Inside the Mind of a Pathological Narcissist, an Emotional Fraudster
Hey. Recognize me? I am the person who rebuilt your self-esteem, the one who became your soul mate. We were so compatible, you and I, we seemingly had everything in common. We feasted, entertained, and had meaningful and deep conversations among us. Our time together was a matter of urgency, with not a moment to waste. We needed to be together, constantly and continually. I called you repeatedly, sometimes 15 times daily. I built you up when you were down, and offered confidence when you doubted. I sparked your interest when you were bored and breathed excitement into your daily routine.
We slept together on our first date, careless and carefree, looked each other in the eyes that morning, and laughed through the afternoon at our careless abandon. I made you feel needed, wanted, protected, necessary, loved, and euphoric. I listened to you, sparked your interest, felt your pain, and made you feel alive. I was your inspiration and your role model, the one you aspired to emulate, the one who made you glow.
I brought you into my family, thrust my son upon you, and you felt alive. He bonded with you quickly, so much so that you nearly appeared to be his natural father. To the world, we were a real family, and I convinced you that you were a great father. My boy adored you, worshipped you, and emulated you. I made sure that you and he quickly adapted to each other and cared deeply for one another.
I made you feel young again, in love, carefree and passionate. We enjoyed much fun together early in our relationship. We danced, ate, partied and drank, all in the guise of love and seduction. I appeared to care, and learned to mimic your emotions. I observed you carefully, and mirrored your feelings, always careful to reflect back an empathic and supportive mate. Our sexual abandon made you feel wonderful and creative, and I complied with every one of your wishes, knowing how important this act was to you. You were exhilarated at my youthful imagination and energy. I mimicked compassion, caring, affection, emotion and tenderness, and reflected back your needs.
Eventually, I became used to you, and grew bored with the routine and your increasing need to be emotionally intimate. You reached out continually, yet I retreated as quickly. I grew insolent with your demands for intimacy, which I despise. I began to turn, the devaluation had begun. You were dumbfounded, not understanding why I had suddenly become cold, detached, removed and distant. You desperately attempted to renew our initial attraction, but the more effort you made, the more distant I became.
You know that I’m not easy, I would say repeatedly and condescendingly, as justification for my aberrant behavior. I overvalued you early, before I began to tear you down. I believed that you would save me, keep me from feeling and descending again into the immense void that had permeated my life, and that you would provide me with succor through my depressingly dark nights. I cheated early, because I could, and continued to find comfort in the arms of other men. These men were new supply, and heightened my feelings of self-worth and self-esteem. My depression grew, my restlessness increased, and I could not find comfort in anything or anyone.
You know that I’m not easy. You were a fool, not understanding that I would have total disregard for any social or moral convention, no need for your empathic love. I had complete contempt for your emotional tirades and futile attempts aimed at keeping us together. I lied to your face, continuously, without a twitch or twitter, and forced you to accept my disingenuous behavior. I knew that you had placed your trust in me, abdicated all reason, and become consumed by me very early on. Your very stability, emotional grounding, energy, and confidence were derived from me. I protected you, made you feel safe, and provided a safe haven. You felt close to me. It was all a lie. You fell in love with my false self, an image of whatever I wanted to project to you and others. It, too, was a lie, a careful deception and a ruse.
I only feel whole when validated externally and sexually, by other people and other affairs. Ours quickly became stale, boring and uninteresting. I soon felt nothing but contempt and pity for you. I lost interest in our sexual alliance and your seemingly unending sexual demands. Our carnal nature quickly became a chore, a task, and a tedious accomplishment. You never understood this, because I was adept at falsifying my emotions. I invented a litany of excuses that you gullibly accepted on behalf of my utter lack of interest in our sexual union. You never once saw through this or questioned my sincerity. Instead, you grew angrier and more depressed at our seeming detachment. You repeatedly questioned your own sanity, your own understanding of my behavior, but I ultimately assuaged your fears and you accepted my lies.
You know that I’m not easy. You caught me cheating on countless occasions, but accepted my lies freely, wanting to believe that I was simply misunderstood. You grew increasingly desperate as you attempted to regulate my behavior, and learned to walk on eggshells around me, constantly afraid of my rage and my cold, calculated demeanor. You grew anxious, depressed and worried, not understanding that you were merely an object of supply, one of a seemingly endless array of men who had catered to my every need and maintained my illusion of the false self.
