Narcissism is pretty popular here on YouTube. There are a ton of videos, a ton of channels dedicated to it. As women running into a narcissist and dating one can be like one of the worst experiences ever. So I think it’s important for us to talk about it. We’re going to talk a little bit about what it is, what causes it and how you can avoid them. But we’re going to come at it from a more Thomistic point of view. So here we go.

Welcome to Thomistic womanhood. In today’s video, we’re going to talk about narcissism. narcissism is a topic that I think women should know about somewhat, it can be easy to blame every ex and call them a narcissist. So I think sometimes we take it a little too far. But in general, it is something that exists. And it’s especially common nowadays. So I think as women, it’s important to talk about it. And so in this video, we’re going to talk about it from a loosely speaking Thomistic point of view.

St. Thomas Aquinas didn’t write on narcissism specifically. But a lot of principles that he laid down in the Summa can kind of be applied and help you understand narcissism. So without further ado, let’s talk about what exactly is narcissism for those of you that maybe haven’t heard about it, it’s considered a personality disorder and it’s very common all over YouTube to like make videos talking about it. There are whole channels dedicated to it, because it is something that’s become pretty common nowadays. And in my opinion, if we want to give a Thomistic definition of it, I would say narcissism is when someone is so selfish, they neglect what is owed to others and they harm them. That would be what I would call it because with a narcissist, they don’t follow the normal social contracts. So to speak. in justice, you know justice is given to our neighbor, what is due that is the definition, Theological Thomistic, whatever you want to call it definition of justice. It’s giving someone their due what is owed to them, your employer pays you to come work for them in justice, you are owed work, because you are taking that paycheck, you know, that is the agreement that you and your employer have made. So in justice, you owe them work. And so that’s just one example. It’s not just like, you know, a court system and like, oh, the court case we have to do justice. You know, what they mean by that is, we have to give what is due somebody did commit a crime, the common good, and especially the victim, it demands that there be some kind of punishment and the punishment should be appropriate to the crime and so that is kind of where we get justice and so then with the narcissist what comes in is they don’t give the person their due. We owe our fellow man a certain amount of respect, a certain amount of consideration. This is kind of where manners and etiquette come in. It’s not just like what fork you use for your fancy dinner. It’s often an act of justice.

You know what is owed to my neighbor, we owe people decency to be considerate, you know, and not hurt their feelings unnecessarily. Sometimes people are going to get their feelings hurt no matter what. But in general, we owe people certain things. Parents owe their children certain things, you know, they owe them protection and guidance, and not just like bodily nourishment, although that’s important too. You know parents have an obligation to care for their children. They owe that to their children in justice. Spouses owe certain things to each other in justice even when you’re dating the person you’re dating. If you’re dating that guy in justice owes you a certain clarity on his intentions, situationships are kind of against justice a little bit. It depends on what has been discussed, you know, but in justice men do owe us women a certain amount of clarity about what their intentions are. And if the guy becomes aware that you want a relationship, and he doesn’t, in justice, he shouldn’t be continuing to talk with you and hang out with you, when he knows you guys have such different goals for the relationship. And so that is something that in today’s hookup culture, that sense of justice to the other person because it can go both ways. If you have a guy friend who likes you, and you just don’t feel the same way, but you continue to go out with him, knowing that you don’t have feelings for him. And you probably never could, you know, cuz sometimes there’s a little gray area you’re like, I’m not sure yet, when you know for a fact that you have feelings and you don’t have feelings and he does, in justice, you need to let them know and probably stop seeing him. So that’s a concept.

How Narcissism Can Be So Damaging

Now bringing this up this is how narcissism can be so damaging because in justice, you know, most narcissist if their parents, if their spouses, if your worker coworker is a narcissist, these are people that don’t do what you’re expected to do as a normal human being, they are very rude, they cut you off in conversation, they may try to sabotage you in the workplace. If they’re parents rather than give you guidance and love, they cut you down and try to make you seem useful to them. You know, sometimes narcissists Parents, they’ll put too much of a burden on their children to take care of the parent instead of the child. And so you can see how in justice, that natural order gets flip flopped. And that can be, that can be a major problem, especially in dating, you know, it’s usually kind of on this channel, that’s probably where we’re most going to be discussing, it would be in the realm of dating. And so that’s where these narcissists, they can come in, they can be very manipulative, they can often you know, if you have a certain goal for the relationship, you’re looking for a permanent commitment, they can often know that you can sit down and have a talk with them about it. And you know, they’ll give you lip service and go Yeah, yeah, I want that too. But then, somehow, it never materializes, you know, somehow you guys never really end up becoming official, you know, and that can be very frustrating, and that can waste your time and sometimes some men can be narcissistic enough to drag this on for years. Sometimes narcissistic men are very very manipulative and they try to get you to sleep with them. And they often trick a lot of women into bed with them. And that can be extremely damaging. It can be very psychologically wounding to be used that way by a man. So they’re very dangerous.

