HOLD ON KIWIS BECAUSE THIS IS A LONG POST!
I was watching this video by Sam Vankin talking about his own narcissism and applying it to Phil, this guy must have double the IQ of Phil(maybe triple) and was an extremely successful person in the real world, he has NPD like Phil but because he is so intelligent and spent so much time researching it after he was diagnosed with it, he is able to explain it much better than other people (26 years of research), he makes videos about Narcissism on his channel and this wikipedia text in his page explains Phil very well, and why he is fundamentally unable to change (something we all know by now but it's interesting to see it explained in this manner):
Video
His explanation of narcissism:
In his view, narcissists have lost their "true self", the core of their personality, which has been replaced by delusions of grandeur, a "false self". Therefore, he believes, they cannot be healed, because they do not exist as real persons, only as reflections: "The False Self replaces the narcissist's True Self and is intended to shield him from hurt and narcissistic injury by self-imputing omnipotence… The narcissist pretends that his False Self is real and demands that others affirm this confabulation, meanwhile keeping his real-life imperfect true self under wraps Vaknin extends the concept of narcissistic supply, and introduces concepts such as primary and secondary narcissistic supply. He distinguishes between cerebral and somatic narcissists; the former generate their narcissistic supply by applying their minds, the latter their bodies. He considers himself a cerebral narcissist.He calls narcissistic co-dependents "inverted narcissists. "[They] provide the narcissist with an obsequious, unthreatening audience… the perfect backdrop." He believes that disproportionate numbers of pathological narcissists are at work in the most influential reaches of society, such as medicine, finance and politics.
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What narcissism really is and how it operates on the person:
He also talks about how NPD occurs due to childhood abuse, the abuse can come from anywhere it doesn't have to be from the parents, it can come from the parents, teachers, other adults or other kids, the narcissist experiences abuse and in order to escape the feelings of impotence when being abused they coat themselves in delusions of grandeur and create a false sense of self that accommodates this exalted idea of themselves(abuse doesn't have to be just physical abuse, it can come in the form of psychological abuse, excessive pampering and spoiling are also forms of abuse , does this sound familiar?). A narcissist sees any disagreement and criticism as a threat because he has deluded himself into a sense of grandeur and importance to escape his feelings of vulnerability, reality is the real enemy of people who have NPD because reality is checking them and forcing them to come to terms with the fact their delusions are unjustified, something they are unable to do, so they destroy all relationships around them ,whatever those may be, and enter into narcissistic rage. His grandiose fantasies cannot be attached to who he really is, so he has to escape into the fantasy of the false self, and the real self is still there but it has to be crushed to avoid the traumatic pain that caused him to invent this false sense of self, so he needs to not be (deny the real self that was hurt) and escape into the false self so he can bask in his false grandiose fantasies, the negation of the self and the false self act in unison in this way.
Basically they escape into fantasy where they are perfect and they demand others to accommodate those delusions. Narcissists don't really exist, they are not people, they are merely an amalgamation of self defense mechanisms to protect their fragile ego. In this video the guy talks about how he is 100% aware he has NPD, he knows everything there is to know about NPD and if there is something he doesn't know it's because it's not worth knowing, he has been studying this for decades and still he can't help himself when it comes to being a narcissist, he is pompous, egotistical , manipulative, entitled and all other narcissistic traits these people have, he calls it a disability and that no matter how much he is aware he is helpless to do anything about it, he cannot experience positive emotions only negative ones too.
He said he stays away from women because women will reject him (as they have done in the past) and to protect himself for narcissistic injury he needs to keep away from them since their rejection will show he is inadequate instead of perfect (does this sound like someone else who never had a gf before Leanna and now never talks about her? and is repulsed by women even in video games?), he sees other people as objects to be used and can't relate to anyone because he sees himself as the most intelligent and special person to ever exist and relating to other people would be like relating to ants, it doesn't matter if he knows it's not true he still thinks this way. This reminds me of a video I saw about a schizo in the "special books for special kids" youtube channel who said that he thought his phone was wire tapped by other people, and he knew that he was crazy and that it was not true since it made no sense, but he can't help himself because he can hear it and feel it as real even though it's clearly not real, in the same way this guy has NPD and knows he is not the most intelligent and special person to ever live from a logical point of view but he can't help himself, no matter how aware he is on his narcissism.
