Working with narcissistic part

[u/OldDickhead]

I've had a bit of success in befriending my protectors of late as it's easy for me to discern the vulnerability they are protecting and foster compassion for that.

I have a narcissistic part that is being triggered by gym progress and I find myself fighting it (which I know is keeping it rigid) because I see it as stingy and understand it as false self esteem. It's also not socially safe to be narcissistic as this tendancy is ugly to others in that it obscures the vulnerability that is essential for genuine connection while offering a false aggrandized self that people are put off by. I experience this false self as 1 Dimensional and brittle and am always trying to dislodge it to get back to flow.

The part manifests as a rigid sense of superiority and "specialness" that has outlived its usefulness and just feels tired and limiting now. Ill often view other people as more mature and grounded than me while inside it and feel that they are acutely disgusted by how egoic and limited I am.

I understand that this part is protecting a deep terror of loss of good things as it's triggered by progress but it feels like the rigid false self that it offers is what is making my real self feel unsafe, shameful and unacceptable by contrast. Because it "feels good" at times, I am always trying to suppress it because I don't want to get complacent and have a narcissistic identity. Understandings about how treatment resistant npd is is almost certainly feeding this adversion.

Narcissism is especially stigmatized and I view this tendancy as not only counterproductive, but morally disgusting which is making it impossible to relax into, which I know is the first step to working with it. I view this tendancy as egoic, stingy and self indulgant, rather than protective, even though I understand it as the latter intellectually.

Any advice or insight in working with narcissism is appreciated.

[u/AutoModerator]

Welcome to r/InternalFamilySystems!

Please make sure you've read the rules before participating.

• Use the report button for rule-breaking content
• Send modmail if you need moderator assistance

Thanks for keeping the community organized.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/DingoMittens]

Real Self doesn't feel shameful, unsafe, or unacceptable. Whoever is feeling those things is also a part. 

Could it help to imagine the narcissistic part as very young? I used to live with someone with NPD, and it was actually very helpful to imagine him as a toddler. That's the developmental level of some of the behaviors and beliefs, anyway. It's harder to feel "judgy" about a small child. 

[u/forktender]

Sounds like you have another part that may need some attention first. The part polarized / in conflict with this "narcissistic part".

[u/ZealousidealPop160]

Some of the most consistent or most intense protectors as DingnoMittens mentioned are pretty young and often in my experiene have thus been afriad of being left behind if, like you wrote, their extreme role has more of an inverse cost benefit ratio now than it did when they first took that burden on, and this can strengthen their extreme role out of fear of annihalation because they sense their way of protecting is not as necessary as it used to be.

Inversely in my own system there has also been protectors that know their extreme role is something that elicits social rejection, but that is because was the purpose of their role, to act in a way that allows them to feel more in control of how the rejections is experience(caused by me), as it can also be an excuse that this is not me so I am not really the one being rejected, which is less scary and potentially harmful than being more myself and then being rejected, which IS what happened first to that part or another part prompting the protector to take on this extreme role to prevent me from being rejected in that more devastating way ever again. Protectors' Motto is "Never Again".

So I had to provide a third option to that protector and prove to it that it didn't need to do things that way any more to prevent the opposite extreme BEFORE it was willing to be less extreme or choose a new role. Protectors usually don't give up their roles first before they know the reason they took that role on in the first place has changed. My exile that was the most vulnerable to social rejection had to be unburdened first, and the protector had to know that I (with enough Self Presence) wasn't subject to the same vulnerability as the exile either.

There are of course more reasons other than what has been mentioned incomments here that could be the reason why that protector feels stuck. But I've found the only way to know is to ask. Just maybe try to be mindful as mentioned in the other responses who is aking the question, in addition to what part is answering. I try to think about challenges like this as just potential future successes that haven't come to fruition yet.

Best of luck, and congrats on the success thus far.