A
little personality quirk like Passive aggression seems such a harmless
little personality tick but it can explode into a dangerous stuff if it
is accompanied by huge levels of rage and aggression, and
a third element, the scariest one of all: NARCISSISM.
If
you have a loved one whom you suspect has a self involved or ‘narcissistic’
personality, it might be helpful if you could read a description of those
personality characteristics. They are listed in the “Diagnostic and Statistical
Manual of Mental Disorders” published by the American Psychiatric Association.
Criteria
For Narcissistic Personality Disorder:
A
pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), the need for
admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present
in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following
syndromes:
1) A
grandiose sense of self-importance- someone who exaggerates achievements
and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate
achievements.
2) Preoccupied
with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty or love.
3) Believes
that he or she is “special” and unique and can only be understood by, or
should associate with, other special or high-status people or institutions.
4) Requires
excessive admiration.
5) A
sense of entitlement—unreasonable expectations of especially favorable
treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations.
6) Interpersonally
exploitative—takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends.
Feels that others should serve him.
7) Lacks
empathy—is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs
of others.
8) Often
is envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her.
(Author’s note: This of course is a deluded narcissist. But even a degenerated,
incompetent narcissist has these status issues and lives in the continual
fear of all the scorekeeping going on. I.e. ‘I keep score, they keep score,
everyone is keeping score of the Status quotient.’ The most upset narcissist
is one who feels his status, qualities, talents, IQ and his ‘cume’ are
all not strong enough. That he’s deficient for even his own requirements.
This one fears that, (suspects that) the world may get ‘on’ to his deficiencies.
That is an extremely touchy narcissist. So Number eight is about ‘counting’
keeping score of status.
9) Shows
arrogant, haughty behavior or attitudes.
REMIND
YOU OF ANYONE YOU KNOW? Remember, it only takes FIVE of these 9 to qualify
as a narcissist.
If
these self involved qualities are combined with aggression, especially
overt physical aggression, you have the formula for a dangerous, sociopath
and a violent person. Dangerous to others. Add some degree of stupidity,
and you may even have a reactive bully who beats his family up or in a
woman, she suddenly SLUGS somebody in rage, often parents or weak people,
seniors.. Add sexual psychopathy to all of the above, you getthe
serial murderer.
Aggression
by itself, without narcissism, is not as dangerous. Many aggressive people
know what others feel so they are capable of repenting after hurting, and
slowly gaining a desire not to hurt people. A narcissist does not know
or care what others feel. He’s numb to empathy. That is why, when this
element is added to other quirks, you can get dangerous people who shouldn’t
be on the street.
Spring
of 2011, the Head of the IMF was at a posh, NYC hotel, came out of shower
naked, found the CHAMBERMAID bent over his bed. He tried to rape her, but
was there sociopath intent or had he just spaced out, assumed it was the
usual callgirl in the chambermaid costume that he’d ordered thousands of
times over his life. Was it an Alzheimer-y ‘senior moment’ or the behavior
of a rogue elephant?
I studied a color photo which was online of IMF's
Strauss holding Bush Jr’s hand. I
noted that the IMF CHIEF's super pale/ white hand, seen in the photo (which
you can google image) compared
to the obviously bright red hand of W BUSH was a clear indication of poor
capillaryaction in the extremities,
i.e. hands, feet and BRAIN. Maybe the part he exposed to hotel maid isn't
considered an extremity by the body. Some seniors, when they start to fade,
all the engorgement left is THERE. Nature's attempt to squeeze the last
piece of biological toothpaste out of the tube. Progeny at all cost. This
poor guy gets out of shower, comes into his hotel room naked, and that
gorgeous Latina maid is there? Dressed in the maid costume? He'd done that
play-acting a thousand times before with hookers, so why can't this be
considered NOT GUILTY by reason of TEMPORARY INSANITY?
As
a healer of minds, it is important for you to treat the underlying organic
condition sometimes, not just take loony behavior as a natural criminal,
sociopath tendency and assume an aberrated mind. That IMF boss needs a
stroke prevention diet to get capillaries clear up there. And down there.
Exercise with supplements like cayenne and niacin to clear out the clog.
Narcissism
is a bother by itself, but if there’s chronic, unresolved rage, alongside
it, watch out!
Relative
to the dangers of this modern world, I’m certain we’re all holding a mental
picture from recent headlines, things like Kozynski planting bombs, or
the Atlanta park where someone planted bombs in a crowd. Then there are
people who shoot guns inside McDonalds, or from atop the clock tower, killing
hundreds of students at Texas university (it happened in the fifties, we
oldies remember that one.) You would remember all the students who shoot
up schools anually, or kill the teachers..
