Quora: How do people perceive their Hollywood crushes once they discover they have narcissistic

How do people perceive their Hollywood crushes once they discover they have narcissistic traits? Does that discovery change their perspective in any way?

This is just my personal opinion, but I think that the whole Hollywood thing is a pretty sick system and that people who go into acting as a profession are probably not the most mentally healthy to begin with.  Any profession that stems from people who want attention play-acting for money and fame is probably going to attract personality disordered people. Whether they are narcissists, sociopaths, codependents, BPD or whatever, I'll leave to their therapists and the online armchair shrinks to discuss. To my mind, there's just something wrong with people who want or need that much attention.



People in the public eye, whether politicians,  actors, or celebrities are always playing a part when they are in the public eye. There is no way to know who an actor is as a person by watching their movies or watching their appearance at an event thronged by paparazzi. They are putting up a facade and trying to promote their 'brand’. They are not going to share with the Red Carpet that they're suffering from depression, or feeling lonely, having interpersonal conflict, or having a dissociative episode. 

If you, as a fan, think that a certain actor will someday become your lover or best friend or whatever, you may have some sort of personality disorder or mental illness yourself.

If you find out that an actor whose work you admire, whose face and body you find attractive, has done something that you think is horrible, you may wish to vilify them, say that they are a narcissist, or whatever, and that's fine. You don't have to like that person or watch their movies anymore.

Actors are human beings, they are going to do things you may not like or agree with, they may have a situation where they drop their usual performance and get upset with the press or scream at a fan or whatever.

Some Hollywood personalities are found to be criminals, rapists, alcoholics, domestic abusers and/or bigots. It would be up to the individual to decide whether or not to boycott any artistic production where that problematic person is involved. (“cancel culture”)

You aren't entitled to their personal life, you don't have a relationship with them as a person, and unless you are in the entertainment industry yourself you are not likely to ever even meet them, let alone get to know who they are when the cameras are off. Hollywood crushes can be fun but they aren’t real.  People who get overly involved with celebrity gossip are probably missing something in their own lives.

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 Posts tagged 'quora' were originally my answers to peoples' questions on quora.com. 

They were monetized but I am giving them away for free here. 

If you feel inclined to support my writing, here's my paypal 

And if you prefer to pay it forward, I recommend Safe Place as an excellent place to support.

 

Quora: Are narcissists “evil” or just mentally ill? Should we forgive them

Are narcissists “evil” or just mentally ill? Should we forgive them on the grounds that they can’t help the way that they behave?

Whether a person harmed you because they are evil, or mentally ill, brain damaged, diseased, or just ignorant is not as important as understanding that a person is or was behaving in a toxic way. Understand and recognize that you were harmed by that  person.

They may offer apologies or perform some kind of show of ‘repentance’ or trying to ‘make it up to you’ and that’s up to you as to whether to accept their apology and continue to try to have a relationship with them.

Please understand that narcissists and abusers do not tend to change, improve or stop abusing. There is a cycle[1]of abuse that tends to repeat endlessly until one party either dies or leaves.

It’s possible to get help and change, but part of the pathology of narcissism is that the narcissist is unable to self-reflect and therefore unable to recognize that they need help and need to change.

 

As for forgiveness, I really think it depends on what your definition of ‘forgiveness’ may be.

I had a difficult time defining and understanding the concept for years and years. I first had to understand what forgiveness was not before I could understand what forgiveness is.

Forgiveness is NOT:

• telling yourself that what was done to you was OK
• telling the person who hurt you that what they did was OK
• allowing the person who hurt you to continue to hurt you
• allowing a toxic person to remain in your life
• forgetting that a person is toxic
• a transaction ("I apologized, therefore you owe me forgiveness," "I gave you flowers after I hit you, therefore you owe me forgiveness,")
• conditional (ie: an exchange of absolution for a promise of improved behavior)

Forgiveness is understanding that someone hurt you and, if you are now safe and free, that your continuing to tell yourself the story of them hurting you is you hurting yourself.

Forgiveness is letting that story go.

Forgiveness is allowing yourself to heal.

No apology from the abuser is required to forgive, but you may need to mourn the end of that relationship and move on as if that person was no longer living; in many ways the person you thought you loved *is* dead, because they never existed in the first place. It was just a show, a false front that the abuser put on in order to draw you in and trap you.

Sometimes you also need to forgive yourself for allowing yourself to be harmed, or for turning a blind eye to the behavior that you know you should have never allowed in the first place. For me, that was the hardest forgiveness to find.

Footnotes

[1] 

 

Cycle of Abuse: Understanding the 4 Parts

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 Posts tagged 'quora' were originally my answers to peoples' questions on quora.com. 

They were monetized but I am giving them away for free here. 

If you feel inclined to support my writing, here's my paypal 

And if you prefer to pay it forward, I recommend Safe Place as an excellent place to support.