The Narcissist and the Martyr

NARCISSISM: A pattern of traits and behaviors which signify infatuation and obsession with one’s self to the exclusion of all others and the egotistic and ruthless pursuit of one’s gratification, dominance and ambition.

MARTYR: One who makes a great show of suffering in order to arouse sympathy.

The major lessons of my life have been to find a balance between narcissism and martyrdom: to be true to myself without abandoning my family and serve others without giving up on my dreams. I choose neither a martyr nor narcissist role, because both extremes breed undue harm to self and others. The in-between place is where I’ve tried to live, and it’s not easy, let me assure you. The land of black or white…the land of extremes is so much more defined and therefore easier to see. Not like gray. Gray is a vague, indecisive color. I’d prefer to think of myself as moving up and down the spectrum of color and of life…not residing at one particular point.

My parents embodied both extremes. My father and his parents were narcissists to the extreme; little mattered to them but their art, and eventually for my father, his art and his money. Family always came after individual needs were met. Their artistic focus bordered most of the time on obsession.

My mother and her parents were the opposite…they never followed their dreams. Instead, they choose the selfless route and gave up everything for their families. My mother abandoned a childhood devoted to dance. But this choice was a doubled-edged source. Those that martyr, just beneath the surface, hold a hidden resentment about their choice. Their gifts aren’t given freely; they’re given with a broken heart, and so the receiver feels the pain wrapped inside the gifts and wonders if it’s necessary.

Both paths, the martyr and the narcissist, are filled with danger. Insanity, drug abuse, and death linger around the edges. The need to self-medicate or self-delude is strong. Thoughts of death seep in threatening to destroy what has been achieved.

Neither path appealed to me. I could see the cost of each mapped out in my parents lives. It’s a daily struggle. Each choice can take us down the road of temptation to either overdo our selfishness or our selflessness. The rewards of each eerily alike. Cousins in fact, separated by the thinnest of veils. Each draws attention and says, “Look at me! Look what I’m doing!” True creative expression and true giving are also related. One nurtures the self and the other nurtures others. Both offer deep rewards and fulfillment. A combination of these two paths enhances a life. Each makes the other possible. To create and to give, without sacrifice, without resentment, without an insatiable need to prove oneself, allows for a gentle inner peace to emerge.

It’s taken most of my adult life to figure this out. I thought I was simply a late bloomer. Instead, I was learning how to balance my parenting, my work, and my creativity so that I could nurture myself and my family. It takes patience and perseverance. It takes compromise. I can’t always do what I want when I want to. I can’t always be there for my family. There has to be give and take. Letting go of perfection and unrealistic standards and expectations. The house has to stay dirty or my son has to entertain himself or I have to put off my writing until the next day.

If we fail or at least feel that we’ve failed somehow, we can always start again at any moment. If we feel like we’re slipping through the cracks and becoming either selfish or resentful, then we can take a break and regroup until we can think clearly again.

Regardless, it is important to see what lesson we are working on in this lifetime. Our parents’ choices set the foundation for that. We can either benefit from those choices and improve on them or get stuck repeating them. To take it one step further, we can also help our children see the lesson given to them by our choices. It is part of the larger process of human evolution. The fittest who survive will inevitably be those who learn from the past, not those who repeat it.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 4th, 2006 at 6:47 am and is filed under Psycho-Spiritual, Relationships. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.