Fragile connections. How wounded narcissism prevents us from living in peace with ourselves and others

After the book Fragile People, many recognized themselves in narcissistic deficiency and even called themselves narcissists. Of course, I understood that this was not accurate, but it was impossible to attribute such a variety of narcissistic symptoms and manifestations to one definite phenomenon. After all, for example, we all sometimes feel a sense of inadequacy or shame about some part of ourselves. And many live with the feeling of a hole or emptiness inside. And then I thought, why not unite all this under the name “narcissistic syndrome”? You will not find this term anywhere. That is why I put it in quotation marks and now I will explain why I find it important to talk about it.

In psychology, a syndrome is not always a pathology. It is a collection of symptoms and manifestations united by a common cause. In our case, it is exactly so. Narcissistic dynamics can belong to any type of character and any organization of personality. They are what form, sustain, and protect self-esteem, dignity, a sense of self-respect, and our human identity – that is, our Self. They can manifest through different strategies and behavioral patterns. For some of us, narcissistic dynamics are the leading way the psyche functions. And then we can call ourselves a narcissistic person. But even in this case, there are several variations of how exactly the narcissistic syndrome will manifest in us and to what extent it will define our lives. Thus, looking at our history, as a result of childhood trauma, we can become either a narcissist to the extent of a personality disorder or a depressive person with narcissistic defenses. Or a schizoid character with a powerful narcissistic armor.

“Narcissistic syndrome” is a concept that unites these manifestations, showing how they can take the form of masks, defensive bastions, or internal emptiness, regardless of where we are on the scale of mental health. It is not only about the “narcissists” who we easily recognize by their demonstrative brightness but also about those who quietly retreat into the shadows, walling themselves off from the pain of insufficiency. And about the neurotics for whom a compulsive striving to be better is a hidden cry for help. And also about those who seem perfectly adapted but are afraid that behind the facade of success, their own fragility will be revealed.

This idea is like a magnifying glass that allows us to see the barely visible lines on the map of the psyche. It shows that no matter how strongly or weakly narcissistic traits manifest themselves in us: they are there, and they are working. Grandiosity can be obvious or hidden, vulnerability can hide behind a stone face or spill out in tears.

But inside each of us, there is a place where narcissistic trauma whispers that we are not good enough, and where our defenses against it are born.

That is why “narcissistic syndrome” is not a diagnosis but a way to see how our nature fits into the general map of personality development. We all carry elements of the syndrome. We are all trying to compensate for the lack of maturity in our psychic structures where they are still too weak to withstand this big complex world. This is our common human essence, and it has far more nuances than simply dividing people into “healthy” and “unhealthy”.

“Narcissistic syndrome” often speaks in the language of paradoxes. When clients talk about their lives, we observe everyday dramas, internal monologues that become visible through words, actions, and even silence. And the most surprising thing is that they exist in all of us – to varying degrees, in different forms, but inevitably.

The first trait that catches the eye is the striving to seem. It is not always grandiosity or flamboyance, although sometimes those are obvious too. A person may try to seem stronger than they are, smarter, more successful, more attractive. To seem better. But what hides behind it? The feeling that simply “being” is not enough. That something must be added to oneself or, more often, something must be eliminated from oneself to gain approval, to be seen, to earn acceptance.

Next – the constant drama with self-esteem. “Narcissistic syndrome” is often manifested in the inability to remain in a state of balance. A person seems to swing between the sense of greatness (of course, imaginary) and the feeling of total failure (also imaginary). One day, or even at one moment, they are convinced they are capable of everything; the next, they feel worthless. These are not the consistent highs and lows of bipolarity, but rather a subtle, habitual instability: the dependence of the inner Self on the gaze, assessments, and opinions of others.

Another noticeable symptom – the eternal search for confirmation, the thirst for recognition, for being needed, important, significant. This search shows itself in how a person talks about their achievements, looks at others awaiting their reaction, tries to be useful or needed, sometimes even at the expense of themselves. There is nothing overtly narcissistic here in the way we usually think about narcissists, but it reflects the same internal mechanism: if I am not confirmed, it is as if I cease to exist.

Equally evident is the fear of revealing and expressing oneself. People with “narcissistic syndrome” often fear being exposed, fear that someone will notice their weaknesses, their imperfections. Therefore, they maintain distance, do not fully reveal their feelings, and build relationships in a way that keeps them safe.

The fear of intimacy can be read in small things:

in answers with slight defensiveness, in avoiding painful questions, or in the desire to change the subject if the conversation gets too close to something too personal.

These symptoms are a vibrating fragile armor, hiding the internal struggle with one's worthlessness, with the sense of insufficiency. They become so obvious that they seem “normal” against the backdrop of life filled with achievements, duties, and demands. But these symptoms are clear alarm signals hinting that something inside is wrong. We are not imagining things, and we are not exaggerating. Our Self desperately seeks attention and signals about problems through symptoms. It simply has no other language for us yet…

Behind the obvious symptoms that complicate life, there is always something deeper, which can also be attributed to “narcissistic syndrome”. For example, loneliness.

