Why God Is Not Enough For A Narcissist

A while back I was exploring Greek mythology, and while reading the story of Hephaestus and Aphrodite, I was forced to do a double take. I know this story, I told myself. But how? I had never read it before. It took me a moment, but then it hit me: It was the story of a relationship between a covert/vulnerable narcissist and a borderline.

Now buckle up. The story goes:

Hephaestus was born to Hera, queen and wife of Zeus, who after discovering her son was deformed and had a lame walk, tossed him off Mount Olympus in disgust. Hephaestus fell for an entire day before landing in the ocean, and would have died had he not been saved by Thetis, the mother of Achilles.

Hephaestus then grew up on the island of Lemnos, where he was taught to become a master craftsman by the people of the island. There he set up a workshop under a volcano, and used various metals to craft stunning jewellery and clever contraptions.

Soon, he became known to all the gods on Mount Olympus for his skill in making weapons, jewellery and armour. He created gifts for all the gods, including the shield of Achilles, Athena’s spear, and Hercules’ breastplate.

Upon hearing of Hephaestus’ genius, Hera asked for him back. Still furious at being abandoned by her, Hephaestus replied: “I have no mother”. Knowing that Hera only wanted him back so he could create at her behest, Hephaestus built a particular golden throne and had it sent to her. Upon sitting on it, golden ropes and chains flew out and trapped Hera onto her throne.

There she remained, trapped and unable to eat or sleep. Everyone on Mount Olympus tried to free Hera from Hephaestus’ trap, but they all failed. The trap was impenetrable. Zeus reacted by sending his son Ares, the god of war, to drag Hephaestus to Mount Olympus and free his mother. Yet the mighty Ares failed. Using fire, Hephaestus attacked Ares and forced him to run away. Next, Zeus sent Dionysus, the god of wine, to trick Hephaestus into coming back. This time they had success. Dionysus used wine to get Hephaestus inebriated, and carried him up the mountain on the back of a mule.

Having finally returned to Mount Olympus, Hephaestus still refused to release Hera. So Zeus offered Hephaestus the hand of Aphrodite, the goddess of love, beauty and procreation, in exchange for Hera’s freedom. Stunned by Aphrodite and her gushing sex appeal, Hephaestus agreed, and they were married. Yet Hephaestus never forgave Hera.

Hephaestus remained smitten by Aphrodite. He gifted her many creations, and even gave her a magic girdle that made her irresistible to men. However, their marriage was a dysfunctional and painful affair filled with deception. Aphrodite never loved Hephaestus, and found his appearance repulsive. Instead, she spent her time making love to Ares. Each time Aphrodite cheated on Hephaestus, he would smash his tools and cause the volcano above his workshop to erupt.

One day, Hephaestus caught Aphrodite and Ares making love. He reacted by trapping them in their bed, and sent them to Mount Olympus naked to be made fun of by all the gods and goddesses.

A covert/vulnerable narcissist is created first and foremost by the cruel rejection of his mother. The mother might be depressed or traumatised, or have a personality disorder, or the child might be an accidental or forced pregnancy which the mother resented. Regardless of why, the divine child, at first content in their Utopia, comes to believe themselves to be deformed and repulsive, and feels rejected and cast out by their mother. This resonates precisely with Hephaestus’ origins. The covert narcissist too was cast out of Mount Olympus by the goddess queen of his personal universe.

At the core of Hephaestus’ relationship with his mother is rage, abandonment, rejection and prolonged grief. This too resonates with the story of the narcissist. Just like a narcissist spends their time caught in a burning cauldron of rage at their mother’s betrayal, Hephaestus spent his days under a volcano. A narcissist never forgives their mother. “I have no mother”, they might spitefully say if they were honest with themselves.

Therefore, a narcissist has an aborted relationship with the mother. Because they felt so unloved and unwanted, the narcissist coped by rejecting their mother in turn. This wound remains for a lifetime, as the time to differentiate from the mother and actualise has long passed.

Much like Hephaestus, a covert narcissist is normally seduced into a relationship by their latent hedonism and grandiosity (Dionysus), along with the irresistible sexiness and playfulness of the borderline (Aphrodite). The narcissist’s life is a chaotic party, where only wonder and enjoyment exist. Together with the borderline, they create a fantasy. Unknown to the narcissist, however, they are being lulled back to the core of their childhood trauma: They are being taken back to Mount Olympus and forced to confront their mother, who has been trapped on her throne inside the narcissist’s psyche the entire time. The narcissist ‘resolves’ this conflict by swapping their mother for a relationship with the borderline. Their solution is to idealise a new partner, and to resolve their original mother wound through the partner. So they marry Aphrodite.

Finally, every narcissist idealises, devalues and discards their intimate partner. Just like any narcissist, Hephaeustus believed Aphrodite would heal his original wound. He idealised her, then devalued her for her deception and cheating, (arguably pushing her to cheat on him due to his abusive and cynical nature), before finally discarding her ruthlessly by exposing her misdeeds to the gods.

Hephaestus believed he would regain the favour of the gods through his work. He believed he could become by doing. This shame-based pursuit of completeness in the outer world of form haunts every narcissist.

Hephaestus’ father Zeus was also an overt narcissist. Due to Hephaestus’ inescapable shame and the shadow of his father, he could never outrun his pain. Redemption for him remained elusive. The gods admired his gifts, but it never made up for his deformity. He could never flex his full narcissism like the overt narcissist.

The story of Hephaestus reveals the tragedy of every narcissist. Furthermore, Greek mythology eloquently demonstrates humanity’s struggle to reconcile its inherent divinity with the treachery of the real world.

When a person is afflicted by narcissism, they have been cast out from paradise. They remain trapped in their pathology, unable to restore their place on Mount Olympus due to their unreconciled anger at their mother.

Paganism, deity worship and mythology dominated the human religious experience for millennia. Eventually, something monumental shifted, and monotheism took over. One God was all man would ever need, it seemed.

Yet we remain unable to let go of our fascination for tragedy. Mythology has morphed into psychology. Narcissus is now narcissist. Hephaestus is covert narcissist. Aphrodite is the seductive and infinitely playful borderline. Gods and goddesses are now personality disorders.

Tragedy is now dysfunction.

That is why, for a narcissist, God may never be enough. The narcissist’s paganistic drama, deity worship and desire to be worshipped in turn will likely never give way to the freedom and power of a one true God. Instead, the narcissist is doomed to forever play out a tragedy in the pantheon of their psyche, while fuming at the treacherous Hera, and infinitely unable to quench Aphrodite’s insatiable lust and desire.

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Narcissistic Relationships | Knowing The Narcissist | Abuse Recovery | The Narcissistic Family| Exploring Narcissism | Borderline & Histrionic

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