Ihave
some small experience with lunacy gained through my son who now is in a
state mental hospital. His only symptom was passive aggression, and that
only for the year before his entry into Patton Hosp (His arson of boss’s
SHED to signal a flight path to landing planes (he thought) gave the state
the ability to grab him and medicate him, for which I’m grateful for now
I’m told that if the delusionary paths in the brain are allowed to grow
deep and wide, with time, they are more irreversible.
In
his year of covert aggression, at home, he was also classically paranoid,
often delusional. But never violent. Aggressive, yes, but in the mild,
quirky way that I describe in the piece the “SEMINAR
ON HOW TO BE A PASSIVE AGGRESSIVE.”
When
my son crashed and burned, he gave up the car and apartment, he came
to live with me. He didn’t eat/ sleep normally. He was quirky about food,
tried to be vegan and eat soy grits, salad and water. Then he’d top that
off with Dutch beer. When he had to sell his costly car, he’d ride around
the city on bikes. Our city is 40 miles end to end, so it was a lot of
riding! He would get so tired that he’d be delusional. And he’d hold onto
those crooked ‘views’, that there were Bigfoot apes in the canyons that
there was a werewolf under the bridge.(Thoughts
a 10 year old might have but he was in his mid twenties!) Skewed though
these beliefs were, they had come upon him when he was delusional and when
he’d rested and eaten, and was NOT delusional, he still believed the ‘truth’
of what he’d seen. He incorporated them into his VIEW of reality!
ALL
those STUPID, TIMID NEUROTICS that I described in the second half of the
article on PA’s ? They are probably variations of the classic “covert”
or “TIMID” agressive that the WEBSITE I mentioned has on it. The polite,
civilized version of P.A. that most doctors meet.
THEN
there is this OTHER GROUP of crazies, the sociopaths who make life on earth
a misery. They are SMART neurotics who are NOT TIMID (Boston Strangler,
Ted Bundy, The Hillside killers of L.A. Bianchi and Buono who accosted
two of my pals, Sally and Diana who were witnesses. Sally ran naked thru
streets of W. Hollywood.) These bozos are not only overtly aggressive but
also total narcissists. So let’s separate those two bunches right there.
SHY AGGRESSIVE AND BOLD AGGRESSIVE.
Now,
we stand up all the timid stupid neurotics who are eternally covert in
their aggression. They yank tendrils, they don’t pull heads off. THEY ‘get
off ‘ by’irritating’ the folks near them. They deliberately throw a WRENCH
into the works so ‘nothing around them goes smoothly. They enjoy that,
make a ‘living’ doing that. DOES ONE OF THEM OCCASIONALLY MAKE A BIG MISTAKE?
You betcha. Remember the guy who sank the VALDEZ? As he drank his tenth
beer he said to himself ‘screw’em all.’ So what if I’m pilot? I get my
beer. I’m entitled.’ These guys sink us all. Accidentally he killed a trillion
seagulls and a zillion fish and a gadzillion oysters and clams and salmon
up in Alaska and put thousands out of work for a few decades.
HOW
MANY of those petty aggressives are out there having that extra reefer,
that third beer, leaving their post at the Coulee Dam so that the bells
go off and zonko is sleeping and 2000 people downline drown as their houses
are swept away. PUHLENTY. These CHERNOBYLS happen all the time.
There
is a lack of reverence and respect in the petty timid neurotics..just enuf
to make them not be at their post.Do
any of these timid guys ever totally lose it, and instead of just screwing
up, grab a knife and cut out someone’s heart?
I
don’t know. There are spectrums. Bundy was very aggressive, very overt.
My son is very timid. Gentle. He will not only brake for a stray cat, he’ll
take it home and make a life commitment to it.I
envy you your youth, your educational degrees and career. I’ve had a small
life. I don’t know enuf crazies even working my turf as a stargazer in
Hollywood. But if you want to meet a big long line of crazies, get a psych
degree and go into clinical psychology.
Speaking
of which, There was once a book by Dr. Charlotte Wolf, palms of crazy kids
from institutions. I read it (well it was mainly photos and hand prints
) in the 50’s. I was mega impressed, as I was a zealous student palmist.
And all those crazy hands were something NO PALMIST had ever seen. THE
WEIRDNESS was there, right on the palm
Well
here’s where I think there is a divine plan. My son LUIS was born with
that kind of strange palm and a horoscope from HELL. Having read that Dr.
Charlotte Wolf book, I was in shock the day he was born. The signs were
there. 27 years later he bloomed into a nut. He wasn’t a nut earlier. Just
didn’t want to go to school, unsocial, no friends (and handsome as blazes)
A loner.
