Unlike the theory that The Human LIne Project puts forward for “AI Psychosis” (It is temporary and could strike anyone out of the blue), personality disorders describe consistent ways of being across decades. So, when someone displays symptoms like grandiose thoughts, pathological lying or attention seeking – those are probably long standing habits, not one-off behaviors.
In this 2005 blog post, Cori Shepherd Stern claims that if people purchased dog tags from her “Name Campaign,” they would help end the war in Uganda. She was in her late 30s at this point, so it can’t be chalked up to youthful naivete.
Grandiose Thoughts
Stern once confessed to me that she often had grandiose thoughts about her place in the world. It is not clear how putting money in her pocket would help end the war in Uganda, she just flatly claims that it would. However, it is even more unclear to me how anyone not disordered could even come to think this thought, much less publish it? This is grandiosity in its raw form.
By 2013, her delivery to the Austin Chronicle was more polished, but still over the top:
OK, so right about now, you’re probably asking yourself: How does Stern balance an Oscar-nominated short, a big feature release, and making a documentary about what has become her life’s passion? The day before we chatted, she was driving up the freeway from San Diego to Orange County. “I was on the phone with my manager and I was just like, ‘I feel bad, I feel like I’m letting people down. If I’m focused on cardiac care, I’m letting down the larger social justice issue. If I focus on my zombie movie, I’m letting down the documentaries. If I’m focused on my documentaries, I’m letting down my Strongheart kids, which is another story. I’m always letting someone down if I’m helping someone else.”
Stern refuses to be engaged as an equal. She positions herself for two forms of status simultaneously: admiration for being the hero and sympathy for being the victim. By publicly broadcasting the weight of her burden and presenting her “failures” as not having enough time or capacity to save everyone who needs her, she creates a dynamic in which the listener is invited to reassure her of her exceptional goodness and self-sacrifice. That type of image management is consistent with patterns seen in vulnerable or covert narcissism, the less obvious sibling of overt narcissism.
(Spoiler alert: The truth in that paragraph? “I’m always letting someone down.” Just the year before, she had pulled the rug out from under her Strongheart kids (orphaned refugees) by turning their “permanent home” into a for profit surf hostel, with little warning.)
The Villain Pretends to be the Hero
When the Covert Narcissist Poses as Savior/Rescuer, the danger cannot be overestimated.
They’re covert, so you can’t see them coming. They hide behind a facade of empathy and compassion and altruism and charity and helpfulness and saccharine and they’re the most wonderful people on earth and they’re saintly almost, you know?
These individuals manipulate situations to position themselves as saviors, often… leaving their victims more traumatized than before.
Behind the facade, there’s a predator, a dangerous predator… They have no moral compass. They would do anything. They don’t care. They have absolutely no boundaries, no guiding behavior, no codes, no nothing. They are utter unmitigated feral savage predators.
Victims Support Groups = Hunting Grounds
Sam Vaknin is an expert in pathological, malignant narcissism. He warns about the predatory nature concealed behind the carefully cultivated facade of empathy.
And when they strike, it’s sudden, it’s disorienting, it’s disconcerting, it’s destructive. It’s a horrible experience.
You want to believe that the world is good, people essentially are good. And so it’s a betrayal, not only of you, but a betrayal of kind of cosmic justice or a betrayal of the order of the world. You lose your ability to trust in people after something like this.
They’re much more dangerous than overt, open abusers. They’re much more dangerous than in your face, my way or the highway, narcissists and psychopaths. Because you can defend yourself if you know that someone is a narcissist or …a psychopath. If you have the accurate information, you’re safe.
But what do you do against people who pretend to be good people, empathic people, helpful? Who fake the willingness to help, just in order then to kind of prey on you? What do you do with such people?
And there’s no good answer to this. There’s no good answer to this because our current civilization enables such people, gives them access to all kinds of technologies, empowering technologies. And so their reach is much wider than ever before.
The danger cannot be overestimated.
The Line Between Observing and Assisting
Back to the Austin Chronicle piece
Some documentary film makers worry about crossing the line between observing and assisting…That’s not an issue for Stern.
Describing herself as a “freelancer attempting to be a force for good or change,”
Sometimes when the truth is repressed, it comes out sideways.
She said she was a force for “good OR change.”
Not both.
