Trait Seven – Arrogance
I have often been told that I exude great confidence. I do have confidence in some of my abilities despite having self-doubts and insecurities. I was reared to believe in myself and to believe that I could do anything I set my mind to doing.
I was reared to face every obstacle no matter how high the obstacle appeared as a mountain. I was reared to have faith to move mountains, and if I was powerless to move them on my own, then I was told that I needed to believe in the God that would move them for me.
Many times, others stood in the light of my confidence and deemed it as arrogance. Others would give me hateful glares and mumble under their breaths with unkind words of sarcasm. However, oftentimes, I have always been around narcissists.
Narcissists are quick to tell others that confidence is akin to arrogance only if narcissists are not talking about themselves. They believe they are confident and others around them are arrogant, but there is a huge difference between the two words.
Arrogance is proud. Confidence is humble. When someone is confident, they usually express their abilities in a positive light while using their abilities to help others. When someone is arrogant, they are usually boasting about their abilities with the appearance of positivity while using their abilities for their own benefit.
I have been cautioned since my childhood not to be boastful or exhibit an attitude of pride. In fact, I was not even allowed to stare in the mirror at my reflection for too long. Neither could I revel in the happiness of my own accomplishments. If I smiled about something good that happened to me, I had to contain it. My literal happiness about the good that I did was not allowed to be seen.
I was always told that pride goes before a great fall, but nothing was ever said about confidence. I look back now and realize that I was not allowed to have confidence either … even if my confidence was a natural occurrence. I only lacked self-confidence within myself unless I knew that my abilities were good, but encouragement for my abilities were either hit or miss.
Great accomplishments for me did not truly begin to happen until I entered high school. My elementary and middle school years were a great big fog of muteness, isolation and confusion. I fought a silent battle with depression and trauma. So I had an increased desire for safety. For whatever reason, high school was safety for me.
So my main objective during high school was not necessarily accomplishing anything other than getting away from my narcissistic family. I aimed to only go to college just to get away from narcissistic abuse even when I lacked the understanding that what I was experiencing was actually narcissistic abuse.
I accomplished so much during my high school years that I was constantly a topic in the newspaper. I was not a main topic, but I was always in the papers for my academic accomplishments. The honor roll section of the papers was my lot for the entire time that I was in high school. Interestingly enough, my mother once had a wall in her home that was dedicated to any of my life accomplishments.
I was also a part of the marching band, and I worked a part-time job after school. I was the pride and joy of my family publicly, but behind closed doors I experienced great ridicule and shame. I could do nothing right in my parents’ eyes. They nagged me about everything that I did, and the more I accomplished, the worse their ridicule of me seemed to become.
I never had a chance to lift up my head in arrogance or confidence before I was immediately struck down. Yet, my parents’ resolve to wear me down only made me fight to escape the madness of my home life even that much more. I was on a mission to be free, and that alone made me feel confident.
Regardless of the insecurities of my parents, I still had confidence in the abilities that helped me to achieve academic success. I knew only that I wanted to go to college to gain freedom from the bondage of narcissistic abuse. The closer I attained freedom, the more confident I became in my abilities to succeed and master being free.
I had one goal, and it had nothing to do with what or who I wanted to be in life. My goal was to be free and away from the shadow of my parents’ desires [or lack thereof] for me. It is crazy to think now about how double-minded my own father was to tell me to believe in myself which is a sign of having confidence only to construe this belief and relegate it to being arrogant. I wonder if he even knew the difference between the two or if my confidence was a threat to him.
In retrospect, my confidence in myself has always been a threat to narcissists and their flying monkeys. My confidence is what allows my internal light to shine through. Narcissists are unable to bask in that light. They shutter at the brightness of it. They run from that light of confidence, and if they do not run, they firmly stand in their rage attempting to destroy my confidence.
The confidence of the narcissists’ targets always alarms them. Confidence is a sign that their targets stand firmly on their own without the help of narcissists and without the need for the narcissists’ affirmation. Narcissists do not care if their targets show arrogance. Arrogance is a sign that the targets stand in the narcissistic circles of the narcissist or have not worked out their own toxicity. Arrogance is only a problem if it boasts itself to be greater than the arrogance of the narcissists.
Nevertheless, arrogance is not a trait that I desire to possess because this trait positions itself above others. An arrogant person is haughty. An arrogant person believes themselves to be better than others. An arrogant person often belittles, ignores, and dismisses others. People often feel invalidated in the presence of an arrogant person.
There is no receptivity with an arrogant person, and feedback is not accepted by an arrogant person either. An arrogant person is only about themselves, and they will not listen to others. An arrogant person often talks over anything others have to say to them. In fact, arrogance has the ability to make people feel less than, voiceless and unheard, and that is simply not the way I want to be.
In the next post … more inherited traits (or not).
My Voice Unchained 