I’ve written about the nervous system’s response to trauma in previous articles, and I think most of us are familiar with the concept of fight, flight and freeze. In a nutshell—and without getting into the weeds of neuroscience—fight, flight or freeze are all different ways the nervous system may respond to stressful, traumatic, terrifying, or dangerous situations.
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Yet a fourth trauma response has also been identified, one that has received less attention but is far more common than many of us realize.

As my readers know from past articles, I don’t like using the word narcissist. It’s so stereotyped that it has become clichéd in our culture, yet sometimes it truly is the only term that fits.

Someone who has a predominant narcissistic part of themselves is an individual who has allowed that self-focused part to become so blended it’s nearly always at the forefront of their personality. Their true, inmost selves become buried, replaced by an overbearing part. This often results in manipulative, abusive, and controlling behaviors.

Yet how does a person develop a narcissistic part that becomes so blended it takes over the entire self-system? There’s no clear-cut, simple answer to that question, and there are many theories. For example, childhood neglect (not just physical neglect, but emotional as well) can cause a person to develop covert narcissistic traits such reversing the roles and playing the victim, become passive-aggressive, and engaging in sly verbal abuse. Being put on a pedestal—the “Golden Child” of the family—can also cause narcissistic traits to develop, as can being a witness to abuse in the home, neurobiology, attachment issues, and a variety of other complex and intertwining factors.
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Recently I had an interesting experience—I witnessed the potential creation of a future narcissist. I pray something will change in this child’s life so healing and awareness can occur, thereby halting and eventually eliminating the potential narcissistic part, but as it stands now, I’m seriously concerned for this child—and for any of his future relationship partners.