We hear the word ‘narcissist’ a lot these days in articles and media. It has become a popular buzzword used to describe manipulative, controlling people who have an inflated sense of their own importance, a deep need for admiration, a sense of entitlement, and a lack of empathy for others. According to psychcentral.com, in order for a person to be diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) they must have five or more of the following symptoms:
- Has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)
- Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
- Believes that he or she is “special” and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)
- Requires excessive admiration
- Has a very strong sense of entitlement, e.g., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations
- Is exploitative of others, e.g., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends
- Lacks empathy, e.g., is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others
- Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her
- Regularly shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes
Most experts agree that narcissism exists on a continuum, with some people naturally being more narcissistic than others, such that the defining line between who has a full blown narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) versus who exhibits highly narcissistic traits is not distinct. Essentially, to some degree, all of us have behaved narcissistically at one point or another. Regardless whether we are dealing with full blown NPD or a highly narcissistic person, such individuals can cause a lot of pain and chaos in the lives of those they cross paths with.
Psychologists and therapists say, watch out if you suspect you are dealing with a highly narcissistic person as their personality is typically fixed, and no amount of pleading, explaining or appealing to their non-existent empathy will change their behaviour unless something is in it for them. Your best bet is to run far away and never look back if you can. If you are forced to deal with them on a regular basis, for example if such a person is your boss or your parent or your spouse, there are ways to make life less chaotic in terms of how you relate to them, but never forget that they are who they are, and will always be who they are.
Is the USA behaving like a narcissist with regards to its ‘US persons’ living outside USA?
Is USA’s insistence on unique to the world, citizenship based taxation (Eritrea doesn’t count), indicative of a grandiose sense of self-importance?
Is USA preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, and does it believe it is ‘special’ and unique, to the degree that it can justify taxation on people who neither live nor work within the geographical boundaries of the United States of America?
Does the USA require excessive admiration by insisting that people who have lived entire lives outside the USA pay tribute to the USA in the form of taxation and the revealing of their so-called ‘foreign’ bank accounts, simply because they were born on ‘special’ US soil?
Does the USA reveal a strong sense of entitlement by insisting that all other countries in the world, at their own expense, hunt down their own citizens living in their own countries, just because USA says these people are its ‘US persons’?
Is the USA being exploitative of other countries by threatening them with economic sanctions if they do not hand over their US born citizens (and other ‘US persons’ as defined by the USA) to the USA?
Does the USA lack empathy for those it deems ‘US persons’ who are typically citizens of other countries living in those other countries, paying taxes already in those other countries, and who cannot live normal financial lives, cannot save adequately for retirement, and are burdened by having to marry two incompatible tax systems?
Does the USA show arrogant, haughty behaviour or attitude by presuming it is OK for it to be the ONLY country in the world(Eritrea doesn’t count) to impose citizenship based taxation, knowing full well that if ALL countries did this, the world would be a financial mess?
Even if FATCA and CBT are struck down, is it safe to remain a ‘US person’ living outside USA, or is your best bet to run to the nearest US consulate and renounce US citizenship to get the narcissist out of your life forever?
I’d call them a “malignant narcissistic psychopath”. The US doesn’t care who it harms or where. If one attempts to fight back, the US will destroy that person with focused intensity.
How do I know. I lived with one for 29 years of my life before I broke free – my own mother. To this day I don’t like Mother’s Day. Why would I? I didn’t have one growing up.
“Your best bet is to run far away and never look back if you can. If you are forced to deal with them on a regular basis, for example if such a person is your boss or your parent or your spouse, there are ways to make life less chaotic in terms of how you relate to them, but never forget that they are who they are, and will always be who they are.”
Best advice is to “get away from them. Go underground if you can. Avoid them like the plague. Don’t give them an opportunity to get back in your life.”
I hear you Animal. I’ve dealt with my share too…still dealing.
@WhiteKat
The answer is yes. And I have not regretted once giving up my US citizenship. You describe the USA perfectly.
@TheAnimal, It is particularly hard when the person is your own mother. No one gets this. No one can believe that this could happen….but it does. And those wounds go deep. My sympathies.
Maybe part of the reason you are so angry about all this FATCA/CBT BS (as if that isn’t enough on its on) has to do with repressed anger towards your mother. TheMom and I were talking about that on the ‘grief’ thread – i.e. how repressed anger has a tendency to boil back to the surface and FATCA/CBT is the perfect catalyst for that.
My mother had borderline personality disorder and my father had NPD. These people often couple together because their personalities fit to each other. So I have had my share of suffering and sorrows too. 🙁
I have oftentimes wondered if the preponderance of mercenary incentives which seem to override the vital importance of good and loving parenting is creating a personality disordered world? NPD is a result of early emotional trauma.
But I think that the number of NPD cases has not risen generally speaking. Similarly, one has not found that schizophrenia has increased. It is always about 2% of the population, whether there is war torn suffering in a country or not. So although America is displaying grandessa and lack of empathy, it might be a result of abuse of power. It has been found time and again that when afforded absolute power – human beings become monsters.
