The Choices That Narcissists Make: There is an ongoing debate as to what causes narcissism and the desire to come up with the ultimate answer leads some people to decide that a narcissist is born that way while others place an emphasis on the environment the narcissist grows up in and believe that to be the cause. This is the debate between nature (genetics) and nurture (environment). The problem is the fact that each person is different and every environment is different meaning that no one answer can be applied to any one individual. The truth is that the final outcome that produces the covert pathological narcissist is a “team effort” of nature and nurture. In some narcs the cause may be nearly all nature in others nearly all nurture in yet others it is a more equal combination of the two. The cluster of pathological traits that includes narcissism is a subject of intense study among mental health professionals, but the safe conclusion to come to as to what causes narcissism is that both genetic predisposition and environment play a role. Here is a brief clip of a ted x talk presented by Simon Baron Cohen to explain the role nature and environment play in empathy, a link to the video is in the description: Yes, we do need to go to a narcissist's childhood especially the first five years of life to try to pinpoint the cause of the narcissism. Yes, we have to take into account the responsibility of the parent and we have to see if there is any possible culpability on the child's end as well. The ultimate “blame”, the person primarily responsible for the unfortunate creation of an adult covert narcissist can rest on the shoulders of the parent or the child, or be split almost exactly in half. Yes, variable variability is not something most people are comfortable with. A clear cut answer makes life easier for everyone, but it isn't always helpful if we want to truly understand what is going on that produces these demonic creatures we call covert narcissists. Yes, there is a spiritual cause as well, but today we will try to look at the observable facts and try to at least get a better idea of the origins of covert narcissism. Now a recent study of psychopathy and patterns in child behavior looking at the parent child relationship looked at exactly that. Is the child to blame for the parents not responding properly or are the parents responsible for the child not responding properly. The results are eye opening and confirm the above statement that the causes of dysfunctional adults is a complex one. Let's just listen to a few key moments of this ted x talk given by Luna Centifanti. a link to this video is in the description: So what does this mean in layman's terms? My interpretation is this: that sometimes the child is the actual cause of the parents being unable to properly train the child and other times it is the parents that are to blame for the child becoming a dysfunctional adult. Now again we must take into account the element of variable variability. Yes, there is a constant interaction between the child and the parent in those critical formative years before the age of 5, but the data can be analyzed so that a general conclusion can be made. Again to keep it simple, sometimes the parents share the larger portion of responsibility, “are to blame” and sometimes the largest part of the dysfunction is actually due to the personality of the child, “the child is to blame”. The other possibility, that sometimes the blame can be equally attributed to the parents and to the child is also to be expected since these scenarios and the actual people that were studied are all on a spectrum. So, how does this apply to the covert pathological narcissist? Well it all boils down to the decisions the narcissist makes starting as early as we can go, to the very first decision a child makes. We have all heard of stubborn and hard to handle children as well as children that are compliant and “easy”. That already shows us that the genetic predisposition of a child plays an important role in the final product that is a narcissistic adult. Regardless of if the narcissist has neglectful or loving parents, strict or lenient parents the ultimate outcome of narcissism always starts with a behavior pattern, a decision of how to respond to a situation that the environment presents the narcissist with. So the origins of narcissism can then begin to come into focus, become clear. The narcissist is a person who never takes others into account, has no compassion or empathy and considers themselves more important than anyone else. The narc has developed a pattern of behavior where they no longer have any qualms about lying. The narc has developed a behavior pattern that has continually eroded their empathy to the point where they have little or no empathy. The narc has continually ignored their conscience to the point where it became calloused and then seared, so again the conscience is in effect non existent. Yes, in short the narcissist is a bad person, an evil person and they became that way by continually indulging in bad and evil behavior throughout their lives. The narc became someone who doesn't have a shred of decency. There is no doubt that many an adult narcissist can no longer help themselves because they are so locked into the cycle of lying, duplicity, treachery and deceit. They can't help but destroy those around them. Some people will argue that narcissists do need our understanding, or that we should just avoid them and just not make ourselves vulnerable to them. How does that even take into account that the covert narcissist purposely hides their true self and is an expert at deception? That doesn't even take into account that most people are unaware of covert narcissism and that the narcissist by design is a predator that purposely seeks out their victims. So isn't it really giving these narcissistic beasts a little more slack than they deserve to say that they can't help themselves? How can we even take the outrageous claim that they don't know what they are doing, don't know right from wrong seriously? Rest assured the narcissist knows exactly what they are doing and if they can't help themselves it is for one reason and one reason alone: they always refused to make the right choice whenever given the opportunity. Yes they made the wrong, the evil choice every single time with very few exceptions. Let's be very clear: the narcissist is an adult and they are responsible to be an adult so do they really have any excuse at all? No they do not, they have no excuse whatsoever. So we go back in time to childhood development and look into the past of any narcissist, we go to the day that they had enough awareness to make a choice. The choice to listen to someone, in this case their parent, give authority to someone that was greater than themselves or to refuse, usurp the authority and do it their way. As the child grew, the choice to do right or wrong was given them countless times and each time they did it their way right or wrong. Whether that parent was a responsible parent or and irresponsible parent is almost irrelevant. We are focusing on the narcissist and the narcissist alone. Yes, there was a point where the narc had to listen to a reasonable demand from their parent or decide not to listen and rebel, to stiffen their neck. As the child got older there were more and more complex choices to make, more sophisticated choices to make, but the narc simply became more sophisticated in their rebellion and lack of concern for what was right or wrong. As the narc became an adult and needed employment