Reject Toxic Narcissism for a More Fulfilling Creative Life
Healthy Narcissism vs. Toxic Narcissism
If you’re like I was for a long time, the word narcissism might pull up a persona so malicious and larger-than-life that you don’t even think to attach it to the regular ol’ people in your life.
The truth is that narcissism happens in all of us. It can be both healthy and toxic, depending on the situation, and we’re all capable of both.
Healthy narcissism helps us believe we deserve to be here and take up space. It helps us believe we deserve to ask for and receive help. It helps us believe we deserve time and attention and love from the important people in our lives. It is critical to our survival and joy and sense of safety.
Children are born inherently and necessarily narcissistic, and it’s good for a baby to believe they’re the center of the universe at first in order to develop healthy narcissism. If a baby is made to feel that they’re a bother in their helpless state and that there’s no use crying for help because no one’s coming, it will likely lead to issues down the road for that person, including an underlying fear that they are a burden and that it’s useless or bad to ask for help.
As a baby grows, parents ideally teach them to embrace healthy narcissism while also learning to take the needs of others into account (which therapist Pete Walker calls healthy codependency). They learn to be mindful and considerate of others while also not feeling guilty for having needs and feelings. They learn the lifelong, daily balancing act of fostering both connection and autonomy.
Toxic narcissism is when someone refuses to take responsibility for hurting you in the process of meeting their own needs. In the balance of connection and autonomy at a particular moment, toxic narcissism helps the person protect their autonomy, but it’s at the cost of the connection with the person they’ve hurt: you. They’re taking on a win-lose (or even a lose-lose) mindset, usually because deep down they believe that’s the only way they can safely maintain their autonomy in that moment.
In case you’re tempted to make excuses for people who have enacted toxic narcissism onto you, I offer you Dana Morningstar’s definition of Healthy Self-Esteem:
A person with [healthy] self-esteem expects to be treated with dignity and respect, and believes there is no justification for others to treat them poorly. If another person lashes out at them or treats them poorly in any way, they don’t accept justifications for being mistreated. It doesn’t matter if the other person had a bad day, a bad childhood, or was frustrated or angry with them. If someone mistreats them, they assert themselves and make their boundaries known. They also expect the other person to be accountable for mistreating them. If this other person continues to mistreat them, then they distance themselves. They value themselves and don’t spend time trying to justify their value to abusers or anyone else who doesn’t see it.
Dana Morningstar, The Narcissist’s Playbook
While we can understand why someone might have treated us a certain way, it is completely reasonable and necessary to set a boundary and expect an apology in order to begin repair.
And yes, this means it’s healthy and good to expect people to let you know when you stepped into toxic narcissism, too. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad person who will be abandoned by everyone. Take accountability, repair, and give them space to be upset. If you’re terrified by the idea of hurting someone and being called out for it, chances are good you grew up around adults who were too scared to admit they’d hurt you. This unhealthy dynamic distorted the very natural, everyday, relationship-strengthening process of rupture and repair into something that seems catastrophic and unsafe.
The Prevalence of Toxic Narcissism
Toxic narcissism has been the modus operandi of humans throughout history. This means it was probably some part of your childhood, either at home, in a classroom, in a religious setting, on a sports team, in scouts, or other places where adults were in power.
Sadly, since children are dependent on adults in childhood and have no control over who they’re with and how they’re being treated, children cope with toxic narcissism (and any other mistreatment) by telling themselves it’s normal and that they deserved it. Unless the adult apologizes and clarifies what wasn’t okay about the behavior, the child will carry this belief into adulthood until they learn that it wasn’t okay.
It’s likely that many of the adults in your life didn’t apologize for toxic narcissism. We are still in relatively early stages of healing from this generational pattern. Recent children’s movies are including more apologies from adults, which gives me hope that we’re getting on the right track.
Why is it important for creatives to embrace Healthy Narcissism and reject Toxic Narcissism?
We need a strong dose of healthy narcissism to be a creative person. Without it, creatives don’t believe they’re important enough to spend time creating. They don’t believe they deserve to share their stuff with others. They don’t believe they deserve to take up space and be heard in the creative world. They don’t believe they deserve to ask for help from collaborators and fans when they need it. And they’ll often shame themselves for needing help at all, believing “real” artists can do it alone and that they’re just not cutting it.
Artists who struggle to embrace healthy narcissism often do so because someone in their lives repeatedly asked them to give up their self-expression and autonomy in service of another’s needs. This gradually erodes the artist’s self-esteem, self-trust, self-confidence, self-worth, self-knowledge, and overall sense of self as a separate being whose needs are just as important as others’. These are basic things that every human has a right to, and they are the foundation of a fulfiling, active creative life.
I work with many clients who are dealing with the mental and emotional effects of toxic narcissism experienced in their degree program, their past voice lessons, their workplace, their family of origin, and more. These effects make it harder for them to take certain actions in their creative lives. They may be afraid to write songs that tell their story. To share their music. To reach out to potential collaborators. To say no to people who are hijacking their creative time and energy.
They also experience effects in their bodies. The body’s nervous system has a programmed cycle of…
- activating the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) when it recognizes a need, which activates various parts of the body in preparation to meet the need,
- seeking a way for the need to be met,
- meeting the need, and
- returning to neutral where the parasympathetic “rest and digest” nervous system (PNS) becomes more dominant.
