Are Narcissists Born or Created?

In this episode, we tackle a question that intrigues and perplexes many:  Are narcissists born, or are they created?

Key Highlights:

• Empathy vs. Narcissism: Explore the nature of empathy, a learned behavior, and its absence in narcissism. Discover the factors that contribute to the development of narcissistic traits and the significant role of childhood experiences and parenting styles in shaping an individual's empathy capacity or lack thereof.
• The Creation of a Narcissist: Gain insights into how narcissists are formed through various environmental and relational dynamics, including overindulgence, neglect, abuse, and inconsistent emotional support. Understand the complexities behind the behaviors that lead to narcissism and the impact of familial influences.
• Empathic Responses and Trauma: Learn about the potential origins of empathy as a coping strategy in response to trauma and how children adapt their behaviors to survive emotionally neglectful or abusive environments. This segment explores the thin line between becoming an empath or a narcissist based on survival strategies developed in childhood.
• Self-Reflection and Identification: Are you an empath or a narcissist? This thought-provoking discussion prompts listeners to reflect on their coping mechanisms - focusing on self to the detriment of others or prioritizing others' needs at their own expense. Discover the traits that differentiate narcissists from empaths and codependents.
• The Narcissist and Empath Attraction: Uncover the magnetic pull between narcissists and empaths/codependents, driven by similar underlying insecurities and fears. This section sheds light on the dynamics of these relationships and the healing journey for both parties involved.
• Preventing Narcissism: Strategies for fostering empathy and resilience in children to prevent the development of narcissistic traits. The importance of modeling healthy emotional behaviors and setting boundaries is emphasized as key to nurturing well-rounded individuals.

________________________

Corissa is a Somatic Trauma-Informed Relationship Coach™ & Narcissistic Abuse Specialist ™ who empowers women after they’ve endured narcissist trauma to rediscover who they are, reclaim their power and find the clarity and courage to move forward and live a life they love. Corissa is also a recovering people-pleaser and codependent who has endured way too many narcissistic relationships to count! She coaches not only from her knowledge and training but also from the wisdom she has gained from her own healing journey.

Book a FREE 30-minute Confidential Clarity Call HERE.

Ways to connect with Corissa:

Podcast Website
Website: www.corissastepp.com
Community: StrongHER
Instagram: @corissastepp
Facebook: Corissa Stepp

We'd love to hear what you think so leave a voice message on our Podcast Website. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, review, or share it so we can reach more people!

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:04

Welcome to the Stepping into Meaningful Relationships podcast. I'm your host, carissa Stepp. I'm a somatic, trauma-informed coach and narcissistic abuse specialist. This is a podcast for you if you are looking to improve your most important relationship, the one you have with yourself, so you can more meaningfully and deeply connect with those around you. This podcast will equip you with valuable tools, tips and tricks essential for recovering from toxic relationships, and guide you towards cultivating healthy, fulfilling and intimate connections with others. But first let's start with you. I'm so excited you're here taking this powerful step forward. Thank you for tuning in. Now let's get to today's episode. Hey, hey, everyone.

Speaker 1: 0:52

Welcome back to another episode of Stepping into Meaningful Relationships. I'm your host, carissa Stepp, and today we're going to be talking about whether or not narcissists are born or created. Now, if we know one thing about narcissists, it's that they have little to no empathy. So maybe you're wondering do narcissists lack an empathy gene? Well, up until the time of this recording, and as far as I am personally aware, researchers have not been able to identify an empathy gene. Empathy itself is actually something that is learned. It is something that is taught, and so, as a result, we can't necessarily say that narcissists are born that way, and so today we're going to be exploring this idea that they are made and they are created, and we're going to talk about how and why that is. So it was really interesting, because the reason why I decided to do this episode was because I had read somewhere and I honestly don't remember where I read this that empathy is actually potentially a coping strategy that is learned in the experience of trauma. Likewise, narcissism may also be a coping strategy that was adapted by a child in the experience of trauma as well. Now, if I told you that being overly coddled created trauma, would you believe me?

Speaker 1: 2:22

You see, a child that is overly coddled and overly nurtured makes the child feel incapable. It actually makes them feel helpless and powerless. It disconnects them from their power. So when they are overindulged and overly nurtured, the child begins to believe that they are special and that they are entitled to special treatment. They are deserving of being overly indulged and for no other reason other than the fact that they exist. They also never learn how to exert their own power or how to use it responsibly, because this adult is almost jumping in and fixing or rescuing this child and providing every little thing that the child needs, without the child learning how to become resilient through struggle. They never learn how to take care of themselves, because somebody else is always there for them, doing everything for them.