And when I use this word, I do not mean simply the absence of people around. It is not situational emptiness. I am speaking of the collapse of connections – both external and internal. Imagine an inner world where there is no life: scorched or, on the contrary, frozen land. There are no people, none expected, and between the person and the surrounding world lie deep moats and rise high walls. Sometimes, you feel like an invisible being, a bodily shell unable to establish contact with others. And although outwardly we might rush from one relationship to another, bustle about, try to adapt or fit in, inside we cannot overcome the distance to reach what we call a connection with others.

Loneliness is not freedom and not solitude, which can be temporary or desirable. Loneliness is a constant and habitual state.

A sense that no close relationships  are possible in principle.

Maybe because we are not suitable for them, or because we do not even hope that someone would respond to us so perfectly that we could let them get close and start to trust them.

Feelings of guilt, shame, melancholy, and hopelessness – that is what lies at the root of loneliness. It is global alienation, not related to the physical absence of people but to the internal impossibility of genuine connection. We do not even believe that we are capable of being in these relationships. We do not believe it is even possible to be who we are in intimacy with others. Since attempts to change ourselves create too much tension, and, thus, isolation and refusal to establish connections become the logical choice.

And now this process of “withdrawing ourselves” from connections becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. We turn into observers, unable to get involved in direct interaction. We avoid intimacy, believing that it is the only way we can protect ourselves from pain, fear, and tension.

One day during a session, a client and I observed how he was making himself lonely right in our conversation.

He said, “Firstly, I don't look at you. Secondly, I don't show my feelings. And thirdly, I always try to answer your questions correctly so that nothing else is noticed.”

It was a clear demonstration. You can close all channels of communication: visual, emotional, verbal. You can cut off all energetic exchange with the world: give nothing and take nothing. We seem to be present, but we remain somewhere far away, on our own cold and deserted inner North Pole. We talk, listen, show emotions, but we do not let anything inside. We do not allow ourselves to be touched or involved. It is an eternal illusion of connection and escape into oneself for self-correction…

The experience of abandonment, on the one hand, resembles loneliness, but it contains something more: feelings directed not just inward but toward those who left us. It is like constant flashbacks where someone once left or simply abandoned us to our fate. It is a psychic imprint left by relationships that defines our essence.

“Abandonment” has synonyms: “being lost”, “being forsaken”, “orphanhood”. But for abandonment to become a habitual state, it is not necessary to have been a literal orphan from childhood. It is enough that no one showed us we were important to others, that no one gave us a sense of belonging. We were not given attention and care but rather shown indifference or apathy.

Abandonment is when we are left alone with ourselves and have no one to rely on at the very moments when someone is needed around.

These moments did not just generate pain, fear, or dissatisfaction in us – they planted the feeling of having been left behind.

Deep inside, there is a belief that we were abandoned because something is wrong with us. Because abandonment is not just an action, it is an attitude, and no one would abandon someone who is valuable and loved. After being left, we feel a rupture not only with the external world but also with ourselves. We begin to feel that some parts of us deserved this rejection.

Of course, the sense of abnormality resulting from abandonment can be very loud and destructive. It can sound like: “I am a mistake, I am an error.” Or it can manifest itself as a faint thought that something is wrong with you when things do not work out, when you do not meet expectations. Or it can appear as clear convictions about yourself: I don't fit, I'm not enough. But most often, it is deep melancholy that is hard to recognize consciously. A feeling that everyone around knows how to do things, and you don't.

I am incapable of loving.

I am incapable of feeling.

I am incapable of creating, of making something new.

I am incapable of being in deep relationships with others.

I am incapable of being…

For a long time, I could not find the right word to describe something I felt myself and that my clients tried to convey to me. It always seemed that some aspects remained unexpressed. And then I found it: self-alienation! That is the word!

We feel cut off from our Self, as if we exist behind thick glass that prevents us from connecting either with the energy of life or with other people. We are separated from ourselves, we do not understand who lives inside us and whether they even exist. We do not feel our desires, we do not understand what we truly want. It is as if we live someone else's life, fulfilling duties, following obligations. Sometimes, when waking up in the morning, we do not even know why we got out of bed. We read books, talk to people, but we do not feel that it has anything to do with us. Sometimes, it seems that we act not out of our own inner impulse, but because “it is necessary,” because others expect it.

For example: we sit at work, enjoying our achievements, but inside, there is emptiness. We feel anxiety that we cannot express in words. It seems that no accomplishments can bring a sense of reality, because we do not feel connected to ourselves. We strive for success, but inside, there is no one who could rejoice in these victories.

Self-alienation can manifest itself even in the simplest actions. For example, we simply sit at dinner and suddenly realize that we do not feel the taste of the food or the pleasure of communication. We are surrounded by people who love us, but inside, we still feel as if we are not there. Or, on the contrary, we sincerely laugh with friends, but then, when we are left alone, we feel emptiness, as if the good mood was just a mask we wear to avoid being noticed, to hide from others the absence of connection with ourselves.