When a need is continually brushed aside for someone else’s needs, the body has a hard time getting back to neutral, and this has very real effects on the systems of your body, all of which need a healthy balance of SNS and PNS dominance. People who are stuck in prolonged periods of SNS dominance can experience insomnia, chronic fatigue, elevated stress hormones, IBS, fibromyalgia, heart issues, anxiety, depression, and more.
In my opinion, learning how to heal and protect yourself from toxic narcissism is one of the most powerful steps you can take toward a fulfilling, joyful creative life, let alone a more fulfilling, joyful life period.
Toxic Narcissism Behaviors
If you’re not sure whether or not you’ve experienced toxic narcissism, I found author Dana Morningstar’s list a great place to start learning. I’ve adapted her list below and added some items from other resources, as well:
Abusive Anger
Anger (an otherwise healthy emotion) that’s paired with an attack of some sort, usually one of the items listed below.
Blaming
Claiming that their behavior is your fault.
Boundary Pushing
Continuing to push against your boundary after you’ve made the boundary clear to them.
Brutal/Righteous Honesty
Claiming a right to “brutal” or “righteous” honesty in order to deliver hurtful words.
Charming / Love Bombing
- overly interested in you
- prioritizing you too soon
- sharing intimate details about themselves too soon
- declaring their trustworthiness too soon
- showering you with attention, affection, compliments, gifts, time, texts, calls, visits, etc. to pull you in
- showering you with attention, affection, compliments, gifts, time, texts, calls, visits, etc. directly after mistreatment
- on their best behavior when they want something
- making grandiose promises with no follow through
- making grandiose apologies with no follow through
Demanding, Controlling, Ordering
Telling you what to do.
(There are many situations where orders are necessary, such as with children or in organizations. However, the person in charge should still consider whether or not they’re micromanaging simply to assuage their own discomfort, and orders should be delivered with respect and dignity, and ideally include asking about your thoughts and feelings.)
Diverting, Deflection, Blocking
Turning the focus to your behavior or to something else in order to avoid having their own behavior examined.
Forgetting
Continually claiming they don’t remember what you said or what happened, particularly around ways they’ve mistreated you and boundaries you’ve clarified with them before. They may truly struggle to remember, but it can still be very hurtful when it happens continually.
False Low Self-Esteem
Painting themselves as having low self-esteem in order to seem harmless.
Fault Finding
Continually telling you what’s wrong with you, your ideas, your decisions, etc.
(Problem solving is needed in collaborative/work/creative situations, but when it drifts into constant fault finding without a balance of positive feedback, it shuts people down.)
Gaslighting
Denying your reality, experience, feelings, etc.
Hoovering
Trying to suck you back into the situation after you’ve left the situation or declared a boundary.
Intimidation
Using their body, words, tone, volume, etc. in an attempt to make you feel small.
Isolation
Keeping you away from others who might tell you their treatment of you isn’t okay.
Lying
Intentionally false statements.
Martyrization
They do things for you in the expectation that you’ll do things for them down the road. When you don’t “pay them back” in the way they want or expect, they attempt to manipulate you into it by citing what they did for you in the past (that you didn’t ask for). An unspoken contract that only they agreed to.
Minimizing and Invalidating
Discounting and denying your concerns.
Mirroring
Intentionally mirroring your traits, interests, beliefs, style, speech, etc. to create unearned trust, security, and connection.
Name Calling
Using hurtful, insulting, or demeaning terms to describe you.
Needling and Baiting
Targeting your sensitive points to get you to explode so they can point fingers at you as the problem and escape the spotlight on their responsibility.
Preying on Emotions
Attempting to get what they want by preying on your emotions, especially fear, obligation, guilt, and sympathy.
Projection
Accusing you of doing/thinking/feeling what they’re doing/thinking/feeling.
Pushing for Unearned Trust
Pressuring you to do something that requires a lot of trust in them before they’ve actually earned your trust.
Put Downs Disguised as Jokes
Claiming you can’t take a joke when you’re hurt by their words.
Rushing Intimacy
Getting you to share intimate details about yourself too soon in order to build false security or to have ammunition for the future.
Subtle Attacks
Planting seeds of insecurity, jealousy, or uncertainty in you and others.
Threatening
Threatening one of your sources of safety in order to get what they want.
Triangulating/Pot-Stirring
Pulling a third person (or more) into a situation that should only involve two. Pitting people against each other.
Undermining
Purposefully eroding the confidence, power, and trust that you have in yourself, or that others have in you, in order to gain power in some way.
Violence
Instigating or participating in physical violence against you.
Virtue Signaling
Going to great lengths to point out their virtue while engaging in behavior that doesn’t line up with their claims.
Wearing Down the Target
Wearing down your boundaries, patience, energy, finances, etc. to make it easier to get what they want.
Weasel Wording
Using minor technicalities in word usage to avoid telling the full truth.
Withholding
Purposefully withholding information, affection, attention, or communication from you.
You deserved better.
As you looked over the list, what behaviors are you just now realizing weren’t okay?
What is it like to consider that you didn’t deserve to be treated that way? That there is a healthier, more respectful alternative to each behavior? That you always deserved that healthier, more respectful alternative?
Actions to Consider
This week, consider…
- making a list of situations in which you want to set some boundaries in order to protect yourself from toxic narcissism
- setting up time with trusted people who can give you space to be sad and angry about how you were treated in the past
- setting up some time with your therapist to process and build strategies
- joining Muscle Music to help your nervous system with that 4-step cycle of SNS and PNS balance
If you’re interested in working with a voice and creativity coach who is informed about the ways toxic narcissism may be affecting your creative life and singing and who is passionate about being an advocate for you, I’m here.
