they are nice to you, it’s because they want you to love them. That adds to their sense of self-importance. But then they also have to prove that they are better than you, and that you have to be at their beck and call.
So yes, John made me feel wonderful, but he also made me feel absolutely terrible. We were both really into painting, but whenever I painted anything, he said it was rubbish. He was incredibly competitive. I really liked films and knew quite a lot about them, and as soon as we started going out, he had to get into films and become the world’s greatest expert on them. He certainly had to prove he knew more than me, and would buy books and swot up.
I don’t know what made him the way he was. Maybe it was his family. He hardly ever spoke to his dad, and had no relationship with him. His mother was incredibly close to him, and thought the sun shone out of his arse.
John and I split up after two years, and I didn’t see him for three years. Then I called him because I wondered how he was. We met a few times and he wanted to get back together again. He said he’d changed, and part of me wondered whether he had. But then I met him with some of my friends around, and he made it clear he wanted me to himself and that he didn’t want to share me. Then it all came back, and I remembered how he’d been about my friends in the past, and how isolated I felt, and it made me realise that he hadn’t really changed at all. I went round to his house and, despite him insisting that we’d get back together one day, I told him that we really were finished. He took me to the station, and my last image was of him weeping hysterically on the platform as my train drew out.
This is a portrait of a narcissist. You can see what a classic case Rosie encountered when you turn to the criteria that American psychiatrists use to identify people they believe have narcissistic personality disorder. They are found in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition – a manual that covers all mental-health disorders for both children and adults.
The manual says that people who have five or more of the following traits can be classed as having a narcissistic personality disorder:
It’s not a pleasant combination, but for all his charms and attractions it fits John like glove. Perhaps his strongest narcissistic traits are as follows:
A preoccupation with fantasises of unlimited brilliance and idealised love
John genuinely believed that Rosie and he constituted something unique and special – no one had ever loved like that, no one could feel stronger, nothing could be more romantic. For Rosie, however, it eventually became clear that this glamorous image of the romance was illusory because it involved a man who had no genuine interest in how she was feeling, and who depended on humiliating her to make himself feel better.
A belief that he was special and could only be understood by special people
John was very dependent on Rosie, partly because he had singled her out as one of the few people worthy of his attention. Only she could come close to understanding him – that was the key to their great romance. But that didn’t mean she was an equal, because, ironically for someone he’d picked out as being special, he was also deeply competitive with her. He had to prove constantly that he was better than her. He needed that to create a sense of self-esteem – something that, deep down, he really didn’t have.
Exploiting others
This was not a relationship of equals. Good relationships revolve around being able to maintain one’s own sense of self while allowing a partner to manifest their own identity too – preferably with the two of you also boosting each other’s sense of self-worth. But John depended on Rosie for his self-esteem, and nothing went the other way. He humiliated her and exploited her in quite a demoralising way. It was the way he propped up his own entirely artificial sense of confidence.
Lacking empathy
It was impossible for John to see things from Rosie’s perspective. He couldn’t see how infuriating his behaviour was, or how it made Rosie suffer. And it’s all because he had created a delusional world where he was centre stage – there’s no room for anyone else. Only his own emotions mattered – and his dramatic, but staged, demonstration of anger by hitting a wall is a revealing gesture from a man who could not bear to be ignored by those who should be reflecting his importance.
Envious of others
John wasn’t just envious of Rosie, her painting skill, and her interests. He was envious of her friends – and the fact that they might have some sort of hold on Rosie. Because narcissists are so choosy about who to spend time with, they are deeply suspicious and jealous of others who spend time with their chosen ones. Other people are not to be enjoyed or interacted with in their own right – they are either reflectors of grandiosity, or competitors.
That’s five out of the list. No doubt, you’ll probably now be applying those criteria to yourself and those you know. Fair enough – some of these are traits found to a certain extent in everyone. But do remember (and this is something we’ll deal with more in later chapters) that the American Psychiatric Association’s checklist of traits was designed to help psychiatrists identify people with a personality disorder characterised by narcissism. And though the list forms a useful baseline for establishing narcissistic behaviour, being able to tick those boxes doesn’t necessarily mean that the person has a personality disorder – just one per cent of the population are believed to have an actual narcissistic personality disorder. So let’s try to refine the process of characterising narcissists a bit further.
ARE YOU IN A NARCISSISTIC RELATIONSHIP? THE CHECKLISTS
You can use these checklists on behalf of your partner or yourself (if you’re self-aware enough). Tick those statements below that tally with your behaviour or that of your partner. I’ve organised the questions into two groups of ten. The first group of ten questions deals with milder narcissistic traits – the sorts that are found in many people. If you or your partner score five or over in this section, it doesn’t necessarily mean you have a major problem, but it does mean that narcissistic traits may be causing unhappiness in your relationship.
People who score over five in the first questionnaire should move on to the second checklist. This itemises more serious narcissistic traits. If you score five