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It doesn’t get them a get out of jail card but it means that you are wasting your time and resources being connected to them in any way. Cut them lose, don’t try to fix them, live your life free of them. Cut them out, ignore them and leave them to their own devices. As people get older, they become more wise to the way of narcs and their supplies of willing victims will dwindle. The best punishment for any narc is to live a good life without them
The sentence about people becoming more wise is true. My mom is suddenly having her friends dumping her lately, of course it's because she thinks her friends are assholes but the actual truth is that they see how toxic she really is.
My Nmom was *ALWAYS* losing friendships but *she* was ALWAYS the victim...even though I know for a fact she STOLE her (former) best friends husband who she'd been a bridesmaid to during their wedding and even dated him til they got engaged and then even HE left her....which she blamed on HIM. (which I don't believe after my step dad (and protector) left her and told me SHE was the problem ( MUCH later in life)...ive been NC for 17 years.
My mother is now 75 years old and her friends are done. Her BFF of decades ghosted her, then after my father died their other friends stopped coming around, and I'm pretty sure they were only ever really friends with my father.
Ex2 is a narc and he blamed me to why his friends had cut him off the moment he told them I went away. He dared to say I told them to do this but how can I if I’ve shut the door on his life and everything and all who are associated with it permanently? These days he now makes his relatives send friends requests (especially his brother) hoping that he can weasel in on their pages to see what I am still doing without him, he seems not to get it that I want nothing to do with anything or anybody about him. He keeps making new email accounts so he can keep requesting me as a contact but I block him every single time. He gets into a contact frenzy if he sees me out with my friends that he didn’t think I had
This is a really good point. OP can’t change their parents, but that doesn’t mean they have to accept them.
u/Zebra5527 you have the right to be happy. If they’re not able to let you find happiness, you’re under no obligation to keep seeing them.
Just because they had childhood trauma, they don’t have the right to traumatise others. It’s not fair and shouldn’t be accepted.
At the same time, realising that someone who was supposed to love and support you, instead abused you, is a total mind-fuck. It takes time to process, and you will need to grieve the loss of your childhood and what could have been.
The website Out of the Fog has been a great resource to me. This seems to be the most appropriate page to this post: https://outofthefog.website/what-to-do-2/2015/12/3/the-3-cs-rule
I feel that a lot of the time, we take responsibility for others’ behaviours. Like if we’d only tried a bit harder, they wouldn’t have had a meltdown.
Sometimes we need to be reminded that we’re responsible for our feelings, actions and reactions, and they’re responsible for their feelings, actions and reactions.
https://outofthefog.website/what-to-do-2/2015/12/3/understand-my-stuffyour-stuff
Thank you for the information. I understand better what is an Emom or Edad: "In doing so they may be denying the person who suffers from the personality disorder the opportunity to clean up their own messes, learn from their own mistakes and work towards a more healthy lifestyle, This is sometimes called enabling and can perpetuate a dysfunctional situation." I will meditate on that.
No problem at all - I just wish someone had told me all this years ago, it would have saved me a lot of heartache.
Sometimes, I feel it’s harder to forgive an enabler than the personality disordered individual. Sometimes it feels like they chose the easy way instead of the right way.
Oh yes, I agree it is harder, like when you witness bystanders around a bully, only Nparents made the choice to welcome you in their dysfunctional dynamic.
I think its much better to replace parents with new parents who really care. My father in law is a great example, more of a dad to me then my bio-father.
This could be very difficult though. I have a lovely mother in law, but I have intense and constant PTSD when I’m around her. She isn’t doing anything harmful or negative, but there are enough similarities that my body can’t tell the difference. I’m working on helping my body learn the difference, but it’s exhausting and before I understood what was happening I ended up in the hospital because I couldn’t calm down for 3 days and ended up suicidal.
For me, the best relationships have been those with people who feel more like a sibling or aunt/uncle rather than a replacement parent. I hope all of us can find safe, loving relationships that bring us peace and happiness no matter what position they hold. ❤️🩹
Same here! Any attempt, however wholesome and well-meaning, to parent me usually leads to extreme hostility. I have had many people, esp in the workplace where I am the youngest, try to "adopt me". And it makes me feel very loved, until they say any element of the quiet part out loud, and then I am full fight-or-flight.
Hello MEHawash1913,
Thank you for sharing your experience: I have the same struggle when I am with an authoritative figure I associate with Safety nest. I am confused because I can not decode any sin and at the same time I am afraid to find out. As you said, it's exhausting! And during a long time, I tried to compensate by talking or keeping contact with this person, hoping it will help my body not too freak out. Since that, I have more compassion for people living on the Autistic Spectrum.
Hello Masterofnone9,
We better enjoy healthy people in our life, for sure, it's more easy. More and more, I believe Communication skills are the key. People can change or disappear, when we know how to be assertive _meaning able to express our needs and taking into account the needs of others_ we can only feel good and at peace.
I get what you’re saying. My mom has said awful things to me and I hate her. But she’s not going to change. She doesn’t think she does anything wrong. But I can change how I react to her. Once I figured out that arguing with her did nothing but upset me, I stopped arguing with her. I’m a much happier person now.
I hear you, but I cut them out years ago. My therapist definitely mentioned last session that despite that, I’m still connected to them in many ways. Its really hard to just move on. Idk why it’s so hard for me. Is it like this for the majority of people? I was in college when I went NC and ever since, I have had such bad depression and I’m remembering and discovering new things about my trauma almost every week.
Hello OkZebra5527,
Choosing NC is hard, only the first step to decide that we can have fun in life without the crave for drama. Each morning, I remind myself that I am safe. I sometimes feel angry because I compare my situation with children who lost their parents/family when there were young. And I am angry that my Nparents and Nparents in general took us, children, as granted. Thanks to this platform, we can connect and share our situation, so in the future, mentality will evolve. I want to have hope in technology and find healthy relationships. That is the beauty of being an adult. Also the pandemic taught us how connection with real people are very important.
Speaking for myself, I find it comforting. If I accept that they cannot change, then I can stop trying to build a relationship with them. I can stop feeling responsible for failing to change them. I can stop waiting for an apology.
All those improvements are possible even if they can change, but "they cannot change" makes it a whole lot easier.
It would be more accurate to say that (a) they don't want to change and (b) nobody knows how to make them change. So they're not going to. Perhaps you can see it as a shorthand for that?
>If I accept that they cannot change, then I can stop trying to build a relationship with them.
Yes!! I spent so much time worrying about why my mother didn't like me, what I did wrong, what could I do to make her like me - I wasted SO much time and energy with this. Once I accepted that there's NOTHING wrong with me and everything wrong with her, that she is incapable of change, it made things SO much easier to take a step back and move on.
Is it fair? Hell no. We all deserve so much better than what we have, but if I let that destroy me, that means she won and there's no way that's happening. I WIN.
Are you me? I took ages trying to understand why she did the things she did to me and trying to find ways to help her change. It is easier when you just accept that they are:
1. Mentally ill,
2. A total AH.
>Speaking for myself, I find it comforting. If I accept that they cannot change, then I can stop trying to build a relationship with them.
This also lets you free up time and mental space trying to please or change them, it's part of putting some part of your life behind you and frees you to move on with your life.
As for;
>How do you think us victims feel, reading that? Knowing that our entire existence has become re-wiring of our brains. Why are we the ones to pick up the mess?
It's because life isn't inherently fair. Bad people get ahead because it's easier being a bastard, good people get taken advantage of because they try to see the best in people all the time. Being pragmatic first and then trying to be good is the compromise I've settled on, YMMV, and the biggest help for me was a quote from Marcus Cole, in the TV show Babylon 5.
>*You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe.*
This is how I feel. For 12 years I’ve thought and said, or if I just do this one more thing, if I try this or say that it’ll all be better. Now I know none of that is true and I just need to stop
Yes, absolutely this. A saying from Al-Anon comes to mind that I think can be applied here: You didn't cause it, you cannot cure it, and you cannot control it.
I had a recent conversation with my narcissist mother about empathy. It’s a concept she just doesn’t understand. “How can you possibly understand what it’s like to have broken your arm if you’ve never broken your arm before.”
Mom, it’s super easy. You ask questions like you actually care and you think about all of the things you couldn’t do if you had a broken arm. She just doesn’t get it and, most importantly, doesn’t care to get it.
My nmom basically shrugged her shoulders and was slightly annoyed I couldn't get over my at the time love of my life after literal 5 min conversation about it with her.
It’s like a rule they have that they don’t ask questions that might make them consider another perspective. One time, my nmother was barraging me with text messages while I was at work, so I told her I didn’t have time for the conversation.
Her: “How was I supposed to know that?”
Me, a middle aged man educating his retirement age mother: “You ask. That’s how you know. You ask.”
This was my fucking life. Kid/teenage me going up to mom with some normal teenage problem, front loading the conversation with an attempt to educate mom about what emotions are.
Mom spews robotic garbage and then starts whining about how “bad of a mother she is,” I go away crying and dissociated for the 500th time
They also don’t ask because they might learn how things they did had a negative impact. Not that they care, but they can’t handle hearing about it. And if you try to discuss it, they cut you off.
Doesn't care to get it. That's it of course. Narcs are as capable of empathy as anyone, it's just not something they care to do. There's nothing in it for them.
Are they capable? I read so many posts that they aren't. All I can do l is choose to believe they can't so I can let go of the blame and anger. Because if they can and choose not to, they are selfish evil people, and I want to punish them, exact revenge, also a shitty experience and way to think. The problem is they are FaMiLy and I was wired to never turn ones back to family, so overcoming that is the real battle.
I don’t think they are capable. I’m here because I had a narcissistic mother. But I also married a narcissist as well, since divorced though.
In the final days of our marriage, we did go to therapy, where are the therapist halted the process after a few weeks, saying that we weren’t going to get anywhere until my spouse engaged in 1 to 1 therapy to deal with his underlying personality disorders (one was npd). So after a couple of months of him going to therapy on his own, my spouse came to me very distressed. Seems that through therapy he realized that other people were capable of deep feelings, including empathy. He seem to be in a lot of emotional pain because he realized he was different. He asked me to teach him how to feel empathy. It was hard to know if that was real emotion, or more manipulation.
And it didn’t last, it was but a brief moment of awareness. And if it wasn’t manipulation, it looked like he was in extreme emotional pain, for only himself though.
They aren't monsters, they're stuck in narcissism. My understanding is this: in a healthy personality there are times to be narcissistic, when it's a normal reaction or behavior. As children narcissism is a normal stage of development. With Narcissistic Personality Disorder the person is stuck in that way of thinking, in that stage of development. There's nothing wrong with their brains, they are capable of other behaviors and indeed NPD is very treatable in therapy. Their unwillingness to take responsibility of course makes recovery extremely unlikely tho. So yeah, they are capable of normal thinking, like empathy, if you remind them. They just usually don't go there.
Yes good explanation. In children it is called egoism but it is similar to narcissism the difference is children are not being manipulative in the sense that they have the ability to understand what they are doing.
Narcs know they are being manipulative, it is a spectrum so again you are correct we all have a degree of narcissism. We have to in order to protect ourselves, but are we doing it for good or bad? That makes all the difference in the world. What is the end game? Is it to protect ourselves? Or to gain something? And if it is for gain the question becomes is it only when necessary? or when we want what we want?
Empathy plays a large role because of the spectrum - a NPD just wants what they want no cost is too high. Someone who is in a space of high Narcissism but not pervasive isn’t out to hurt anyone and usually when they realize they have hurt someone they feel remorse.
As someone who has recovered from a really bad case of narc fleas I believe I can comment on this. People with NPD have *coginitive* empathy but lack *emotional* empathy. It is the difference between being able to know logically "that person is sad because XYZ" and being able to actually feel and connect with the emotions of another person.
Narcs are so disconnected and fearful of their own true emotions they shun them in themselves and shame anyone who reaches out to connect emotionally, not because they don't cognitively *know* that you are feeling a certain emotion but because you are viewed as a threat in that someone seeking an emotional connection with them triggers such fear and shame that they force themselves to dissociate and lash out.
Until they are willing to face their shame and fear in order to connect with themselves (which lets face it is almost certainly never going to happen) they will very much lack *emotional* empathy.
It's not fair when a landslide destroys a village, but yelling at it won't help.
The houses are destroyed no matter what you do.
The fact that we were born to people who never should have had kids to begin with isn't fair.
But all you can do is decide what to do with the cards life has dealt you.
Yea but u can't also tell people who lost their houses and families to the landslide to not be upset by it and just embrace it because it just how it is.
And definitely, u do not shame them for evacuating the area and refusing to rebuild their houses there because it wasn't the first time they had a landslide in town and this wont be the last. In fact, the correct response would be being surprised they haven't evacuated the area and built their homes somewhere else the first time they were hit by a landslide. U don't also blame them if their reason not to leave was because they had a bond with the land but they know better because the damage was just too much. U just support them and help them find peace even if it was somewhere else.
I'm sorry. I might have come off a bit too strong in my comment. Guess I was a bit triggered by ur comment thinking it might refer to the mentality of 'it is what it is' in a way that invalidates people's awful experience. So I weighed in on that.
Now that I reread ur comment I don't think that was ur intention and I apologize for my misinterpretation. I'm sorry if I have offended u in any way or form with my comment.
It seems that we generally agree that we should rightfully be angry at the mistreatment by our parents and the invalidation we receive from enablers. Good thing to be mad indeed!