Speaker 1: 3:27

So we can imagine that perhaps this child might grow up into an adult that rebels against this parent, who really just tried to keep their child safe and protected and not wanting for anything. But, that being said, they will have learned that they don't have to work for anything. They don't have to actually try hard to earn the things that they desire. They believe that they're entitled to receive gifts and praise and love and recognition without having to give anything back in return. On the flip side, if you have a child who is being neglected or abused, they're also disconnected from their power. They learn that they are not worthy of having their needs met and they are subjugated to an experience that is wrought with fear and violence and maltreatment. As a result, they grow up learning that if they want anything, they need to take it by force. Potentially, they may also learn that no one will find them worthy, so they have to feed their own power needs by overpowering others in the same way in which their abusers did. And then, of course, there's everything sort of in between.

Speaker 1: 4:44

You might have parents who provided basic needs for the child but couldn't meet the child's emotional needs. There are parents who were strict and domineering but who maybe weren't affectionate, or they were only affectionate when it suited them, which created inconsistent patterns of love and attention alongside distance and rejection. So while narcissism may be a defense mechanism that has been created to mask a deeply insecure and a deeply wounded individual, so might empathy be. It's an interesting topic to explore, actually, since empathy is learned, and while it is often assumed that we learn empathy by having it modeled for us, it could also stand to reason that empathy is a learned behavior as a result of trauma or dysfunctional family dynamics. For example, a child whose parent neglected their emotional needs or whose needs were inconsistently met may also learn that their parents' needs and emotions were their responsibility and were more important. In order to survive in that home, the child would have had to have learned how to constantly scan the room and tune into other people's emotional energy in order to know if it was safe or not. That child would have then potentially also learned to temper how they react to others based on the emotional energy of those around them. For example, if the child perceives that there is tension in the room, then the child might be more apt to play the comedian, even if they are feeling down or tired, or they might feel the need to people please, to make the adults happy, creating more harmony than chaos. As a result, this child will learn to sacrifice themselves when they sense that someone else might be disappointed by their actions.

Speaker 1: 6:36

So maybe you're listening to this and you're starting to wonder whether or not you are a narcissist or what we would call an empath. Well, here's the key to help you discern the difference. So I have a question for you have you learned to cope by focusing solely on self and, as a result, hurt others, or have you learned to cope by mostly focusing on others and thereby hurting yourself? So let me repeat that If you identified with the former, where you were mostly focused on yourself and end up hurting others, you may be a narcissist, although a narcissist may not even recognize that they are hurting other people. If you are the latter, where you are mostly focused on others but end up hurting yourself as a result through self-sacrifice, through self-abandoning, through people pleasing, you're more likely an empath, or we would more broadly state that you are likely a codependent.

Speaker 1: 7:43

The fascinating thing is that narcissists and codependents, who are also often empaths and people-pleasers, are attracted to one another. Empaths and narcissists are trying to heal the same deep wounds. They typically—and I can't say this for all empaths, but codependents for sure—codependents and narcissists are both deeply insecure. They both carry a fear of either being rejected or the fear of being abandoned. But regardless, we are all just hurt people. All of us have experienced trauma to some degree. I'm not going to sit here and compare different types of trauma to say which one is worse than the other, because that's completely irrelevant in any discussion. But essentially, some of these hurt individuals hurt other individuals—narcissists—and some of these hurt individuals hurt themselves. Empaths are codependents.

Speaker 1: 8:47

So the answer to the question are narcissists created or born? They are in fact created through their childhood experiences and any relational trauma they may have experienced. So just to summarize for you a narcissist is created by number one, a parent who potentially over-praised their child. Number two a parent who was overly critical. Number three a parent who neglected their child's emotional needs. Number four a parent who was abusive in any kind of way, whether that was physical, verbal, emotional. Number five parents who are narcissists themselves as children tend to model their parents' behavior and number six parents who had no boundaries. Of course, just having a parent or an upbringing where any of these behaviors were present does not guarantee the creation of a narcissist. It likely depends on a few other things as well, including the love, care and attention that a child receives from another parent or some other primary caregiver, and part of that may be if empathy and resiliency is modeled for the child by another key caregiver, then likely the child will not become a narcissist but may potentially become codependent.

Speaker 1: 10:10

Next week we're going to dive more into why we attract narcissists into our lives and how we can start repelling them. I hope this was helpful. This was a short and sweet episode this week. Until next week, everyone be well. If you're hearing this message, that means you've listened all the way to the end, and for that I am truly grateful. If you enjoyed this episode and found it valuable, would you mind leaving us a review wherever you listen to podcasts and sharing it with others? If you'd like to connect with me for one-on-one coaching or human design reading, you can find me on my website or on social media. Also, if you have a topic you'd like me to discuss on a future episode. Please DM me. Be sure to tune in next week for another episode of Stepping into Meaningful Relationships.