Aggressive Overt High Level Narcissists – Psychologically Dangerous to Their Spouses and Children
Are you or have you been at the mercy of an individual who constantly screams, demeans, humiliates, brags and shames you. Likely, you are dealing with an aggressive overt high level narcissist. They can be described as an obsessive maelstrom of activity. Maelstrom refers to violent turmoil. The literal meaning is “a powerful whirlpool in the sea or a river.”
These cruel, highly charged individuals are self obsessed, without conscience; predatory without psychological boundaries— corrosive characters who do not change. Their entire focus is on Winning no matter the consequences to others—spouses, ex-spouses, partners, children.
Each day you are existing in the fight or flight, sympathetic nervous system—your adrenaline rushes through, your cortisol runs high, especially when you are trying to sleep. Night time with one of these predatory personalities can means the worst. You feel so vulnerable in the darkness; you wait to see if this horrid person will purposely confront you, scream, accuse, make menace with you. You lie there, keeping one eye open, waiting for the next sound, movement, sensation. For many of you this is a reprise of the childhood trauma that has haunted you for decades. Growing up with a narcissistic parent, you never felt safe; you couldn’t let down. There was neither privacy nor calmness; no possibility of solitude or a quieting of your nervous system to parasympathetic mode.
There is a long debate about whether aggression of temperament is inborn or learned, nature or nurture. A recent study by the University of Montreal indicates that some individuals are born more aggressive than others. This research indicates that “aggression isn’t only learned, but inborn; and one’s environment can worsen or improve this behavior as one ages.”
The following list of predatory behaviors on the part of the aggressive high level narcissist offer you a perspective and an appreciation of what you are experiencing:
Lack of respect for the needs of others
Grandiosity and extreme self entitlement
Winning for self at the expense of others
Humiliating you as a tool of control and submission
Infantile, regressive two year old temper tantrum behavior
Everything revolves around the high level narcissists: their needs and demands
After years of research and insights and the accumulation of excessive psychological and physical stress you make the decision to leave the high level narcissist and take back, renew, restore, transform your true authentic creative self.
Linda Martinez-Lewi, Ph.D., LMFT