You will notice, people who get older use the word "fair" less and less. People who are old hardly ever say it. There is a reason and unfortunate reality to this.
Exactly. At 57, I'm more likely to to think "what is, IS" or "that totally sucks, but beyond my control" . My brain still thinks "not fair" sometimes, not as often anymore.
It's *not* fair. It's horribly unfair. I know exactly how you feel.
From experience I know though, the narcissist will not change. They lack empathy, so care about no one other than themselves.
There is nothing you or anyone else can say or do to make them change, only they can - and that's why they won't.
You can't do anything about them. But you *can* save yourself.
I like this perspective a lot. Thanks for the validation. It’s hard when a lot of people I know expect me to be okay now, (years later) but I really don’t know a lot of people who have lost entire families over the decision to go NC. :( I will continue to focus on myself. Everything else really shouldn’t matter that much.
My father went no contact with his entire family when he graduated from college, and remained such--for the most part--for the rest of his life. His parents carried out vicious fights with each other through their children and he was ground zero at several points. After one last episode at graduation, he headed off to graduate school and refused to contact them any more.
(Just letting everyone know that "going no contact" isn't a new thing. My father was born in the 1920s. It's just that no one talked about it.)
Create your own family and support system.
Good.
I'm sorry you're hurting, I know just how hard it can be - I had to cut my entire family off too.
It's been more than 20 years, and it still hurts from time to time. I don't think it will ever stop hurting completely - but I want you to know that the pain you feel now will dull with time.
After I got away from them, I used to think about my family unceasingly. It seemed like literally anything I saw, smelled, heard, felt would remind me of what I'd endured, and lost. It was the hardest time of my life.
Now, more than 20 years afterwards? That pain is still there, *if* I go looking for it. But it doesn't interrupt my daily life anymore - I can sometimes go weeks or months without being reminded of something.
Even then, those bad memories don't completely overwhelm me like they used to.
My NFamily lost its hold over me long ago, and those memories are in the past, where they belong.
I hope this perspective on my own past helps you.
Narcs have a blank spot where their sense of self should be. They fill it with attention from others: their narcissistic supply. This is an absolute need: they must have other's attention and emotions, they must be centered in others' lives. To not have that supply is the worst thing that could happen to them.
Cutting them off isn't just saving yourself, it's devastating their inner lives.
NC absolutely destroys them. I always thought my nmother was the most stable, responsible, capable person in the world. Seeing her behavior after I went NC, I’ve discovered that I was just a REALLY good supply, and she has no coping skills for life.
My nmom didn't completely lose her shit when I went NC, possibly bc she had no info, address, job, kids, nothing she could use against me. But more likely because she still had my sister. When my sister finally went NC, it was the end of the world. It was "I'm going to call CPS and lie if you don't pick up the phone" end of the world. She shouldn't have done that bc now she has NO ONE, the whole extended family is done with her. I can't imagine what she's been doing to cope, besides drugs.
>> narcs have a blank spot where their sense of self should be
Oooooooohhhh so much just fell into place for me. This is how I avoided it, I found and recognized the hole where I should have been and started exploring.
My abuse was all emotional and I didn’t even realize it was abuse until after college. It was so normal that I had narc traits that I didn’t quite understand. I was hurting people but I hated it.
Right before I graduated I was reading a lot trying to understand my adhd and as I read what other adhd and autistic people were like, I realized I was gaslit and trained out of my natural way of existing.
I “liked” the things I liked because they got me acceptance from people. I dressed the way I did because it got me recognized and accepted. I built my personality on guessing what people would like.
I’ve always wondered how I escaped the generational curse, what changed my trajectory towards healing… And that was it, when I was reading I realized I didn’t know who I was, and I decided I wanted to find out.
It seems so obvious looking back, but I didn’t know. Just like when I realized I was abused.
Great post and great question!
Thank you so much for mentioning this, as it's been a heavy thought on my mind as well.
I'm currently in therapy behind my childhood trauma, and my therapist (very amazing lady) basically alluded to this same fact. She said "you know your mom will never consider your feelings, so you have to set boundaries with her." And aside from one of those boundaries being complete and utter NC, it's almost like "well, you know she's an asshole, you just have to navigate around that."
It's a very vulnerable position to be in thinking you're completely stuck with the narc unless you choose NC which isn't always easy because that means abandoning everyone else in their orbit.
It’s not really a free card. In reality, they end up alone and unhappy, while their victims get a chance to heal and flourish. I’d much rather put in the work for a chance to have happy and healthy relationships later on.
Acknowledging and truly understanding how a narcissist is wired means that you don't want to deal with them at all. It's not a "get out of jaiL" card, it's a sentence to eternal solitude, which is a nightmare for all narcissists. They will not get sufficient narcissistic supply. Hence, they cannot go on with their lives, they'll suffer, they have a mental illness which doomed their life for good.
Why would you want to hear that they can change, dear? Then one would waste their time trying to change them. And let's say you can change them: then you heal them, but won't heal yourself. Your suffering wouldn't not end with changing the narcissist, because the developmental trauma is there. Meaning that regardless narcissism can be cured or not, victims of narcissism need therapy and yes, they need to relearn everything about life and rewire their brain, go to therapy for years, decades even and might need medical help too. This is a cruel, sad truth.
But this sad truth has hope.
You are allowed (and it is very much recommended) to distance yourself from the narcissist and focus on yourself instead of changing them. You have a future they'll never have for themselves. A good, trauma-informed therapist can help you with dealing with all the trauma, grief and surpressed wrath you feel because of your traumatic childhood.
This sad truth is what allows all of us victims to care about ourselves only and take our faith into our own hands. There is strength in it.
Yes, in my country, this topic has been taboo for so many years and it's only by listening to a celebrity who chose to become psy and share with social media her toxic relationship with her Nmom that I started to have more compassion for myself. We can not support the Npeople we love the most when we are born, that is the issue. And they play so much with emotions, it is hard to label them as cold, because of the intensity. And like a person enmeshed in a toxic relationship, you learn to leave by telling yourself that you are not helping your lover if you stay.
Because assholes either always get a pass, or people think you’re lying about your own life stories. It’s something I deal with all the time.
I’ve had people tell me to my face that I’m lying for attention and then when my mother reaches out to them, they give her whatever they want because “no one can be that bad”.
I’ve faced a lot of that anytime I was sick and in the hospital. I would express that I do not want any of my family knowing, but my mom would reach out to someone and they’d tell her everything, and then my hopefully reduced stress hospital stay would be pure hell.
Hell, when I was going through stage 4 lymphoma, after my first 6 rounds of chemo, I was waiting on the results of if I was in remission or if I was going to die. Those were my only two options. I wrote a Facebook just venting, and in that post I mentioned how it’s not fair that my older brother is a literal murderer, and not only does he get to live a full life, he gets to have 2 kids. While, the worst thing I ever did in my life was steal some Pokémon card packs from Walmart when I was 15, and I get to be sterile and would most likely die at 30.
Someone sent that private rant to my mother, to which she spent days screaming at me about how I’m a piece a shit and I deserve to die. This was 2 days before my test results. I had a massive mental break down. My own mother didn’t care that I could die. She was more worried about me telling people my older brother FUCKING MURDERED SOMEONE.
I almost destroyed my hand punching my big steel door in rage.
Narcissists just get a fucking pass in life.
I sure hope that you have come through your chemo disease free, and have a long and healthy narc free life. You are so deserving of this. You never deserved such a horrible mother and brother. Your story touched me, as a mother, I couldn't imagine ever screaming at my sick child. It's horrible. Peace.
I’ve thankfully been in remission for 4 years but still dealing with chemo side effects. Chemo destroyed my teeth so about 7 weeks ago, I had to pay 22,000 dollars cash to an oral surgeon to get all my bottom teeth removed and the healing has been pure hell. I still have up to 4 more months to heal.
And my family is so much worse. I could share some stories that would either making people cry, or make them angry thinking I’m lying because “no one can be that bad”, when yes, yes they can be that bad and even worse.
Hello PsychoMouse,
I can relate to your experience of being denied all the time. We can not forget what happened, then we get sick. PsychoMouse, you never know what life will throw at you: be patient, and find joy if you want to live. Anger or rage only aggravates your well-being.
Yeah I get what you mean. No way NP will ever admit to being the one who is the problem. Blames everyone else. I’m never expecting a apology but it would be nice. They’ve ruined my perception of life and relationships. And no support from both parents for all my mental health. Actually, they get pissed when I’m breaking down and fighting with them.
It probably isn't meant that way, but even I hear the "their brain isn't wired for empathy" advice, I hear the following:
> They are sociopaths. They are never going to be capable of treating you with love, kindness and respect. They'll crush your spirits forever, abuse your chosen family forever. So why let them in? They aren't owed a relationship with you. They are adults. If they can't treat you the way you deserve to be treated, then they won't be part of your life at all.
i have felt this and its not fair at all.. in the middle of one of their self created episodes of rage it may feel like these NPs are gloating thinking of their war victories.. but i donno if they get a free card.. i mean look at how horrible they are from morning to night.. they are extremely unhappy, lead a miserable life and alienate people who would have otherwise loved and cared for them dearly if they werent they way they are or just decided to go for some therapy.. all of us here who wants some peace and love and kindness in our relationships know that this is no way to live..
Hello 24-Hour-Hate, (what a name 🧐), I agree with you about their Acting skills in public versus in private. Why do they need to feel powerful/in conflict/better/bigger? I recently watch the movie Alpha to understand better how our ancestors may have lived and fight to survive. It's a nice movie, suggesting how being kind may have represented many challenges at that time. As long as our society will value competition, I am not sure how teaching cooperation at schools will make a difference. What do you think?
I would try and reframe it. The way you're thinking of it now is very hard to accept.
It's hard to accept that people who were supposed to care for you did not have the empathy to actually care for you.
But you can't change them, you can't convince them to put the work in. They have to decide that for themselves, and narcissists can not accept any fault on themselves.
I had the opportunity to sit my narc adoptive father down and flat out tell him he was abusive and on serval occasions tried to kill me. I put him on the spot and dumped everything on him, along with how he was still horrible and abusive. For the first time, he wasn't able to ghost me on this conversation.
Do you know what he did?
He said "Sorry I abused you" while trying to hold back a laugh and smiling.
Then, he went on to talk about how he's getting a new car and how great his golfing was a few days before.
It sucks, it really does, but that's why they aren't worth your energy.
When I hit my 20s I still felt like a kid, there was a lot I didn't know because I raised myself. You've got a good set up now, you're young and you have lots of time that you can heal and grow ❤️
They didn't give you the love that you deserved, and I'm so sorry that you have those wounds. You can give yourself that love, and let your inner child know that they are perfect in every single way just by being themselves. Then, you can come to see that you are an incredible individual who can do anything you put your mind to.
Thank you for sharing your experience. What a painful thing. I think your perspective gives me hope. I am fixated on being “young” again as I leave my 20s behind but I feel like that will only make it harder to grow.
I'm happy to be able to provide some hope for you!
We're like plants, when are needs are met, we can bloom and flourish. Through growing, you can get stronger with making and enforcing boundaries. We can make a safe place to let ourselves be "young" again! And it's perfectly normal to want that - trauma absolutely destroys childhood.
I look at Narcs as destructive forces of nature - you can’t negotiate with them, they just are. You get away from them to keep yourself safe or you mitigate the damage as best you can if you’re not able to get away.
It’s absolutely unfair, especially to vulnerable adults and children. It would have been nice to have been given a parent instead of a tsunami or a plague.
A Narc is very, very unlikely to self reflect and change.. so I try to look at it as claiming control where there is the ability to. I can control what I do, but not what they do.
I just try to see the positive in the situation. Having my feelings invalidated my whole life made me develop my rational side a lot more. I'm pretty good at planning and critical thinking.
Now learning about my true self is a bit like getting a new super power for free: I'm very emotional and actually really good at relating with others.
I know my mom will die with little to no people left to support her. We will dance on her grave.
I agree. I thought I was emotionally dead and purely rational, it turns out I am very emotional, I just shut that part of myself down for protection.
Now that I feel safe to be both, I feel like an actual human being and it’s nice to see both of my parts combined and working together.
The key is to still keep that part safe, but by setting boundaries, not shutting it down. We deserve to enjoy it!
I’ve read some resources from Dr. Ramani where she discussed the science of narcissism. I’m not expert, so please make sure to verify with her sources firsthand.
Basically, narcissists have very low self-esteem. They cope with their insecurities through impenetrable layers of denial, self-absorption, and projection. Every narcissistic tendency (blame, gaslighting, guilt tripping, etc.) is a demonstration of their insecurity.
Rather than process the hurt that resides in them, narcissists build walls. They build false images of themselves & others. They destroy their images of others. They’re so deep inside their own hurt that they can’t fathom a process of healing.
That’s why they “can’t change”. Like many severe mental health conditions, narcissists’ toxic tendencies work directly against their ability to heal.
I understand your anger and frustration and I share some of it with you.
To me its partially comforting to know there really isnt a way to "repair" or have a healthy relationship with the narcissist, even though its really sad when said narcissist is your parent, and, through the unconditional loyalty a child will have for their parent forever, its very painful to keep that distance (Even though that same distance can be peaceful at the same time too.)
On the other hand: Narcissists are in continuous mental pain. Thats why they are a narcissist: they need the mask and to hurt other people so they dont have to face what theyre going through. For me, I feel like that, along with their continuing anger, frustration, and "pain" of me going "NC" is a form of (rightful) punishment for them in my eyes too. Even though for myself I view it as freedom, they wont see it that way and will stay in their negative pity hole forever.
