All Narcissists are made, not born, from trauma, neglect, and the absence of a safe environment for healthy childhood development.

Narcissists develop a "straw man" and this persona has no real feelings or emotions because, like a corporate fiction, it isn't real.

Any praise and "love" directed at this false entity does not satisfy like food without taste.

The "straw man" has an insatiable appetite for praise, acknowledgment, recognition, and award to validate the choice of making the "straw man" to begin with. (There may or may not be a demon attending this need.)

As long as they maintain the false persona they cannot experience anything authentic and real that requires humility and genuineness that the "straw man" cannot reproduce.

The false persona will learn and adapt to authentic people to "mimic" a real soul but in the end this fails and all bragging, boasting, and inflated achievement drains like a bathtub.

Once again the individual is left feeling the same way they did when they CREATED the straw man.

It is only in real time and in true love that the false persona can finally be allowed to die and the real person emerges, warts and all.

All attempts to "puff one's self up" fall away and all that remains is the real and authentic soul.

What they find out if delivered in a safe environment for the authentic soul is that real love and real relationships await. No pretense or "straw man" needed.

As long as anyone holds on to their "straw man" fake persona and try to build "self esteem" into this persona ... the real soul will continue to feel alone and isolated.

Here endeth the lesson.