First of all:
>and instead opting for narcissistic delusions, protecting your inflated idea of yourself
Cut this out, narcissism is not grandiosity, narcissists can have diminished self-image. Someone with an inferiority complex can be a narcissist, what matters is that they prefer the dream to reality, not the nature of the dream.
Secondly, narcissists use the other as a mirror to reflect back their own self image. Not a mirror to show them who they are, but as something that verifies their chosen identity.
There is nothing wrong with the other being a mirror, I'll say that again, the other reflecting you back to yourself is not a problem. It's what you choose to keep that mirror trained on through the (types of) people you associate with and the kinds of relationships you establish.
Let's ride the example a bit further because who doesn't love a strained metaphor? Imagine you have a photoshopped, perfect picture of yourself. Literally, a perfect picture of yourself. Or for an inferiority project, you go up to the attic and dust off the painting of Dorian Gray. Whatever.
So you take a mirror, you angle it at the photo, and you see your reflection. It gives you the confidence/disgust/desire to masturbate you want and all is good with the world because you are the one in the mirror (and could only be that face) so there's no need to go through any painful processes of change.
If you trained the mirror on yourself, you might see (delete as appropriate) that you should lay off the Fritos. Or that you don't need to wait until they turn out the lights with *every* girl at the bar. (Just kidding, I know you're pining for the guildmate who you imagine has nice-smelling hair.)
So the moment that happens, you've got the id throwing a tantrum, I DON'T WANNA exercise restraint at the till/ I DON'T WANNA spend an evening getting some very average sex in a world with pornhub and fiber internet.
In people who aren't destined for a list or /r9k/ or worse, this gives way to internal lawyering from the Ego. "Well I can only have chips on the day I went swimming, breaststroke is exhausting and I almost swallowed some of the icky chemical water so I need the boost".
Eventually you see that this is bullshit because everyone knows you were holding up the 70 year old in your lane and sooner or later you do too. The prosecution, which in this case is everything psychic that we associate with not being rude to waitstaff or blaming Bush for Trump, wins and your superego finds itself working for a more reasonable client.
In other words, "healthy" is seeing the flaws in the reflection and acting on them. Before that it's being prepared to look at the right reflection, and plenty of people fail at the first step.
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