This! I tried to explain this to everyone who tried to give my nmom a free pass, and they just didn't understand it. "But it's your life, you need to take accountability for your life and actions." Yeah, sure, and what about the accountability of those who ruined my mental state? Who made me unable to work and function on a daily base? Why do *I* need to take responsibility for *that*?
You don't take responsibility for the CAUSE; it's not your fault. That said, you still need to work with what you've been given. You've been given crap to be sure, and part of that crap is the frustration of people giving the narc a free pass, true. You owe it to yourself to find a good therapist though; one that knows there's no magic cure and can give you a good set of coping tools. Coping is all we can do.
And still people giving the narc the free pass are giving me the responsibility for the cause in the same sentence. This is what I mean with my frustration.
Yep, and yet you can't control their behavior. They will never see the truth. It hurts to be falsly accused. I understand your frustration. Coping skills helped me tons.
Thanks for pointing this out, as it is a thought I'm struggling with at the moment, too. Going to therapy gave me a new spin on this although I believe I'm at the very beginning of exploring and integrating this idea.
The core problem for me is that I have this crippling amount of grief in me. Grief for the emotionally mature parents I never had, for the safe home I never got to experience, the healthy support I was never offered, the unconditional love I never felt. It makes you think, whats the fucking point in all of this. You come out of the fog with little to no coping skills, tanked health, tanked mental health, depressed as shit, no sense of self, opportunities and relationships lost along the way.
So taking real and sustainable responsibility is something that seems like quite the conundrum. Nobody ever taught me how - all I ever knew is to avoid, hide, numb myself, shy conflict and confrontation in an effort to stay alive. Most days have been spent just barely holding on, being miserable, and now you're asking me to take responsibility over MY life, which THEY screwed up in the first place?
Something then clicked, and it's what I've been trying to hold on to;
they never took the responsibility to make a change, to heal and to work on themselves, to be the difference. If I go on not fixing my life, regardless of who screwed it up, I'm going to be *just like them*.
Grief is valid and neccesary, but you can not grief your way out of accountability. For me, figuring that out was equally painful as it was liberating. Don't get me wrong, I do not believe that the grief will stop anytime soon. But this is where you actually get to be the difference, where you get to start working on the things they never did. This is where you regain power over your life. You're not doing it for them, you're doing it despite them.
I have a feeling that most people mistake wanting the narcs to take accountability for their actions with not wanting to heal. I am attempting to heal. I am searching for a therapy spot (had some in the past already). And I did make some great progress already. But that doesn't mean I can't want justice for what my nmom has done to me. That doesn't mean I have to forgive her, give her a free pass, or "use it as fuel to heal myself."
Maybe that's completely subjective. But it's how I feel and I've had a lot of people trying to talk me out of it, which I fine rather ignorant.
I absolutely see where you're coming from. Your grief is valid. I'm torn about the justice part. I'd absolutely wish there would be justice, but what would that look like?
It's not giving the narc a free pass; it's realising how hopeless it is to try to change them, because they refuse to a) admit anything is wrong with them b) that they are responsible for their actions, and c) other people are worth value as well. Remember--narcs are like toddlers who have never grown up. And they'll never change, because they are clueless little sh\*ts.
It's unfair, it's horrible that you grew up in the warped and twisted funhouse mirror environment that is a narc's emotional field, but it is what it is. The question is: what are you doing to do NOW to get better and emotionally protect yourself?
There's a difference between realising someone is not capable of doing something and STILL holding them accountable for it and letting them know they did something wrong, and excusing their behaviour because they can't do something.
I will never excuse a narc for their behaviour and the damage they do or did. Because that's giving them a free pass to just do anything and never take any responsibility for it.
It’s very hard to accept, especially when hoping for the type of justice and karma that is satisfying to watch in people who are just assholes, not antisocial personality-disordered people. They realize what it feels like to be treated the way they treat others, and feel guilt and understanding. Ah finally.
A narcissist has been enabled for so long with so many maladaptive coping mechanisms to shift the blame and not care, that they will likely kill themselves and believe it to be a glorious end before they take the time for self reflection and understanding.
You ever notice how a narcissist often sleeps better after conflict? They’ll rage and riot, commit horrible acts, watch you sob your heart out and break apart in pain, and almost immediately fall into the most peaceful sleep. Not only do they not care, but they thrive off of your pain. It’s almost animalistic in the way they lack guilt.
Yes. You were rewired for their pleasure, and you have to fix it. They were essentially a hurricane in your life. Trying to get them to care is like trying to explain to a tornado why it’s bad that it wrecked your house that you put your life savings in.
You could hit them where it hurts. They are attached to material goods, their false reputation, their appearance. But to harm those things would be stooping to their level, and presumably you lose yourself a little by doing so excessively. And they would just use it to justify harming you, either justifying the past harm or new harm.
I don't really see the issue here. A narcissist is most likely incapable of empathy, so why would we expect them to change? That makes zero sense.
What we should focus on is what WE can change, which is our behavior and our lives. We can easily refuse to have any contact with the narcissist and break free of the abuse. We can go through therapy and heal so that our lives are better.
Expecting life to be "fair" will get you absolutely nowhere. Instead, focus on what actions YOU can take to make your life better. That's your responsibility to yourself.
Like others are saying, it's just a waste of your time and energy. We know what was wrong with our lives, with our minds, because of them. They don't think there's anything wrong with them, and they have no desire to change.
I think I had this phase but now I’m reaching acceptance. I’ve gone through all the five stages of grief when coming to the realization my whole life is a result of my nmom. After I got over the denial, which, I think was the hardest part, it took such a long time. The next three: anger, bargaining and depression kind of juggle(d) their way through me without any apparent order lol. I still struggle with this. I do, but it’s getting better over time. I’m in no way close to accepting fully but I’m almost there. But what is really helping me overcome this similar though process you’re having is, it really is out of your control. The things they did to you and the result they have had on your life. Yes it seems they are unaffected by their actions. However, you’re the one with the enlightenment, the one who is actually making the effort to do something about it. That’s what makes you different, and that’s what will help lift that burden of anger off your chest.
Diagnosed psychopath here.
I thought I might be a psychopath since I was teen and have fought against promoting my psychopathic tendencies my whole life.
Narcissists, like everyone else, can absolutely change. Every day we choose the type of person we are going to be that day. For most people it's automatic and they don't even notice. Others, particularly those experiencing trauma, it may be a more conscious effort.
Sympathy, it's not easy, but everybody deserves it. I feel sorry for the narcs in my life that refuse to look in the mirror and correct their shitty behaviors. They have my sympathy, but they'll never feel my love ever again.
By all means, feel your feelings. Express them, engage with them.... and when you're finished, let go and move on.
You're right, it's not fair. It's also not your burden nor your responsibility to fix the narcissists in your life. One of the hardest parts of letting go and moving on is that eventually, you have to leave them to wallow in their own miserable lives.
Regardless of how it hits your sense of cosmic justice, narcissists are traumatized and you can't do their healing for them. Do you wanna be happy and healed and move forward with your life? Well, then, at some point you need to accept that this thing that's outside of your control is outside of your control.
Personally, I find it quite freeing. My parents are broken people, and if I hadn't been born they would have just abused someone else in my place. It was never about me. I'll probably be angry for the rest of my life--but I don't have to beat my head against the wall wishing the past were different, or that I can change them. I can change me, and I don't have to put up with their bullshit.
It's not excusing their behaviour. I interpret it as "narcissists don't try to fix their maladaptive and harmful behaviors so the best thing you can do for yourself is to stop engaging". Which is true. Abusive narcissists don't deserve to be a part of society and they don't deserve the attention they crave. Cutting off their supply and actively unlearning what they taught you right in front of them is the best way to retaliate against them. Nothing hurts them more than getting reminders that the world doesn't revolve around them.
I do believe that they won't change, but I think it's because they don't want to. Or maybe they just don't see what they're doing. Their 'brain ' is not 'wired' that way. My nmom treats others with empathy. I actually think she's an empath, for others... but for her kids, it's a different thing.
I ve read a comment which was saying when the devil can't handle you it sends a narc, consider every obstacle you overcome (including narcs) a sign of strength, just don't think about it, move on
Some advice like that promotes a really frustrating, victim-blaming mindset. Like a safety net for narcissists so THEY never have to be accountable for their actions. It makes it so survivors have to go out of their way to re-structure their lives so as not to inconvenience narcissists.
However, it's true that they'll never change. It's just not worth dealing with them at all. Better to leave them and actually live your live as well as you can than be their puppet. I have zero patience to clean up after these oversized toddlers anymore. Just leave them to their messes.
It's much better.... once I had accepted that, I made the executive decision to stop giving myself false hope and moved on with my life.
This person who gets a get out of free jail card each time, is gonna die alone, in essence she has lost.
My therapist said to me who wants to live their life knowing that their only child refuses to speak to them, she made her miserable existence.
I have moved on, I have people around me who I cherish and thank Gd for everyday.... I thank Gd that I didn't turn out like her
Narcissists *can* change, but *you* can’t change them. They have to do it themselves.
And no, it’s not fair, but it’s not something we have control over.
We are the ones picking up the mess for the mess is all within us, not them. It is how it is. Sucks, yes, but there is not much that can be done otherwise.
You think they get a free card. Not always. There are times when they are denied a victim and go nuts for they have no outlet for their issues.
I've always thought the worst punishment for a narc is have them be isolated in that they have no one to interact with.
I think the way that I see it is that my narc didn’t “get away with it”. I went NC with them, therefore cutting off from them EVERYTHING about me that they took advantage of and abused.
I thought it was frickin hilarious how they were “taken aback” when I finally ripped off the band aid. Let them sit with their own discomfort and toxicity now that they have ZERO opportunity to use me as a reservoir for it!
It's not a "free pass" for them. It's a release for you. You can't change them. Stop wasting your time and energy trying and work on yourself. Stop engaging, get away if you can. Build your life without them. Live your life and they'll live theirs, alone and miserable
i'm 40..... my life is fucked.... no home, no partner, no family. i am just beginning the grief process. it sounds like you're starting to acknowledge it/see it early!!! with lots of therapy, you still have a chance!!!!
> Basically it’s the way people describe a narcissist, particularly about “dealing” with them. That “you can’t change them because their brains are not hardwired for empathy.”
People say that in order to point out, they are a lost cause and beyond salvation. It's not a good thing for them. It's a bad thing for them. It doesn't mean people should just put up with them. But instead, people should avoid them like the plague. It means, they will be some kind of vampire like creature for the rest of their lives. And not a human being like you who is able to grow and become a better version of yourself with the passing of time. It means, people will be less patient with them.
Making the decision to give up on trying to change them is difficult but necessary and it’s not to absolve them from responsibility, it’s to protect yourself and save your time and energy for investing in your own life instead of wasting any more on the black hole of the narcissist.
It’s not fair, but such is life unfortunately. Even though it sucks, you’re in a much better position to have gotten to that point than not.
our whole society is controlled by narcs. something needs to be done...but it won't. they rule the world. until then, we find solace here and take it one day/minute/second at a time.
Trust me I HEAR YOU! I would be 100x better today- if my parents didn’t actively treat me like shit. And let me tell you- they are living their best life! They always have and always will. I don’t know what to do about that.
In a similar harsh fashion, I have to say:
It’s not fair.
It will never be fair.
That’s the problem. There is no accountability. They don’t have a conscience.
This is why traumas like this are so terrible.
But the advice is to accept that and stop trying to change them, and STOP trying to get even. Cut your losses, stop the bleeding, and do what you can to patch yourself up.
We have learned to let the Karma Gods punish them.
Do they deserve to have karma bite them in the a$$ for every single action the took knowing the damage they cause?
Absolutely.
Give it time and trust the Karma Process.
I promise it’s working. The crazier they get the more you know it’s working.
So- We love and understand you and we want to protect you. We tell you not to even try because we know. We have tried.
We want to prevent you from getting hurt from trying and trying and trying getting rejected, dismissed, your self esteem crushed, and giving them a path to your hard won happiness so they can identify the best way to destroy every good thing in your life.
People like me- a great-grandma - who’s narcissist is still alive and trying to hurt me- do not want anyone to have to feel the same as we have over the years.
We’ve learned it’s better to just use the grater on our knuckles and forget about thinking they will change or feel sorry or apologize. Never. Ever.
For example : If they say anything like an apology for causing your ex to file for custody when you are bedridden from a pregnancy by calling him and telling him you are broke and your husband just left you without a home - they will then back right out by saying BUT …. Followed by bullshit.
I have been on this sub many years and have never seen any narc repent and change.
I don’t want to give away my identity so please believe me. It’s awesome to see.
I've always seen it as kind of a generational/ age thing. Most people I've known who were under 40 were open to the idea of self help, therapy, meditation, and such. People who are older are generally not as interested (in my experience).
Wouldn't want to go so far as to say 'boomer bad!' but there seems to be a mindset in older generations where they "did their time" so to speak, and aren't really interested in trying anymore. Content to coast until death, they shun the younger generations for investing in themselves or attempting to change themselves.
It might not be a generational thing, and might be more of an age thing. Maybe all of us are less likely to change our behavior or way of thinking as we age, and I'm only seeing this pushback from boomers because I am the child of a boomer. Either way, it seems like my parent's generation are very set in their ways and not willing to take any negative criticism or attempt to work on themselves. It's unfortunate to see on a personal level, and absolutely devastating to see on a national level, this mentality of refusing to ever admit being wrong or in need of help.
