Concept: Cognitive scientists who focus on emotions disagree about the number of emotions but concur on five basic ones – happiness, sadness, fear, anger, and disgust (as in the movie, Inside Out). Of these, the only one with a positive valence is happiness. The rest give an unpleasant feeling. Narcissism is on a scale. We all have some capacity to act in narcissistic ways. The higher the tendency to narcissism, the less happiness we can experience. This is because narcissists have experienced such damaging childhoods that their self-image remains tattered. It can be a surprise that grandiose narcissists experience self-loathing, but we must remember that they only pretend to trick themselves and others. With such sensitivities and a sharp focus on any information a narcissist can gather on whether they are winning pretend competitions, it’s little wonder that times of feeling content and at peace are rare at best.

How this hurts the narcissist: A severe lack of positive emotional valence is a life full of stress, anxieties, and denial of reality. It’s challenging to think up a worse life unless you’re a victim of a toxic person with no chance of escape.

Examples:

1. Whenever Gwen passes a child having fun with a parent, she scowls, thinking about how her parents never played with her as a kid.
2. Red always refuses to play party games, opting to sit to the side with his arms crossed.
3. A mom keeps taking away her son’s video game console that he uses to distract himself from the toxic household as punishment for minor indiscretions.

Advice: Of all 101 entries in the Narcissism Encyclopedia, this is the one that empaths may read and feel so bad for the narcissist that it could make them stay a victim of one. After all, a person with little-to-no chance of happiness deserves pity. If you must pity them, pity the children they were more than the adults they are. Remember that they usually have resources to try and get help and choose not to. Unless you’re a therapist to a narcissist, you need to recognize that you have neither the ability nor responsibility to help them. You can do nothing except subject yourself to misery if you get or stay involved with a narcissist.

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