You must not disappoint me.
You must not inconvenience me.
You must recognize all of my expectations as reasonable.
You must, at all times, accommodate me.
You must recognize my “special needs” (special in an important, not disabled, sense); and must always satisfy them.
You must be glad for my good moods, and understand and tolerate my bad, nasty ones.
You must see my anger, rage and contempt as always arising for justifiable reasons.
You must make tireless efforts to placate me when you’ve upset me.
You must appreciate that my comfort supercedes yours and everyone else’s.
You must find what interests me, interesting; and you must convey your interest.
You willingly assume responsibility for my happiness, and blame for my discontent.
You must never oppose or defy me.
You must always know what I want without my having to ask; and you must always communicate what you want without my having to ask.
You must recognize that double-standards are unacceptable, except when they’re mine (in which case they’re not double-standards, just differently applied standards).
You must stop shoving the word “reciprocity” in my face. Reciprocity means that both of us do what I want and need.
You appreciate at all times my importance and significance, or I’ll find someone who will.
You recognize that, even though we’re both “tired” at the end of the day, my fatigue is ten times more valid than yours, and so you cut me ten times more slack than I cut you.
You worry about your accountability to me, and I’ll worry about my accountability to God.
You find that everything I say makes sense (and therefore brooks no opposition).
You appreciate that your value to me is proportionate to how good you make me look, and feel.
You somehow sustain yourself as an alluring sexual object to me, or I license myself to satisfy that demand elsewhere.
You may have noticed that what underlies all of these commandments is an inflated sense of entitlement (the attitude at the heart of narcissism). I look forward to your feedback and to your adding creatively, and from your own insights, to my assuredly uncomprehensive list.
(This article is copyrighted (c) 2009 by Steve Becker, LCSW.)
Steve,
Magnificent!
Steve,
First reactions are :
You never cease to amaze me in your understanding of our experience. Your writing is factual with a poetic twist that makes each COMMANDMENT they convey not what we have necessarily HEARD said with our ears (although sometimes we have) but certainly what we have FELT was required to make the relationship continue.
Even God does not require this of us….how fitting a Narcissist would.
Steve, I’m sitting here at my desk, laughing out loud. Going back and forth over the list, trying to find my favorite.
Right now I’m leaning toward “You find that everything I say makes sense (and therefore brooks no opposition).”
And, of course, it’s not the narcissist’s fault if you’re too stupid, confused or mentally ill to grasp that fact.
Reading this reminded me of when I was trying to figure out what my ex knew that I didn’t, because he was always right and winning and I was always wrong and losing. So I tried a few times to mimic what he was doing, thinking that he must want both of us to have the same emotional, physical and sexual freedom he felt entitled to. Oh wrong, wrong, wrong. That wasn’t his idea at all.
I’m not sure why I find this so incredibly funny. Probably using humor to avoid the memories of how humiliating and creepy it really was. But all I’m tempted to say is, “Can I be a narcissist too? It sounds like a lot more fun than being the one who does all the groveling.”
But seriously, Steve, thanks for boiling this down. It’s a wonderful list. I can’t wait to call some of my friends and tell them to read this.
Kathy
Brilliant Dr. Steve, May I humbly recommend two more?
YOU must accept my statements and prounouncements as uncontrovertable facts, because I made them, regardless of evidence to the contrary, or any doubts of my ability to predict the future.
YOU must accept that my mistakes are not mistakes, but that I have simply been persecuted by others because they envy my obvious superiority over them.
Make it three more
YOU must be eternally grateful for my patience and tolerance of people like yourself and others who I am obviously superior to.
Okay now this is starting to be fun…
YOU must accept that any and all of my needs or wants are justifiable, because I need or want them.
YOU must be grateful for my presence in your life and accept that as “love” regardless of how unpleasant or crazy I make our life together.
YOU must accept that if I act irrationally, it is simply because I have been driven to do so by you or others, who just don’t get how “special” I am.
How I wish that all of these commandments would have been easier to see at the time. In my case my P was very adept at looking like he was helping and accomodating me or others, when in fact he was actively undermining, gaslighting, conning or setting us up. Which brings me to one more
You must accept that regardless of how destructive I am, it is only to satisfy my needs, which of course is in your interest.
There was recently an article in the LA Times talking about how closely many politicians match the PCL scale thingy of Dr. Hare.
Too bad so many of the SPN’s do end up in the highest levels of power, and no wonder we end up struggling with the blowback of their arrogance and corruption as their constituants. Even when we get them out of our personal lives, there are so many in positions of power they affect us regardless.
In a time when the lowliest job at a box store involves phsycological screening and so on, it seems a shame that we the people cannot demand a method of screening out the power and war mongers that we “elect” to govern us and tell us what is good for us. Hmmmph…..Remeber how feted, respected and admired people like Ken Lay and Bernie Madoff were before they stumbled on their own petard? You have to admit, these folks are GOOD at what they do, until they lose sight of the vast bubble of lies they are floating in. Hmmmmph again.
How about one more
You must be grateful for my attention, even when you discover it all to be lies, because hey, at least I took the trouble to make up lies for you.
Peace to all and thanks Dr. Steve.
Steve:)xx
… EWS, kath, donna, newlife, this is just perfect:)xx
Wonderful!
You must never expect me to be forthright and must respect my absolute right to withhold any and all information as I please.
You must never confront me with my words or promises from the past. That was then (five minutes ago), this is now.
You must understand what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine too. Do not expect me to share finances with you equally. Do expect me to hide funds, treat myself well and perhaps contribute a meager amount to the household.
Excellent list.
You could also add:
You cannot question my distorted view of the truth.
You must accept that anything you give to me, anything I steal from you, any possible benefit I extract from my relationship with you is now mine, has always been mine, and its temporary stay in your possession was only to prepare it for being mine. And you will be appropriately grateful for the privilege of earning, inheriting or otherwise procuring what is mine, before I liberate from your lowly self to its true destiny as mine.
Dr. Steve – I think Oxy is right ‘every sociopath is also a narcissist’ the double standard comment is right on~! I can remember being worn to a frazzle trying to keep him happy and interested and he would say “you never do what I want, it all about you’ I would set there in confusion thinking ‘what does he mean? I have turned my whole life over to him.” My question is “How can they expect this when they dont have a pot to pee in?”