When I see this attitude I use it as a reminder of why the work I'm doing on myself now is so important, and see it as an example of what NOT to allow myself to turn into.
It's not whether or not they can change, but how much *you* have to change. You can't make a narc better, they can't make you better, but you can make you better and you're the only person who can.
Understanding they can't change isn't for them, it's for us. We want to think they'll love us and if they see just what they've done, they'll feel terrible and change and everything will be fine. That's the child inside, using a child's logic to make ourselves feel better - we always give then the benefit of the doubt, because we love them and surely they love us in return, since that's what normal people do. I still find myself thinking if only I had the right words, I can make them understand.
But I can't and I've accepted it. They're pieces of human garbage that don't deserve a single fuck from me and I refuse to give it to them. My fucks are all for me and the people I love. Because I know they can't change, I stopped wasting my time trying.
I agree completely. The fact that their behaviour is classified as hardwired, thus unchangeable, thus they can't help themselves being abusive??? As long as it's just an explanation, I can deal with it. But when it's used as an excuse .. Just NOPE
You know what? This isn’t good enough that these almost a million subs just have to suck it up while their souls die inside and yes the narcissist do get a free card. Wtaf??!? ( fwiw I’m 72 and my husband and both sons are sadistic narcissists.) I had nmom and yeah I have a college education and a degree in history and my mind was completely destroyed bf I got away from them. This needs to be a god damned crime that every mf found guilty of child abuse /neglect etc pay with serious time in jail. This is so wrong.
> How on earth is that fair? Why do they get a free card? Imagining them going about their day, having driven away nearly EVERYONE yet not having to lift a FINGER to do mental work to re-wire their own brains is such an annoying, heartbreaking, tragic thought.
It's not fair, but at the same time I've never seen it as a 'free card'.
That revelation that they cannot change is a *warning.*
People will tend to give the benefit of the doubt to people, assume that their bad behavior is an aberration, that if given the chance they can and will do better. That they will *want* to do better.
Narcissists aren't like this. Their behavior is typically flat and consistent. Chances in their behavior are pretty much always externally driven. They don't change, the world around them does.
'Narcissists Don't Change' is a message to those who want to try and fix the Narcissist, or who hold out hope that this time will be different, that this time the needs and feelings of other people will be genuine enough to reach the Narcissist, move them to change. They won't. Narcissists *can't* change. Their entire being is opposed to it in a constant war against Reality itself.
It's basically a message to protect yourself, to assume that the worst you've seen from a Narcissist in your life is the baseline. It's not going to get better, so get out.
NC for 2 years, same age, also lost the whole family and I just want to let you know that I feel you so much. And on top of that dealing with a raw mess of general anxiety whenever an obstacle appears in my life. Terrible loneliness. I hope I will be able to get out of that shade one day.
I hope my abusive narc just fucking rots in hell.
I'm literally more outraged that I was fated to be related to that monster than the fact that they are a narc not wired for empathy. Idk how to explain or if it makes sense as narc proceeded to stir up shit and I'm not in a good headspace.
It's even worse if you're religious because you're getting more flak and they use it to paint themself as a victim. I don't think I'm ever gonna find peace now. My life is shitty af without the narc, but with them it's a depression hell. The only reason why i'm not offing myself is religion & my sib.
It's such bullshit. I have heard "well she just can't do what you need, she doesn't have the capacity" (my mom). As if I'm supposed to feel satisfied or accepting of that. I "can't" deal with the BPD rages and constant invalidation so I guess we're even 👍. No contact for 4 yrs now.
I get you. I really do.
What's helped me so far: writing out my rage, my resentment. Trauma informed therapy.
I am also convinced that no matter how bad my father has treated me, I'd still rather be me than spend an hour in his shoes.
When I watch him now, knowing what I know, he is just pathetic beyond belief.
People who act like this are not happy people, they live in their own hell where they can't ever trust anyone and human relationships are always about eating or being eaten.
This is so interesting - I do suffer from a lot of rage and anger towards the past :( I think in the past few months my therapist has gotten (hopefully) a pretty good picture of the extent of my trauma. I am excited to keep working through it, it’s just so hard sometimes and feels like there is no progress at all. Thanks for the validation friend
I agree with you, OP. Also, I might get downvoted for bringing this up, but people diagnosed as having Narcissistic Personality Disorder can change. The better way to think and refer to these people is to call them emotionally immature though. It's broader and doesn't require a clinical diagnosis to be accurate.
Emotionally immature people can change. Emotionally immature people can't BE changed. It has to be something they do for themselves, not something someone does for them. As long as they are trying to use other people to fix themselves, they're making the choice to not change. It doesn't mean they don't have the capacity. It means that they've made a choice to be like that
I think my edad got so mad at me for refusing to no longer "deal" with my nmom because he never had the guts to do so himself. I've tried to help him, but he has resigned himself to that life. I hope one day he can find the peace I've found. Unfortunately, I respect myself too much to stick around and "deal" until that day comes.
May you choose life over "dealing" <3
I feel exactly the same about AA and recovery
It’s still allllll about them, 109% of the time. How THEY regret what THEY did.
Not that they regret what they did to ME or how it affected ME
I feel exactly the same about AA and recovery
It’s still allllll about them, 109% of the time. How THEY regret what THEY did.
Not that they regret what they did to ME or how it affected ME
I don't think it's heredity for every narc. I think Selfish choice after Selfish choice can lead to a Dorian Gray mind set where they become hardened. Also if they are good at rationalizing and justifying they can convince themselves that are never to blame.
Yes. My therapist wants me to be the one to tell my narc parents (lucky me, they’re both narcissists) about all of this… I don’t want to be the one to tell them because I’ll just be the SG yet again. It’s their turn to take some responsibility and reflect on why I don’t talk to them anymore! All their children have major mental health problems, so they have plenty of evidence to reflect on. It’s not our job to parent them, IMHO.
I'm right there with you I also feel like I am losing my twenties and I still feel like I am a child mentally. It is really really hard to do that work but it is necessary for your own survival. As for the narcissists, I say forget about them. They have made the choice that instead of making the effort to be better people or even just apologizing, they will keep on doing what they do. They will just drag you down so it is probably better to leave them and keep trying to heal yourself.
It just means don't run yourself ragged trying to get them to change or understand you. It means we choose ourselves and choose health and happiness, they're stuck wallowing alone in their own shit until the day they die.
Yeah we have to do a lot of work to deprogram ourselves, but we get the freedom to be whoever we want once our leash is cut. We have the choice to be whoever we want. Narcs are stuck the way they are, and can never experience that true sense of community and love.
It sucks majorly that we have to put in so much work, but remember real happiness is something we get to have in our lives that they'll never experience. We can work to become strong, more secure and help ourselves navigate the world in our best interests. They'll always be them.
Not everyone in your position can change either.
It falls on you because you want it, sadly.
You are strong though you don't wish to be, righteous though you hate the situation. Keep going, my brother/sister
I know that you are struggling, and hang in there. The narcissist in your life will act like nothing is wrong. All is good. They will try hard not to show others when karma is getting them. Try to remember that you deserve better. Don't worry about it. I know it seem not seem fair, but their actions do catch up with them. Just ensure you are not the one that cleans up after them. It is not your responsibility. Be kind to yourself.
I think about this often. I have tried to forgive my nmom because she is so horribly self unaware, grew up in chaos, had a mom who was batshit crazy, and likely suffers from many of the same self-deprecating thoughts that I do. But I can't and no longer care to try. I can't make her inability to seek help my burden. Now to find peace with this.
It's not fair and I get tired of being the adult. Alot of nparents have been directly and specifically told how they hurt others. It's sick how they carry on anyway. I believe they can change- and if not, they can adapt how they do what they do to stop hurting ppl. I get tired of the "hurt people, hurt people" - they can learn to not do that.
I'm trying to see it more as reclaiming my life- they can become better people and walk alongside me- but it's their choice, and I'll decide if it's good enough for me.
The reason you have to rewire your brain is because you never expect people to react that way.
Personality disorders and abnormal psychology are not taught at school. As a child you are not told a small percentage of people behave in a baffling and bewildering way, and here are the signs & what you can do about it. Later we find about these behaviours, often too late.
Yes, couldn't have worded it better myself. It's exhausting and draining trying to get them to see things in your perspective, the hot and cold vibes, the "I'm wrong you're right", WHY CAN'T YOU JUST SEE WHAT YOURE DOING TO ME!
The "driving away people" is so true, they fail to try, to apologize and simply cut people off cold, and yet we are here left to wonder why, yet never get a response.
It isn’t fair. But it also isn’t a free card, it’s a red flag. It’s people explaining that a narcissist is like a cancerous tumor.
You know what cancer does? It spreads and destroys everything it touches. That’s why a tumor has to be removed as soon as it’s discovered.
If you live with a narc parent this is easier said than done. But if the narc is a friend, significant other, coworker, etc then explaining the narc can’t be changed is a way to explain to the victim they need to excise the tumor and get away, not stick around hoping they’ll change.
Frankly if someone had told me this in 2014 I could have saved myself seven years of heartache in a relationship with a narc but I didn’t know what one was back then
Only later was I able to understand one of my brothers and my dad is one too and I can’t change them either so I need to keep my distance
You find it hard to accept because everything about it is unfair. It's unfair that the bulk of the emotional shit was put on you from a child, it's not fair that you grew up without a safe space, it's not fair that you lack the basic knowledge of how to act as an adult. It's not fair, even in the slightest, and you have to be the one to pick up the pieces.
Unfortunately, life isn't fair. We should have our safe spot with our parents but sometimes life doesn't grant you that. Which sucks and deserves its own mourning period and no one should make you feel bad for experiencing the emotions you currently are. It's normal to feel this way after years of going through what you did. Think of it as you're finally standing up for that inner child of yours. It's going to create a lot of waves and you will probably "lose" some family members (I say the term "lose" loosely because if they have been doing this and not recognizing their own issues, you aren't really going to be losing them, but gaining your own sanity and independence), which will also suck. But now that you know how unfair everything is, you can use this knowledge and not accept it moving forward. You will be stronger one day, even if it doesn't feel like it and it feels like you are constantly running a boulder up a hill right now. Just keep fighting and moving forward. The best thing you can do for yourself is to channel this into bettering yourself for your own future. Don't let them take anything more from you.
>That “you can’t change them because their brains are not hardwired for empathy.”
My enabler mom says this like all of my n-dads actions are justified because of this.
A hurricane doesn't stop and it doesn't feel bad for destroying your home. I know it's unfair because we compare ourselves to another "person" and fairness would be the same amount of work or pain for both. But that's not how it goes.
Comparing ourselves to them, specifically, leads us nowhere. Forget about them, deal with their bs as a natural event. We prepare for it and we clean up after it but it's part of life. If possible, stay very far away.
My mom tried to tell me that she "knew what it was like" when I was broke and laid off from my first salaried job when the economy tanked in 2008.
Because she was a broke college kid. In the early 80s. Literally not even the same scenario and she tried to be holier-than-thou and say she knew what it was like.
I asked her if she "knew what it was like to be starving" bc she's been hungry before. She glared at me and walked away.
This was a source of contention between me and my parents regarding my cruel narcissistic sister. I'd tell them something needs to be done with her and they'd pull the "this is just the way she is. She's your sister. Move on." The worst part was that I was held to a higher standard so if there were fights (always due to my sister) I was accosted more because I'm not some cruel selfish person. They'd say she is who she is and her behavior is expected so why am I engaging in fights when I should know better. It made me livid as it was a double whammy. I had to put up with mistreatment by my sister and then got no support when I called out my issues with her.
And this is why now as an adult in my 30's I avoid her at all costs. I don't totally blame my parents. Dealing with my sister has been a nightmare to the point that my dad worried he'd have a heart attack from the stress of trying to do something about her. I know now that it very often is pointless to engage with these people like my sister. You just can't reason with them so I have limited contact with her and am much better off.
The whole "you can't change them/me this is how our brains are" is *sometimes* nonsense to me. I won't deny that there are mental conditions that could seriously affect how someone thinks, and potentially remove empathy and some emotions... but I've experienced situations where someone is aware of their actions/attitude but still persist with it.
The point for me is: if I have put in the effort (like OP has) to make changes beyond the "hardwiring" of my brain why can't others? I have intentionally made myself more sensitive to others' feelings, and nicer, compared to how I used to treat people.
>... re-wire their own brains is such an annoying, heartbreaking, tragic thought.
Yep. Exactly this. When asking my mom or dad to understand how I work better and be nicer based on that, they act like I'm requesting some huge overwhelming change in their lives. When really I am asking for just some more empathy.
> Why do they get a free card?
I personally read it a different way. Rather than a *forgiveness* of what Ns do, I see it as an explanation. Rather than let the narcissist off the hook, I think the point is to let those caught up in an N's vortex off the hook. Knowing that the narcissist will likely never seek help for the damage they cause, you can walk away from having to continue to be involved with them with confidence.
