What do you call someone you’ve been describing alternately as a narcissist and sociopath? Someone for whom neither diagnosis alone quite suffices as a complete description of the individual, but rather in whom both disorders seem as if wrapped up in one menacing individual?
Pardoning my grandiosity for daring to expand the already crowded psychiatric nomeclature, I propose to call these hybrid personalities“narcissiopaths.”
While I don’t expect the DSM folks to take me very seriously (or anyone else for that matter), I’m thinking (unfacetiously) that there’s a case to be made here.
The narcissiopath, as I envision him (using “him” for convenience’s sake) will meet many of the essential criteria for both narcissistic and sociopathic personality. The closest extant clinical description of this disordered individual that comes to mind is the confusing term “maligant narcissist.”
Now personally, I find the term “malignant narcissist” wanting: for instance, precisely at what point does a narcissist turn “malignant?” And doesn’t this imply the concept of non-malignant narcissists who, by definition, must be “benign?” (I’m not so sure their partners would attest to their harmlessness?)
My concept, the narcissiopath, suggests very directly the personality fusion of narcissism and sociopathy in this particular personality. The narcissiopath is the individual who effectively conflates narcissism and sociopathy.
Let me briefly review these separate personalities—the narcissist and sociopath—in their more classical presentations. The narcissist is fundamentally a recognition-craver, a reassurance-craver, a convenience-craver, and an inordinate craver and demander of attention, catering and special status. He is in many respects insatiably needy emotionally.
At root, the narcissist is an overly entitled personality. He feels entitled to be accomodated on a pretty much continual basis. This begs the question, on what basis does he accord himself this right—to expect, that is, the continual accomodation of his needs and desires? The answer is, on the basis of his sense of himself as “special,” and his expectation that others—indeed, the world—will also recognize him as special.
Psychologically, a compensatory process often occurs with the narcissist. His “sensed” and “imposed” specialness is often a compensation for underlying and threatening self-vulnerability; and compensation for doubts about his power, worth and attractiveness—doubts that he is too immature to face squarely and maturely.
Although exploitation is not typically the narcissist’s primary motive, we recognize his capacity to be manipulative, cruel, deceptive and abusive; yet his darker machinations are usually secondary to his demanding, and sometimes desperate, pursuit of others’ attention and cooperation.
The narcissist is imfamously inept at managing his disappointment. He feels that he should never be disappointed, that others owe him protection from disappointment. When disappointed, he will find someone to blame, and will quickly de-idealize and devalue his disappointer.
Devaluing his disappointer now enables him to abuse her or him with more righteous indignation and less guilt.
For the sociopath, this is all much easier. Unlike the narcissist, he doesn’t have to perform mental gymnastics to subdue his guilt in order to exploit others with an unburdened conscience. The sociopath has no guilt to manage.
But the sociopath’s dead conscience isn’t per se what makes him sociopathic. Many people have weak consciences who aren’t sociopaths. It is his dead conscience in conjunction with his orientation to exploit that gets to the heart (really, heartlessness) of the sociopath.
The sociopath is variously a manipulator, liar, deceiver and violator of others; and he is these things less to regulate his unstable self-esteem than, more often than not, to enjoy himself, amuse himself, entertain himself, and take what he feels like taking in a way he finds optimally satisfying.
The sociopath, as I have discussed previously, is an audacious exploiter. His lack of shame supports his imperturbability, which enhances the experience of his audacity. The sociopath leaves one shaking one’s head at his nerve, his gall. One imagines that to venture the deception and outrages the sociopath pursues with his famous, blithe composure, he must possess a chilling callousness and coldness beneath what may otherwise be his veneer of “normality.” One imagines correctly.
Now sometimes we find ourselves dealing, as I’ve suggested, with individuals who seem, at once, to be both narcissist and sociopath, as if straddling, or embodying both disorders.
These are the individuals I’m proposing to call narcissiopaths.
For a good celebrity example of this, consider O.J. Simpson. Simpson, as his story evolved, was someone you found yourself confusingly calling a narcissistic personality disorder (probably correctly) in one conversation, and in the very next, a sociopath (probably correctly).
You found yourself vacillating between the two diagnoses because he seemed to fulfill important criteria of both. There was O.J. the narcissist: publicly charming, charismatic, disarmingly engaging and seductively likeable while privately, behind closed doors, he was tyrannizing Nicole Brown whenever he felt his “omnipotent control” threatened.
