Thomas Erikson - Surrounded by Narcissists

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Love is a serious mental disease.

PLATO

I

Love can be the most beautiful experience a human being has in their lifetime. True, genuine, requited love thats strong enough to shake the core of your being. It makes your heart race and your legs wobblier than usual. Im talking about the kind of love where you find yourself dreamily gazing off into the horizon, brimming over with longing for the object of your desire. A love that makes you want to protect your partner from any threat that appears.

Normally, it takes two people to produce this kind of infinite, larger-than-life adulation. But sometimes its a different story.

A few years ago, I wrote Surrounded by Psychopaths. Since its publication, Ive had an astonishing number of people suggest to me that I should also write a book about narcissists. At first, the subject triggered no curiosity in me at all. This was mainly because of the close ties between narcissism and psychopathy; it felt difficult to add anything substantially novel or different to the subject.

As time went on, and I worked away on other projects, I began to notice a series of odd phenomena that are occurring in our society today. These were developments that honestly made very little sense to me. I found myself discussing a bunch of rather unusual questions with a whole crowd of people who had made similar observations themselves. Phenomena we hadnt observed before were becoming increasingly common right in front of our eyes.

Meanwhile, the inquiries kept coming from various interested parties: When are you going to write a book about narcissism? In the end, this question was posed to me by somebody I couldnt say no toyou know who you areand I began, somewhat unwillingly, I might add, to research the subject. After some thorough investigations into the subject of narcissism, however, it dawned on me that I had stumbled across the explanation to a whole series of peculiarities that are making their way around the world.

Narcissism, in the sense of the personality disorder defined by psychiatrists, takes its name from the character Narcissus from Greek mythology. This youth, who was famous for his beauty, was the son of the river god Cephissus. Narcissus was so incredibly handsome that anybody who saw him would immediately fall in love with him. The trouble was that he rejected everyone, including the young girl Echoand was thus fated to fall in love with his own reflection.

In one version of the myththere are more competing versions out there than seems entirely necessaryNarcissus simply starves to death as he sits there by the pond, gazing at his reflection. Eventually, he transformed into a white-and-yellow flower, which has since been named after himthe Narcissus genus of flowers includes the daffodil.

Whichever version of the myth we decide to believe, poor Narcissus was the first person ever, as far as we know, to fall victim to this powerful kind of self-love. But then again, being that he is a mythical figure, it seems likely that the problem was a familiar one even before the story was first told. Myths usually describe and explain things that people have already made note of.

Weve all come across them.

The people who talk about themselves incessantly, announcing their incredible knowledge, skills, experience, and credentials to the world; who feel entitled to the best of whatever life has to offer; who feel better, more attractive, and more successful than their peers; who take selfies by the hundreds, painstakingly pore over them to single out the best one, and then fly into a violent rage if it doesnt receive as many likes as they feel it deserves. These are the people who go to great lengths to be trendy, who put great value in being seen, and who seem to be prepared to do almost anything to stand out. They get upset when the success theyre expecting fails to materialize, and succumb to needy whining whenever things dont go their way.

Perhaps youre thinking to yourself that people like this are nothing new. We used to just think to ourselves, What a jerk! Nowadays, people hardly even raise an eyebrow at this kind of thing. Its the new normal.

Families accumulating massive debt just so they can keep up with the Joneses. Parents convincing their children that they can be anything they want because of how naturally fantastic they are. Influencers whose only real achievement is appearing in social media in trendy outfits. How long has it been this way?

School kids who feel they dont need to study because they reckon they already know everything. Grade averages dropping in our schools, despite the constant dumbing down of the grading criteria. Families being run by members who have insufficient or no real-life experience. Teenagers choosing the familys holiday destination. Mothers buying their teenagers cars that cost more than the ones they drive themselves.

University students who, rather than engaging with their ideological opponents in debate, form mobs to shout and cause enough ruckus to make sure that speakers they disapprove of wont be able to make themselves heard. Individuals who openly admit that they would do anythingliterally anythingin order to be successful. Successful at what? one wonders.

Perhaps at participating in reality shows on TV, shows that feature aspects of human anatomy and behavior that would have been incredibly shocking just a few decades ago.

What we think of as normal has taken on a very different face. The connections between the preceding descriptions and narcissism are as evident as they are disquieting. All of those descriptions include significant signs of narcissistic behavior. Sometimes, though, you need to take a few steps back to be able to detect the pattern. But as soon as you do, you see it as clear as day.

II

Psychologists are more or less in agreement: Clinical narcissism occurs in somewhere between 1 and 2 percent of the population. However, there is no absolute consensus on the subject, and different researchers quote different sets of figures. Disagreement and argument over these issues is rife in the field. But for our purposes, 1 or 2 percent will be accurate enough. You might think that doesnt sound like too many. One percent is a very small ratio. Like a tiny glitch in the system. But then again, that would mean that Sweden, my own country of residence, would be home to somewhere between one hundred thousand and two hundred thousand narcissists.

Applying the same percentage globally gives us a population of between 70 and 140 million narcissists. But there is a significant difference between the clinical term narcissistic personality disorder, or NPD, and what we call narcissistic behavior. The latter is exhibited by people who display obvious narcissistic tendencies without having received a clinical diagnosis. Later in this book, Ill be giving you a series of examples of what I have come to refer to as narcissistic culture. This is when narcissistic behaviors become increasingly prevalent in various levels of society. One example of this would be an increased emphasis on the self. International research suggests that in Western culture