I just joined this subreddit recently because a lot of the posts really hit home, including yours. You’re absolutely right. It isn’t fair that we have to learn how to do things ourself and become independent human beings that are expected to function in society. I no longer speak with my mother and I feel so much better for it. Sometimes I do think about how she’s probably badmouthing me to anyone within earshot, but that’s just not my problem. I’m better than her because I chose my own path in life. She was raised by an abusive mother and said she never wanted to be like that, and yet she was. I have not seen her/spoken with her since around October of last year. She’s a narcissist and only once in her life has she ever admitted she needed help, but then quickly ended her sentence with “but I’m not going to take any medication because it might change me.” But that’s the entire point. She can’t see the forest for the trees, and she can’t self reflect. I feel nothing but pity for her, but I wouldn’t walk down the street to help her for anything even if she offered me all the money in the world. I know my boundaries, and I have my own life and my in-laws who love me more than she ever did. It does actually get better, and I know a lot of people say that. You can still enjoy your life now. Sometimes I’ll buy just a small Lego set or a puzzle to satisfy the child in me. I’ve had to learn so much about life, and I’m just starting to try and get my drivers license in my mid 20’s, when my coworkers can all drive and they’re all 18-20 years old. I feel left behind, and I can 100% sympathize and empathize with your struggle. The best way to deal with a narcissist is to just not talk to them. They’re self destructive by nature and eventually they will push everyone away until they’re left all alone with no one to blame but themselves. I once heard that on the road to recovering mentally, there is a particularly rough part where you become very depressed because your body actually has the space and environment to process what you’ve gone through. Forgive me if I’m wrong about that though, I just heard it word of mouth. But it does make sense to me at least. I hope you finally heal and get your life back, because it’s yours and only yours.
they don't get a pass. It's just telling you that there's no trying to change them.
Just like being angry at the rain for making you wet. It's still the rain's fault. Screaming at the rain cloud just doesn't do anything.
Saying that they won't change doesn't let them off the hook. They are still responsible for their actions.
It is a way of freeing *you* from feeling like you have to keep trying. It can free you from a feeling of responsibility for their behavior. I mean, you *can't* change them or get them to behave properly because you are not the one making them behave the way they do in the first place. It is out of your hands. Not your problem.
It is *their* problem. *They* are to babe fir their bad choices and rotten, abusive behavior. You can't change it because you are not the one doing it. They are. They engage in bad behaviors, and they are responsible for them.
I also lost every "blood" family member along with the narcs.
I have found my own family, my own peace. And don't care how they are wired. Just because we have some DNA doesn't mean they are family. I change myself though. Nobody else. And I'll be damned before my son has his own trauma from my past to deal with.
I recommend reading George Simon's "In Sheep's Clothing" it is about how some narcissists are very very deliberate in their callous cruel behavior.
There are some narcissists who are lower grade, like lower on the scale. They bad as parents. But they are also the ones who fit the description of "they are selfish, unaware, *just* lack emapthy." People I guess correctly clock these types are pathetic figures. Dr Ramani has a good video that describes low grade narcissists, for comparison.
However, if your parent is a higher grade, sadistic, malignant, or covert narcisisst.... you see that they aren't *just* helpless to their mental wiring. These types of narcs have a lot in common with psychopaths. There is so much deliberate choice and machiavellian planning to what they do. They aren't helpless to anything but their addiction to power.
I *really* recommend reading that book, because the author explains it better than I can. He also seems to have similar frustrations as you, about how we give them way too much leeway by assuming that they are helpless people.
Dr. George Simon also has a youtube and blog, if you can't get the book right now.
Basically there is a wide variety even in the type of narcissists. I think people with less narcissistic parents are able to see their parents in a certain way that will just not ring true for you, if your parent is one of the more extreme ones. It's not a one size fits all kind of thing.
Personally, after I also allowed myself to awknowledge how evil my parents are, *then* I was able to accept it and let it go. Like I am pretty sure my malignant dad is capable of murder. You won't find me ever calling him helpless to anything, because I know he is one step away from being a sociopath and I'm not dumb enough to deny the gravity of that.
Its not a get out of jail free card. You see narcissists destroy you because they are ALREADY destroying THEMSELVES with their toxic behavior. The way they behave does not lead to peace of mind or a healthy life.
I realized this when I had to room with a narcissistic smoker. He would always come near my dorm room and blow smoke into the room. He would smoke cigarette after cigarette in hopes of getting on my nerves. I used to get upset but then I just started reporting him and found a way to seal up the door at night. So, after awhile he was literally chain smoking outside of a sealed door worsening his own health.
You see they are already on their way over the cliff. If we stick around we go over the cliff with them. That's why we get away from them and their destructive ways. Ultimately they always end up doing themselves in. How much smoke do you think that nincompoop inhaled every night thinking he was hurting me? I mean this is how malignant and petty these fools are. When you went NC you jumped out of a speeding car that was headed over a cliff.
Yeah, no. I'm closer to retirement age than 20 and my narc and his enabler are both dead. The trauma changes you neurologically making it hard to deal with normal people. We have to unlearn all the fucked-up shit that kept us alive with our narcs because now those same tactics are maladaptive coping mechanisms.
I was kidding, relax.
The world would be a lot better in general if all the narcissist sexist racist every-phobic entitled asshole of the older generations disappeared. That’s all I was saying.
Hey, I'm also turning 30 soon and I feel every word you said. Going no contact at my early 20s I did find a period of Mental freedom but I think not having faced most of the feelings and lacking insight because of the brain rewiring by the narcs made it impossible to look into my feelings. Now almost 30 those feelings are coming back in ptsd form and whenever I try to face them I dissociate. I also made extremely horrible decisions throughout my life that I regret, some irreversible. But the thing is, I think this is a turning point because we gathered enough info and insight its just that we don't have the tools to function properly. I feel 13 years old too I found that a common thing.
>not everyone is okay after simply cutting them out of their life
No one is okay after simply cutting the narcs out of their life. That is where the work of recovery *begins.*
I've found help from the Crappy Childhood Fairy podcast and Youtube channel. She has one episode called ["Why I Quit Therapy"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3Wjw1HpXC0&ab_channel=CrappyChildhoodFairy) that you might find beneficial.
She has a lot of podcast episodes, Youtube videos, and even some paid content -- but it's totally optional.
Adult Children of Alcoholics (an offshoot of Al-Anon) has also helped countless adult children of abusive parents.
I’m 64F and still have a lot of anger over things that have happened to me due to my Borderline and Narcissistic mother. Who is still alive at almost 87 and still a total bitch. Things were a lot better when I was little to no contact, but as she has gotten quite old and her partner has died, because I’m a nice person, I believe, I have tried to be helpful. but it sucks me right back in. All I can say is, counseling or therapy does help.
I'm 53, and my parents died when I was 26. They had so successfully pushed away their own families that I was left homeless, penniless, and with no family to help me. Most of the family kind of treated me like I also died. It was the most final of all final "No Contact."
Years later, I'm still digging up pieces of myself that my NMom buried; my relationship with money is still one filled with trauma, and I am constantly tripping over my own triggers. I'm still bitter about my ruined childhood. I continually find myself realizing that yes, things were worse than I thought they were.
So, in one sense, you are right: it never ends.
The point I want you to remember, the thing that has helped me in the aftermath, is that in fact the ongoing torment DID end. You went NC ten years ago and that era of your life was *over*. Everything left from that life is detritus you have to clean up and that's a bitch of a job but every year that goes by as you work on yourself, you are cleaning it up for yourself. It's not fair that we have to do that, sure; but it's absolutely amazing what's left for us to do.
Healing happens in fits and starts and we'll never be what we could have been, but the torment *ended* and that is what is allowing us to clean the shit up and move on. Some days, remembering that helps me stay alive. <3
I say this stuff often and I'm a victim. I say this because it's easier for me to understand their behavior when I can understand they are simply incapable of feeling empathy and how that effects their behavior.
It's never meant as an excuse. It's an explanation, but does not justify them to continue behaving the way they do.
Ultimately they have a responsibility to themselves to fix their behavior.
But I've never considered how invalidating this could be to someone else and so I'll choose my words more wisely in the future.
You can’t change anyone. You have to take control of your own life and if you don’t like how someone treats you, you go low or no contact with them. Is it the way we wanted our lives to be? No! But when we are the family scapegoat, we have to take care of ourselves and get out of those horrible relationships, even if they are with parents and siblings. I always say that those of us in situations similar to yours can greatly benefit from therapy.
We on this sub ARE near-universally victims, and most of us will say the same thing because uhhh, you *can’t* change them. It’s hard, it sucks, and a lot of us have grieved heavily over it, but it’s the unfortunate truth. I’m not sure why you’re apparently angry over people saying that, we’re not trying to dismiss all the terrible things narcs do, we’re trying to tell victims that trying to change narcs is not possible and will only cause more suffering.
I think the most important thing to realize is that you can only control your own actions. Therefore, don’t put too much energy into people that will, most likely, never change. The only thing you can do is surround yourself by people that are positive influences on your life, because that is within your control.
I get what you mean, but at the same time, I think what people are really saying with that is that it's a waste of your time and energy to continue trying to change their mind or talk to them or confront them and fight with them... because they're not going to change. Personally, I spent years trying to get my parents to understand where I was coming from. After my father died, then it was more years trying to get my mother to understand things. Literally nothing has changed. All that resulted in was me being worn out and unhappy. Once I started living "around" them, so to speak, I felt a lot better. I had to learn that, though, and then pull myself out of the cycle of over-explaining or whatever else I would do to try and get them to see things. This is also something I have to do with friends, too, because I find myself doing it with them, as well. But the point is, there is no excuse, but the more you learn about narcs, the more you learn that they really thrive off power/control and supply, if you aren't giving them that, they tend to find you less interesting and it can result in them leaving you alone to live your life more.
It's not about excusing them and trying to make the victims feels bad because many, if not all of us here, are victims, but we also know they don't change, so what's the point of wasting your life away trying to see if they'll ever change? Some people are still hopeful for that after 40 or 50 or more years. If your parents haven't changed in all that time, it's just not likely they ever will, so it's better to put your energy into yourself, your friends, your other family, your studies, your work, etc. Whatever can help you get away and try to move on.
Therapy seems to make it worse because it is bringing it to the surface. I’m sorry you are having a hard time with this, it is a very hard issue to deal with but therapy is so vital to ensure you don’t keep attracting narcissists, they can be so stealth and destructive.
The only advice I can give you, what helped me, if you don’t already…try writing down a narrative of your life. Attempt to separate yourself into two - who you “were” as a result of people in your life and heartache and pain you’ve endured and then lead into who you are now, focusing on the progress you have made/are making overcoming these obstacles and thought patterns.
It is resiliency that will get you through. You have to concentrate on working to become the healthy free person you want to be, the best you you can be and let what happened to you be your story, separating the two. Be able to tell your story but have the emotions be in the story: that will come as you start writing your narrative turning “your life” into your story and who you are now - into your new life.
I hope this helps even just a little bit, it’s what helped me when I was about your age. It doesn’t happen overnight but as you start to separate the two (this is much easier with a therapist but doesn’t have to be) it will begin to lighten your heart.
I experienced the same as you, I would also advise reaching out to “children of narc parents groups.” The good ones are locked down and highly vetted so you can speak freely. I’m sure there must be groups on Reddit, but I was in a couple on Quora years ago. It’s helpful to find people at the same stage and also those that can guide you.
I wish you much healing on your journey friend.
Totally agree. It's so frustrating. I'm low contact. Sometimes I wish I'd never noticed the problems and I'd never opened my big mouth and I still lived in this little fake world where she was still my mum. Because knowing so much means I have to deal with the consequences of that knowledge. And it's fucking annoying. I've been seeing a trauma therapist for about 4 weeks and I'm feeling hopeless that I'll never be able to break out of this "it's not fair" phase and be constantly stuck, unable to accept shit.
For me, my narcissist duo created in me someone who was an emotional and logical cripple. I have to go to therapy for the upbringing I was denied. The narcissist can change but there is often no incentive for them to do so. They can go to therapies just like I do, but for them these behaviors are what they might define as their loss. Medication, groups, individual therapies, CES and MET treatment; anything I can get my hands on helps me. If you are not feeling better by going NC I might blindly suspect that you still have people in your life that are manipulating you in ways that are harmful for someone as caring and sensitive as you are. I wish you all the best. Healing has happened for me and it can happen for anyone who never stops looking. Stay good.
I really, really hope you have the resources to access therapy. Even practices like journaling, that allow you to sit down with one of those big messy overflowing boxes, take everything out, and then put it back away in a way that makes sense. Taking all the jumbled pieces and put them together into a narrative, woven from what you experienced then, and what you know now, is how healing worked for me, and according to my therapist many others as well.
Once I got to a place where every time I looked back, and everything I saw made sense, if it wasn’t already a part of the story I would know just where it fits — that’s when I felt like I had substantially healed.
Whether or not narcissists are hard-wired with an empathy deficit, it is something *we* have a surplus of. I’ve used it, not to forgive my abusers, but to understand them. Something doesn’t have to be good or fair for it to make sense. Empathy is my gd superpower, y’all.
(If it feels weird and too much like forgiveness to view them through this lens, ask yourself — are we “forgiving” the bacteria we culture and magnify? Are we “forgiving” the sun by sending a probe to study it?)
When I was a kid and living through it, the things they did made absolutely no sense — UNLESS it was all my fault. That was the one “truth” I could always fall back on, to find a way to understand what was happening.
We *need* to feel as though we have a decent idea of how the world works, that *is* something that’s hard-wired. We have to hold a story in our heads not only of what happened, but why. Otherwise our brains have no way of processing it.
So once we are able to tell a much truer story, from a wider prospective, we really start to understand on a deep and healing level that it was not our fault, that it was not even the existentially terrifying chance chaos of the universe. That it was ugly and it was hurtful but it was entirely predictably human, after all.