DO
ALL LONERS become passive aggressives? I don’t know. You however may end
up the premiere psych world worker, writer, author, documentary maker,interpreter
of new research in articles, books, ......the liason between the world
of pop opinion and psych. And I volunteer to be your secretary, typist,
editor, working as I do on PC’s typing fast, using a headset to transcribe
tapes. I am the best ghostwriter around. I know how to market books, the
works.
The
world needs more pop info on this theme,a
way for parents to detect the child ‘recently’ ‘pole vaulted ‘ into the
schizophrenic side of the fence person. This disease strikes in the mid-20’s
most often. That recently ‘tripping out’ person should be very motivated
to quickly self medicate. To get a person who’s enjoying the tripping to
self-medicatewould take books, videos,
films, classes that underscore the dangers of letting the inevitable delusional
process take over.
I
remember a film from the fifties, “Clock Work Orange”. Stanley Kubrick
did it, on reprogramming crazy violent boys with state sponsored aversion
therapy. It’s a classic. Rent it! Recent arrivals int the world of delusions,
schizophrenia, need to get into some new kind of lecture or study group
FAST. One that will train them to consult shrinks, talk stresses over,
discuss their aberated views before they take over,take
medication and ‘manage’ their disease. I personally believe schizophrenia
can be managed. My son has returned to seeming near-normalcy with his medication.
I
worked for and studied with a famed screenwriter with many Oscars who was
a genetic shizoid.Over thirty years
that I worked with him, I heard his history. His mother had been locked
up in a Manhattan loony binright
after his birth and kept there on and off for decades. He didn’t show signs
of the family disease often, but we who knew him—knew that he had it. He
had visions and delusions easily and often, provoked by vodka or gin. He
had a devilish mouth on him, a sense of humor that was devastating. Cruel.
Heartless. He was a card carrying narcissist but over the years, he’d learned
to contain his wit, his killer remarks and hide the religion of self interest.
But occasionally, he’d throw caution to the winds and land zingers on bosses
and co-workers (and this in a mega ego film business) and his behavior
almost got him pushed out of the train. However,he
still pretty much knew how to manage his illness. He ate protein three
times a day to stay grounded, unleashed his drinking at 4 pm so he could
shoot into the psychotic parabola all night, then fall asleep and wake
sane again.
He
earned a lot of money and awards writing his delusions down on paper and
worked til age 85 and died rich at age 90. I was his typist, writing student,
he took me everywhere. (I wish I had taken notes and could have been Boswell
to a real Johnson!) After hearing all his ideas, world concepts, I knew
that he was completely nuts. I saw how paranoid he was about how other
writers in the Guild felt about him. He was allergic to all men in his
profession. In any meeting he couldn’t be certain that he wouldn’t give
his utter contempt away, so he refused to hang out with fellow guild members.
At Guild meetings he had actually reversed the ‘special rights and special
programs for minority writers’ program. Turned it around! Got it taken
away! The absolute height of ungenerousness. The guild was very liberal
and he earned a terrible rep there, ran for office and lost! (Duh.) In
private, he’d tear the gladheart liberals apart. His big mouth almost got
him fired from the Arafat /Rabin bio pic by producer, Ms. Streisand when
she asked him, ‘how do your friends feel about your working with me. What
do they want to know?’ And he couldn’t help himself. He responded, “they
ask which part you’re
playing.” (Meaning Arafat or Rabin.) She didn’t even
smile.
Inappropriate
remarks, racism, paranoia, aggression, delusions, lack of generosity, are
these the features of the schizoid? Or does being a general awful human
being slowly turn you into a mad man. Who was the wiseman who said, ‘whom
the Gods abhor they drive mad.’ Which came first the egg or the chick?
And what if it turns out that all the nasty quirks in humanity are just
insanity? Touchy synapses in the brain, a brain quicker to go into low
blood sugar than other brains. Maybe a trick pancreas. We can induce delusions
in anyone. Take away food and sleep and give caffeine, sugar, alcohol.
The healthy human turns schizoid. Has delusions. Does it follow that all
schizoids are sensitive to brain blood sugar? More sensitive than the rest
of us?
Until
the organic constituents of this disease are understood, the mysteries
of delusion are mapped,organic
brain chemistry is the most probable area to look for clues. Meanwhile,
in this increasingly addicted and sleepless Starbucks generation,
threatening
to give us a tidal wave of madness, prevention is the best bet. Anyone
in the madness-preventing business can expect to make a lot of money and
become quite famous, and attract huge grants from the federal
govm’t. Article by Anita Sands Hernandez astrology at
earthlink dot net
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