You know that I’m not easy. I married you to assuage your feelings, to keep you chained to my fantasy, and to scorn my prior lovers. This act meant nothing to me, yet I knew it carried great emotional significance to you. I grew adept at understanding you; indeed, I deciphered your emotional code quite early. I became a missile whose guidance system was locked into every facet of your psyche, targeting your vulnerabilities and weaknesses. I preyed upon these vulnerabilities, exploiting each and every avenue, which ultimately led to the destruction of your self-esteem and confidence. You were trapped by my emotional maelstrom early, dedicated to absorbing, interpreting and resolving the civil war that rages inside me and is just beneath the surface. I became paranoid, seeing enemies lurking behind every corner, friends becoming turncoats, and family undermining my relationships.
You know that I’m not easy. You became my punching bag, literally and figuratively, and your soul became the receptacle for my hate and anguish. The sexual abuse that I suffered as a child was thrust upon you, as I grew to hate you even more than my abuser. You failed to understand that I was doomed to reenact the hate and horror that consumed my early years with my father, but like those years, this reenactment was itself doomed to failure. There would be no resolution with you, just more pain and anguish.
I abandoned you repeatedly, yet each time you accepted me back. I was constantly dumbfounded at this acceptance, sure that the punishment and pain that I had inflicted was sufficient to create my abandonment, which I sought. Each time I was proven wrong, perplexed by the tenderness and caring that you demonstrated for my son and I. I stole from you each time, yet you never discarded me.
You know that I’m not easy. I am an emotional criminal, a pathological narcissist whose very existence is predicated on finding and abusing narcissistic supply. You are merely one component of that supply. I discarded you as quickly as I overvalued you. I do not care, I have no empathy, and I am deeply entitled to all of my desires, material or sexual. I am grandiose, and feel that everyone should resolve my problems and provide for my needs, realistic or not. I shine on every stage and excel at every task. Every man desires me, caters to me, and seeks to possess me. I loathe them all, yet I need them all. This dependency torments and haunts me. I seek to control everyone and everything around me, yet I am victim to the dependency that permeates my relationships.
I will never change, and I laugh at every attempt to heal me. These efforts are temporary, fleeting at best, and designed to instill sincerity into your torn and tattered soul.  I must optimize my returns and ensure that the scarcity and finiteness of my resources (my youth and beauty) are well employed. Healing is merely a bad business proposition at this point in my life. I will not be a scarce commodity, the 25 year old diva, forever, so I must ensure that I maximize my returns immediately.
I will ultimately repeat the pattern that has carried me to this point, and ensured my survival. I am doomed to reenact the childhood anguish that has followed me my entire life. Most therapists will not even treat me, fully cognizant that I will not allow their exorcism of my deepest demons. They know it is useless. It is a band-aid to a soul dark and empty, free of all emotion save the rage and anger that consumes me.
You know that I’m not easy. I will forever possess you, returning often to this narcissistic space that I inhabit. I will never allow you to move on or to create a healthy life without me. Every success, every love, every job you choose will renew the rage I felt for you, and will precipitate my scorn and retribution. I will return to you, repeatedly and demonically, ensuring my survival within your soul. You will never rest from me or fully detach.
I am a pathological narcissist. Abused, scorned, and vilified by the very people entrusted to care for me: my parents and family. Instead of finding love and acceptance, I was abused and scorned, objectified and despised. I am condemned to repeat this endless cycle of abuse and devaluation with every partner, friend, mate or husband. Each cycle will end exactly the same way, in my premeditated abandonment of the transgressor, their nature real or illusory. Each ending is pre-ordained, does not vary, and is doomed to repetition. This is my fate, and yours.
You know that I’m not easy. I have no empathy for you or anyone else. I will destroy your self-esteem, shatter your confidence, and create chaos in your soul. You will doubt yourself for years to come, accept and mirror the civil war that festers inside me, and recreate the self-immolation that inhabits my soul. You will become my ally and partner, and develop the deep, penetrating rage that permeates my existence, the insidious hate that seeps from my pores. You have become me.
(Authors Note: Pathological narcissism and the related cluster of personality disorders, borderline, antisocial or histrionic, are at the very root of most major frauds and petty crimes. Witness, for example, Allen Stanford or Bernard Madoff. Most inmates within our prisons suffer from a variety of these disorders according to prison statistics. In order to understand and prevent criminal behavior, it is imperative to first understand the disorders that affect the human psyche. Without such an understanding, no system of supervision or fraud detection will ever be able to prevent the widespread chaos that the disordered are capable of inflicting. Because they do not think like the rest of us, our linear, logical brains are not capable of reducing their behavior to easily detectable patterns. In order to understand their behavior, one must first understand the relationships they create and how destructive they ultimately become.)