Simpson came to epitomize the indulged athlete: catered to all his life for his special athletic gifts, somewhere along the line he came to believe, with ultimately violent conviction, in his right to control and be heeded, not defied.
Simpson was all about “looking good,” about public show; in Nicole Brown he’d found a woman—a “trophy wife—”who could “reflect well” on him publicly, and on his “greatness.” She was also, tragically, the “perfect” choice to engage his narcissistic compulsion to alternately idealize, and then devalue, her; that is, to idealize the perfect, and then devalue the perfectly dirty, sex object.
In other words, in choosing her, Simpson chose well for his narcissism.
In the end, Simpson was as charming, ingratiating, and as shallow and superficial as so many narcissists (and all sociopaths) are.
But he was more than that. He was also callous, and brutally violent. He descended upon Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman like the knife-wielding devil he was, nearly carving Brown’s head off and massacring Goldman.
And then”¦he lied.
He maintained his innocence with outrageous brazenness, determined to win the next stage of yet another game. And where was the remorse? There was none; just his arrogant, insulting contempt.
Simpson had executed a miraculous performance. He had escaped from double-murder and the incontrovertible evidence of his guilt as improbably, as impossibly, as he’d so often escaped (brilliantly) opposing defenses and game-plans geared to stop him.
Finally, although I’d say that Simpson probably tilts, on balance, more to a narcissistic personality structure than not, he also possesses many of the most dangerous and essential diagnostic features of the sociopath. He seems, in other words, to be not entirely one or the other, but both narcissist and sociopath all in one.
I intend to flesh out the concept of the narcissiopath in future posts. And I look forward, as always, to your feedback.
(This article is copyrighted © 2009 by Steve Becker, LCSW.)
P.S. We dont have a wallgreens or CVS, just chemists. But it looks to me like I will end up having to get it off the net. Thanks again. xo
Dear Tilly and Sabrina,
I KNOW you guys know the grief of “losing a child”—and I think losing one that is still physically alive is worse than death (I haven’t lost a child to death but I did lose a much beloved beloved step son and one former foster child to death) At least with the death, you KNOW it is “final” but with the ones walking around, it somehow seems that there SHOULD be “hope”—of course there is none, but we are programmed to think there IS hope. Having “hope” when there is none is delusion and denial. I have seen that on the faces of parents in an intensive care unit looking down on their brain dead child, refusing to give up hope. Sometimes they willl fight for YEARS to keep feeding tubes in or ventilators going for some child or adult child who has no brain function, because the body will sometimes move on its own, or eyes open and close, even though the brain is mush.
I know I stood over the “corpse” of my P offspring thinking his talking and sweet words were signs of potential normal life….within him. Of empathy and sympathing and caring. NOPE–he was SOUL DEAD. I finally accepted that. Just like I can know now what those families standing besides the body with no functioning brain must have felt like, I can also see that my own offspring has no functioning soul, and he is just as dead as theirs is as far as living a life, the only difference is that mine is EVIL, at least their child’s long gone personality is not EVIL but gone, mine’s soul is gone but his EVIL personality is quite intact and he is capable of great evil deeds.
Good parents, and I believe that all of us here tried to be good parents and loved our kids, don’t want to give up if there is the least bit of REASONABLE “hope” but we have seen with our offspring that there is NO REASONABLE HOPE, and that “child” is now a fully functioning adult, just without empathy, kinidness or love. A child with a perfect body and NO brain is lost to us even if the body “lives” and a child with a perfect body, and intelligent brain, but without a the capacity to love is also lost to us.
None of us have suffered “more or less” than any of the others, I firmly believe that, as Dr. Viktor Frankl said, pain acts like a gas, and TOTALLY fills each container, whether there is a little gas or a lot of gas, that is the way PAIN WORKS. Each of us has had TOTAL pain. Our own HELL ON EARTH. Just as you could LOVE 1 child or 12, love expands to meet the need, and so dies grief. It wouldn’t matter if you had 11 great kids, but one P, your pain would be TOTAL LOSS for losing that one child. Total grief. The 11 good kids would comfort you, but the loss of that one would still be ultimate and total grief.
Tilly, I’m just catching up with your posts about rage. Here are a few thoughts from my perspective.
It was interesting that you talking about loving even adult children no matter what. And that it was a taboo for you to feel this rage.
I think that loving and accepting behavior are two different things. And that in making yourself be supportive in the light of unacceptable behavior you are rejecting your own very reasonable reactions. And so doing damage to yourself.
