What matters in our interactions with others? What aspects of character do we trust are integral to our relationships? What if your physician, your neighbor or your lawyer was a narcissist (a psychopath), hence, one of the 25%+ of the global population who has no capacity for genuine human emotion? In other words, what if your physician was born without the capacity to know suffering or understand pain? Would this matter to you? These are the difficult questions we are increasingly being forced to consider each day when so many people among us are merely impersonating sentient human beings in order to blend in. Psychopaths are the great imposters. They spend much of their lives creating friendships with sensitive people in order to study them and/or take advantage of them. Because they have a narcissistic disorder, psychopaths blameless admit to these impersonations of human facial gestures, sounds, words, tonalities which are indicative of emotional expression.
Who wants to speak of narcissism and psychopathy when it’s such a depressing topic? Can we just forget it exists and pretend that all those we meet are worthy of our trust? Can we elect to watch films about Ted Bundy, leave the theater, and naively feel liberated from such people when a quarter of the population is narcissistic?
What about the moral decay caused by narcissists? Do we care if we no longer can tell who to trust and who is an imposter? When we hire a caregiver for our elderly parent, or, hear that a sibling, child or neighbor is stopping by to visit that parent, we trust that our parent is in good hands. Yet, yesterday on the news, a plea went out worldwide, asking us to be suspicious of caregivers, as increasingly, they are narcissists, often guilty of heinous crimes. Moral decay takes on an entirely new meaning when we consider how many people are born incapable of knowing pain, giving care, feeling love. Integral our social fabric is the assumption (desire for) honesty, respect and trustworthiness which narcissists are incapable of. They have no concept of personal boundaries.
What level of Madmax (film) dystopia must we see in order to awaken to the erosion of our moral fabric due to the proliferation of narcissists? Living in a perpetual state of suspicion is exhausting, sorrowful, impossible for most of us who inherently are generous and loving. We sentient human beings see distress and register pain as a call to aid another. We enjoy reciprocal care and thoughtfulness. Most of us unwittingly depend on mutual trust when we interact with another.
“Dr Mario”, the main but not sole antagonist of the podcast, abused his daughter and lost all parental rights to her. There are many “Dr. Mario”s. He abused his parents, siblings, wives, children, associates. He was in jail on several occasions due to these crimes. He has evaded the law and kept his crime hidden on that mask of affabilityuntil cornered in several situations. He paid punitive damages to the little girl and her mother in order to stay out of jail. He continues to practice as a psychiatrist with no apparent flaw to his record. He has no capacity to feel the pain of others so causes pain with impunity. Narcissists strive for positions of power. What if Dr. Mario were your doctor, would it matter?
This podcast is a production of Honestly Speaking LLC. Suzann Kole, Ph.D. has worked in academe and the mental health field for over 40 years. She holds a Doctorate in Clinical Psychology and Narrative Studies (an area of linguistics).