The U.S. culture is very narcissist in general and everyone should run as far as possible until that changes …
@Kragu
I think most people here chose to fight with truth and not lies.
I am waiting for a nice coinciding time to make my next donation.
Something like Harpers birthday, his wifes birthday, dogs birthday, anything.
@Polly
I think that some here will say they have no allegiance or duty to banks or the work they are doing for the US gov.
Very interesting post and comments.
Another question might be this:
Why are some people so much more emotionally affected by all this BS from the USA than others are? A very large number of people are periphally aware of all this and just don’t care. Yet others have allowed to to become a major part of their lives?
What accounts for the differences among those on the receiving end of all this?
Your posting of “narcissism” reminds of two earlier posts:
http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2012/06/20/june-18-1812-june-18-2012-u-s-citizenship-based-taxation-and-other-less-expensive-ways-to-wage-war/comment-page-1/
http://isaacbrocksociety.ca/2013/05/29/irs-abuse-of-americans-abroad-the-greater-the-effort-the-greater-the-punishment/comment-page-1/#comment-362132
WhiteKat: I certainly do recognize the US of A in your list of symptoms. I never thought of “diagnosing” a country in terms of a recognized medical disorder. I think you’ve done a “spot on” job!
I found this interesting that it fits this topic. When you think much of the people who left their countries to settle in the USA had troubling pasts…Some were prisoners, indentured servants and slaves.
There are five hypothesis.. here is part of the first one.
“Hypothesis one
The first hypothesis for the high rates of schizophrenia among migrants states that the countries from which migrants originate themselves have high rates of schizophrenia. This hypothesis, although superficially attractive, has no evidence in reality. The World Heath Organization has enabled good quality multi-centre data collection on this topic and from this, Jablensky et al5 reported that rates of narrow definition (core) schizophrenia were not dissimilar across different cultural setting”
http://bmb.oxfordjournals.org/content/69/1/129.full
I should have copied and paste a better example but the conclusion.
“n conclusion, there is little doubt that the rates of schizophrenia are higher among some migrant groups; this increase may well be linked with a number of complex factors and interactions. Race, ethnicity and an alien cultural group may function as vulnerability factors and continuing socio-economic disadvantage, discrimination and alienation may work as chronic difficulties, making vulnerable individuals develop psychosis. A deep sense of alienation, loss and failure may contribute to poor self-esteem, which may contribute to distorted images of the self. Broader social factors play a role and deserve to be studied in the specific context of the influence of migration on the development of schizophrenia.”
@USCitizenAbroad
Maybe those who are “periphally aware” or don’t allow the US’s behaviour to consume them are practicing some of the methods of dealing with others with NPD:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/fulfillment-any-age/201408/8-ways-handle-narcissist
@Heidi
Truth or not?
@USC re: “Why are some people so much more emotionally affected by all this BS from the USA than others are? A very large number of people are periphally aware of all this and just don’t care. Yet others have allowed to to become a major part of their lives?”
I think someone could probably write a book trying to answer that question!
No matter how you slice it FATCA enforced CBT is abuse. People react differently to abuse depending on the degree to which they have encountered it before, as well as their own unique personality. If anyone is curious to learn more about what makes them tick, I would highly recommend checking out your Briggs Meyers personality type (INFJ here). There are many online tests you can take for free.
Personally, I have just recently come to the conclusion that the reason I am so emotionally affected by all this BS is because I have experienced several other abusive situations in my life, both as a child and as an adult, where I was unable to do a damn thing to stop it or get any sense of closure from it, and in most cases I was the only one who was even aware of it. Abuse naturally creates anger in the victim. Anger needs to be released which is not an easy thing to do when the damage has been severe, so it festers like an old wound, causing all sorts of problems, tending to boil to the surface when faced with further abuse.
@polly
Truth to a bank if you have a non us birthplace and dual nationality?!
@polly
Would you put yourself into the lions mouth on the principle of truth if you consider the basis to be unjust?
@polly.
I don’t know where you are located but in some countries it’s a matter of survival. It has become impossible for a US person to hold a bank account and mortgages have been closed. Would you willing admit to the ‘truth’ of being a US person if you could avoid it?
We do what we have to do to protect our family and livelihood against this injustice.
@Heidi
I was wondering what you meant.
Thats not how I meant it. The truth is in the principle. We are fighting for human rights.
Polly
Agreed.
But I think kragu was talking survival strategy.
@Brick Tamland – I hear Harper’s pet cockroach is having a birthday on May 29, 2015.
@WhiteKat – yep, every so often when I feel that the USA is doing something abusive, it sends me back to the days where I feared for my survival in my early years – and yes, the rage bubbles up. BTW, I’m INFJ too. 🙂
@TheAnimal, re: ” BTW, I’m INFJ too.”
My condolences….that makes you a perfect narc target.
I’m an ISTJ (which I once heard described as “it’s a tough job”). Integrity is important and I wish the U.S. were acting with it (yes, I am judgmental with a capital J). I plod away on this because plodding away is what I do. I will get to the bottom of this.