And that brings us to the second question kind of why are they like that? From a Thomistictic point of view. When we look at human nature, we look at our soul, which is to remember how we make our choices and how we make decisions. One of the effects on people that happened is going back briefly to the doctrine of original sin. This is where we go in and if you’re not Catholic, I’ll give you a refresher Original Sin if you know the story of Adam and Eve, when Eve ate the apple, you know, Adam and Eve sinned, and that introduced a whole slew of punishments. And one of those punishments was it had to do with our will, our will is how we make decisions. Our intellect gives us the ideas and then our will kind of make such a judgment off of those ideas. Well, that harmony, the ideas and what the will is ordered to get damaged thanks to Original Sin, it kind of worked. And now people don’t always choose good things. And so one of these, one of the effects of original sin is sometimes called malice. And that is the word.

I think that kind of is very important when you want to understand narcissism, malice, you know, we get the word malicious, and that is where someone chooses evil deliberately, because evil appears good to them. Remember, in a previous video, we talked about how our human nature, our will, our ability to choose can only choose something good. It has to look good to us. It can’t be pure evil, even if somebody is even Hitler had to do it, he’s like, oh, the Jews are a problem, it’s going to be good if we get rid of them, because that’ll help the German people, like he had to justify it, which you can never justify what he did. But in his mind, he had to twist it around. And so that is an effective Original Sin. We can’t just choose evil as such, and that’s why even a narcissistic person, they don’t choose the evil of breaking your heart or hurting you. for them there’s some benefit that they wanted more, you know, like, let’s take the example of the guy that strings you along. You know, you’ve sat down, you’ve had the relationship talk, he knows you want to get serious. He knows you want to like having that title of girlfriend and yet he still strings you along? Well, he’s not deliberately choosing to break your heart. That’s why if you bring it up to him, a narcissist can be very frustrating in that they will never admit Oh, You know, no, I didn’t break your heart. No, you’re just being sensitive. You know, they, they don’t want to deal with what they did. And that’s because that’s not usually the point. for them. the point is something else. Oh, well, I wanted to avoid the burdens of making you my girlfriend because if you’re my girlfriend, that means that I’m gonna have to step it up a notch, and that means you’re going to have the right to ask me maybe to do a little more, maybe I’m a very low effort guy and so that’s what they’re willing, and so with narcissists, the will gets perverted, and they choose things that are very damaging to other people.

Because they love themselves so much, that they’re going to put themselves as the good and they’re going to choose themselves over and over. Now most people, well, I don’t know nowadays, but a lot of people have the good sense to know that you don’t hurt people just to make yourself more comfortable or keep yourself comfortable. with the Narcissist they do that. Another problem and Another cause of it isn’t just this malice that we get with original sin or will get worked. And we then become kind of malicious in our will, we can pick evil, we pick something evil as long as we can justify it and make it look good. That’s one of the punishments and the bad effects of original sin on human nature.

The other effect that is very common in narcissism is a hard heartedness, you know, they see the harm they’re causing you and they know that it’s hurting you they know that I mean, sometimes it can, like really destroy what these people do. Some of them are just very, you know, again, they have that warped will where they are choosing the evil but because it’s good to them, some narcissistic people are bad enough to where they See you like crying and heartbroken and that’s good to them. They enjoy that, this is what we see in like sociopaths or psychopaths, these people enjoy making others suffer their will has become so warped, that something evil like making other people suffer is good to them,  they get a feeling of power, they feel significant, they feel like they had an impact on the world. And that’s a very warped way to get that sense of power by hurting someone. But for people like that, it’s that malice, they’re very, they’re very warped in that way. And the other cause is hard heartedness. Our Lord talked about this in the Bible a lot. There’s a lot of verses like Jeremiah and stuff about the hardness of heart. You know, in Exodus, Moses also, God told him, I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, so that my signs and wonders can be multiplied and so when someone has a hard heart, it’s not always God doing it. You know, like with Pharaoh, most of the time, people are freely choosing to be hard hearted. Again, and especially pertinent to our discussion is our Lord pointed this out when He was talking about divorce, I forget the exact verse, but they came to our Lord, and they talked about putting away your wife, a lot of these men, it was like, after seven to 10 years, like, yeah, you know, my wife, I’m getting sick of her. And now there’s all these younger, hotter women and like, Oh, I’m gonna put away my wife and get a new one. And our Lord condemned them for that. And he said, because of the hardness of your heart, Moses allowed that, but it was not that way from the beginning so that was not the way God originally designed it. It was one man, one woman for life, but because they were so hard hearted Moses kind of caved and let them, you know, put away their wife, you know, divorce. And so again, that is that’s a very hard one. hardest thing to do you know, and a lot of narcissistic people do that. They put away their spouse after a while they get sick of them and they’re like, you know what I’m going to upgrade. It’s that hardness of heart that can be a cause of sin.

