lot of concentration of failure analysis is crisscrossed by thoughts of suicidal ‘solutions’, some which are executed.

Failure to impose adequate discipline by parents can also contribute adequately to narcissism. A child would think that most of the wrong things they do are actually right which not the case is. Normally a child at the age of six months has the capability to differentiate between good and wrong. Life however, has its own way of making some important principles osf living clear from experience. When such truths dawns at an individual later in life, there arises mixed feelings of neglect and absence of true love from the parents. This may lead an individual to indecent behavior such as drug and substance abuse. They turn to such activities in order to find solace which does not turn to be true. If all does not go well, they attempt suicide because they think that the world doe not love and need them.

Narcissism is partly a product of our present times and our current value system. This final state attained, where the individual victim becomes almost entirely separated from reality, can be a means of communicating with or getting closer to the spirit world believe can result in demonic possession and the final death. In addition, when one has this disorder, the constant feelings of shame, humiliation and self-criticism may be closely linked with social withdrawal, mood depression.

In conclusion, narcissism is a case that needs some therapeutically intervention before it worsens later on in a persons life. Such people if detected earlier in life need to be given adequate, consistent and relevant guidance and counseling sessions to ensure that they do not reach the suicidal states.

List of references;

Joffe, W.G., &Sandler,J.(1965). Notes on pain, depression, and individuation. Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 20, 394–424.

Baumeister RF: Suicide as escape from self. Psychol Rev 1990; 97:90–11