 I am Sam Vaknin, and I am the author of Malignant Serf Love and Narcissism Revisited. We are all acquainted with a narcissist's reckless, impulsive, and intermittent explosive, or rage-related, behaviors. Narcissists abuse drugs and substances. They shop compulsively. They drive recklessly. These are the well-known behaviors, but there is a group of behaviors which are equally self-defeating and self-destructive, but very pernicious and subtle. The first subgroup is what I call self-punishing, guilt-purging behaviors. These are intended to inflict punishment on a narcissist and to instantly relieve him of his overwhelming anxiety. Self-punishing, self-purging behaviors are very reminiscent of compulsive rituals. The narcissist feels guilty. It could be an ancient early childhood guilt, a sexual guilt, a social guilt. In his infancy, the narcissist internalized and introjected the voices of meaningful and authoritative others such as parents, role models, and peers. These voices told him, consistently and convincingly, that he is not good, that he is blameworthy, deserving of punishment or retaliation, or corrupt. The voices constantly judged him. His life is thus transformed into an ongoing trial. The constant constancy of this trial, the never-adjourning tribunal, that is the punishment. It is a Kafkaesque process, meaningless, undecipherable, and never-ending. It leads to no verdict, subject to mysterious and fluid laws and regulations, and is presided over by capricious judges, the aforementioned voices. The narcissist masochistically frustrates his deepest desires and drives, obstructs his own efforts, alienates his friends and sponsors, provokes figures of authority to punish, demote, or ignore him, actively seeks and solicits disappointment, failure, or mistreatment, and relishes them. He incites the narcissist's anger or rejection, bypasses or rejects opportunities, or engages in excessive self-sacrifice. In their book, Personality Disorders in Modern Life, Theodore Millen and Roger Davis describe the diagnosis of masochistic or self-defeating personality disorder. It is found in the appendix of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual 3 revision, but is excluded from the next edition, DSM-4. While the narcissist is rarely a full-fledged masochist, many a narcissist exhibit some of the traits of this proposed personality disorder. Another subgroup of disorders is what I call the Extracting Behaviors. People with personality disorders are very afraid of real, mature intimacy. Intimacy is formed not only within a couple, but also in a workplace, in a neighborhood with friends, while collaborating on a project. Intimacy is just another word for emotional involvement, which is the result of interactions with others in constant and predictable or safe propinquity. Patients with personality disorders, especially narcissists, interpret intimacy as co-dependence, as emotional strangulation, as imprisonment, as nothing of freedom, a kind of death in instalments. Narcissists are terrorized by intimacy. To avoid it, the self-destructive and self-defeating acts are intended to dismantle the very foundation of a successful relationship, their career, a project, or a friendship. Narcissists actually feel elated and relieved after they unshackle these chains. They feel that they are broken through a siege, that they are liberated, free at last. Then there are the default behaviors. All of us, to some degree, are inertial. We are afraid of new situations, new opportunities, new challenges, new circumstances, and new demands. Being healthy, being successful, being married, becoming a mother or someone's boss, these often entail abrupt breaks with the past, and some self-defeating behaviors are intended to preserve the past, to restore it, to protect it from the winds of change, to self-deceptively, deceptively skirt promising opportunities while seeming to embrace them. These do this a lot. Finally there are the frustrating, negativeistic and passive-aggressive behaviors, which I've discussed in another video, I recommend that you watch it. I've received a letter from a narcissist a few years ago. This letter encapsulates, summarizes wonderfully, the state of sabotaging one's self-consenting, the state of being your worst enemy. I've seen the enemy, and it is I. The letter says, I find it difficult to accept that I am irredeemably evil, that I ecstatically almost orgasmically enjoy hurting people, that I actively seek to inflict pain on others. It runs so contrary to my long-cultivated, internally nurtured self-image as a benefactor, sensitive intellectual, and harmless hermit. In truth, my sadism meshes well and synergetically with two other behavior patterns, my relentless pursuit of narcissistic supply and my self-destructive, self-defeating, and therefore masochistic streak. The process of torturing, humiliating, and offending people provides proof of my omnipotence, nourishes my grandiose fantasies, and buttresses my false self. The victims' distress and dismay constitute narcissistic supply of the purest grade. It also alienates them, turns them into hostile witnesses, or even enemies, the stalkers. Thus, through the agency of my helpless and helpless victims, I bring upon my head recurrent torrents of rub and banishment. This animosity guarantees my unraveling and my failure, outcomes which I avidly seek in order to placate my inner chastising and castigating voices, what Freud called the sadistic superego. Similarly, I am a firstly independent person. This is known in psychological jargon as counterdependent. But my independence is a pathological variant of personal autonomy. I want to be free to frustrate myself by inflicting mental havoc on my human environment, including, and especially, my nearest and nearest. I want in this way to secure and incur their inevitable ire. Being attached to or becoming dependent on someone, in any way, emotionally, financially, hierarchically, politically, religiously, legally, or intellectually, means surrendering my ability to indulge my all-consuming urges, to torment, to feel like God, and to be ruined by the consequences of my own evil actions. Enough said.