Do narcissists feel happy inside when hurting someone?
This happy phenomenon is not a narcissist trait per se, as not all narcissists feel happy inside when hurting someone else. This is more of a trait of a sadist than it is of narcissism.
Narcissism is essentially an eternal quest to support a fragile ego and weak sense of self. Fundamentally, ego is the primary concern of a narcissist. Their concern is to avoid the pitfalls and landmines in life which will make them feel like failures or like they are inadequate. They must avoid that feeling at all costs because the dysregulation that it causes can create a feeling of dread that makes them feel like they are going to die.
This death feeling isn’t something just dreamed up either. When narcissists have narcissistic collapses their ego defense gets stripped away and they fall into a deep depression. This depression can be bad enough that it will potentially lead them to suicide.
Where this is in particularly risky is because when it comes to planned suicides, narcissists have the highest rate of successful suicide out of any other group. With Borderlines suicide is typically impulsive and is a knee jerk reaction, but with narcissists they plan out each detail to the letter and they are nearly always successful as a result of that planning.
So, you can see that a narcissists primary focus is going to be to avoid anything that will make them feel bad about themselves and risks them sliding into that depressive state.
When you look at the diagnostic criteria the main traits are: grandiosity, only associate with special people or institutions, preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, inflated sense of self-worth, requires excessive admiration, sense of entitlement, exploitative, lack empathy, envious of others or believe others are envious of them, and arrogant attitude.
As yo can see, within that diagnostic criteria there isn’t any sadism trait listed because not all narcissists have sadistic tendencies, so sadism doesn’t make the cut for diagnosis of a narcissist. However, sadism can be arm’s length away from their: exploitative trait, entitlement, and arrogance. Those are the three narcissistic traits that lead some of them down the path of being very horrible and toxic.
So, sadism when combined with narcissism and paranoid personality disorder comorbidity will result in what is called a malignant narcissist. The primary difference between a narcissist and a malignant is how they protect their ego and how they inflate themselves. With narcissists it’s through getting approval from people they admire and from getting compliments.
A malignant narcissist on the other hand will utilize those same methods for an ego boost but they also rely on negative energy from sadistically hurting and punishing people.
Malignant narcissists operate in the shadows. The victim typically will be unaware that the reason all of their bad luck has happened is due to the malignant narcissist that is in their life. That individual will sabotage and punish the victim in perpetuity as that is what builds the grandiosity of a malignant narcissist. It’s in being superior and out thinking their prey while never getting caught.
So, yes Malignant narcissists feel happy when they hurt someone.