The Blame Wrapper

There is a kind of brokenness that’s hardened not shattered. A child stands in the ruins of what could have been and builds a castle out of blame. From the outside it gleams with confidence, competence and control. Inside, it’s hollow—haunted by an echo of shame too old to name.

We call this castle narcissism. It’s not grandeur, it’s fossilized fear. This is an attempt to look at it with compassion and fairness.

“I tried to be nice
I tried to live my life
But everyone else is an asshole

I tried to forgive
I tried to live and let live
But everyone else is an asshole”

- Aaron Asher Barrett

Imagine being neglected as a child so completely that you learn to neglect yourself. You internalize the lack of care of the caretakers that failed you. You minimize your needs as much as you can because they hurt too much not being met. To the point that just feeling them becomes threatening. If you learn to dismiss them first then they cannot be dismissed by others, you can save some humiliation. As a child, you have no other way but to believe that your caretakers are right and that you deserve the neglectful treatment.

Shame takes over your core. You dismiss your desires as unnecessary fancy and daydreams. You make yourself as small and hidden as possible. You become as practical and useful as possible. You give up self, independence, curiosity and connection. What you’re left with is survival, performance, manipulation and fantasy. You become dependent on the fleeting external validation to justify your existence.

There are two paths from here: the path of pain, or the path of fear.

The first is a shame-based personality structure: I suck, I’m flawed, I’m not good enough, I don’t deserve to exist. The second one is a blame-based personality structure: I’m always right, I’m the greatest, everyone else sucks.

If your nervous system leans toward empathy, you may be able to read others better than yourself, maybe you can even become hyper attuned and turn into a people pleaser or a codependent. You live your life for others and their validation. You chase the temporary satisfaction of pleasing the other person to get a taste of your worth. It’s never convincing enough to linger and so you proceed like an addict.

If empathy wasn’t modelled or rewarded, the only safe place is inward. You become your own world, a hero in your own fantasy. The belief that you are always the good guy gets hardwired. Other people become empty screens to receive your projections. From here on out, they are nothing but puppets in your drama.

Both of these survival paths can be referred to as complex trauma or complex PTSD. The extreme version of the first is called Borderline Personality Disorder (at your service). The extreme version of the second is called Narcissistic Personality Disorder (at your mercy).

Borderline is an inherently unstable personality structure. You go with the flow: when you can maintain your perfection and get ample external validation you tend to fall into self aggrandizement and ecstasy. The moment you fail or get criticized your identity can fall apart. And that can be one of the most excruciating experiences possible to a human. Both can occur within the same hour.

Narcissism is an inherently stable personality structure, not because it’s strong but because it’s petrified. You are built around a belief that you are always right, any problems can be written off as somebody else’s responsibility. Accountability is threatening to the core and will be avoided at all cost and a life is lived dancing around that fear.

It’s a sad dance. So lonely that even love can be perceived as a threat. There is nobody who needs help, support and love more than narcissists do. And yet their identity structure can not accept it because at the core of it, underneath the denial, there’s shame and a belief that they do not deserve to be cared for. They don’t know what to do with it.

They will go from victim to victim whoever they can find so insecure and helpless that they fall for the narcissist superficial charm, or whoever is so naive as to think they could fill the narcissist’s leaky bucket of a heart. And the narcissist will suck them dry and then abandon them like a succubus. These people cause an immense amount of pain and damage to others. But empathy is blocked so they don’t really know how much. This is a tragedy, not villainy; they are not inherently evil.

Narcissists are not mysterious or enigmatic, they are not even complicated; it’s a simple, even a primitive coping strategy. It can be summarized in one or two lines. Too much internalized shame to face it, so a blame based protection gets hardwired. At the core of it, there’s a belief that I am always right (and amazing just look at me!). But that belief is fragile and needs constant fuel.

And that’s really all there is—the full depth of the person. It’s truly quite a let down when you finally realize how shallow these people are.

The circus isn’t convincing even for them, the insecurity and shame keep bubbling up. They can’t suppress it sufficiently to survive on their own. They don’t like their own company; contrary to the origin story, they can’t stand their own reflection. So they go into the world chasing support for their inflated ego. They will do whatever it takes to get it. Manipulate, lie, undermine, criticize, charm, impress, gaslight, achieve. Sometimes so blatantly and childishly that it looks like a caricature. Other times they put on a sophisticated and captivating performance but it never lasts long. You spend a few hours with them and the cracks begin to show everywhere.

Narcissists are not hermits, they can’t sustain their exaggerated ego in isolation. They need external validation, ideally they want worship in order to keep them afloat. They will gain that by any means necessary: manipulation, intelligence, charm, acts of service and performance of love. But they are not interested or capable of having an actual relationship. They just want temporary fans and victims. They know it’s not sustainable but they can count on there always being another fool around the corner.

Narcissists don’t operate on the ethical plane. They operate on a fantasy plane. Everything that helps maintain their fantasy of themselves is accepted and everything that contradicts it is attacked and discarded. It’s a simple filter.

Your needs, desires and boundaries are only there as means of manipulation. They are an inconvenience for a narcissist. And they will leave less and less space for you if they can get away with it. They treat other people like fuel. It’s a predatory mindset. Think of a vampire.

Narcissists are harmful but not useless. They can be really productive, practical, competent and high achieving. They can create a lot of value in society. If I ever need anything that’s purely results oriented and demands a cool head, I would probably prefer that it’s done by a narcissist. I’d be happy for my surgeon to be one. But you simply cannot have a personal relationship with them. The best you can do is to stay away, their toxicity is not your responsibility.

A relationship is something that happens between two people. And sadly, with a narcissist if there even is a person there, they never show up. All you get is only an empty shell of coping strategy. And it just happens to be one that is designed to only benefit them, at your expense. They don’t see you as human either. They only know of a world where the only human is them. You are just a blank screen for them. In order for them to see you, they would need empathy. And that would mean that they would need to have empathy for themselves and that would completely undermine their denial of their shame. So you can see right there why it’s blocked.

Sadly, no treatment has been proved to truly reach them. It’s one of the biggest failings of current day psychology. Yes, they can become better communicators, they can refine their manipulation, maybe even contain the harm. But a narcissist can not heal without a complete personality collapse. You could speculate, that Narcissistic Personality Disorder would first need to become a Borderline Personality Disorder in order to then be able to deal with the hidden internalized shame. In a way, narcissism is an internal defense against borderline because the pain of the shame is just too great for them to bear.

Perhaps in another lifetime they can do better. A shame, really - we were just children dealing with the same kind of neglect.