It’s taken me a long time to be able to understand and realize that there is a thing called healthy narcissism.

For years I attracted the unhealthy kind of narcissist in my relationships, sometimes in friendships and often in love relationships. For a while this drove me crazy. Why was I always attracting this personality type that I would call “the hungry ghost” or the “energy vampires”?

I believe I first heard of healthy narcissism from listening to Caroline Myss (www.myss.com). In our current times, we have become more aware of what narcissism is, maybe more than ever before. The blessing of technology is that our ability to share and learn is instant and at our fingertips.

Most of us feel that narcissism is a fatal flaw. Those of us who have been in relationship with a narcissist, whether it be a parent, child, friend, life long partner, or sibling – we definitely see narcissism as a negative characteristic. How can there be something healthy about being self-absorbed?

Most forms of narcissism are unhealthy. Narcissism also comes in a range, like everything else. Everyone has a bit of the narcissist in them, because to be human is to experience a sense of self, separate from others, and we all have the ego. People who are extremely narcissistic are those who have a disordered personality because of it. The most extreme forms are the sociopath and the psychopath.

Those who have almost no narcissism are at the other end of the spectrum. To the other extreme is where you get the saboteur and the extreme people pleaser – also with a disordered personality that leads to self deprecation and self destruction.

Healthy Narcissism is a Hidden Tool

Healthy narcissism will appear when a person is healing from a traumatic experience. If you were literally fighting for your life, you would instinctually harm anything that stands in the way of your survival without thought. Imagine being attacked by an animal, even if you love all animals, you would do whatever is necessary to protect yourself. That is an example of healthy narcissism.

Now you may be wondering why anyone would use the term “healthy narcissism” instead of calling it self preservation. In other words, why not just stick with narcissism being bad and find a different term to let people know that self-preservation is a good thing and not a selfish thing?

Self preservation is the umbrella under which things like healthy narcissism, healthy boundaries, and tough love fall. There are many ways to practice self care, just as there are many steps in all of our healing processes, and healthy narcissism can be a hidden tool that helps these processes along.

We Find Healthy Narcissism When Our Boundaries are Violated

Both healthy and unhealthy narcissism develop the same way. When a person is under attack, whether it be physically, emotionally, psychologically or financially, for long periods of time, they are going to develop a way to cope with that and set up boundaries. When it happens throughout early childhood, the child will tend to either become an empath (the people pleaser) or a narcissist (extreme self preservation). Children are not taught about healthy boundary setting, so they can not do anything but react instinctually to feeling threatened.

A 3 year old can’t say, “OK, look, this energy is not going to work for me. I’m a beautiful soul trying to have a meaningful human experience and you people, my parents and siblings, are emotionally unstable and abusive to one another and to me. This is not ok. Do better. I’ll be in my room meditating while you contemplate how to be compassionate.”

As we become adults, we learn how to speak out, and we learn that saying nothing is much safer than speaking out. Our culture has not allowed for whistle blowers to be heroes, we’ve largely lived in a world that seems to be a controlled experiment and a “get in line” kind of place. We follow order as to not upset the balance of things.

Yet, as we see the imbalances and injustices we start to bubble up like we are going to explode. This can cause anxiety, high blood pressure, and numerous other negative effects on our physical, emotional and mental health. When repressed and suppressed feelings, thoughts and emotions come up, it can be like a volcano erupting and that’s when we see extreme self preservation.

How to Identify Healthy Versus Unhealthy Narcissism

Identifying healthy narcissism is easier than you may think. This is because it’s even easier to identify unhealthy narcissism. We already know that the unhealthy, malignant narcissist has a pattern of behavior that is constant and mostly does not change. We’ve seen them behave in a way that is self absorbed, selfish, and portrays them as the victim as they blame everything but themselves for their disappointments. Narcissists need a lot of attention. They suck up all the energy in the room and leave you feeling drained when in relationship with them.

Healthy narcissism is a tactic like tough love. It is seen in situations where a person who has been very tolerant and giving for the majority of their life, and has possibly enabled some bad behaviors, suddenly feels taken advantage of and wants to end the chain of codependency. They will often overreact to “the straw that broke the camel’s back”. Meaning, after a pile up of abuse, codependency and enabling, they may throw up a strong boundary that they stick to. They may seem cold and selfish, and in this moment of strength and redemption they really don’t care about how the other person is reacting. They are tired of caring too much.

Healthy narcissism will appear when a person is tired of walking on egg shells. It often comes up as protection against long term subtle abuses of a malignant narcissist. For example, a narcissist that cheats on her spouse her and over again may find herself completely left out in the cold with the locks changed by the husband that seemed like he’d never have enough of a backbone to stand up to her, let alone kick her out. He can engage in healthy narcissism as his feelings for her shut off the instant he makes the final choice for self preservation. He can appear cold and unable to experience empathy toward her.

Unhealthy narcissism looks like a person who knows they are doing something wrong and harmful but they just don’t care. Where there is healthy narcissism there is a purpose in it and a lot of care placed into putting up a strong boundary and protecting oneself from anyone trying to cross it. It’s pretty rare that we have to engage in healthy narcissism, it’s usually used in situations where there are extremes to be dealt with.

Unhealthy narcissism is more common because it’s a way of life for the narcissist, not a rare occasion. If the narcissist is covert, it can be hidden for a while. Yet once it’s revealed, you’ll be able to tell that it’s not the healthy kind when they’re trying to blame you and gaslight you into thinking you have done something to slight them, even when nothing happened on your end.

Healthy Narcissism Is Temporary & Constructive

The patterns of the unhealthy narcissist are exhausting. Anyone involved will become exhausted. One of the best ways to get away from this dynamic is to recruit your healthy narcissist persona and start to protect yourself by shutting down your empathy and compassion for the person who is sucking your energy.

Usually, when we put up some kind of professional or healthy boundary, we don’t end up shutting off our feelings completely for the person we’re communicating with. Yet, in the case of healthy narcissism we do. We shut down the understanding and the sympathy, we do not operate from guilt or from the instinct to help, we consciously decide to shut off the feelings in order to move on and disconnect from an unhealthy relationship pattern.

Sometimes we do need to get in touch with the healthy narcissist within us to be able to overcome the tendency to be a people pleaser at our own expense. Anytime we feel as if we are allowing ourselves to be used, we can access this part of ourselves that can temporary shut down feelings of fear of rejection when disappointing the other to honor ourselves. Although we are not typically self absorbed, we are better off to be able to control this and use this characteristic, only when needed, to counteract those who are regularly self absorbed.

In a sense, this is a useful way to teach people how to treat you. When someone is selfish, reflecting that back to them helps them understand that you’re not a fool and your generosity only goes so far. As if to let others know that they will get what they give with you. If they are willing to be considerate, compassionate and empathetic to you, you’re willing to return that respect. When a person wants to manipulate you, you’ll shut it down without a moment’s care or hesitation to demonstrate how unhealthy narcissism results in your healthy narcissism making an appearance.