The Mind of a Narcissist
Here You Are, Madam
By Sam Vaknin
I was detained for questioning in 1990. I remember the sweaty
excitement of the movie-like setting, the "bad cop, good cop"
routines, and all the time I kept saying to myself "another adventure"
and shivering, even though it was pretty hot.
When I exited their headquarters after eight days of 13-hour
interrogations, my world was no more. I went back to our office and stared
at the theatrical chaos left behind by the police search. The new computers
were papered over. Disembowelled drawers lay all over the wall-to-wall
carpets, criss-crossed by sun rays and shades. My partners and I sifted
through the paper ruins and burned the incriminating evidence on a big
stake. After that, we calculated the damage, split it between us equally,
as we always did, and said polite and hushed good-byes. The company was
closed.
It took me three years of social leprosy, rejection and
economic malaise to recover. In the absence of sufficient money for a
bus fare, I walked huge distances to business meetings. People used to
stare at the torn and worn soles of my shoes, at the big armpitted salt
stains, at my crumpled, badly old-fashioned suits. They said no. They
refused to do business with me. I had a bad name, which got only worse
by the day. Gradually, I learned to stay at home and read the broadsheets.
My wife studied photography and music. Her friends were buoyant and vivacious
and creative. They all looked so young and ready. I envied her and them,
and in my envy, I withdrew further until I almost was no more, a fuzzy
stain on our shabby leather loveseat, off focus, a bad piece of motion
picture, only without the motion.
Then, I established a firm and found myself an office in
a low ceilinged attic above a manpower agency. People came and went below.
Phones rang, and I occupied myself in holding the shreds of my grandiose
fantasies together. It was a miracle, an awesome sight, this ability of
mine to lie even to myself.
In total denial, cooped there in the shadows of the damp
and smelly attic, I was planning my revenge, my comeback, the nightmare
that would be my dream.
In 1993 my wife had an affair. I overheard her hesitantly
enquiring about a suggested venue. I loved her the way only a narcissist
knows how to, the way a junkie loves his drugs. I was attached to her;
I idealized and adored her. And, sure enough, she lost weight, became
a stunningly beautiful woman, mature, talented. I felt as though I'd invented
her, as though she were my creation, now desecrated by another. I knew
that I'd lost her long before I found out. I detached myself from the
pain that she was, from the envy that she provoked, from the life that
she exuded. I was dead, and in the manner of the Pharaohs, I wanted her
to die with me in my self-constructed tomb.
That night, we had a cold analysis (she crying, I opinionating),
an even colder glass of wine each and some decisions reached, to stay
together. And we did until I went to jail, two years later. There, in
prison, she found the courage to abandon me or to free herself, depending
on who tells the story.
In prison, I wrote a book of short stories, mostly about
her and about my mother. It is a very painful book, very unlike something
a narcissist would ever write. It won awards. It is the closest I ever
got to feeling human or alive -- and it very nearly killed me.
Propelled by the rude awakening, by blinding pain, that
week I teamed up with a former business partner of mine and others, and
we embarked on a ferocious road which led us to riches in one year. I
found an investor, and we bought a company owned by the state in a privatization
deal. I went on to buy factories, companies. In 12 months, I owned my
"empire," with an annual turnover of 10 million USD. Business
journals were now reporting my activities daily. I felt empty, vacuous.
One weekend, in a luxurious hotel in Eilat, the southern
sea resort in Israel, naked, glistening with sweat and ointments, we agreed
to give it all away. I came back and gave it all away, as gifts, to my
business partners, no questions asked, no money changing hands. I felt
free; they felt rich; that was it.
The last company I stayed involved with was the computer
firm. Our original investor, a prominent and wealthy Jew, succeeded to
get the chairman of a huge conglomerate interested in our firm. They sent
a team over to talk to me. I was not consulted regarding the timetables.
I went on a vacation to attend a film festival. They came, were unable
to meet me, and went back furious. I never turned back. That was the end
of that company, as well.
I was again in debt. I re-invented my life. I began to publish
a capital markets fax-zine. But this is yet another story and not sufficiently
different to warrant writing it.
It was all meaningless, it still is. A series of automatic
gestures performed by another man, not me. I bought, I sold, I gave away;
I heard her planning her romance over the phone; I poured a glass of deep
red wine; I read the paper, glossing uncomprehending over the lines, the
words, the syllables. A dreamy quality. Psychologists would say I acted
out, but I can't remember acting out -- or in. I can't remember being
at all. Definitely no emotions, perhaps the odd rage. It was so very unreal
I never grieved. I let go as we politely give our place in a queue to
an old lady and smile and say: "Here you are, Madam".
Previous
Entries from The Mind of a Narcissist:
How I "Became" a
Narcissist
In Search of
a Family
Why Do I Write
Poetry?
Skopje
- Where Time Stood Still
Portrait
of the Narcissist as a Young Man
I Cannot
Forgive
My
Woman and I
The Music of
My Emotions
A Great
Admiration
Ghost in the Machine
No One Counts
to Ten
The Disappearance
of the Witnesses
Being There