SAMD
As Narcissists and narcissistic people age, the results are not pretty.
Where they might have been able to charm and manipulate their way through life efficiently when they were younger, most lose social and psychological power over others as they begin to age. Not only do their bodies start to fail them over time, but once they lose the “cute” of their youth, if they haven’t emotionally or psychologically matured, most conversations with them end up feeling dreadfully painful.
Since Narcissists seldom mature emotionally much older than the age of 6, it’s truly traumatizing to have to listen to them. With 13 or 14 years old being the psycho-social and emotional cap for the EQ [Emotional Quotient] rather than the IQ [Intelligence Quotient], having to work with or deal with most is like having to subject yourself to a cross-country car ride with a combative or angry teenager at best.
For that reason alone, the findings of the new study seem to line up directly with what seems to happen in life to most Narcissistic people. They dominate their social environment using brutal, covert situational abuse tactics, but as their social circle starts to narrow inevitably during old age, they are able to find fewer and fewer people emotionally and psychologically capable of providing care due to the narcissistic predator’s unquenchable thirst to abuse.
When Narcissists were children, they might have been seen as part of the in-crowd or as the leader of a mean-spirited clique. Conversely, their personality may have been so extreme they were set apart from the school crowd, noted for having deviant but strong “stylish” personalities.
[Think about the loner rebel who is mean to everybody except their preferred few. If a narcissistic child or teen seems to have a posse, understand it’s a red flag warning that they might be running with a narcissistic clique or criminal crew.]
Then, by middle school, their bodies start to change. Those Narcissists who are good looking have a tendency to turn into Somatic Narcissists while those who are bright intellectually tend to lean towards the Cerebral Narcissistic side. Depending on the source of their narcissistic temperament (nature or nurture), all will begin to show glimpses of who they are to become in the future around this age.
Seriously — pay attention to children who (for whatever reason) start behaving badly in middle school. If they did not come out of the womb with an egocentric personality like Oppositional Defiant Disorder or develop the early warning signs of Childhood Conduct disorder, chances are they have either witnessed traumatizing events, been subjected to trauma themselves, or there truly is something they are hiding from you.
[Note: Children who start acting out by late Elementary or early Middle School years have oftentimes experienced being bullied at home or sexually abused. Resist the urge to minimize negative behaviors or to back down about the need to set healthy boundaries with children of this age; bad tempers are not normal no matter what Enabler friends try to tell you. The very same person trying their hardest to convince you that a child’s behavior is age appropriate is the one most likely to have situationally and covertly abused the youth.]
If they are truly toxic by nature and are biologically incapable of feeling empathy, their egocentrism lends itself to the development of NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder) in later life. By the time kids turn 18 they can, technically speaking, be diagnosed — but truly, it is between the age of 18 and 28 that the personality fully forms, calcifying their nature into something people who are not afraid to make pop cultural reference in the field of psychology might refer to as a “head case”.
