Mask of the Narcissist

Last week while making dinner I listened to Mel Robbins' podcast interview with Dr. Ramani Durvasula on "5 signs you're dealing with a narcissist". It was a fun romp through a toxic swamp of bad behavior, replete with wonderfully practical tips for those who find themselves trapped in the gaslight-y, finger-point-y spiral of a narcissist.

Durvasula described how the narcissist thinks they are better than everyone else: they cut to the front of the line and they don't like being told what to do. She used the example of someone refusing to wear a mask as a classic "you can't tell me what to do" narcissist move. In a very meta way, it was just the type of conflation of objectivity and subjectivity that one encounters when dealing with a narcissist, albeit the culture-wars edition. A chilling reminder that sanity often feels tenuously dependent on having enough people to share the same version of reality with, whether one is the narcissist or not.

For anyone with blue-state values, her statement was obvious fact: someone who refuses to wear a mask is displaying narcissistic traits. The conceit being, we all agree that there are good people and then there are "anti-maskers". But this can be easily flipped when we leave the rhetorical territory of the blue-state.

Imagine the following person from a red-state perspective: huffing and puffing in their mask, demanding that other people put on theirs, saying "Look at me, I'm the good person here because I'm wearing my mask to protect you! You have to wear yours to protect me! How dare you threaten my life!" This might be considered narcissistic behavior in a place where masks are not the norm.

Meanwhile, back in the blue-state context, imagine another figure. Someone who found the data on mask efficacy lacking, the testimony of industrial hygienists compelling, and the empirical evidence of steam flowing freely out the sides of masks in winter impossible to ignore. As such, they decided they would not obstruct their airways, as it was clear to them donning the mask was a political gesture, not a health and safety measure. Might they be seen, like the securely-attached individual Durvasula describes, as asserting their authentic self in the face of overwhelming societal pressure to conform? As she explained, authentic people don't always have the largest friend group because they prioritize remaining consistent with their truth over the appearance of having a team of people "on their side".

Confusing someone else's boundaries with your own has often been described as a classic trait of the narcissist, one who has so disoriented a sense of self that what they seek to control extends well past their own life and into potentially anyone else's. The construct of "I need you to be a certain way so that I can feel ok" is the hallmark of the narcissist dynamic, as any recovering codependent will tell you. If Durvasula happened to be coming from a red-state-values perspective, would her description of the narcissist be the person who polices others' masking rather than the person who declines to wear one?

What's invigorating to me about this seemingly simple example of narcissistic behavior is that it points toward the underlying question narcissism asks, the question that is currently wreaking havoc on our culture: "who gets to decide what's real?" On a very basic emotional level, the problem with narcissists is that they won't conform to your reality, and they make your life difficult when you don't conform to theirs. When you point this out, the narcissist quite literally says the same thing about you, and reality itself is called into question. When we're caught in this trap, the reality mongering appears (maddeningly) to be happening on both sides. Thanks to algorithms, it's much easier to spend a lot of time in the reality you prefer, and to assume those who don't conform to it are the problem, which makes this encounter all the more rattling.

Narcissism is an endlessly fascinating topic because it's fractal: beginning with a seemingly self-centered person who, as it turns out, actually lacks a self but in their selfishness, makes you question yourself/ishness, then question your questioning. The absence/presence of self seems to radiate out from an invisible wound—how could one person be so self-important and at the same time so needy? So full of themselves and yet so lacking? At every level their annihilated self struggles to exist through the annihilation of yours. The horror-factor sets in when it dawns on you that you're all you've got in the relationship—the lights are on but nobody's home. Being the sole arbiter of reality can be a frightening encounter with loneliness.

Natalie Portman and mirror creature in Annihilation

Natalie Portman's character, doing something like a modern dance with the mirrored being that mirrors her movements (like a sci-fi Narcissus) at the end of Annihilation, is what comes to mind every time I try to deconstruct an engagement with a narcissist. If you try to assert your reality, they'll assert theirs right back atchya. They enact, as well as provoke, the worst behaviors and yet somehow appear to evade responsibility for their role in the dynamic ("you started it!").

Operating from an absence of self, and overcompensating through rigid, desperate tyranny, their haunted passion is perhaps an invitation—a challenge for you to embody a sense of self that isn't contingent upon their ability to understand or respect it. Although that seems to put you back in the mirror game (wait, isn't that what they want, too?), it's the reclaiming of a reality that can survive, regardless of their approval, which is the key to liberation. If their reality could survive without you affirming it, they wouldn't be torturing you in the first place.

Thankfully, you only need to reclaim your reality from them, whereas they face the impossible task of needing to reclaim theirs from the void—a void they don't even know exists. It's like their whole life is a gesture toward a question they won't allow themselves to ask: "who am I?" While it seems no one knows what the narcissist can do to heal, they can ironically be a healing presence in the life of others. Such bad behavior can be a gift, a reminder you that you still have that deeply human capacity to ask the question "who am I?" If you find yourself in the throes of a narcissistic showdown, it's probably an indication that now is a good time to make use of it.

Jennifer Grey and Charlie Sheen in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off