I don’t know if this makes sense, but if you go back to the idea of anger being our nature response to threats to our wellbeing, suppressing your internal responses is like denying your own survival instincts. This principle doesn’t just work for live-or-death situations. It also works for times when people are disrespectful, dishonest, or placing you in uncomfortable or dangerous situations. It doesn’t matter if their intent is directed against you, or if they are simply irresponsible or dysfunctional in some other way. They are giving YOU a problem, and your internal system is telling you to pay attention and do something about it.
This is the basis for line-drawing and boundary-setting. And it really has nothing to do with love. We can love someone deeply and care about their wellbeing, but it doesn’t mean that we agree with them all the time or submit to anything they want. And that includes supporting their ego or self-esteem. If they are do something that is hurtful or unacceptable to us, we have our own responsibility to the relationship to tell the truth and act in our own best interest.
One of my deepest regrets in my relationship with my ex-S is that I didn’t do that, not just for my benefit but for his. He was only 29 when I met him, and I was 20 years older. I was so far out of his league in every way that mattered, and the relationship could have been one of mentoring. In some ways it was. I introduced him to a new world of status, money and experiences that money could buy. But what I didn’t do was teach him respect. I didn’t draw lines. I didn’t clarify that he he got what he wanted only if I got what I wanted. And I didn’t say that the relationship depended on my happiness as much as his.
Would it have made a difference if I’d attempted to do that? No, probably not, if he was a sociopath. But whether or not he was a sociopath, I was teaching him by the way I behaved that my interests weren’t as important as his. And that I would sacrifice my hopes, wants and needs for his. This wasn’t just destructive for me. It cultivated all the worst aspects of his character, and made it easy for him to look down on me. By the end of the relationship, it wasn’t only me who would have difficulty admitting to the truth of this relationship, because he knew he had taken advantage of someone who was emotionally dependent on him.
What I’m talking about here is what is called “tough love.” And I really believe that this is better for our children. Oxy has talked a lot about establishing requirements for her children. Love is not enough. Teaching our children, as well as our lovers and spouses, as well as our friends what our boundaries are and what we want out of relationships is a good thing. This is about taking ourselves seriously and teaching them to be “serious people” who respect us and earn our respect in return.
As far as the situation with your daughter and your mother goes, I have a few thoughts about that too. One is that your house is also your daughter’s house. If she has a relationship with your mother and you don’t, it makes sense for you two to talk about reasonable compromises. If you really don’t want your mother in your house, then perhaps she can work with you to meet her elsewhere, or else you can arrange to be doing something else, somewhere else, if she comes. What you don’t want are surprises.
As far as the money goes, I think that’s between the two of them. The fact that your mother is able to give her money and you are not is nothing unusual. Older people often have more money that their children who are actively parenting. And they often want to give it to their grandchildren. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this.
I understand that you’re taking it personally, and I understand why. But I don’t think you can make your daughter take sides in a situation where she doesn’t see a reason to do so. You might warn her that you’ve found your mother to be manipulative, and suggest that she be sure that there are no strings attached to the money. But after that, there’s nothing you can do but let learn her own lessons.
My concern for you is your talking about how besieged you felt in your house when your mother was there. Going NC by itself is not enough. It’s also important to replace the bad influence with good influences on your life. You know the old saying about living well being the best revenge. If there was one thing to learn about this surprise birthday visit, it is that your mother and daughter are going on to live their lives without thinking about you. You need to do the same, at least as far as your mother goes. And with your daughter, you might consider drawing some lines about surprise visits from people you don’t want to see. That is not acceptable to you. You can’t stop her from seeing her grandmother. She’s too old for that. But you can demand that she respect your feelings, and work together with you so that you don’t have this kind of unpleasant surprise again.
Finally, you mentioned your concerns about ruining everything. We give back what we get from people. If someone is being disrespectful toward you, you don’t have to go out of your way to make their life easier or more pleasant. In this case, when you found out about the visit, you might have told your daughter that the surprise visit was unacceptable to you because you hadn’t made other plans to be out of the house, and she’d have to meet with her grandmother elsewhere. And when your mother arrived, just shoo’d her out the door.
If you start taking care of yourself, I think you’ll find the rage retreating. A lot of this is about frustration, I think, because you can’t get her to take care of your feelings. The truth is you’ve got to take responsibility for that. You can be respectful to her needs and wants while you’re doing that, and negotiate with her for something that works for both of you. But “both of you” is the operative term. If you’re not satisfied with the solution, you have every right to dig in your heals until you are.