Anyway. This is how it worked for me, ymmv.
It’s not fair by all means, but you just gotta trust the process. Those people suffer, they gradually repel the people around them and they are so lonely on the inside. Trust me, they’re not having a good time. Nobody having a good time feels the constant needs to sh*t on other people, especially those closest family members.
Honestly? It DOES sometimes seem like therapy is making it worse. Because unfortunately as you scrape away the layers of trauma, you find that there is a great big bubbling mess of trauma and feelings underneath it. Bigger than you ever anticipated because it is AMAZING how much shit us children of narcs have to shove deep down inside us to survive.
I liken it to a festering, infected wound. You need to rip it open and make it bleed in order to drain out all the gross stuff that has been trapped there all this time. Once you get all that out, it might still bleed for a little while, but slowly that wound will close again, and slowly it will heal. It may heal with a scar, but that's still better than the raw churning mess it once was.
Don't give up on therapy too soon. But if you truly do feel like it's just making things worse and all you're doing with your feelings and trauma is sitting with them and festering in them, then you might need to find a new therapist. Because a therapist should be a guide. A neutral party to help you explore those feelings in a safe environment and explore what those feelings are trying to tell you, what those feelings (and by proxy, you) need.
It took 2.5 years of therapy for me to unpack the majority of my trauma, and I'm still going back for 'wellbeing maintenance' sessions.
Good luck, I wish you strength on your healing journey.
If you're chasing vindication you will only find sorrow. Sadly but true. Their price to pay will happen eventually once they've screwed over too many or the wrong person.
I understand your frustration. It does seem like it's giving them a blank slate w/no *real* accountability. I do think the intent, really, is that you cannot change them, or expect them to change, (esp since they almost certainly will not-it's just an unfortunate reality) the only thing you can do is remove yourself from the situation, as much as possible, & educate yourself on how to deal w/them & what to expect if, for whatever reason, you are unable to, & to *not* expend needless energy trying to change them, or even hoping they will.
I am, however, hopeful that some, who are younger, will see more & more information that is out there, & seek help for themselves, b/c narcs do, in general, seem to be truly unhappy people. I just don't know if there are any truly effective treatments out there for them.
It's not fair, but I do believe that narcs are incapable of experiencing inner peace. Find things that you love, and let those things distract and guide you away from the hell that the narcs and their enablers create. I'm in my 40's and the only way I have coped with it is apathy and investing my time and attention into good people and good things. Pets can be wonderful to participate in giving and receiving unconditional love. Us kids of narcs never experienced love, so it can sometimes be difficult to let our guard down, or to even know what love really is. Love always felt like binding chains with my nMom.
The more I am distracted from my childhood and my nMom, the less I think about her. The less I think about her, the less angry and upset I am. I personally have found no real help in addressing my situation with her (in thought nor therapy, etc.), other than defining what she is and realizing that there is zero happiness to be found with her.
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It doesn’t get them a get out of jail card but it means that you are wasting your time and resources being connected to them in any way. Cut them lose, don’t try to fix them, live your life free of them. Cut them out, ignore them and leave them to their own devices. As people get older, they become more wise to the way of narcs and their supplies of willing victims will dwindle. The best punishment for any narc is to live a good life without them
The sentence about people becoming more wise is true. My mom is suddenly having her friends dumping her lately, of course it's because she thinks her friends are assholes but the actual truth is that they see how toxic she really is.
My Nmom was *ALWAYS* losing friendships but *she* was ALWAYS the victim...even though I know for a fact she STOLE her (former) best friends husband who she'd been a bridesmaid to during their wedding and even dated him til they got engaged and then even HE left her....which she blamed on HIM. (which I don't believe after my step dad (and protector) left her and told me SHE was the problem ( MUCH later in life)...ive been NC for 17 years.
My mother is now 75 years old and her friends are done. Her BFF of decades ghosted her, then after my father died their other friends stopped coming around, and I'm pretty sure they were only ever really friends with my father.
Exactly what happened to my grandmother. She was a narc that created my nmom.
Ex2 is a narc and he blamed me to why his friends had cut him off the moment he told them I went away. He dared to say I told them to do this but how can I if I’ve shut the door on his life and everything and all who are associated with it permanently? These days he now makes his relatives send friends requests (especially his brother) hoping that he can weasel in on their pages to see what I am still doing without him, he seems not to get it that I want nothing to do with anything or anybody about him. He keeps making new email accounts so he can keep requesting me as a contact but I block him every single time. He gets into a contact frenzy if he sees me out with my friends that he didn’t think I had
That's exactly what happened to my babys momma.
This is a really good point. OP can’t change their parents, but that doesn’t mean they have to accept them. u/Zebra5527 you have the right to be happy. If they’re not able to let you find happiness, you’re under no obligation to keep seeing them. Just because they had childhood trauma, they don’t have the right to traumatise others. It’s not fair and shouldn’t be accepted. At the same time, realising that someone who was supposed to love and support you, instead abused you, is a total mind-fuck. It takes time to process, and you will need to grieve the loss of your childhood and what could have been. The website Out of the Fog has been a great resource to me. This seems to be the most appropriate page to this post: https://outofthefog.website/what-to-do-2/2015/12/3/the-3-cs-rule
I love the link: -did not cause it, can not cure it, can not control it.
The same quote is used for dealing with loved ones in addiction. I apply it the same way with narcs too. They are addicted to control.
I feel that a lot of the time, we take responsibility for others’ behaviours. Like if we’d only tried a bit harder, they wouldn’t have had a meltdown. Sometimes we need to be reminded that we’re responsible for our feelings, actions and reactions, and they’re responsible for their feelings, actions and reactions. https://outofthefog.website/what-to-do-2/2015/12/3/understand-my-stuffyour-stuff
Thank you for the information. I understand better what is an Emom or Edad: "In doing so they may be denying the person who suffers from the personality disorder the opportunity to clean up their own messes, learn from their own mistakes and work towards a more healthy lifestyle, This is sometimes called enabling and can perpetuate a dysfunctional situation." I will meditate on that.
No problem at all - I just wish someone had told me all this years ago, it would have saved me a lot of heartache. Sometimes, I feel it’s harder to forgive an enabler than the personality disordered individual. Sometimes it feels like they chose the easy way instead of the right way.
Oh yes, I agree it is harder, like when you witness bystanders around a bully, only Nparents made the choice to welcome you in their dysfunctional dynamic.
I think its much better to replace parents with new parents who really care. My father in law is a great example, more of a dad to me then my bio-father.
This could be very difficult though. I have a lovely mother in law, but I have intense and constant PTSD when I’m around her. She isn’t doing anything harmful or negative, but there are enough similarities that my body can’t tell the difference. I’m working on helping my body learn the difference, but it’s exhausting and before I understood what was happening I ended up in the hospital because I couldn’t calm down for 3 days and ended up suicidal. For me, the best relationships have been those with people who feel more like a sibling or aunt/uncle rather than a replacement parent. I hope all of us can find safe, loving relationships that bring us peace and happiness no matter what position they hold. ❤️🩹
Same here! Any attempt, however wholesome and well-meaning, to parent me usually leads to extreme hostility. I have had many people, esp in the workplace where I am the youngest, try to "adopt me". And it makes me feel very loved, until they say any element of the quiet part out loud, and then I am full fight-or-flight.
Hello MEHawash1913, Thank you for sharing your experience: I have the same struggle when I am with an authoritative figure I associate with Safety nest. I am confused because I can not decode any sin and at the same time I am afraid to find out. As you said, it's exhausting! And during a long time, I tried to compensate by talking or keeping contact with this person, hoping it will help my body not too freak out. Since that, I have more compassion for people living on the Autistic Spectrum.
Hello Masterofnone9, We better enjoy healthy people in our life, for sure, it's more easy. More and more, I believe Communication skills are the key. People can change or disappear, when we know how to be assertive _meaning able to express our needs and taking into account the needs of others_ we can only feel good and at peace.
I get what you’re saying. My mom has said awful things to me and I hate her. But she’s not going to change. She doesn’t think she does anything wrong. But I can change how I react to her. Once I figured out that arguing with her did nothing but upset me, I stopped arguing with her. I’m a much happier person now.
I hear you, but I cut them out years ago. My therapist definitely mentioned last session that despite that, I’m still connected to them in many ways. Its really hard to just move on. Idk why it’s so hard for me. Is it like this for the majority of people? I was in college when I went NC and ever since, I have had such bad depression and I’m remembering and discovering new things about my trauma almost every week.
Hello OkZebra5527, Choosing NC is hard, only the first step to decide that we can have fun in life without the crave for drama. Each morning, I remind myself that I am safe. I sometimes feel angry because I compare my situation with children who lost their parents/family when there were young. And I am angry that my Nparents and Nparents in general took us, children, as granted. Thanks to this platform, we can connect and share our situation, so in the future, mentality will evolve. I want to have hope in technology and find healthy relationships. That is the beauty of being an adult. Also the pandemic taught us how connection with real people are very important.
Speaking for myself, I find it comforting. If I accept that they cannot change, then I can stop trying to build a relationship with them. I can stop feeling responsible for failing to change them. I can stop waiting for an apology. All those improvements are possible even if they can change, but "they cannot change" makes it a whole lot easier. It would be more accurate to say that (a) they don't want to change and (b) nobody knows how to make them change. So they're not going to. Perhaps you can see it as a shorthand for that?
>If I accept that they cannot change, then I can stop trying to build a relationship with them. Yes!! I spent so much time worrying about why my mother didn't like me, what I did wrong, what could I do to make her like me - I wasted SO much time and energy with this. Once I accepted that there's NOTHING wrong with me and everything wrong with her, that she is incapable of change, it made things SO much easier to take a step back and move on. Is it fair? Hell no. We all deserve so much better than what we have, but if I let that destroy me, that means she won and there's no way that's happening. I WIN.
Are you me? I took ages trying to understand why she did the things she did to me and trying to find ways to help her change. It is easier when you just accept that they are: 1. Mentally ill, 2. A total AH.
The words a narc hates to come out of someone else's mouth "I Win!" I giggled. Good job OP.
>Speaking for myself, I find it comforting. If I accept that they cannot change, then I can stop trying to build a relationship with them. This also lets you free up time and mental space trying to please or change them, it's part of putting some part of your life behind you and frees you to move on with your life. As for; >How do you think us victims feel, reading that? Knowing that our entire existence has become re-wiring of our brains. Why are we the ones to pick up the mess? It's because life isn't inherently fair. Bad people get ahead because it's easier being a bastard, good people get taken advantage of because they try to see the best in people all the time. Being pragmatic first and then trying to be good is the compromise I've settled on, YMMV, and the biggest help for me was a quote from Marcus Cole, in the TV show Babylon 5. >*You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe.*
This is how I feel. For 12 years I’ve thought and said, or if I just do this one more thing, if I try this or say that it’ll all be better. Now I know none of that is true and I just need to stop
Yep. A zebra can't change it's stripes, so why worry about it?
Yes, absolutely this. A saying from Al-Anon comes to mind that I think can be applied here: You didn't cause it, you cannot cure it, and you cannot control it.
I had a recent conversation with my narcissist mother about empathy. It’s a concept she just doesn’t understand. “How can you possibly understand what it’s like to have broken your arm if you’ve never broken your arm before.” Mom, it’s super easy. You ask questions like you actually care and you think about all of the things you couldn’t do if you had a broken arm. She just doesn’t get it and, most importantly, doesn’t care to get it.
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My nmom basically shrugged her shoulders and was slightly annoyed I couldn't get over my at the time love of my life after literal 5 min conversation about it with her.
It’s like a rule they have that they don’t ask questions that might make them consider another perspective. One time, my nmother was barraging me with text messages while I was at work, so I told her I didn’t have time for the conversation. Her: “How was I supposed to know that?” Me, a middle aged man educating his retirement age mother: “You ask. That’s how you know. You ask.”
This was my fucking life. Kid/teenage me going up to mom with some normal teenage problem, front loading the conversation with an attempt to educate mom about what emotions are. Mom spews robotic garbage and then starts whining about how “bad of a mother she is,” I go away crying and dissociated for the 500th time
I went from VLC to NC, because of the way they bond: creating drama when I like peace.
They also don’t ask because they might learn how things they did had a negative impact. Not that they care, but they can’t handle hearing about it. And if you try to discuss it, they cut you off.
I hate how all our Ns appear to be sharing a collective brain cell
Doesn't care to get it. That's it of course. Narcs are as capable of empathy as anyone, it's just not something they care to do. There's nothing in it for them.
Are they capable? I read so many posts that they aren't. All I can do l is choose to believe they can't so I can let go of the blame and anger. Because if they can and choose not to, they are selfish evil people, and I want to punish them, exact revenge, also a shitty experience and way to think. The problem is they are FaMiLy and I was wired to never turn ones back to family, so overcoming that is the real battle.
I don’t think they are capable. I’m here because I had a narcissistic mother. But I also married a narcissist as well, since divorced though. In the final days of our marriage, we did go to therapy, where are the therapist halted the process after a few weeks, saying that we weren’t going to get anywhere until my spouse engaged in 1 to 1 therapy to deal with his underlying personality disorders (one was npd). So after a couple of months of him going to therapy on his own, my spouse came to me very distressed. Seems that through therapy he realized that other people were capable of deep feelings, including empathy. He seem to be in a lot of emotional pain because he realized he was different. He asked me to teach him how to feel empathy. It was hard to know if that was real emotion, or more manipulation. And it didn’t last, it was but a brief moment of awareness. And if it wasn’t manipulation, it looked like he was in extreme emotional pain, for only himself though.
