Claudia Moscovici 
Know your Worth: A Healthy Self-Esteem is the Key to a Good Life
In an earlier chapter I explained how a psychopath controls his targets by exploiting their distorted self-image. Any woman may be initially hooked by a psychopath during the seduction phase of the relationship. But those who stay with him once his mask of charm comes off probably suffer from an unrealistic and dual image of themselves. The nature of their particular distortion doesn’t really matter. It may be a woman who considers herself to be far more attractive than other women, but who doubts her own intelligence. Or, conversely, it may be a woman who believes herself to be more virtuous and competent than other women, but suffers from a low self-esteem about her looks and sex appeal. In both cases, the distortion is fundamentally similar in that it’s exaggerated on both ends of the spectrum. In some respects, she has an inflated view of herself, in others a deficient one. Psychopaths can hook several such women for the long-term by manipulating their polarized view of themselves. They strategically flatter their partners’ excessive vanity while also pouncing upon their insecurities. In other words, they play both sides of their ego like a fiddle.
Character distortions occur not only in psychopathic bonds, but also in narcissistic environments in general. As a scholar, I’ve participated in academic conferences in literary studies for nearly fifteen years. It would be laughable, if it weren’t pathetic, to observe some scholars adopt a snobby attitude towards others just because they teach at elite institutions or because they’ve published a few articles or books that a handful of specialists consider “ground-breaking.” Such narcissistic tendencies in certain academics (or writers, or artists, or actors, or models, or musicians, etc.) stem from an empty sense of self that requires inflated praise from others to feed it. In this sense, narcissists aren’t all that different from insecure or “needy” people who require constant external validation. Yet no amount of praise can enduringly nourish such a person’s voracious ego. If you research the lives of famous artists, writers, philosophers, scientists, actors or singers, you’ll notice that none of them were actually made happy or fulfilled by the excessive adulation they got from others.
You gain peace and fulfillment from your own healthy self-esteem and from cultivating a respectful attitude towards others. This sense of balance is largely internal. Nobody else can give it to you. There are literally thousands of “how to” books on the market. They claim to help people find their inner balance in all sorts of ways: through yoga, Pilates, other mind-body exercises, improving their looks or increasing their sexual stamina. I suspect that most of them work about as well as the perennial miracle diets. They may produce some immediate results. But they rarely fundamentally change a person or improve the quality of his or her life in the long run. To improve yourself more enduringly, you need to cultivate a healthy perception of who you are and know what you want from life.
Dysfunctional lives and relationships often stem from character distortions, such as the ones I’ve described so far, which leave you dependent upon the perceptions of others to gain a sense of self-worth. Those most likely to exploit such neediness or vanity are not those who have your best interests in mind. They’re likely to be individuals who want to use and control you. There’s no magical step-by–step procedure that can give you a healthy self-esteem. Just as losing weight depends upon having a healthy, moderate attitude towards your body, so improving your self-image depends upon having a healthy attitude towards your mind. “Know thyself,” the ancient Greeks advised. This, like so much of their practical wisdom, is sound advice. This is not to say that moderation, or what Aristotle called the mean between two extremes, is always the answer to everything. Nobody can be equally good and equally bad at everything. We all have a combination of weaknesses and strengths.
Knowing yourself, in my estimation, means using your strengths to improve your life and the lives of others rather than to appear superior to them or to gain their approval. Being an artistic or mathematical “genius,” or being very popular and beautiful—however exceptional you may be in some respects—doesn’t entitle you to special treatment. It also doesn’t justify you mistreating others in any way. In other words, your strengths shouldn’t feed your vanity, as they do for narcissists and psychopaths, just as your weaknesses shouldn’t cripple you.
Reaching an inner balance also requires having the right motivation for your endeavors. For instance, don’t create art to impress others or to become famous. Create to offer yet another instance of beauty and meaning to enrich your life and perhaps also the lives of others. Don’t write books to become rich or consecrated. Write to express a talent that makes you happy and that may contribute some human wisdom that is best expressed more creatively. Don’t give to charity or behave nicely to others to be considered generous and kind. Help those in need and be a genuinely decent human being. If you have a healthy self-image, your strengths and talents will radiate primarily from within. They will give energy to others rather than being absorbed from without, by depending upon their external validation. Similarly, having a healthy self-esteem entails working on your weaknesses without allowing them to haunt you, to become deep-seated insecurities that malicious individuals can exploit. Such a healthy attitude towards yourself and your life therefore implies some detachment from the views of others: from how they perceive you, what they expect from you and what they say about you.
Of course, none of us live in a vacuum. We’re all partially influenced by the views and expectations of our partners, our families, our colleagues, our friends and society in general: as we well should be. But those with a healthy self-esteem are not determined primarily by others. For as long as they behave decently to other human beings, they don’t fold under when their partners, family members, friends or peers criticize them. They also don’t lose their self-esteem when they fail at some of their own goals. Conversely, they don’t feel superior to others just because some people praise them or because they attain some level of success or even fame. Success and fame, like the criticism and praise of others in general, comes and goes. Knowing who you are and what you have to contribute can last a lifetime.
The only thing that can save you from a psychopath—or from any other manipulative person who wants to take over your life—is cultivating a healthy self-esteem. This may seem like a truism. Unfortunately, it’s the kind of common sense that many know but fewer actually practice. Any therapist will tell you that he or she stays in business largely because of people’s unrealistic perception of themselves. Character distortions not only damage our self-confidence, but also taint our relationships. They make us excessively vain, or needy, or inflexible, or too willing to bend over backwards just to please others. More seriously, character disorders, such as psychopathy and malignant narcissism, are unfixable in adults.
Fortunately, however, most people don’t suffer from such constitutive emotional and moral deficiencies. More commonly, we suffer from distorted perceptions of ourselves. This puts us at risk of falling into the clutches of controlling individuals. To find your compass you need to look within, as the Greeks wisely advised. Ultimately, nobody else can save you. You can save yourself by living well, which depends upon knowing your worth—neither underestimating nor overestimating it—and pursuing with a mostly internally driven self-confidence the path you want to take in life.
Dangerous Liaisons/Legături Periculoase, Editura Vremea, http://www.edituravremea.ro/leg–turi-periculoase–cum-s–recuno–ti-un-psihopat–i-s–scapi-din-mrejele-lui
(sursa foto: psychologytoday.com)