I hope this makes sense. It sounds like you’re making great progress in making your life about you.
Kathy
Tilly, I am so sorry. I got your story entirely mixed up with blueskies’. And this post just doesn’t make any sense at all.
I finally fell asleep early last night, after something like six nights of about five hours sleep. And I think I just wasn’t awake enough when I was catching up this morning. Explanation, but no excuse.
I just tried to delete it, but I can’t. So please just ignore it.
Kathy
Oxy:
“Having “hope” when there is none is delusion and denial.” That statement is SOOO true Oxy! I have spent my whole life in this delusion with my p partners. I think you hit the nail on the head when you spoke about that, for me, in regards to my daughter. I believe I have finally given up hope of ever having a relationship with my daughter, although in retrospect, now it seems all of my life I was searching for her. (She is Not an “empty suit” but an “empty dress”).
Once I gave up the last shred of hope, then the 30 years of anger came gushing in.
I believed her father had trained her to be on “his side” when he beat me. But lets face it Tilly, she was three at the time. My mind keeps searching to blame something, like, maybe it was boarding school (I didn’t want her to go, but she insisted from 13 years old and i worked really hard to put her through). Then I think, maybe it was because she was so premature. All this, and i havn’t even started with my middle son yet.
I hope you had a great day in OZ Oxy, wish I could meet you there for a cuppa.
Kathy:
“Tilly, I’m just catching up with your posts about rage. Here are a few thoughts from my perspective.
It was interesting that you talking about loving even adult children no matter what. And that it was a taboo for you to feel this rage.”
You are right Kathy, this was my post! And the information you gave is invaluable.
I too was a product of the “cinderella syndrome” and let all my P partners know I would sacrifice everything (but the kids, who came first in my home) for them. And everyone of the p partners exploited this. I gave my kids tough love to, but not financially. My daughter got most of my money that was left (after the Ps ). Then my middle son, and my youngest ( who is not a cluster B) got nothing, because there was nothing left. (King lear!)
Anyway, I noticed you have been serving blueskies and marie lisa a lot so you must be exhausted.
I know i don’t practise what I preach but here i go again anyway, “KATHY>>IF YOU DON”T PUT YOURSELF FIRST YOU ARE NO GOOD TO ANYONE!”. So catch up on those Z’s girl!
In the meantime, I have my handsful with my psychopath art teacher is is taking me for THREE MONTHS in TWO DIFFERENT SUBJECTS!! God is really putting me through the ringer!
The rest of your info is to blueskies, but it was good for me to read and helped with some things in my life so thankyou!
ANewLily:
Oh yeah! We have “Health Food Stores”! Thats where they might be! DUH!xoxo
Oh thanks, Tilly. I was wishing this morning that we could change the “report abusive comment” button to “report abusive or incoherent comment.”
I have been soul searching for several days. Trying to sort it all out and maybe put it out here to you guys on LF to see what you guys thought. It is for me though, like opening a CAN of worms and once they all start crawling out then I will have to deal with it. And God help me I don’t think I am up to it right now.
It seems there are more immediate things to focus on and for the moment I have to stay in the here and now.
A few weeks ago late at night I heard a noise in my hallway, sounded like something scattering on the wood floor? A mouse, perhaps…Odd, I thought as I have never had a mouse in my house in the summer months as I don’t live in the country. Upon closer inspection I found it was a bat! There is a BAT in my house. I felt invaded. Maybe an injured (?) bat because it just flapped around the floor. I went into panic mode, how do I get it out, (HOW DID IT GET IN?) I’m afraid of THIS critter, I don’t want to get NEAR it. My heart pounded, my gut tightened , a dozen thoughts racing through my mind. Keep the dogs away from it (they are sound asleep, whew) I felt really alone with my fear. Until it dawned on me ……..
In reality, I wasn’t alone, my son was HOME from work upstairs in his room, he wasn’t afraid of the bat, he caught the bat and got it out of the house. End of story.
I am finding though, the bat story is very symbolic to my life. I often feel like there is an “invasion” in my home. (no peace) Often times I am on the threshhold of “panic mode”. My gut is tied in knots, heart pounding. I almost always feel ALONE & without a plan of ACTION that is WORKING. As with the bat, I wonder how did “this” happen…..How did “this” come into my house?? And yes, sometimes, I don’t want to go NEAR it. I am afraid of it. Only now I am not talking about a bat, I am talking about the issues with my son.