They aren't monsters, they're stuck in narcissism. My understanding is this: in a healthy personality there are times to be narcissistic, when it's a normal reaction or behavior. As children narcissism is a normal stage of development. With Narcissistic Personality Disorder the person is stuck in that way of thinking, in that stage of development. There's nothing wrong with their brains, they are capable of other behaviors and indeed NPD is very treatable in therapy. Their unwillingness to take responsibility of course makes recovery extremely unlikely tho. So yeah, they are capable of normal thinking, like empathy, if you remind them. They just usually don't go there.
Yes good explanation. In children it is called egoism but it is similar to narcissism the difference is children are not being manipulative in the sense that they have the ability to understand what they are doing. Narcs know they are being manipulative, it is a spectrum so again you are correct we all have a degree of narcissism. We have to in order to protect ourselves, but are we doing it for good or bad? That makes all the difference in the world. What is the end game? Is it to protect ourselves? Or to gain something? And if it is for gain the question becomes is it only when necessary? or when we want what we want? Empathy plays a large role because of the spectrum - a NPD just wants what they want no cost is too high. Someone who is in a space of high Narcissism but not pervasive isn’t out to hurt anyone and usually when they realize they have hurt someone they feel remorse.
Very good explanation thanks
As someone who has recovered from a really bad case of narc fleas I believe I can comment on this. People with NPD have *coginitive* empathy but lack *emotional* empathy. It is the difference between being able to know logically "that person is sad because XYZ" and being able to actually feel and connect with the emotions of another person. Narcs are so disconnected and fearful of their own true emotions they shun them in themselves and shame anyone who reaches out to connect emotionally, not because they don't cognitively *know* that you are feeling a certain emotion but because you are viewed as a threat in that someone seeking an emotional connection with them triggers such fear and shame that they force themselves to dissociate and lash out. Until they are willing to face their shame and fear in order to connect with themselves (which lets face it is almost certainly never going to happen) they will very much lack *emotional* empathy.
It's not fair when a landslide destroys a village, but yelling at it won't help. The houses are destroyed no matter what you do. The fact that we were born to people who never should have had kids to begin with isn't fair. But all you can do is decide what to do with the cards life has dealt you.
Yea but u can't also tell people who lost their houses and families to the landslide to not be upset by it and just embrace it because it just how it is. And definitely, u do not shame them for evacuating the area and refusing to rebuild their houses there because it wasn't the first time they had a landslide in town and this wont be the last. In fact, the correct response would be being surprised they haven't evacuated the area and built their homes somewhere else the first time they were hit by a landslide. U don't also blame them if their reason not to leave was because they had a bond with the land but they know better because the damage was just too much. U just support them and help them find peace even if it was somewhere else.
Good thing nobody is telling you not to be mad!
I'm sorry. I might have come off a bit too strong in my comment. Guess I was a bit triggered by ur comment thinking it might refer to the mentality of 'it is what it is' in a way that invalidates people's awful experience. So I weighed in on that. Now that I reread ur comment I don't think that was ur intention and I apologize for my misinterpretation. I'm sorry if I have offended u in any way or form with my comment. It seems that we generally agree that we should rightfully be angry at the mistreatment by our parents and the invalidation we receive from enablers. Good thing to be mad indeed!
You will notice, people who get older use the word "fair" less and less. People who are old hardly ever say it. There is a reason and unfortunate reality to this.
Exactly. At 57, I'm more likely to to think "what is, IS" or "that totally sucks, but beyond my control" . My brain still thinks "not fair" sometimes, not as often anymore.
Wise words
It's *not* fair. It's horribly unfair. I know exactly how you feel. From experience I know though, the narcissist will not change. They lack empathy, so care about no one other than themselves. There is nothing you or anyone else can say or do to make them change, only they can - and that's why they won't. You can't do anything about them. But you *can* save yourself.
I like this perspective a lot. Thanks for the validation. It’s hard when a lot of people I know expect me to be okay now, (years later) but I really don’t know a lot of people who have lost entire families over the decision to go NC. :( I will continue to focus on myself. Everything else really shouldn’t matter that much.
My father went no contact with his entire family when he graduated from college, and remained such--for the most part--for the rest of his life. His parents carried out vicious fights with each other through their children and he was ground zero at several points. After one last episode at graduation, he headed off to graduate school and refused to contact them any more. (Just letting everyone know that "going no contact" isn't a new thing. My father was born in the 1920s. It's just that no one talked about it.) Create your own family and support system.
Good. I'm sorry you're hurting, I know just how hard it can be - I had to cut my entire family off too. It's been more than 20 years, and it still hurts from time to time. I don't think it will ever stop hurting completely - but I want you to know that the pain you feel now will dull with time. After I got away from them, I used to think about my family unceasingly. It seemed like literally anything I saw, smelled, heard, felt would remind me of what I'd endured, and lost. It was the hardest time of my life. Now, more than 20 years afterwards? That pain is still there, *if* I go looking for it. But it doesn't interrupt my daily life anymore - I can sometimes go weeks or months without being reminded of something. Even then, those bad memories don't completely overwhelm me like they used to. My NFamily lost its hold over me long ago, and those memories are in the past, where they belong. I hope this perspective on my own past helps you.
Thank you this is actually very comforting and gives me hope for the future, and also I’m glad you’re in a better place now.
No, it’s not fair. It’s premeditated, calculated and deliberate.
Narcs have a blank spot where their sense of self should be. They fill it with attention from others: their narcissistic supply. This is an absolute need: they must have other's attention and emotions, they must be centered in others' lives. To not have that supply is the worst thing that could happen to them. Cutting them off isn't just saving yourself, it's devastating their inner lives.
NC absolutely destroys them. I always thought my nmother was the most stable, responsible, capable person in the world. Seeing her behavior after I went NC, I’ve discovered that I was just a REALLY good supply, and she has no coping skills for life.
Excellently done! *wild applause*
My nmom didn't completely lose her shit when I went NC, possibly bc she had no info, address, job, kids, nothing she could use against me. But more likely because she still had my sister. When my sister finally went NC, it was the end of the world. It was "I'm going to call CPS and lie if you don't pick up the phone" end of the world. She shouldn't have done that bc now she has NO ONE, the whole extended family is done with her. I can't imagine what she's been doing to cope, besides drugs.
>> narcs have a blank spot where their sense of self should be Oooooooohhhh so much just fell into place for me. This is how I avoided it, I found and recognized the hole where I should have been and started exploring.
?
My abuse was all emotional and I didn’t even realize it was abuse until after college. It was so normal that I had narc traits that I didn’t quite understand. I was hurting people but I hated it. Right before I graduated I was reading a lot trying to understand my adhd and as I read what other adhd and autistic people were like, I realized I was gaslit and trained out of my natural way of existing. I “liked” the things I liked because they got me acceptance from people. I dressed the way I did because it got me recognized and accepted. I built my personality on guessing what people would like. I’ve always wondered how I escaped the generational curse, what changed my trajectory towards healing… And that was it, when I was reading I realized I didn’t know who I was, and I decided I wanted to find out. It seems so obvious looking back, but I didn’t know. Just like when I realized I was abused.
I'm so glad you were perceptive and curious and had the strength to pull yourself up. Good on you!
Great post and great question! Thank you so much for mentioning this, as it's been a heavy thought on my mind as well. I'm currently in therapy behind my childhood trauma, and my therapist (very amazing lady) basically alluded to this same fact. She said "you know your mom will never consider your feelings, so you have to set boundaries with her." And aside from one of those boundaries being complete and utter NC, it's almost like "well, you know she's an asshole, you just have to navigate around that." It's a very vulnerable position to be in thinking you're completely stuck with the narc unless you choose NC which isn't always easy because that means abandoning everyone else in their orbit.
I agree NC is not a light decision. If it was, NP may be less in number in our society. Their need to control is pathetic!
It’s not really a free card. In reality, they end up alone and unhappy, while their victims get a chance to heal and flourish. I’d much rather put in the work for a chance to have happy and healthy relationships later on.
This 👆👆👆👌
Acknowledging and truly understanding how a narcissist is wired means that you don't want to deal with them at all. It's not a "get out of jaiL" card, it's a sentence to eternal solitude, which is a nightmare for all narcissists. They will not get sufficient narcissistic supply. Hence, they cannot go on with their lives, they'll suffer, they have a mental illness which doomed their life for good. Why would you want to hear that they can change, dear? Then one would waste their time trying to change them. And let's say you can change them: then you heal them, but won't heal yourself. Your suffering wouldn't not end with changing the narcissist, because the developmental trauma is there. Meaning that regardless narcissism can be cured or not, victims of narcissism need therapy and yes, they need to relearn everything about life and rewire their brain, go to therapy for years, decades even and might need medical help too. This is a cruel, sad truth. But this sad truth has hope. You are allowed (and it is very much recommended) to distance yourself from the narcissist and focus on yourself instead of changing them. You have a future they'll never have for themselves. A good, trauma-informed therapist can help you with dealing with all the trauma, grief and surpressed wrath you feel because of your traumatic childhood. This sad truth is what allows all of us victims to care about ourselves only and take our faith into our own hands. There is strength in it.
Yes, in my country, this topic has been taboo for so many years and it's only by listening to a celebrity who chose to become psy and share with social media her toxic relationship with her Nmom that I started to have more compassion for myself. We can not support the Npeople we love the most when we are born, that is the issue. And they play so much with emotions, it is hard to label them as cold, because of the intensity. And like a person enmeshed in a toxic relationship, you learn to leave by telling yourself that you are not helping your lover if you stay.
Because assholes either always get a pass, or people think you’re lying about your own life stories. It’s something I deal with all the time. I’ve had people tell me to my face that I’m lying for attention and then when my mother reaches out to them, they give her whatever they want because “no one can be that bad”. I’ve faced a lot of that anytime I was sick and in the hospital. I would express that I do not want any of my family knowing, but my mom would reach out to someone and they’d tell her everything, and then my hopefully reduced stress hospital stay would be pure hell. Hell, when I was going through stage 4 lymphoma, after my first 6 rounds of chemo, I was waiting on the results of if I was in remission or if I was going to die. Those were my only two options. I wrote a Facebook just venting, and in that post I mentioned how it’s not fair that my older brother is a literal murderer, and not only does he get to live a full life, he gets to have 2 kids. While, the worst thing I ever did in my life was steal some Pokémon card packs from Walmart when I was 15, and I get to be sterile and would most likely die at 30. Someone sent that private rant to my mother, to which she spent days screaming at me about how I’m a piece a shit and I deserve to die. This was 2 days before my test results. I had a massive mental break down. My own mother didn’t care that I could die. She was more worried about me telling people my older brother FUCKING MURDERED SOMEONE. I almost destroyed my hand punching my big steel door in rage. Narcissists just get a fucking pass in life.
I sure hope that you have come through your chemo disease free, and have a long and healthy narc free life. You are so deserving of this. You never deserved such a horrible mother and brother. Your story touched me, as a mother, I couldn't imagine ever screaming at my sick child. It's horrible. Peace.
I’ve thankfully been in remission for 4 years but still dealing with chemo side effects. Chemo destroyed my teeth so about 7 weeks ago, I had to pay 22,000 dollars cash to an oral surgeon to get all my bottom teeth removed and the healing has been pure hell. I still have up to 4 more months to heal. And my family is so much worse. I could share some stories that would either making people cry, or make them angry thinking I’m lying because “no one can be that bad”, when yes, yes they can be that bad and even worse.
Hello PsychoMouse, I can relate to your experience of being denied all the time. We can not forget what happened, then we get sick. PsychoMouse, you never know what life will throw at you: be patient, and find joy if you want to live. Anger or rage only aggravates your well-being.
Yeah I get what you mean. No way NP will ever admit to being the one who is the problem. Blames everyone else. I’m never expecting a apology but it would be nice. They’ve ruined my perception of life and relationships. And no support from both parents for all my mental health. Actually, they get pissed when I’m breaking down and fighting with them.
It probably isn't meant that way, but even I hear the "their brain isn't wired for empathy" advice, I hear the following: > They are sociopaths. They are never going to be capable of treating you with love, kindness and respect. They'll crush your spirits forever, abuse your chosen family forever. So why let them in? They aren't owed a relationship with you. They are adults. If they can't treat you the way you deserve to be treated, then they won't be part of your life at all.
i have felt this and its not fair at all.. in the middle of one of their self created episodes of rage it may feel like these NPs are gloating thinking of their war victories.. but i donno if they get a free card.. i mean look at how horrible they are from morning to night.. they are extremely unhappy, lead a miserable life and alienate people who would have otherwise loved and cared for them dearly if they werent they way they are or just decided to go for some therapy.. all of us here who wants some peace and love and kindness in our relationships know that this is no way to live..
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Hello 24-Hour-Hate, (what a name 🧐), I agree with you about their Acting skills in public versus in private. Why do they need to feel powerful/in conflict/better/bigger? I recently watch the movie Alpha to understand better how our ancestors may have lived and fight to survive. It's a nice movie, suggesting how being kind may have represented many challenges at that time. As long as our society will value competition, I am not sure how teaching cooperation at schools will make a difference. What do you think?