He talks about how narcissists are incapable of healing (but maybe can change some of their behaviors with something called "cold therapy" invented by this guy) since NPD is all encompassing , it's in every single area of their life, he talks about how he can't do things because he will feel inadequate and his insecurity will fill him with rage (does this sound like someone who stagnates and never tries new things?) . If a narcissist gains awareness on his narcissism it will not be used for change since they are incapable, it will be used to enhance his ability to keep his "narcissistic supply", if a narc goes to therapy he does it to learn how to get more narcissistic supply and become better at it, not to change (He also said that this is the case in the business coaching and dating coaching sphere online, all of the clientele are narcissists, which makes sense). They can't really ever direct their gaze on themselves and do real introspection , they cannot distinguish their false self from who they really are no matter how aware they are of their NPD. Narcs don't exist as a person as we think, they are narcissistic supply seeking androids (this is also the reason why Phil will die before leaving the internet). Narcissists can't introspect, they cannot learn about themselves because there is no self, what can a narc learn about himself when he is merely an amalgamation of coping mechanisms with no emotions or empathy who only exists to get narcissistic supply so he can keep his delusions of grandeur?
He also said something super interesting , narcissists have no ideal self, there is nothing that they want to be in the future(reminds me of how Phil wants to do the same thing forever in every facet of his life). Narcissists also can't change because they lack real emotions , so if they gain awareness that they are a narc this is merely a cognitive awakening and doesn't have the emotional part of the equation required for change, also narcissism is all encompassing, it's an entire personality not a trait, just like your personality is being a certain type of person their entire personality is being that way so they are incapable of changing, everything is narcissism. I found it interesting that he said that he refers to himself in the 3rd person sometimes as someone we know, and he does that because he needs to dissociate from who he really is, and when looking at the events in the past it's like they happened to someone else and not him, when he talks about his past self he sees it as if he was narrating the life of someone else ("that's in the past! I have changed! I'm a different person!") , he sees his life like a movie where he is a hero character and he can control the scenario by altering the movie script (denying reality), this is not only cognitive, he feels this way, he experiences his actions as amoral instead of immoral since he cannot be judged for things he didn't do(since he is not himself, he is the character of a movie so to say, he dissociates), dissociation means he can't accept responsibilities for past actions because those past actions don't belong to him, he is discontinuous, all of his past actions were done by a past version of himself and now he has changed and improved, you can't be angry at him because he didn't do those things, his false self did.
The more the years pass the more problems accumulate in the narcissist life, the more relationships he destroyed, the more reputation damage he caused to himself and the more his bad behaviors are catching up to him in a general sense, when this happens the narcissists prefers to hide from his problems using the false self. He said that his main emotion that runs his life is a deep inconsolable sadness (reminds me of how Phil can't even smile for a picture and does that Hide The Pain Harold smile), every single decision and action in his life is done by the false self, not him, so he is not responsible for anything, he is constantly re-framing and falsifying the past , he has no identity or continuity, there is no correlation when it comes to how sees events in the past and how they actually happened or how he felt in the past and how he remembers how he felt, this part is important IMO, he said you can't trust him to tell you anything about himself because he is constantly altering the past so even him doesn't truly know (I suspect deep down he knows just like Phil, when Phil is confronted about his lies he goes into a narc rage because that conflicts with his view of him being perfect,people who are actually crazy and don't know wouldn't be angry at being confronted with the truth), if he has to tell you about himself he improvises, he falsifies or becomes creative, if he had to write a biography he wouldn't be able too, when it comes to how he felt and saw people in the past he completely re-writes it in the present (reminds me of Phil saying Howard was never his friend), this constant falsification of the past is made to accommodate the false self (the grandiose false vision of himself).
He describes himself as an ego function gone berserk instead of a real human, he is in continuously retreating to the false self instead of being the real self as to not feel vulnerable like the real self does (narcissists don't do all of these things because they love themselves, it's because they feel so insecure and vulnerable), he is not involved in his own life, he is an spectator and the false self does everything , the older a narcissist like himself becomes the less he exists , because everything is done by the false self in the present, everything in his past has to be re-written to accommodate the false self delusions and everything in the future is guided by his false self delusions, and he can't change no matter how aware he is of his NPD.
In my opinion since Phil is a literal low IQ autist who was pampered and spoiled so much by mommy he developed these feelings of being special and having to have all of his demands meet, but when he started socializing with other kids in school or anywhere else he was told by his peers that he was a socially inept low IQ dent with an oddly shaped head, they bullied him for being a retard so he developed the false self to protect his true self that was hurt by the bullying, so he escapes into delusions of grandeur where he did nothing wrong in his life and did everything correct. I have no proof this is how it went, but I want to pretend it was. This is not my original idea of course, this whole thing was said years ago by Duke Morty in this subforum if I remember correctly, just less thorough.