Naturally, summer has been different than the school year. There isn’t the daily stress of school, however it has been a very trying period. I no longer live with the outward “depressed” signs of a teenager that I co existed with for some time in the winter months.
Living with a Dr. Jekle and Mr Hide personality is exhausting. When the “good boy” personality emerges I tend to relax a bit, (emotionally/mentally) only to get slammed even harder when the “bad boy” is in full swing again. I can barely keep up. Keeping up with normal teenage stuff, curfew issues, who they are hanging with, following rules/boudaries, respect or lack of…..All of this is “trying times” for parents of any teenager.
Whatever is manifesting within my son….Be it personality disorder, mental illness, or a very disordered, underdeveloped, brain “thinking” skills….It is growing by leaps and bounds. If anything he is “polishing” his skills. Getting better at the manipulation of people. Getting more enpowered by “working” the system, so to speak. In his “reality” he has “one upped” the school system. They couldn’t make him perform in school, (he slept in school) they couldn’t make him go to summer school, all they could do is flunk him his sophmore year. This they have done. He will be a sophmore again next year. HOWEVER he has told everyone, his peers, his grandparents, his brother, anyone that asks ……He is going to be a JUNIOR this year.
It is not the lie that is important here. Again it is the symbolic nature of the lie. Just YET ANOTHER lie he has gotten away with in HIS mind. (they are endless) IN HIS REALITY he is going to be a junior. It doesn’t matter that this is not a fact. If he says it is so, IT IS SO.
This is just “one drop” in the bucket of how he doesn’t see WHAT’S REAL for what it is. AGAIN it isn’t the story here that is important. This is just one of the many stories of my sons ever expanding living in his OWN world rather than reality. It isn’t about if he is a junior or a a sophmore. What is important is that this is HOW HE DEALS with every part of his life. What he “says” and what is “real” are not one and the same. His distorted thinking works for him and he is smug in the fact that “he showed them”.
He feels he has WON….Kind of similar to Oxys story where her son is in jail, but he thinks he won. Only on a smaller scale. A stepping stone. So to speak. This has been what the entire summer has been like. Stepping stones onto “bigger & better” things.
This summer my son has somewhat thrown his peer friends to the side some what and started to “want” to hang with an older group. Two kids he works with. They are actually 2 VERY nice clean cut, good kids. And it started out being a very innocent thing. One of them kind of took my son “under his wing” at work. IN a GOOD way. But again my son has used this kind of like a stepping stone. They do not necessarily hang with him outside of work other than an occasional after work going out to eat at Sonic or the like. But of course my son has “taken on” some grandious “thinking” just by working with 2 older boys.
He has snuck out of the house, while grounded, come home after curfew on several occasions, learned a new “arsonal” of tricks while in the 6 week “group” classes we were involved in and pretty much broken all the rules and gotten away with breaking the consequences as well.
He takes normal teenage defiance and one ups that each and every time by being so methodical and rather succesful in finding the “loophole” and how to “work” everything in his favor. The positive consequences that are connected to the “program” that we were involved with are all “lost” on him as he feels so entitled to these things he is not willing to earn them.
He uses everyone to his advantage. Including his own peers/friends. If he is at a “stage” where he no longer feels they are important to him at the moment, he bails on them (for the time being) and moves onto something else. He doesn’t seem to have any commitment/loyalty even in his own relationships. Very “non bonded”. He is very in the moment and impulsive, in his personal relationships.
As usual I am finding it hard to ARTICULATE with words what is going on in my life. Much of this can be “looked upon” by others as just defiant teenage behavior. But trust me, it is more than that. On the OUTSIDE much of his behavior and actions would lead a person to believe just that. He appears to an onlooker to be an immature defiant, angry and confused teenager. And some days I want to believe THAT. “This to shall pass”.
BUT I DON’T believe it. And the reason I don’t believe it is because my real fears are not all about the “external” behaviors or issues I see with him. My fears are more fixated on the internal. His thinking process, his emotions (or oftentimes lack of ) Something isn’t right. His reactions, his inability to learn from mistakes, his LACK of being able to own/admit a mistake, BLAMING others all the time, his ability to LIVE in so many LIES, YET the lies ARE HIS TRUTH. He doesn’t seem to even get the “reward” system of life. If I do this…..It equals this. (the positive reward/consequence)
His thinking and his realitys are so distorted, I don’t believe his friends/peers can even relate to him on some levels anymore.
