A bad childhood is where the parents either mistreated their children, or discriminated amongst children, or were unavailable, or were abusive, or were emotionally unpredictable.
Guys develop Covert Narcissism, whereas Girls develop Secondary Psychopathy, as a Compensation for Anxiety Due to Bad Childhood
Table of Contents
Narcissism
Narcissism is when one makes a snapshot of another individual in the mind and interacts with that internal object. Narcissists are often emotionally vulnerable, fearful from within, and rage whenever they see anything that’s not according to them. narcissists are Grandiose, Authorative, demanding, and have minimum empathy.

Childhood Abuse
Narcissists are often abused, by children. They might have witnessed an extremely aggressive father abusing a helpless mother. They might have experienced raging perfectionists, dominating and controlling fathers. Narcissism, therefore, is a dominating defense against abuse. Studies have already shown that Covert Narcissism to a great deal is associated with Childhood maltreatment by the parents.1,2
Dead Mother Syndrome
In a dead mother syndrome3, this becomes a defense for the child. This is when there is no paternal abuse, and yet the mother is absent. No emotions are developed whatsoever.
Dead Mother Syndrome is referred to as a childhood, where the mother was either emotionally or physically unavailable. A child is connected with her mother emotionally up to the age 5. Then the child has to separate, individualize, and re-integrate with the mother psychologically. A child explores, and hence has a grandiose view of the world.
Anxiety, Guilt, Shame in Narcissists
Two phenotypic themes of dysfunction—narcissistic grandiosity and narcissistic vulnerability—that can be expressed both overtly and covertly in patients’ ways of thinking, feeling, behaving, and participating in treatment. Clinical recognition that narcissistic patients can and often do present for psychotherapy in vulnerable states of depression, anxiety, shame.
Aaron L. Pincus et. al3
It is already been established that many Narcissists present themselves for a psychotherapy in depression, anxiety and shame. These can be either covert, or overt. Either ways, there is an internal Anxiety.
Summary of Childhood Maltreatment Leading to Narcissism
- Bullying leads to fear and shame.
- Unavailable mother impairs empathy development in the child.
- Abusive mother makes the child sad and depressed.
- Unavailable father impairs isolation and individualization of the child,and thus causes anxiety.
- Abusive father makes the child hateful, aggressive and thus causes rage.
- Non loving, and non-intimate parents impairs attachment development, leading to social anxiety.
All of the above essentially leads to anxious, sad, depressive child with shame, guilt, fear, anger. Narcissism is a compensatory mechanism that is used by the child to protect oneself against the world, admist these insecurities.
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Secondary Psychopathy
Psychopaths are mostly, golden children. Objectified by parents, hailed as superior, kept away from the other children, boasted by parents as being special. All their needs are being met with a drop of a hat. They get the best out of life.
Psychopathy becomes a supporting tool of validation for superiority. Primary Psychopathy is a brain dysfunction. However, secondary psychopathy is a neurotic disorder. Such individuals are not Psychopaths, but rather are healthy personality in general. However, when there is a stress or anxiety, the secondary psychopathy becomes primary personality.
Like Narcissism, Secondary Psychopathy is also a defense mechanism of childhood mistreatment.
Did you know that Psychopathy has a distinct correlation with Oxytocin Hormone levels4? Lower Oxytocin leads to Psychopathy. Psychopathy is also a state of low Emotions. Oxytocin5 has been best known for its roles in female reproduction. It is released in large amounts during labor, and after stimulation of the nipples. It is a facilitator for childbirth and breastfeeding. One of the oldest applications of oxytocin as a proper drug is as a therapeutic agent during labor and delivery.
Because of this fact, the Secondary Psychopathy is a common phenomenon in the females. 6
Also, it is important to know that Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder may lead to secondary psychopathy as a compensatory mechanism.7
Traits of Secondary psychopathy
1. personality traits of negative emotionality
2. Low behavioral constraint,
3. An early onset of antisocial and criminal behavior,
4. Greater substance use and abuse,
5. More violent behavior
6. Institutional misconduct,
7. High degree of post-traumatic stress disorder
8. Suicide attempts
Your jealousy can give a very good measure of your inherent secondary Psychopathy.
Test your Romantic Jealousy with our Clinically Validated Free Online Jealousy Self-Assessment Test.
You can also test your PTSD to see the effect of childhood abuse, if you had suffered one.
Anxious personality disorder
Anti-Social personality disorder(ASPD) gets developed as a validation to the belief that I am not good enough. There is an underneath Anxiety of inferiority, that is compensated with self-boasting, storifying life around strong opinions, as there is no core there.
This is often a result of triangulating parents offering a constant comparison with others and devaluing the child. The child feels rejected by the parents. This is often when the father is Anxious.
So, anxiety disorder develops as ASPD as a tool to compensate for parental triangulation.
