Needless to say, narcissists are purely driven by sensations; how they feel decides what they do next. For example, if something makes them feel powerful, in control, and gives them a deep sense of high they don’t normally feel, they’ll be attracted to it. They’ll be inclined to do it more or have more of it. One such thing is being out there in the world. Many do not want to be at home; they are in a state of ‘go, go, go’ all the time. They just want to go out because one, it distracts them from themselves; they can’t be with themselves. Two, out there, life offers a massive source of supply, embracing them and giving them the fuel they need to survive and live.
Ever seen a child? Narcissists are childlike, jumping in joy because someone promised them their parent promised them that they’ll be going to Disneyland on a certain day, and they feel so excited about it, so joyful. Why? Because children are driven by sensations; how they feel decides what the world looks like for them, what the color of the world is. There is no logic to these sensations; they are just driven by innocence. You can give them a piece of chocolate, maybe some candy, and there you go, you have a happy, totally satisfied kid. A narcissist is quite similar to what I am describing, but the difference is they do not have any part of the innocence that this kid has; they have the opposite, and that is malevolence. They are driven by the desire to have more, to feel more, to get more. Basically, their core emotion behind the behaviors is greed. They are in need of all that everything has to offer, but nothing fills them. Think about that for a moment. A child eventually outgrows their sensations; their ego comes under their control, and they know just because they want something, they can’t have it right in that moment, or just because something makes them feel happy does not necessarily mean they can have it all the time. For example, chocolate; it’s unhealthy. But a narcissist gets stuck in the sensational state. A narcissist gets stuck in that state, in that sensational state, and it becomes maladaptive. That’s why it’s said a narcissist is developmentally stuck. They are emotionally stunted, childlike beings who need constant stimulation. The emphasis is on the word ‘childlike’; they’re not children, they are childlike.
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Have you ever seen that movie in which they adopt a girl, and they think she is a child, but she turns out to be 18 or 19 years old or something like that and ends up annoying her parents again and again? That is what a narcissist’s inner child looks like. It looks like their behaviors are childish, they’re driven by their need for instant gratification and impulsivity, but in reality, it is nothing but a maladaptation. Now it has turned quite malicious, and it has become evil. What does that have to do with them not being able to stay at their home? Well, it explains why they get bored easily. They can’t be at their home because if they’re left at home, they will have to be with themselves, and that is the last thing the narcissist wants to do. They don’t want to face their reality; they want to go out there, look for a potential supply or a group of supply, collect supply, or do something fancy, a party, anything, especially if it is an overt narcissist that will get them a ton of attention, admiration, adulation, anything that takes away the focus from themselves and distracts them and gives them all those sensations, feel-good sensations, that excitement of cheating on you, that high of lying to you, the sadistic satisfaction they get from thinking others are weaker than them and it’s easy to exploit these people because they let it happen to themselves. This is what we call psychopathic thinking. They may fool you in the beginning by claiming to be homebodies, which they are not, especially if you like to be at home. It’s only a trick, a good old term for this is mirroring. They copy your behaviors only to fool you into creating a rapport with them, into thinking, ‘Oh wow, they’re a reflection of me,’ which is why I say it quite often. They make you fall in love by behaving as your reflection, that you fall in love with a reflection when you meet a narcissist because they pretend to want the same thing that you want, they pretend to make you comfortable, only to trap you, only to make you think you have found the person of your dreams. They like to be out because out there is novelty, newness, new ways of acquiring supply, new ways of targeting people, new ways of fooling groups, new ways of taking advantage of other people’s innocence, new ways of making it seem like they’re the biggest victim of other people’s doing, new ways of telling lies, learning new scripts, and so on. They can’t be still, and that makes many survivors think, ‘Does this person have ADHD?’ Of course not, ADHD is a completely different thing. And how do you know they don’t have it? Well, you have to think of things in this context; you have to understand that someone with ADHD does not lack empathy; they are quite reflective. In fact, they’re overly reflective. If you have ADHD, maybe you can help us understand how you are different from a narcissist. They overthink, they self-analyze, they self-criticize, they are all scattered, they are in a hundred different places at a given time. A narcissist is not like that; their need for stimulation comes from a need to stay distracted, whereas someone with ADHD cannot help but feel distracted. They go out there in search of something new; they don’t want to be that way, a narcissist
can literally have everything a person needs to feel satisfied, yet they’ll still go out there in search of something new. Why? Because, as I always say, they have a hole in the bottom of their vessel, everything keeps draining out. So that need to be around more people, to do new things, and to indulge in high-risk behaviors comes from that newness, to purge what they don’t want to feel, but they can’t help it, it’s in there, they keep running away from it until a day comes, it engulfs them, and that is when they hit collapse.
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It’s also important for me to mention that a narcissist is very different from an extrovert. An extrovert is a person who likes to be around a lot of people, who likes to party, who likes to be a part of big groups, who likes to have a lot of attention around them, but that does not necessarily make them a narcissist. It’s how their nervous system works, it’s how they recharge their battery, but an extrovert is not necessarily a manipulator; they do not indulge in activities a narcissist does, and their desire to be out there is purely a part of who they are; it’s not driven by a desire to stay distracted. Someone can be an extrovert without being a narcissist, but there is a possibility that a narcissist can be extroverted because there are some introverted narcissists about whom we are going to talk about now. There are some narcissists who stay at home all the time; you’re the one who goes out and works, you’re the one who does all the groceries, you’re the one who takes care of the outside world, while they sit on the couch playing games or wasting time on their phone, constantly seeking attention on social media and not moving at all. If that is the type of narcissist you have dealt with, the earlier part of this episode may have confused you, but I would like to reassure you that just because the narcissist is at home does not necessarily mean they are not a narcissist. The theme is distraction; they have to be distracted all the time, and that distraction can come from video games, that can come from social media, anything, or that can come from talking with friends or relatives on their phone forever, for hours just to get fuel for their victimhood, especially if it is a covert narcissist that you’re dealing with.
In conclusion, narcissists go out there to stay distracted. They want to avoid all occasions that could invite them to connect with you at a deeper level. Yet, there are some narcissists who do not go out at all, which does not necessarily mean they’re not narcissists. What you have to remember is distraction, a constant chase for novelty, which they never find, and they are in a constant state of dysphoria.
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