The Epidemic of Narcissistic Pollution Narcissism has become a global epidemic on the personal, corporate, and governmental levels. Individual narcissism is promoted by the media, experts in child upbringing, schools,and society in general under the guise of not harming the self esteem of the child and frowning upon and sometimes criminalizing traditional, tried and true forms of parenting. Today, I would like to concentrate on the role a toxic, loveless environment has in the development of an adult narcissist. This form of parenting can also create a codependent or hyper-empathetic person, but we will focus on the narcissist and the resultant toxic pollution that results. One: The normal child is given both positive and negative feedback by his parents better known as correct feedback or as close to correct as an imperfect parent can get. The most important element of parenting: true, genuine, altruistic unconditional love of the parent for the child is the most important element that can make up for the greatest mistakes an imperfect parent can make, because the child intuitively understands if their parent truly loves them. The knowledge of the parent's genuine love outweighs all other mistakes, because a child that knows he is loved has an inherent, built in self-esteem it may even be unconscious, but this correct self esteem forms the basis of a core self that will persist throughout life. Two: The child that becomes a Narcissist, in particular, the Covert narc, is given at best only the appearance of love and attention by a parent which may themselves be a narcissist or simply self-centered and selfish. A parent that places themselves and their needs ahead of their children sends a clear message to the child that he has no intrinsic value. That feeling of worthlessness is then subconsciously ingrained into the narc throughout life. The narc has no affinity for his own core self and considers himself worthless. This feeling of worthlessness is on the subconscious level and the narc may not be aware of this consciously. Whenever these feelings of worthlessness try to surface, the narc goes into denial mode and refuses to acknowledge them. These feelings of worthlessness are counteracted by a grandiosity, a false sense of superiority, and an impulsive need to be in control of the people and environment that surround them. The narc accomplishes this by creating an artificial persona that is presented to all of the world and even those closest to the narc are never shown the true self. The artificial persona is all of the things the narc isn't, all of the things the narc aspires to be or admires. Unfortunately, it is all an act and the narc, deep down inside knows this. The current persona of the narc is as disposable as the people around him. So the narc moves on an recreates himself, discarding previous relationships with no remorse when he is found out, or the current life circumstance no longer supplies the narc's insatiable desire for energy and attention drained from those around him. So what about the toxic pollution metaphor? Let's take a look at how a balanced person with a relatively healthy psyche deals with negativity. Most healthy people deal with criticism, or failure, or any negative occurrences in life, by trying to understand what went wrong. This requires a willingness to properly evaluate oneself and see where the person himself was at fault and “could do better”. With a healthy self esteem this honest self-analysis is possible, because no matter how severe the mistake or flaw that is uncovered, the person always has a core self esteem that can “absorb” the negative self analysis. In addition the feelings of guilt and remorse which are internalized and accepted by the mentally healthy human being help that person focus on, accept, and analyze the mistake or flaw in themselves and make an earnest effort to never make the mistake again or to work on becoming a better person. So, in a way a mentally healthy person has a mechanism whereby flaws or lack or perfection in oneself is acknowledged and the toxic or poisonous patterns of behavior, or thought are processed and eliminated over time. Therefore, the person grows and learns from life and is constantly “improving” and “becoming a better person”. The core of the mentally healthy person is, for the most part, the person the world sees and that core person the “real self” is what the mentally healthy person is improving. The mentally healthy person has the ability to process and purify negative and toxic emotions so that he can live with them comfortably. The conscience of a person, if acknowledged will always provide discomfort to the person until the proper changes to the inner self are made. Not so for the narc. The narc has no purification system. The Narc deals with his internal toxicity in a totally different manner. He has no ability to process these toxic and negative emotions, and there is no guilt or remorse to even give any incentive to try to find a way to process them. So the narc draws positivity and relatively “clean” and “pure” energy, by draining it from other people and therefore cleanses and dilutes out his own toxins. The toxic emotions are then poured into the victim and slowly the victim is filled with the toxic pollutants and eventually, the victim's “internal sewage processing” is overwhelmed. Whether the victim themselves is filled full of the toxins and can no longer provide the narc's sewage disposal or the victim becomes wise to the narcissist is irrelevant. At that point the narc is left to deal with his own toxicity and with no ability to process the sewage, he is compelled to move on or live in his own filth. In summary the narcissist, in the mirroring or valuation phase, fills the victim full of fake praise and attention otherwise known as “love bombing”, withdrawing the pure, genuine, positive emotions from their victim. Over time, when the quality or quantity of the positive energy gets less satisfying, the narc slowly begins dumping negative energy into the victim , the “devaluation phase”. There is the potential for equilibrium at this point, if the victim is able to process and absorb the negativity dumped into him by the narc. and is still able to deliver an adequate amount of energy for the narc to maintain themselves. In the event that the victim no longer becomes useful to the narc, the narc uses the victim to dump all of his negative energy into, and extracts the negative energy from the victim. Having drained the victim of all of his useful energy, the narc gets additional satisfaction from being relatively healthy compared to his victim since he is now in possession of all that was useful in the victim. In addition, by this point the narc has frequently already set up a new source of positive energy, making the narc almost larger than life and omnipotent in relation to the depleted victim.