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Home » Categories » Personal » Love & Romance » Narcissistic? Neurotic? Dysfunctional? Personality Disorder?: Creating Greater Success in Relationships » Printer Friendly

Jeff Brown

Narcissistic? Neurotic? Dysfunctional? Personality Disorder?: Creating Greater Success in Relationships

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Submitted Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Jeff Brown (9,920)
Jeff Brown

Inner Projection
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If you are any of these in the extreme, you are having a difficult time in relationships, holding down a job, or enjoying life in general. You have what's called "substantial role disability" (inability to carry out usual activities). But most are not in the extreme. Nevertheless, most people are not functioning to full capacity nor do they do anything to better their lack of emotional health that contributes to a lack of greater success personally, in relationships, and society.

According to experts, 85% of families are dysfunctional. However, if you have built a genuinely loving relationship with your spouse or children, you have accomplished more than most and are most likely not a part of the 50% who end up in divorce, an frequent result of all that dysfunction. But what does it mean to "genuinely love"?

Genuine love entails having the best interest in mind of the loved one (spouse, child), and to have the wisdom to know when to assert one's will to instruct without being self-serving, to allow individual expression that enables the loved one growth, to guide and not manipulate, to understand the loved one as truly being an individual outside of any desire to live through him or her, and to constantly use self-discipline in all interactions with a refined balance between instruction, discipline, and giving of advice. Not surprisingly, few have the discipline, regular self-analysis, patience, or energy to do all this.

But the biggest problem here is not in being perfect but in being aware of not only what's required to be genuinely-loving but what's required of us in healing ourselves that will better enable us to move toward not away from perfection.

One of the greatest attributes needed for genuine love is humility. This doesn't mean being a door mat but more so having a desire to understand that you don't have all the answers and that your judgment call might not be right, that adjustment's are needed, that listening with an open mind is essential and even though you may think you know the other person or what's best for him or her, you may not.

This may sound wishy-washy or not a valid approach, especially in parenting children, but if you begin lying to yourself or your children by claiming omnipotence then resentment builds and relationships break down and, therefore, learning and growth.

But to be able to fully or better love our spouses and children, it all begins with us.

Examining ourselves is the biggest challenge, for how often do we criticize ourselves or allow others to criticize us? It's interesting to note that as writers, business owners, investors, professionals, and so on, we hire and look to coaches and advisers on a regular basis. But when it comes to ourselves, how often do we seek outside help in bettering our shortcomings? We are like authors who write a book without any outside feedback, publish it and then are amazed that it fails miserably--so many seeing so many flaws. But in order to be more effective parents and spouses, outside help is critical (this can come in the form of books, CDs, DVDs, friends, family, etc.). But far too often we are perfectly happy in criticizing others before we work on or even take a good look at ourselves.

Criticizing others is easy, too easy, and often only brings the same or worse results. Very rarely will children or spouse react positively to criticism or what is often referred to by the dispenser as "constructive criticism." What works better is example, suggestion, anecdote, rewarding or reinforcing proper action, punishment, and so on. But it takes discipline and even planning to apply these more successful methods.

By and large, however, people are prone to place blame in one of two directions: inward or outward. The neurotic place most of the blame on themselves, while the outward blame is done by those with personality disorders. As a parent or spouse, if we do too much of one or the other, we will not be successful in our relationships.

If you find yourself placing an inordinate amount of the blame on yourself for what's going on in your life or the lives of your loved ones, then you are leaning toward the neurotic. If you are generally feeling guilty, sad, depressed, and find no one to blame but yourself this neurosis will certainly inhibit good relationship building.

A cousin to the neurotic is the narcissistic who sees others only as an extension of themselves; meaning, they can't see their spouse / child as a physically separate being and reply emotionally  inappropriate. But whereas the neurotic will solely blame themselves, the narcissistic only feels for the self. They don't react to how their child or spouse is feeling but how they are feeling. If they are feeling good and the child is complaining about being beaten at school, the narcissist will mention what a nice day it is and how wonderful things are. Now, you may not respond in the extreme like this, but if you have a difficult time connecting to the emotions of others this is a problem that needs to be addressed.

The opposite of the neurotic is he or she who places blame mostly or solely on others. This is labeled as a personality disorder. If you know someone or are someone who always speaks badly of their spouse, child, boss, neighbor, the person on the television, here is someone who is a polar opposite to the neurotic. Once again, most are not extreme here but if you find the blame going outward too often you need to be careful.

Some experts, like law-of-attraction experts, believe that we are responsible for everything that happens to us. Albert Einstein stated that "Man must cease attributing his problems to his environment, and learn again to exercise his will - his personal responsibility." And from this responsibility we learn to command ourselves to better aid those around us in overcoming their difficulties. "No man is fit to command another that cannot command himself" (William Penn). If we don't take all the responsibility upon ourselves, then it is important to take a healthy does of the blame for how we act upon the world in our thoughts, words, and deeds and how it responds to us in kind.

For maybe we attracted that angry client because of our anger. Perhaps we crashed our car because of our dissatisfaction with ourselves projected onto others. Perhaps we married our spouse because he or she will punishment us for inappropriate guilt. On and on.

If we don't examine ourselves closely, thoroughly, and often we are bound for greater failure not greater success in all we do.

Being able to genuinely love begins with a lot of self-understanding and continual self-maintenance, self-discipline, open mindedness, and a good dose of good old attention to others through giving of the self. Listening properly is the key or beginning to all that is right in building relationships and coming to the aid of bettering the emotional and spiritual well-being of all we have to capacity to love and care for.

God bless.


Jeff is CEO of  InnerProjection.com: working with students and parents using the proprietary Success, Design and Preparation system creating a plan to ensure being of the 30% of college grads who don't waste 10 to 15 years or leave 100s of thousands of dollars on the table.

Previous to owning Inner Projection, Jeff worked as a computer programmer and in tech. support, but hated it enough to move from his home in Connecticut to do stand up comedy in Boston where he worked with such comics as Bill Burr, Dan Cook, and Billy Martin and wrote for people like Mz. Michagan who needed material for her ventriloquism act. He then moved to Los Angeles to do more stand up, but found being a college professor more fulfilling. He's married with 3 children.

Looking for a fast paced, fun, inspirational read?: Black Body Radiation and the Ultraviolet Catastrophe (Amazon.com).

 






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