One of the effects of original sin is it made us more likely to sin, Original Sin is, like, literally the original sin, but we sin all the time, and those sins, weaken our soul, they make our will have a harder time picking something good, we become more likely to kind of rationalize something bad and try to make it look good, so that messes up our will. And also our intellect becomes darker, we have a harder time seeing accurately the effects of our choices, and whether our choices are good or bad. This is why, you know, when people do evil things if they do them enough and they sin enough, they start developing a habit and that sin looks more and more normal to them, the longer they do it. So that’s why I think of any, you know, think of like serial killers, the more they do that, the more it becomes okay to them and everyone else, it’s like, You’re crazy. Why would you do that? But that’s what sin does, it habituates our intellect and our will, to not see things clearly, and to not make good choices and to make choices that are harmful to ourselves and to other people.

And so that’s a major factor in narcissism, you know, is it any wonder that you know, here we are in a society that is largely turned away from God? And then suddenly narcissism is rampant? You know, it’s no coincidence. The two are related, you turn away from God, you sin more you sin more you work your warp your will and your intellect. And when your narcissistic, your will and your intellect is warped and you choose things that harm other people, because you’re choosing yourself too much, you’re too selfish. So that’s kind of how that works. Now, as far as recognizing a narcissist, one of the things, probably the best ways is to listen to your feelings and listen to a concept called peace of soul. You know, some of us have very anxious lives, especially if you don’t go to church or anything, you know, life can be kind of, sometimes it can be anxious,and so, discerning your peace of soul can be hard. But if you’re the kind of person that prays a lot, you go to Mass, you go to Communion, then your will and your intellect, your soul, and all those passions are going to be somewhat ordered. And so you’re going to notice this disruption in your peace of soul. You know that equilibrium and that tranquility that you have, you’re going to notice a change in it more. And so but just in general, general advice, a Narcissist will make you feel uneasy, you won’t be able to put your finger on it, but they will make you feel uneasy.

Tolkien quoted it well. He put it well in Lord of the Rings. He said there was a part where Merry and Pippin were trying to figure out when they first met up with Eric Warren. And he was known as Strider at that point, he was just this like guide that could guide them through the forest. They didn’t know who he was, and they were a little nervous about following him. And they said, one of them was like, well, maybe he’s a servant of the enemy. And I forget whether it was Merry or Pippin that said it and he said, if he was a servant in the enemy, he would look fairer and feel fouler. And that’s a really good way of describing a narcissist. They look fair, but they feel foul, there’s something off,  maybe they’re giving maybe their love bombing you and giving you like 20 bouquets of flowers, but you just feel uneasy about it so listen to that, that’s important. And then one other thing though, that is also important about this. Another thing that helps you recognize narcissist, and maybe get out of the kind of despair because when you watch narcissism videos on YouTube, I noticed that there can often be a strain of despair, almost like these people get away with it. There’s nothing you can do to stop it. They’re just going to come along and hurt you and you’re just going to be helpless and that’s not true. a narcissist is not something to be despairing about now.

If you’re married to one. Yeah, I can see how that would be despairing. You know if your parents are one. Yeah, that can cause some despair because yeah, there’s not a whole lot you can do to change people there but you have ways of limiting contact with them. You know, people call it the gray rock method. That’s a good method. But in general, one of the things is, always remember that they’re gonna Get there and nobody gets away with anything forever. You know, that’s just not the way the world works. There’s judgment, you know, God is watching. And these people do get their comeuppance. If you look at narcissists, you know, look at all the men that don’t want to commit, they string women along in their 20s. They run around, they sow their wild oats, they break a lot of hearts, they damage a lot of women emotionally, and they just never want to settle down, they don’t want to take on the burdens of marriage. Well, guess what, these are the same men that fill up the hospitals and the nursing homes, and they die alone, because they never wanted to settle down with a woman. They didn’t want to make that sacrifice and take on that responsibility. So then when they get in their 40s, and their 50s and beyond, they’re the men who are single and alone, and they’re lonely, there’s, I’ve heard stories, a lot of like nurses and stuff we’ll talk about later like how desperate some of these men are, you know, because they don’t have anyone to visit them in the hospital. And you know, it’s their fault.

