Dark narcissism is a term I only heard a few years ago. Tian Datyon writes about it in one of her meditations on recovery. People may not be familiar with the concept but to consider yourself lower or worthless than a insect or piece of vermin (or as my therapist likes to call it.. pond scum) is a form of dark narcissism and it the conception is no less toxic than the other form of narcissism in which a person just considers they are completely perfect and can do no wrong.
There may be a pay off for feeling like this, we can either write ourselves off or the world off and that means we can stay comfortable (even in living a lot of excruciating pain) wallowing and wallowing in ongoing thoughts of self pity, shame and blame or concentrating on how separate, alone, defective, or broken we are.
The truth is we may have been abandoned, we may have been let down, we may have been betrayed, we may have been misjudged part of us may have been shattered by certain experiences… but in the end what exactly is it that we are MAKING OF ALL OF THOSE EXPERIENCES? What beliefs about ourselves have we assumed?
Dark narcissism may just be another ego trick that we are playing.. it may just be an identity we are stuck in but to my mind God does not make junk, God does not make mistakes, God intends for us to be as we are, to go through what we go through, and only we as a soul can make the choice to face it and try our very best with it – even at those times when our very best is the very very worst.
These days I try to stop myself if I find my mind veering towards the path of dark narcissism.. It usually shows me I have got off the track somewhere in seeing rightly and in practicing self compassion… and I look for what the pay off may be in terms of what I may be finding to painful to face or where I am judging a ‘cruel world’.. Even just having an honest conversation about it with myself helps. For dark narcissism is just not a place I am that comfortable living in in a long term way any more.
Shame is not the same as humility. Self deprecation is not humility. Feeling less than, under-serving of attention or bad about myself is not humility. In fact being stuck in negative self concepts can be a sort of dark narcissism, it puts me at the center of the universe and allows me to be endlessly self preoccupied. Making myself smaller than everyone else is not humble. God means me to be a beloved creature of the universe. To take my place in the scheme of things, to be part of the mystery of life and enjoy all that the world has to offer, including myself. God made me along with everyone else, I am no better or worse than anyone. Excessive preoccupation with how small I am compared to others is just the reverse of excessive preoccupation with being bigger than others. Neither are right sized.
Tian Dayton
Emerging From The Dark Night 