When the mental health of the child is not ideal, the child suffers from insecurities that prevents from becoming socially comfortable. Even though many who has covert narcissism and secondary psychopathy traits, are often seen socially very extrovert.
However, such social confidence is merely a mask that falls apart in any form of anxiety.
Want to test your anxiety? Use our clinically validated Anxiety Self-Assessment Test to know your Anxiety levels.
Note, having a high degree of anxiety may have an underneath covert narcissism, or secondary psychopathy. Such traits may easily make you more vulnerable in a social context.
Addiction and Social Behaviour
People pleasing, Idealization, and Gambling Addiction are very dominant in Anxious people.
Their core is negative and is like an opinionated storybook. As the stories can’t be maintained for long, they lose people. Anxious people are not grandiose but suffer more from self-humiliation, “not-good-enough” syndrome. They are socially avoidant.
Narcissists and Psychopaths on the other hand are more addicted to drinking and less towards gambling. Because they are perfect. They don’t need luck, they have what it takes to become successful. They are more social because they need cheerleaders to boast their superiority.
Attraction and Attachment
Anxious personalities attract either a Narcissist(child inside), or a Psychopath(Fatherly or Motherly), or another Anxious personality(soul-mate).
Narcissists do not attract another Narcissist or Psychopath or healthy individual(Read again). But, many healthy individuals get attracted to Anxious personalities, as their outer mask is healthy, and then the healthy becomes co-dependent.
Oh, and most self-proclaimed “empaths” have Anxiety disorder with secondary grade Grandiose Narcissism.
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Thoughts and Views of Others
Beautifully presented Rupam. I wish to add another in your list, Attention Seeking Disorder (ASD), which can be noted in both the ‘privileged’ and ‘under privileged’ persona. Brain attains adulthood at the age of 4. All you have mentioned including ASD start growing further, branching and rebranching and at the age of early adulthood it becomes pathological, demanding and cause of severe stress and frustration for others around. NPD and ASD are much common in the society. These are serious problems. During my practising career I have seen many. Now it’s even too much!! Thanks
Dr. Subhagata Chattopadhayay
And there is a very thin line in identifying who’s who. Basically all tend to be negatively charged, all are products of First hand outbursts of injustice and aggression.
The young mind either ducks itself into own self and goes within develops anxieties, or he starts getting imprints of all what’s Happening around, on his delicate, under developed social psyche and comes out to be a Psychopath or Narcissist.
Based on my Research ‘AstroHomoelogy’ I can tell Who will be leaning towards which of these types from early childhood age. 🙏
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sanjay-sharma-354893210/
Conclusion
Prolonged relationships and proximity with any of these personalities cause significant damage to your own psyche and mental wellbeing. You feel like walking on shells and you start mirroring them, in turn shifting towards cluster B personality disorder. Therefore it is very important to screen your own traits and to understand the degree of damage to your psychology they have caused.
Anxiety, Narcissism, and Secondary Psychopathy are all scales. That means one can have them at various degrees. One may be high on a trait, or maybe high on multiple traits, or may even be having different traits in moderation. These underneath traits would further make you nervous, anxious, suspicious, hypervigilant, insecure, and under stress, the compensatory mechanism can become primary. As such, you lose the relationships.
If you are wondering whether you yourself are a narcissist or not, it is a tale-tale sign that you are living with one. Get your Lyfas test done today and screen for your personality disorders. We will help you to fix the damage if we find those.
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References
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- 2.Nehrig N, Ho SSM, Wong PS. Understanding the Selfobject Needs Inventory: Its relationship to narcissism, attachment, and childhood maltreatment. Psychoanalytic Psychology. Published online January 2019:53-63. doi:10.1037/pap0000182
- 3.Pincus AL, Cain NM, Wright AGC. Narcissistic grandiosity and narcissistic vulnerability in psychotherapy. Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment. Published online 2014:439-443. doi:10.1037/per0000031
- 4.Fragkaki I, Verhagen M, van Herwaarden AE, Cima M. Daily oxytocin patterns in relation to psychopathy and childhood trauma in residential youth. Psychoneuroendocrinology. Published online April 2019:105-113. doi:10.1016/j.psyneuen.2018.11.040
- 5.Magon N, Kalra S. The orgasmic history of oxytocin: Love, lust, and labor. Indian J Endocr Metab. Published online 2011:156. doi:10.4103/2230-8210.84851
- 6.Hicks BM, Vaidyanathan U, Patrick CJ. Validating female psychopathy subtypes: Differences in personality, antisocial and violent behavior, substance abuse, trauma, and mental health. Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment. Published online January 2010:38-57. doi:10.1037/a0018135
- 7.Gobin RL, Reddy MK, Zlotnick C, Johnson JE. Lifetime trauma victimization and PTSD in relation to psychopathy and antisocial personality disorder in a sample of incarcerated women and men. International Journal of Prisoner Health. Published online June 15, 2015:64-74. doi:10.1108/ijph-06-2014-0016