And in such moments, the realization comes that we were never truly in contact with ourselves, that our inner world remained inaccessible.

But scarier still is the feeling that this “real self” might not exist at all.

And then we see no point in changing or doing anything, because it seems that, anyway, it will lead nowhere. We do not feel hope that life can change. We feel complete meaninglessness and even despair. Yes, we flail, try to drown out the anxiety, chase achievements and reflections – but it is useless.

That is how self-alienation works.

It manifests itself in the fact that we do not believe ourselves.

We do not feel what we want and what we do not want.

We do not feel our body and what is happening to it.

We whip ourselves with a mental “lash” for misfortunes and failures that prevented us from becoming the ideal version of ourselves.

We close our eyes to what has been done and experienced.

We betray our soul, which was silenced because its impulses led us into trouble too many times.

We refuse our potential, citing the pain of past disappointments when something did not work out.

We retreat from life into our psychic shelters, prepared back in childhood when we were too young to have any control.

We hide in loneliness, fleeing from connections that might bring new disappointments.

We become so cautious that we almost block the flow of our own life, turning it into a dried-up trickle.

Case from Practice

One day, a client came to a session and said he had nothing to talk about today. And that if he could, he would just go and lie down to sleep because he was very tired. A person, coming to another person, does not consider it possible to talk about what is really happening to him and how he truly feels. Fatigue and the tension that caused it seemed not serious or weighty enough for conversation. Who he was at that moment seemed not important enough to be brought into the present contact.

When we began to discuss this, it turned out that, like many of us, he was guided by a purely functional attitude toward himself: if I cannot feel relieved, why share it with you? As a result, the entire layer of human attitude to oneself gets removed from all contacts. What remains is effective and useful interaction. At first glance, the logic is flawless and fits the modern trend: “I'll come to you, you'll fix me, and as for how I am in all this and how I experience it – let's leave that out of brackets.”

Only somehow it turns out that the problems the client came with do not go away. Because in life he does exactly the same: he extracts himself, his feelings, experiences, pains, and anxieties from relationships, sincerely considering them unimportant and undeserving of attention. He tries to present himself at that moment as someone else: collected and efficiently coping with his fatigue, for instance, somewhere else.

“If we cannot solve my work problems right now, why discuss them? If, for example, I punctured my foot, I need to run to get it stitched, not discuss my feelings.”

“I totally agree. But that doesn't mean you won't have feelings at that moment. And I, for example, can handle them differently while being around. I can comfort and soothe you, acknowledging your pain as real. Or I can pretend that for me nothing is happening except the task of stitching your foot. And then, when everything is over, I can ask you how you experienced it. And you will tell me how scared you were, how you panicked, how it hurt. You will recall that in childhood you had already punctured your foot. And what happened then. And I will sympathize with you or tell you about my own case. And then the human part will surface in each of us, as well as toward each other. But we can stay efficient, rational, cold. We won't leave these roles: I am a psychologist, who doesn't get distracted by feelings and solves people's problems; you are a proper client of a psychologist.”

“That doesn't sound very good.”

“I seriously want to see how exactly you feel inside these problems. How you experience them. What's happening to you. Because that is you, not just your problems at work.”

“I hear what you are saying, but it just doesn't fit into my picture of the world.”

“Yes, I understand. If until now, no one has looked into your feelings and states, they simply could not appear as a reality inside you and much less be seen as a valuable reason to share them with someone.”

In this example, there is a lot about loneliness and abandonment. Inside us, there is an “embedded” picture of the world where people around us are indifferent to our feelings, and we are not needed by them with what we are. We have spent many years learning to suppress manifestations of ourselves. And we have become very efficient at it.

You will not find the word “unrealness” in proper academic texts either. But what can you do if no other word captures this very essence? “Falseness” does not exactly convey the feeling of unrealness and disconnection from what is happening inside and outside. Probably, “unreality” is the closest synonym. Or even “lifelessness”.

Still, “unrealness” is the word that best describes what is so familiar to us: the feeling that our life is happening without us, even though it is we who strain, exhaust ourselves, and try to keep up.

One of my clients once put it this way: “I can move, speak, even smile, but everything happens somehow by itself. I watch my actions but don't feel that it is me. Life goes on, but I seem to be absent from it.” For me, her words became an example of how unrealness paints everything in shades of a color that does not really exist. Feelings that seem to be there but feel alien; thoughts that sound but do not resonate; actions that happen but are not felt.

The psychoanalyst Neville Symington described this phenomenon very precisely. He wrote that people experiencing unrealness sometimes compensate for it with frantic activity, drowning out the inner emptiness with constant hustle. As if movement and external events could revive what feels dead inside. But there are others – those who freeze, withdraw, sink into apathy, in order not to feel the unreality of their existence.