they began understanding the necessity of giving the appearance of listening, but they covertly never really gave up an ounce of authority to another human being. Similarly in relationships the narcissist realized the necessity of giving the appearance of concern and of being cooperative and willing to compromise. Yes, that was necessary to get a foot in the door, Once the relationship was locked in, the narc gradually and insidiously began taking full control. The general overview of the narcissist gives us a picture of a person who was addicted from early childhood to get it their way, never feeling the need to give any other human being authority, never feeling the need to live by the standards of decency, of “right and wrong” that broader society had agreed upon. Yes the narc understood the importance, the necessity of appearing to live by the rules, appearing to believe that it was important to do the good, the right thing, but underneath it all the narc was never really going to relinquish an ounce of having things their way. On the inside of that narcissist the rules were very clear cut. The world revolves around the narcissist. The narcissist reigns in that world, is the supreme being who makes all moral judgments upon their own actions and the actions of others. The narc is the judge and the narcissist's judgment is final, no mercy. The people that the narc comes in contact with are merely there for the use of the narcissist. These people have no sovereignty or rights, only the narcissist has rights and only the narcissist's needs are important. So now we begin to see that the narcissist never had any problems making their choices. Choices such as: Do I tell the truth or do I lie? Do I steal because I can get away with it or do I walk away? Do I “turn the other cheek” or get even at all costs? The list is endless, but the point to be made is that at every stage of development, every choice the narcissist encountered they almost always chose the easiest way, what was best for them and them alone, never even really considering what was the right or “moral” thing to do. Never considering the effects their choices might have on other human beings. Yes the narcissist certainly appeared to be an adult and certainly learned to make themselves sound and look reasonable and even moral. But sadly this was all an act and even more sadly their victims were fully deceived by that mask, the act the narcissist put on. Because the narcissist had no moral compass, no outside authority this led to a pattern of decisions, of “choices” that were increasingly less and less moral. Yes the choice to be evil was the exact result, the consequence, the culmination of a lifetime of the narc having it their way. That route never even took into account anyone else in their environment. The narc's path of selfishness was a long road with ever increasing covertness and sophistication, to the point where a narcissist's selfishness could literally appear as an act of altruism to the uninformed public. Those who are aware are no longer deceived, but most of the world will just take that “kind”, “noble”, “gracious”, “generous”, “compassionate”, “empathetic”, “genuine”, ”humble” narcissist on face value. But not those who are awake, they know the truth of what lurks beneath the mask: for the narcissist it was always all about them and them alone. So, if you want to ultimately judge ANY human being, every single human on this planet is the result of a myriad of choices that were made each and every moment of their lives. In a way the final result, the “adult” that we are presented with is the final “product”, the final exam result so far of all of the choices we have made in our lives. Yes the narcissist is a resounding failure as a human being and perhaps even a grade of “F” is too lenient a judgment. But the scale will never go to the depths that would be necessary to give the narcissist the true grade they deserve. Yes, the narc is far worse than just a failure as a human being, they are the source of so much suffering and multiple other failures of all of the people that they have come in contact with. The beginning of this video spoke about nature and nurture and those subjects are very important and necessary to take into account. But here is the narcissist's problem: they ARE an adult, and there comes a point in every person's life when they reach an age of accountability, when they ARE responsible for their words and actions and how they treat others. They are responsible for all that they say and do. Yes the narc will deny that fact to themselves and to the world and believe that it is possible for them to do as they please and NEVER grow up or develop any level of emotional maturity. How is this even possible? Well, the narcissist fails to understand that they are NOT the center of the world and they simply can't comprehend that in order to coexist with others they have to give those other people the possibility of sometimes having things to their liking and make others more important than themselves. Despite all of the complexity it really boils down to this simple fact: The narcissist is a bad person who is aware that they are doing bad things and there is never really any excuse whatsoever for being a bad person. Whether that narcissist had a bad upbringing and is emulating the duplicity and treachery that they learned by observing their parents, or the narc simply became that way due to the parents allowing them to indulge in their strong willed stiff necked attitude of self entitlement it is all the same. Yes the narcissist may have some excuses for being a narcissist, but there is never any excuse for being a bad, an evil person. The narcissist does know better. The narcissist knows how to be kind to people and considerate. After all they did exactly that when they first ensnared their victim during the mirroring-idealization phase of a relationship. They are always impeccably kind and respectful on their social sites and in any public function. But those who know the narcissist behind closed doors have a very different story to tell. The story of a selfish self centered beast that hasn't got an ounce of respect or decency. The narcissist knows right from wrong. The narcissist chooses to do the wrong thing, to be evil, and that takes us back to our original conclusion: the narcissist is the result, the aggregate of all of the wrong and questionable decisions that they have made throughout their lives. Yes they may have had poor parenting that didn't give the right example, yes they may have been subject to abuse, or perhaps it was the opposite. They had parents that let them “do as they pleased” and overindulged them. It really doesn't matter at all. At some point the narcissist had their own choice to do right or wrong, good or bad and at each and every opportunity to do the right thing they chose the opposite. Yes they are adults, they are responsible and they have locked themselves in to bad behavior, but ultimately as an adult they have NO excuse whatsoever. Thank you for watching. Comments are welcome. Peace be with you. REFERENCES 1. The erosion of empathy | Simon Baron Cohen | TEDxHousesofParliament

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXcU8x_xK18 2. Psychopathy and Patterns in Child Behaviour | Luna Centifanti | TEDxDurhamUniversity https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcUp8TOXC_4 An Additional useful video: 3. From Saints to Sociopaths: Dopamine and Decisions | Nadine Kabbani | TEDxGeorgeMasonU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8w_0sZ97Bc