Narcissism

Demystifying Self-Awareness, Introspection, and Narcissism

If narcissists are self-obsessed, why are they so bad at introspection?

Posted March 18, 2023 | Reviewed by Hara Estroff Marano

Key points

Introspection isn't a single self observing a core self but a variety of perspectives we can take on a variety of aspects of ourselves.
Self-awareness implies self-acceptance, self-consciousness implies non-acceptance, and narcissistic self-obsession implies selective blindness.
The irony is one can't get an absolutely self-obsessed narcissist to "look at themselves," because they shun evidence of their mere humanness.
When dealing with the gap between the self we see and the one we want to be, we have four options.

My self-reflections are a relationship between me and me. Its recursion, output as input, what I send out, I receive in. But how does that work? What’s up with introspection, self-reflection, narcissism? What’s up with self-awareness, which sounds good, and self-consciousness, which sounds bad?

Intuitively it’s me looking at me. But which me’s? Though I feel like a unified entity, an integrated whole, I change from situation to situation, shifting between different blends of my senses, moods, attitudes, and behavior.

My introspections are one mix of me attending to another mix of me. I can see, touch, feel, or smell my toes or elbows. I can try to imagine how they look to my friend or my enemy. All of that is introspection. It’s not as simple as the one me seeing the one me. It’s mercurial, too. In a flash, I can shift between different perspectives on different facets of myself. My attention isn’t some constant-wattage beam either. I take glances at myself. I can observe some aspects of me from the corner of my attention. Introspection isn’t one state.

We could call it a hall of mirrors, but metaphorically only. A mirror won’t show me how I smell or feel. A hall of mirrors only deals with appearances, which is why, ironically, you can’t get narcissists to “look in the mirror.” Sure, they might gaze at themselves all day, but it’s a mindless gaze at a fictional self-idealization. You can’t get them to look at their flaws. They’ll second-yes themselves, affirming their every move. They’ll never second-guess themselves because that would make them self-conscious.

There’s stuff about me I don’t want to see. I attend to it gingerly, if at all. There are parts of me I successfully ignore for decades. Out of sight, out of mind. Nope, I don’t know the half of me—for example, the back half of me, my butt, which I don’t bet is a particularly attractive one in a world where butts matter.

It’s easy for me to ignore parts of me. I don’t have to forget them because I never knew them in the first place. I wasn’t born with a packing slip, and, lifelong, I’ve been inventorying a shifting stock. My stock shifted most during my early impressionable years. I was changing fastest, just when I was most anxious to figure out who I was.

I can’t claim to be an authority on myself, not that I think anyone else is, either. We’re all entitled to form our own opinions about people’s characters, including our own.

There’s so much of me about which I haven’t a clue. Besides, I don’t want to know. TMI. Too much detail, but also too much embarrassment. Ignoring the disappointing parts of me is how I thrive: Never mind who I am, I’m too busy being me.

Narcissists thrive on ignoring their disappointing facets. You might say that for them, introspection is just their gloating selves observing their flattering selves.

I have a few options when I’m disappointed by some facet of myself. I can try to improve it, which I do, but not always. I can lower my standards, which I also do. Such self-acceptance sounds good, though it isn’t always. People can get so self-accepting that they enter goblin mode, becoming a pain in the ass to those who have to live with them.

Those are two options. I can close the real-world gap between who I am and who I want to be by upping my game or lowering standards. They’re captured in the serenity prayer: The courage to change and the serenity to accept things about me.

And another two: I can ignore the real-world gap between what I am and what I want to be. That is, I can escape into an unrealistic, idealized self-image, which I can do in two ways. I can pretend I’ve accepted what I haven’t, like insisting that I’m over some disappointment when I’m not. Or I can pretend I’ve met my standards when I haven’t, for example, insisting my butt is cute when it isn’t or insisting I’m a stable genius when I’m not. That’s the move narcissists make most.

Meet or change my real-world standards, or pretend I’ve met or changed my standards. I do all four things, but if I lean too much on pretending, I become a narcissist. And then I’m a pain in the ass to those who have to live with me.