Unanswered questions #2: The self-made man*

I will likely have to rest content in not understanding this man. He is, to me, an absurd mystery. He is melodiously narcissistic but spends his days being altruistic and meaning it; do-gooding from tedious to noble, day and night. He has full certainty that he is the sole cause of his life – everything that has happened to him is by his agency and as he desires – and that “to want” is the meaning of his life. And that he only does what he wants – nothing else. His moral code is incomprehensible to me. He spent years stealing from his family and from businesses. But “my family always supported me” and he has never judged himself negatively. He so adeptly gamed the system by feigning a dangerous psychosis that he now lives on disability benefits. Yet he proudly sees himself as a self-made man who by cleverness and hard work has made himself what he is. In his late forties, he has the exuberant and grandiose ambition of a twenty-one-year-old. He talked himself into a job helping the down-and-out and works without pay. He appears to be quite good at the job, partly because of his erstwhile membership in that population, partly because in his narcissism he sees himself as a simply sublime personage, a self-view that felicitates his energies. People – he is certain – are drawn to him, listen to his pearls of wisdom, are changed for the better by his presence, pretty much instantly. He believes he knows everything about psychology, such as one’s complete creation of one’s nature: No such thing as determinism by abuse or childhood influences!

Though he is perversely likable, I find that not only have I given up doing real therapy with him, a mix of intimidation and humor leads me to polish his narcissism with semi-faux-admiring statements, facial expressions and god-struck tone. Sometimes I pretty much say: “You are indeed the template of tremendousness!”

There are some knowns. In a moment of weakness months earlier, he revealed that in his late teens he had consciously forged his optimal personality from the fire of the shaming he had suffered for years. Family laughed at his looks, devised funny names for him. School kids ridiculed him. So he created purposely, like a scientist at the drawing board, a gallant and vindictive persona. And only lately have I understood, better, how seriously he meant it.

We had somehow got on the subject of “manipulation” as both strategy and virtue (I cited, to show off, my old professor’s definition of manipulation as ‘the client’s effort to get her legitimate needs met, but in a way that I don’t approve’). My client acknowledged with bright insouciance that he is widely manipulative.

Therapist (paraphrasing): That’s putting on an act.

Client: My whole life is an act.

Therapist: ?? (interested facial expression)

Client: I’m an actor in my own story. Adapting, learning how to survive in any environment I’m in.

Therapist: ??! (redoubled facial expression and evocative hand gestures)

Client: . . . as long as you’re in control . . .

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This is, I believe, the first person I’ve ever known who consciously hand-tooled himself into an actor performing himself. It frankly sounds to me as terrible as anything can be. People talk about “living consciously” or “deliberately” as if this made sense, as if it made sense to live in ideas, plans and anticipation. But this example shows the hideousness of creating a self-like instead of being a self, of never just feeling your own life and enjoying the world. There were, of course, real parts beneath his mental surface – a sad and twisted child with a child’s need for approval, the pain of being the black sheep, an elixir of felt love and hidden rage for the parent who died, depression, anxiety. These facets couldn’t be reached for help, though: He was exactly what he wanted to be.

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* Unanswered questions #1, though not given that title, would be Passion of the Gums – https://pessimisticshrink.blogspot.com/2014/01/normal-0-false-false-false-en-us-x-none_24.html.