The overwhelming amount of fraud occurring and uncovered in South Florida, including mortgage, banking, securities, and regulatory fraud demands at least a cursory analysis of the personalities and behavior that typify these fraudsters. Stanford, Rothstein, Freeman, Tolz, etc., are merely the tip of a very large iceberg penetrating South Florida.
I am often asked to explain, or even justify, criminal behavior, not merely for the sake of curiosity, but to prevent being swindled by these schemers. We believe that if we can understand the criminal mind, we can identify their attributes and prevent from getting swindled. Unfortunately, the pathology of crime is far more complex than we dare imagine.
There are two ways of preventing a fraud from occurring. One technique is quantitative, and involves the use of sophisticated due diligence to ferret out the fraud or any inconsistencies in the fraudster’s “stories”. These quantitative techniques take the form of pre-investment financial due diligence, background checks, verification of financial history with third-party sources, current customer verification, etc. These quantitative techniques are typically performed before investments are made and throughout the history of the investment. Unfortunately, very little of these techniques are actually performed, witness the Madoff scandal. Here, very little, if any, investigative due- diligence was ever performed, and even when it was, the SEC summarily dismissed it.
The second technique, the subject of this article, is far more complex and qualitative. It involves understanding and profiling the criminal pathology as a means of detecting potential firestorms later. This subtle technique involves profiling the types of personalities that might be inclined to commit criminal fraud.
What personality type is prevalent or stands out amongst the great fraudsters of our time? The Narcissist. The malignant narcissist, or NPD, is the uncontrolled or dangerous narcissist. Adolph Hitler and Osama Bin Laden are both prime examples of malignant narcissists who subdued entire nations or cults into unspeakable acts of violence and war, and who used their charisma to achieve these ends. Both Hitler and Bin Laden, though, exposed the cultural conformity that must occur within an entire nation or group to allow blind obedience to occur. Fortunately, American individualism means that most Americans are unlikely to become seduced by a lock-step mentality of destructive conformity. At the group level, Americans are fairly well insulated from this behavior.
How does one spot the individual criminal, the one who steals our millions and destroys our finances? What characteristics do all NPD’s share that might become obvious to potential investors or business partners as a qualitative warning? The following list, admittedly imperfect, is fairly comprehensive:

A surface presentation that is often captivating, igniting feelings of attraction, admiration or intimidation;
A relentless need to manipulate people in order to maintain an endless supply of attention, control, status, money power or recognition;
Great sensitivity to criticism, or intolerance of anything perceived as less than a perfect performance;
Endlessly entitled to special consideration and attention;
Constantly bending the rules for himself although outwardly criticizing others for similar behavior;
No real remorse for the effects of his offenses on others and will rationalize deceptive manipulations;
Severe sense of entitlement, i.e. unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectation;
A pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration and lack of empathy;
Grandiose sense of self-importance (exaggerates achievements and talents;
Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty or ideal love;
Believes that he or she is “special” and unique and can only be understood by high status people;
Requires excessive admiration;
Is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her ends;
Lacks empathy, is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others;
Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her;
Shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitude.

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition (DSM IV)
Some of these characteristics remind us of Scott Rothstein, Bernard Madoff, or other noteworthy criminals of the 21st century. Criminal NPD’s likely exaggerate the above characteristics, as they are considered extreme on the continuum of NPD.
What lessons do these diagnostic tools offer ordinary investors? What real-world applications do these tools have to investor decisions? Human behavior is not susceptible to strict compartmentalization. Individuals who exhibit many of these same tendencies cannot easily separate their behavior between different facets of their lives. Their bad behavior bleeds into every component and facet of their lives, work, personal, play, etc.
Individuals exhibiting these behaviors must be critically examined. Quantitative tools must be especially keen, and third-party verification must be a component of this analysis. Trust, even once earned, must not be granted lightly, or taken for granted by the recipient.
Bernard Madoff and Scott Rothstein exhibited many or most of the above diagnostic characteristics. Both had severe entitlement issues, exhibited grandiosity, lack of remorse, and exhibited great sensitivity to criticism or suspicion. How no one bothered to apply quantitative analysis to these individuals or their businesses is nearly beyond belief or incredulity. Certainly, even the regulatory agencies missed the Madoff scandal, and Scott Rothstein’s law partners failed to critically examine Rothstein’s income sources.
Human behavior is fairly predictable, and science has done a fairly nice job of summarizing bad behavior. What has not kept pace is our ability, as humans, to discern bad behavior and act defensively. Either because we’ve chosen to ignore the warnings or because we’ve never learned to see them, we continue to fall prey to the criminal NPD. Frankly, not much has changed since the days of Charles Ponzi, whose scam originated in South Florida. Not much has changed, sadly.