I see his friend (his age) starting to mature. Growing. Meeting some of their goals. Learning to Drive ect…..Learning to accept responsibility. Pushing, trying to do things “their way” as all teenagers do, but at least part of the time managing to “get it”, the bigger picture.
My son seems to be involved with a whole different criteria. Learning to manuever in this world in a much different way.
For me he is always one upping me. If he decides he is not going to mow the grass for a few weeks his way of dealing with this is to break the lawn mower or flooding the engine with gas or whatever else he can think of. If it isn’t this, it is something else. Again I am not really “talking” about the grass here. My point that no matter what is going on, my son finds way to get around it. He has to make sure that he comes out on top.
Never is this interupted with “normal” son/mother relationship times.Even in the moments when my son is in “good boy” mode. ALTHOUGH I DO TRY on my part. To really enhance these few and far inbetween times. To make him see that things really COULD be better. During these times I try to focus on all positive..AND show him positive “times” There still is no REAL exchange between us. It is one sided. I give, he takes. It is more of an ulterior motive kind of thing for him. This short term “good boy” mode.
Or so it seems.
My growing problem is that I have to live with this growing “manifestation.” And no matter what road I have taken he finds a side road. If anyone else in my life made me feel this way I would remove myself from the relationship. I often feel more like his victim, then his mother.
I need ways to cope with this and live with this. In my quest for effective parenting I still have found nothing works with him. He can’t focus (very long) on getting positive strokes for his behavior because his real focus is elsewhere.
How in the world did any of you cope while raising these troubled kids? I don’t even want to face it anymore. My brain is like fried mush. I can’t even think anymore.
Tilly, regarding your teacher, don’t forget the “to deal with a sociopath, become a sociopath” principle.
My ex-S, who got through college and a masters program with virtually perfect grades, had a technique he called the “minimum A.” That is, when he went into a class, his first objective was to figure out what the teacher wanted, so he could do the minimum amount of work to get an A.
It was a principle he used in his whole life. Give no more than you have to to get what you want.
A corollary of that principle, which was another one of his sayings, is “don’t sleep with crazy people.” Which means involve yourself to the minimum and keep your real thoughts to yourself.
We sometimes forget how powerful withholding is. You can be perfectly courteous and give nothing. NC is not just shutting down their communications with you, it’s also turning off all availability of information FROM you. Except what is necessary to do practical business. Not emotional information about your feelings. No opinions that could give them hints of what’s going on in your mind.
Sociopaths typically have mastered the art of being charming and withholding at the same time. And this is largely by doing therapist-style reflective communications. That is, talking about the other person, feeding back their opinions and feelings to them in a way that seems interested and supportive (but actually does not disclose what you think). My ex called this “please the idiot.” And otherwise talking about things that are entirely relationship-neutral. The weather, traffic, etc.
If the other person insists on making the conversation about you, you give meaningless answers — How are you? Oh excellent. — or deflect — You were upset when I last saw you; are you okay now? Oh I got involved in some projects over the summer and forgot all about it.
If someone really puts on the pressure, the verbal-judo response is “Why do you want to know?”
It’s amazing what you can get away with saying if you say with with a friendly smile.
But the main point is to give away nothing that isn’t material to the relationship you want. In this case, it’s teacher-student.
What you get out of this is that she doesn’t know what you’re thinking or planning. And if she truly is a sociopath, that is probably going to keep her away from you. Sociopaths like easy marks, not other sociopaths. There’s no question she’ll make a couple of efforts to see if she can get an emotional hold on you, but if you present a courteous friendly, work-oriented front that gives away nothing of what you really think or feel, it will probably discourage her.
The other thing that might help you is to think about how you would behave if you weren’t a humble student, but actually an inspector from a state ethics commission auditing the course as a pretend student. Or if you were actually a millionaire’s daughter with a high-powered lawyer who has already informed the administration that your father is prepared to sue the pants off the school if you report teacher misbehavior. Or you’re wearing a wire which is linked into the administrator’s office.
This is not to make you arrogant. Just quietly watchful for infractions. Again, this is something you keep to yourself, but it’s an attitude that could change your dynamic with her. If there’s an atmosphere between you of you giving her enough rope to hang herself, that could help.
I don’t know if any of these ideas would work for you. But the important thing is to stick to business with her. (And don’t badmouth her to other people. They may be your friends and co-sufferers but your objective here is not to express yourself except in your art, but to get through this with the best grades possible and minimal emotional stress.)
I hope this helps.
Kathy