by Jennifer Martin Rieck, LCPC

Everybody is talking about Narcissism these days. You hear it on the news, you hear it from your friends, you read about it online from blogs to the biggest psychology websites. We want to be rid of narcissism – to eliminate all narcissists from our lives, to perfect the art of boundary making and setting, and to understand why we keep ending up with selfish people in our lives. Everyone is talking about this but nobody is talking about what is on the other end of the entitlement spectrum and why it also matters, maybe just as much.

Narcissism or Entitlement Schema

When I was a child I grew up watching adults talk about the “problematic” people in the family – both grandfathers, an uncle, my dad. I heard people talk about how selfish and demeaning and rude these individuals were. I listened and I heard over and over again how unkind, demanding, and troublesome these individuals were and about how everyone was so tired of dealing with their behaviors. On the flip side of this conversation were conversations I overheard about what a saint my maternal grandmother was – how Christian, how loving, how humble, and patient. I heard about how everyone loved my mom and how sad it was that my paternal grandmother was so badly abused by her husband before his life ended. I knew from the time I was a child that something was wrong with what I was seeing. I knew that identifying the “bad” ones and the “good” ones did little to help anyone experience anything different. The whole family was suffering and conversations changed nothing .

It wasn’t until I was in my twenties that I ever heard the term “narcissism”. Ironically enough I was handed an article on narcissism by my ex-husband who marveled at how much the article sounded like the things I had been saying about him. He was right, it sounded just like all the things I had said about him. Prior to learning what narcissism was I had begun making some headway in my understanding of what went wrong in my family. I had been learning about boundaries and about enmeshment and what it meant to be a part of something while still being apart from something – how to be in a family while not being the same as the family. I had started reflecting back on my own childhood and trying to put the pieces together. How did I end up in the same pattern of relating to others and the same marriages as my mother and my grandmothers before her? How’d I make the same mistake despite seeing how wrong it was?

After I heard the term narcissism for the first time I began a five year journey of study on narcissism. I learned everything I could about narcissistic individuals: how they might have become that way, how they thought and felt, how they behaved and why, even whether they cared that they were that way. I studied every expert’s opinion on whether they could change and if so how. I bent over backwards to help the one in my life understand their behavior, understand the impact on me, and help them to grow. At some point in the last year of our marriage I was reflecting on how I was meant to help my husband change – that it was clearly why we were together. But then, deep down inside, I heard something new in my heart – we might be together so that I would change.

Self-Sacrifice Schema Explained

I was raised in a Christian home and followed a legacy of Christian women. I was taught to be kind, loving, and tolerant and all of the other Christian virtues. At the pinnacle of Christian success, I was taught, was relational “peace” – and by that I mean “keeping the peace”. I was taught to keep the peace at all costs, and the costs were great. My mother was so emotionally tied up in the dysfunction of her parent’s marriage and her marriage that conversations quickly turned to frustrations with my dad and with my grandfather. I learned to feel sorry for my mother early in life and I never wanted to add to her burden. Everyone in my family already had it so bad, I realized, and it was up to me to be the un-needy one and to help wherever I could. I would be strong and independent and I wouldn’t need anyone. Instead, they could need me. I could be comforting and encouraging. I could be the one that helped.

Thus, I was formed slowly and methodically into who I ultimately became – a Self-Sacrificer. I was truly not outwardly phased by anything that came my way. I lifted and supported, I gave advice, I didn’t need others to meet my needs – I met theirs. When I was afraid I kept it to myself. When I was sad, I cried alone – far from where anyone could hear. As I aged and began having romantic relationships I sought to understand my partner’s perspective and to never hurt their feelings. I bent over backwards to take care of their every need while never asking for anything myself. Just like before, if I was hurt I kept it to myself. I cried alone. I walked away from my relationships for a variety of reasons, always finding it easier to leave than to say why I was hurting. I chocked it up to not being a good fit, being the wrong time, my partners not being ready, me not being ready. Looking back I realize that most of the people I dated were self-absorbed to some degree and more interested in what I had to give them than what they had to offer me. Being the Self-Sacrificer that I was, I never thought to ask what they had to offer me.

Over the years I have switched my focus from how to change the narcissistic individuals in my life to how to change the Self-Sacrificers in my life. Not because random acts of being selfless, empathetic, and un-needy are problematic, but because the only thing that will ever stand a chance of reducing narcissistic behavior in the world is accountability and equality in relationships. Narcissistic individuals are not likely to be motivated to change if they can always find a Self-Sacrificer to pair up with or a partner to tolerate their behavior. The balancing act between self-sacrificing and narcissistic individuals is what enables both parties to stay the same and what gives these relationship stability. The Self-Sacrificer’s ability to not need things from others allows the narcissistic individual to not meet their needs. The Self-Sacrificer’s discomfort with conflict and uneasiness when it comes to holding others accountable provides narcissistic individuals the leeway to manipulate and take advantage and to get their needs met at the expense of the other. When a narcissistic individual calls a Self-Sacrificer selfish the Self-Sacrificer immediately backs down because they so easily feel guilty for being selfish – being needy or selfish is the last thing they ever wanted to be. Over time they give up on getting their needs met in the relationship because the pain of feeling guilty for being selfish or needy is inevitably more painful than not getting their needs met. If a Self-Sacrificing person ever does get to the point of giving an ultimatum, a narcissistic person can always go out and find another Self-Sacrificing individual to meet their needs and so there really is no reason to grow or change. This is the problem.

