The Narcissist Formula: You Get to Choose How You Lose

No matter how you try, you can’t get narcissists to look at themselves. Weird, right? Named after the mythical Narcissus who can’t stop gazing at his own reflection, narcissists will do anything to avoid self-reflection. They’re more vampire than vain. Vampires can’t be seen in mirrors. Mirrors scare them. Proof there’s no one home.

Trying to get a narcissist to look at themselves is like trying to reach a human for customer support. You get bounced from one frustrating voice bot to the next. No satisfaction. “I want to talk to a human!”

Narcissists keep changing the subject to whatever keeps that keeps attention off of them. It’s not that you’re talking to a brick wall but trying to reach someone hiding deep inside a hall of mirrors. All reflections point to you, not them. It’s all, “I know you are, but what am I?” a phrase that deflects criticism and invites more. As with the schoolyard taunt, they’re like rubber; you’re like glue. All reflections bounce off of them and stick to you. Sure they’re vain, but they’re no more self-obsessed than robots. They’re all about preserving self-image and avoiding self-consciousness.

What’s really up with mirror-shunning, nobody-home, robotic narcissists? I suspect they’ve fallen for a simple addictive formula that frees them from ever having to reconsider their own behavior. The formula is a collection of generic, all-purpose excuses called double-binds. A double bind is composed of two games, each with its own rules. You’re free to choose the game, but in both, the narcissist wins, and you lose.

It’s basically “heads I win, tails you lose, and if you don’t like that game, no problem, we can change the game to tails I win, heads you lose, and if you don’t like that game, no problem, we can go back to the first game.”

Here are some examples.

• Within my framing, you’re wrong. Frame it any other way, and you’re wrong.
  Example: My religion says you’re a sinner, and if you question our decisions, you’re a sinner.
• You lose because you don’t meet my nitpicky standards. If you say I don’t meet them, you lose because you’re too nitpicky!
  Example: I never do anything wrong, and if you catch me, so what? You do it too!
• Considering all the framings, mine’s the best because within my framing it says it’s the best.
  Example: My sacred text was written by God Himself. How do I know? It says so in my sacred text!
• My passion for achieving greatness is strongest, which proves I’m the expert on how to achieve greatness. If you don’t believe I’m the expert, just look at my passion!
  Example: My behavior is unpatriotic?! Impossible! I wave our flag harder than anyone!
• I know everything, and if I don’t know it, it’s irrelevant.
  Example: Focus on the details that prove I’m right. If you focus on anything else, you’re getting lost in details.
• Any law that hampers me proves I serve a higher law.
  Example: I always live by the highest principles, which I’m free to violate because I’m serving still higher principles.
• I always win because when I lose it doesn’t count.
  Example: I’m the omnipotent hero who always wins, and if I lose, I’m a heroic martyr, a victim of oppression destined to win in the end.
• I always win, and if I lose, I win because I got your attention.
  Example: So what if I’m wrong? I live rent-free in your head, sucker.
• My rash extremism is heroic, but challenging me is rash.
  Example: I’m an anti-PC badass who will tear you apart, but shame on you for insulting me. People should always be polite to one another.
• I have the one true faith, so I get to violate my faith in the service of it.
  Example: I’m a member of the sainthood. There’s no deed too dirty for saints like us.
• I know exactly what you should do, and if I fail, remember, no one knows anything.
  Example: I’m the absolute authority on what’s right and righteous, and if I get tripped up that’s because it’s all just a crap shoot anyway. Nothing is real. There’s no knowing anything.

It’s worth familiarizing yourself with these. They’re tells. If you can’t get through to someone who tangles you up in these, you’re probably dealing with one of these mirror-shunning narcissists.

The double binds probably sound familiar to you. They’ve been used on you, and who knows? Maybe you’ve reached for them, too, in a pinch. We all jerk others around from time to time, making others feel wrong so we can feel right. It happens. We all get narcissistic.

But outright narcissists are different. They use these all-purpose self-rationalizations non-stop.

Narcissists stumbled on a brand of the double-bind formula that fits their lifestyle. It frees them from all self-doubt. They hide behind the formula. Their self-awareness has atrophied, no more doubt or anxiety. To recover from the addiction would be like having to leave one’s fortress and go out in public naked, demeaned as just another fallible, sometimes anxious human.

It’s not that these narcissistic would-be emperors have no clothes. They’re nothing but clothes, empty suits or, rather, empty coats of armor, shells of the humans they really are, holed up and hollow, protected from all self-doubt.

There are narcissism epidemics, too, whole cults of people addicted to the same brand of narcissism. Herd mentality compels us to follow leaders who appear to have an uninterrupted winning streak. In our iffy world, no one can have an uninterrupted winning streak, but armed with double binds, people can pretend they do.

Our civic duty demands that we spot and try to stop outright narcissists. It’s not easy. It’s impossible if you don’t understand their formula.

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