You know, these men, they pushed women away, they avoided commitment. You know, maybe they had children and they didn’t want to see their children. They don’t want to be involved in their life. Well, that’s, what they get, you know, then they end up being alone. And then also a lot of homeless people, some of them, yes, they have mental illness. It’s not their fault. It’s a very sad situation. But sometimes not that I recommend it. But if you talk to these people, some of them are it’s the same situation. These are men that they wanted to be free. They didn’t want any responsibilities. They didn’t want to work for the man. And then their life got out of hand and they ended up on the street. And so you know, these narcissistic people, men especially, you know, that they don’t want to take on responsibility. They just want to have fun and they just want to use everybody for pleasure, it does catch up with them, so they do get a lot of times they get their punishment even in this life. Everybody gets their reward and punishment in the next life but some of them get it in this life too. So, you know, if a narcissist has hurt you don’t sit there and think they got away with it. They didn’t, and they won’t.

So the other thing about it that can cause some despair is the whole idea of the empath and the narcissist, I want to kind of dispel this myth a little bit. You know, a lot of people, especially women will get on these videos and they’ll go, I’m an empath. I’m a codependent because I’m very nurturing and I feel sorry for people and this Narcissist that’s how they took advantage of me. To a certain extent you’re a woman and it’s normal that you’re going to be an empath. It doesn’t mean you’re broken. It doesn’t mean you’re sick. It doesn’t mean your personality is disordered. You know, you do need to ask yourself why you got involved with the narcissist but Don’t think that you have some fundamental flaw. It’s good to be an empath. It’s good to be nurturing of people. I’ve noticed that a lot of women who would make the greatest mothers often get involved with narcissists because their sense of nurturing is so great that it’s directed toward an adult instead of children. And if you just redirected it, you do fantastic at it. So don’t be so hard on yourself.

You know, if you’re watching this and you sometimes feel bad, you’re like, Oh, I brought this on myself if I wasn’t so nurturing and feeling sorry for people. No, that’s a beautiful character quality that you have. If our society wasn’t so screwed up, then you wouldn’t be feeling it as a liability, you would be able to enjoy it as the benefit it is, as the strength it is. So don’t be hard on yourself there. But the one aspect that is worth thinking about is, you know, why did I get involved with the narcissist? you know, what did Leave me there. I think it’s a red herring. YouTube is full of videos on how you’re an empath you need to stop. You know, being so empathetic to these men. You know, that’s how they take advantage of you. I disagree with you. I disagree with them. I don’t think that’s the real cause. I think the real cause is a mistaken understanding of what a relationship is supposed to be. We all have a pattern in our mind of how we think we’re supposed to be in a relationship. What do we bring to the relationship? What is it supposed to consist of? And then based on that, we’re going to go out into the world and we’re going to find a relationship that matches that pattern. You know, we hear about this with psychology. When you talk about codependence, there is a little bit of truth in it when they say a codependent has a faulty idea of what a relationship is supposed to be. And then that’s how they end up in these situations. Fix the faulty idea and you’ll be fine. You know, you’re not Broken are fundamentally flawed. You just have a wrong idea. I don’t have my diagram here, but I did a video on the soul, and how there’s a part of our soul that makes associations. Well, that part of your soul that is making an association on what a relationship is, is messed up. It’s making a false Association. And I noticed with girls that get involved with narcissists, and I’m speaking from experience, I’ve been involved with narcissistic men. I was involved with one for a very long time, and it caused a lot of pain. But it’s because we often have a faulty impression of what it means. And what we often do is we often believe that a relationship is about emotional nurturing, you know, it’s not about a man providing a protecting No, no, we’re there to have emotional closeness and like, nurture feelings. And if you think about it, that’s prime. That’s like prime father for a narcissistic relief. Because isn’t that exactly what we do. And if you think about it a relationship, especially one that leads toward marriage and children, you need a man that can take care of himself. And that can provide and protect for you, because you’re going to be nurturing children, you won’t have time to nurture him. So you need a man that can stand on his own two feet. So food for thought, if you recalibrate that’s what I did, I recalibrated what I was looking for. And I started looking for men that had their act together and could provide and protect, instead of needed all this nurturing, you know, and then I did better I have not run into as many narcissists. And so that’s what I would like to humbly suggest. Maybe tweak your expectation, you know, maybe it’s not for you to provide emotional nurturing, maybe it’s for you to receive, providing and protecting from a man so that then later you have the energy to take care of a child. So, food for thought. But having said that, those are some quick thoughts about narcissism and what it is, how to recognize it, how to avoid it, especially avoiding, really recalibrate that expectation. Relationships they’re not always about emotional nurturing. Yes, you want to have emotional closeness for sure. But that should not be your primary way of relating to the man because then you end up being his mother, and who wants to do that? So, but anyways, food for thought. I hope that was helpful. If you have any questions, leave a comment. So hope that was helpful.