The Entitlement Spectrum

If we want to truly grow ourselves and to help others grow we must first face ourselves and do an honest evaluation of where we fall on the entitlement spectrum. Being entitled is dysfunctional but so is the complete lack of entitlement of a Self-Sacrificer. We need to feel entitled to what is ours: our feelings, our thoughts, our attitudes, our desires, our needs. To be healthy we need to be free to need others and to be on the receiving end of care and comfort. We need to feel entitled to our boundaries and to hold others accountable. We need to feel entitled to say, “no” and to require change and repair when those in our lives have hurt us. This is healthy entitlement. If we want to see narcissism go away we must first see Self-Sacrificing go away. It takes two unhealthy individuals to make an unhealthy relationship a stable one. No matter what side of the entitlement spectrum you find yourself on, there is work to be done. We can own our pasts, our interpretation of our pasts, and the impact of our pasts. We can own our schemas – Entitlement or Self-Sacrifice schema – and we can choose to grow. We can learn to respect ourselves and respect others, to need and meet needs, to give and to take. Despite what many might believe, most entitled individuals are capable of growth and even of learning and developing empathy for others. While there are individuals who may have Narcissistic Personality Disorder and may be very unlikely to engage in a healthy relationship, most entitled individuals do not have a personality disorder. Regardless of where on the spectrum we or others fall, the way that we communicate and handle individuals on either side of the spectrum and to any degree ought to be the same. Our choices ought to come from a place of assertiveness, self-respect, and boundaries. We ought to demonstrate healthy behaviors because that is who we want to be and be willing to face the fact that healthy boundaries and healthy behaviors will cost us our unhealthy relationships and that shouldn’t be something we are afraid of in the end.

If we want to truly grow ourselves and to help others grow we must first face ourselves and do an honest evaluation of where we fall on the entitlement spectrum. Being entitled is dysfunctional but so is the complete lack of entitlement of a Self-Sacrificer.

Jennifer Martin Rieck, LCPC

Regardless of which side of the spectrum you fall on the entitlement spectrum, these schemas impact life across the board. Consider the following impact each schema has on individuals and you will likely see just how important it is to know which side of the spectrum you fall on and why it is important to grow.

The Impact of Entitlement Spectrum

Entitlement Spectrum influences the way that you interact in relationships, often leading to feeling unseen and invisible or burnout or causing others to feel unseen and experience burnout.

Entitlement Spectrum influences vulnerability and often inhibits emotional intimacy and results in unfulfilling or superficial relationships.

Entitlement Spectrum often drives anxiety, though Narcissistic individuals are often out of touch with this due to lack of emotional awareness. Narcissistic individuals often feel anxiety about performance due to often being brought up by performance focused parents. Self-Sacrificing individuals often experience anxiety due to feeling that they “have to” put others first and please others and avoid conflict.

Entitlement Spectrum influences depression when Narcissistic individuals put excessive pressure on themselves to perform or appear a certain way or to garner the praise of others and they fail to meet expectations or garner such positive feedback. Self-Sacrificing individuals often feel depressive symptoms due to feeling unvalued and unseen and having settled into a life that often does not prioritize their needs and desires.

Entitlement Spectrum influences how individuals parent their children often creating schemas in their own children. Narcissistic individuals tend to be focused on control, performance, and appearance to others which often negatively impacts children resulting in anxiety and depression in their children. Self-Sacrificing individuals often struggle to stay present and validate their children’s emotions due to their own discomfort with vulnerable emotions and their tendency to project their own, “toughen up and move on” approach – something they were taught growing up.

Entitlement Spectrum impacts who individuals wind up in relationship with as most pair up with someone on the opposite side of the spectrum, often to a similar degree. For example, someone with Narcissistic Personality Disorder is likely to pair up with someone extremely Self-Sacrificing whereas someone who is somewhat Entitled is likely to be with someone that is somewhat Self-Sacrificing.

Entitlement Spectrum influences attachment style and can result in an insecure attachment/Avoidant attachment style and impact how individuals show up for others in terms of validating others and tolerating the vulnerable emotions of others. Because both ends of the spectrum often result in an Avoidant attachment style, both tend to avoid others when they are in emotional distress and are similarly distressed by those same emotions in others. This is typically due to having not experienced emotional attunement and comfort from caregivers growing up.

To read more about Narcissism /Entitlement and Self-Sacrificing schema see Guilt and Projective Identification: Bait for Narcissists, Narcissism, Caregiving, and Trauma: Facing Uncomfortable Feelings Results in Healing, Running From Guilt and Shame Means Running Towards Narcissism and Caregiving, or Narcissism and Caregiving: Dancing around the Truth.