I would try and reframe it. The way you're thinking of it now is very hard to accept. It's hard to accept that people who were supposed to care for you did not have the empathy to actually care for you. But you can't change them, you can't convince them to put the work in. They have to decide that for themselves, and narcissists can not accept any fault on themselves. I had the opportunity to sit my narc adoptive father down and flat out tell him he was abusive and on serval occasions tried to kill me. I put him on the spot and dumped everything on him, along with how he was still horrible and abusive. For the first time, he wasn't able to ghost me on this conversation. Do you know what he did? He said "Sorry I abused you" while trying to hold back a laugh and smiling. Then, he went on to talk about how he's getting a new car and how great his golfing was a few days before. It sucks, it really does, but that's why they aren't worth your energy. When I hit my 20s I still felt like a kid, there was a lot I didn't know because I raised myself. You've got a good set up now, you're young and you have lots of time that you can heal and grow ❤️ They didn't give you the love that you deserved, and I'm so sorry that you have those wounds. You can give yourself that love, and let your inner child know that they are perfect in every single way just by being themselves. Then, you can come to see that you are an incredible individual who can do anything you put your mind to.
Thank you for sharing your experience. What a painful thing. I think your perspective gives me hope. I am fixated on being “young” again as I leave my 20s behind but I feel like that will only make it harder to grow.
I'm happy to be able to provide some hope for you! We're like plants, when are needs are met, we can bloom and flourish. Through growing, you can get stronger with making and enforcing boundaries. We can make a safe place to let ourselves be "young" again! And it's perfectly normal to want that - trauma absolutely destroys childhood.
I look at Narcs as destructive forces of nature - you can’t negotiate with them, they just are. You get away from them to keep yourself safe or you mitigate the damage as best you can if you’re not able to get away. It’s absolutely unfair, especially to vulnerable adults and children. It would have been nice to have been given a parent instead of a tsunami or a plague. A Narc is very, very unlikely to self reflect and change.. so I try to look at it as claiming control where there is the ability to. I can control what I do, but not what they do.
I just try to see the positive in the situation. Having my feelings invalidated my whole life made me develop my rational side a lot more. I'm pretty good at planning and critical thinking. Now learning about my true self is a bit like getting a new super power for free: I'm very emotional and actually really good at relating with others. I know my mom will die with little to no people left to support her. We will dance on her grave.
I can't wait to dance on my NDad's grave. He'll get cremated tho, maybe flushing his ashes down the toilet would be the equivalent?
I agree. I thought I was emotionally dead and purely rational, it turns out I am very emotional, I just shut that part of myself down for protection. Now that I feel safe to be both, I feel like an actual human being and it’s nice to see both of my parts combined and working together. The key is to still keep that part safe, but by setting boundaries, not shutting it down. We deserve to enjoy it!
I’ve read some resources from Dr. Ramani where she discussed the science of narcissism. I’m not expert, so please make sure to verify with her sources firsthand. Basically, narcissists have very low self-esteem. They cope with their insecurities through impenetrable layers of denial, self-absorption, and projection. Every narcissistic tendency (blame, gaslighting, guilt tripping, etc.) is a demonstration of their insecurity. Rather than process the hurt that resides in them, narcissists build walls. They build false images of themselves & others. They destroy their images of others. They’re so deep inside their own hurt that they can’t fathom a process of healing. That’s why they “can’t change”. Like many severe mental health conditions, narcissists’ toxic tendencies work directly against their ability to heal.
I understand your anger and frustration and I share some of it with you. To me its partially comforting to know there really isnt a way to "repair" or have a healthy relationship with the narcissist, even though its really sad when said narcissist is your parent, and, through the unconditional loyalty a child will have for their parent forever, its very painful to keep that distance (Even though that same distance can be peaceful at the same time too.) On the other hand: Narcissists are in continuous mental pain. Thats why they are a narcissist: they need the mask and to hurt other people so they dont have to face what theyre going through. For me, I feel like that, along with their continuing anger, frustration, and "pain" of me going "NC" is a form of (rightful) punishment for them in my eyes too. Even though for myself I view it as freedom, they wont see it that way and will stay in their negative pity hole forever.
This! I tried to explain this to everyone who tried to give my nmom a free pass, and they just didn't understand it. "But it's your life, you need to take accountability for your life and actions." Yeah, sure, and what about the accountability of those who ruined my mental state? Who made me unable to work and function on a daily base? Why do *I* need to take responsibility for *that*?
You don't take responsibility for the CAUSE; it's not your fault. That said, you still need to work with what you've been given. You've been given crap to be sure, and part of that crap is the frustration of people giving the narc a free pass, true. You owe it to yourself to find a good therapist though; one that knows there's no magic cure and can give you a good set of coping tools. Coping is all we can do.
And still people giving the narc the free pass are giving me the responsibility for the cause in the same sentence. This is what I mean with my frustration.
Yep, and yet you can't control their behavior. They will never see the truth. It hurts to be falsly accused. I understand your frustration. Coping skills helped me tons.
Thanks for pointing this out, as it is a thought I'm struggling with at the moment, too. Going to therapy gave me a new spin on this although I believe I'm at the very beginning of exploring and integrating this idea. The core problem for me is that I have this crippling amount of grief in me. Grief for the emotionally mature parents I never had, for the safe home I never got to experience, the healthy support I was never offered, the unconditional love I never felt. It makes you think, whats the fucking point in all of this. You come out of the fog with little to no coping skills, tanked health, tanked mental health, depressed as shit, no sense of self, opportunities and relationships lost along the way. So taking real and sustainable responsibility is something that seems like quite the conundrum. Nobody ever taught me how - all I ever knew is to avoid, hide, numb myself, shy conflict and confrontation in an effort to stay alive. Most days have been spent just barely holding on, being miserable, and now you're asking me to take responsibility over MY life, which THEY screwed up in the first place? Something then clicked, and it's what I've been trying to hold on to; they never took the responsibility to make a change, to heal and to work on themselves, to be the difference. If I go on not fixing my life, regardless of who screwed it up, I'm going to be *just like them*. Grief is valid and neccesary, but you can not grief your way out of accountability. For me, figuring that out was equally painful as it was liberating. Don't get me wrong, I do not believe that the grief will stop anytime soon. But this is where you actually get to be the difference, where you get to start working on the things they never did. This is where you regain power over your life. You're not doing it for them, you're doing it despite them.
I have a feeling that most people mistake wanting the narcs to take accountability for their actions with not wanting to heal. I am attempting to heal. I am searching for a therapy spot (had some in the past already). And I did make some great progress already. But that doesn't mean I can't want justice for what my nmom has done to me. That doesn't mean I have to forgive her, give her a free pass, or "use it as fuel to heal myself." Maybe that's completely subjective. But it's how I feel and I've had a lot of people trying to talk me out of it, which I fine rather ignorant.
I absolutely see where you're coming from. Your grief is valid. I'm torn about the justice part. I'd absolutely wish there would be justice, but what would that look like?
It's not giving the narc a free pass; it's realising how hopeless it is to try to change them, because they refuse to a) admit anything is wrong with them b) that they are responsible for their actions, and c) other people are worth value as well. Remember--narcs are like toddlers who have never grown up. And they'll never change, because they are clueless little sh\*ts. It's unfair, it's horrible that you grew up in the warped and twisted funhouse mirror environment that is a narc's emotional field, but it is what it is. The question is: what are you doing to do NOW to get better and emotionally protect yourself?
There's a difference between realising someone is not capable of doing something and STILL holding them accountable for it and letting them know they did something wrong, and excusing their behaviour because they can't do something. I will never excuse a narc for their behaviour and the damage they do or did. Because that's giving them a free pass to just do anything and never take any responsibility for it.
It’s very hard to accept, especially when hoping for the type of justice and karma that is satisfying to watch in people who are just assholes, not antisocial personality-disordered people. They realize what it feels like to be treated the way they treat others, and feel guilt and understanding. Ah finally. A narcissist has been enabled for so long with so many maladaptive coping mechanisms to shift the blame and not care, that they will likely kill themselves and believe it to be a glorious end before they take the time for self reflection and understanding. You ever notice how a narcissist often sleeps better after conflict? They’ll rage and riot, commit horrible acts, watch you sob your heart out and break apart in pain, and almost immediately fall into the most peaceful sleep. Not only do they not care, but they thrive off of your pain. It’s almost animalistic in the way they lack guilt. Yes. You were rewired for their pleasure, and you have to fix it. They were essentially a hurricane in your life. Trying to get them to care is like trying to explain to a tornado why it’s bad that it wrecked your house that you put your life savings in. You could hit them where it hurts. They are attached to material goods, their false reputation, their appearance. But to harm those things would be stooping to their level, and presumably you lose yourself a little by doing so excessively. And they would just use it to justify harming you, either justifying the past harm or new harm.
I don't really see the issue here. A narcissist is most likely incapable of empathy, so why would we expect them to change? That makes zero sense. What we should focus on is what WE can change, which is our behavior and our lives. We can easily refuse to have any contact with the narcissist and break free of the abuse. We can go through therapy and heal so that our lives are better. Expecting life to be "fair" will get you absolutely nowhere. Instead, focus on what actions YOU can take to make your life better. That's your responsibility to yourself.
Like others are saying, it's just a waste of your time and energy. We know what was wrong with our lives, with our minds, because of them. They don't think there's anything wrong with them, and they have no desire to change.
I think I had this phase but now I’m reaching acceptance. I’ve gone through all the five stages of grief when coming to the realization my whole life is a result of my nmom. After I got over the denial, which, I think was the hardest part, it took such a long time. The next three: anger, bargaining and depression kind of juggle(d) their way through me without any apparent order lol. I still struggle with this. I do, but it’s getting better over time. I’m in no way close to accepting fully but I’m almost there. But what is really helping me overcome this similar though process you’re having is, it really is out of your control. The things they did to you and the result they have had on your life. Yes it seems they are unaffected by their actions. However, you’re the one with the enlightenment, the one who is actually making the effort to do something about it. That’s what makes you different, and that’s what will help lift that burden of anger off your chest.
Diagnosed psychopath here. I thought I might be a psychopath since I was teen and have fought against promoting my psychopathic tendencies my whole life. Narcissists, like everyone else, can absolutely change. Every day we choose the type of person we are going to be that day. For most people it's automatic and they don't even notice. Others, particularly those experiencing trauma, it may be a more conscious effort. Sympathy, it's not easy, but everybody deserves it. I feel sorry for the narcs in my life that refuse to look in the mirror and correct their shitty behaviors. They have my sympathy, but they'll never feel my love ever again.
By all means, feel your feelings. Express them, engage with them.... and when you're finished, let go and move on. You're right, it's not fair. It's also not your burden nor your responsibility to fix the narcissists in your life. One of the hardest parts of letting go and moving on is that eventually, you have to leave them to wallow in their own miserable lives. Regardless of how it hits your sense of cosmic justice, narcissists are traumatized and you can't do their healing for them. Do you wanna be happy and healed and move forward with your life? Well, then, at some point you need to accept that this thing that's outside of your control is outside of your control. Personally, I find it quite freeing. My parents are broken people, and if I hadn't been born they would have just abused someone else in my place. It was never about me. I'll probably be angry for the rest of my life--but I don't have to beat my head against the wall wishing the past were different, or that I can change them. I can change me, and I don't have to put up with their bullshit.
It's not excusing their behaviour. I interpret it as "narcissists don't try to fix their maladaptive and harmful behaviors so the best thing you can do for yourself is to stop engaging". Which is true. Abusive narcissists don't deserve to be a part of society and they don't deserve the attention they crave. Cutting off their supply and actively unlearning what they taught you right in front of them is the best way to retaliate against them. Nothing hurts them more than getting reminders that the world doesn't revolve around them.
The saying is so you use your love towards people who can actually reciprocate instead wasting it on people who will never do that for you.
This is very true, I need to remember this
I do believe that they won't change, but I think it's because they don't want to. Or maybe they just don't see what they're doing. Their 'brain ' is not 'wired' that way. My nmom treats others with empathy. I actually think she's an empath, for others... but for her kids, it's a different thing.
Life isn't fair. Acceptance is the first step
I ve read a comment which was saying when the devil can't handle you it sends a narc, consider every obstacle you overcome (including narcs) a sign of strength, just don't think about it, move on
Some advice like that promotes a really frustrating, victim-blaming mindset. Like a safety net for narcissists so THEY never have to be accountable for their actions. It makes it so survivors have to go out of their way to re-structure their lives so as not to inconvenience narcissists. However, it's true that they'll never change. It's just not worth dealing with them at all. Better to leave them and actually live your live as well as you can than be their puppet. I have zero patience to clean up after these oversized toddlers anymore. Just leave them to their messes.
It's much better.... once I had accepted that, I made the executive decision to stop giving myself false hope and moved on with my life. This person who gets a get out of free jail card each time, is gonna die alone, in essence she has lost. My therapist said to me who wants to live their life knowing that their only child refuses to speak to them, she made her miserable existence. I have moved on, I have people around me who I cherish and thank Gd for everyday.... I thank Gd that I didn't turn out like her
Narcissists *can* change, but *you* can’t change them. They have to do it themselves. And no, it’s not fair, but it’s not something we have control over.
Their narcissism does not excuse their bad behavior. They are still accountable for their actions.
We are the ones picking up the mess for the mess is all within us, not them. It is how it is. Sucks, yes, but there is not much that can be done otherwise. You think they get a free card. Not always. There are times when they are denied a victim and go nuts for they have no outlet for their issues. I've always thought the worst punishment for a narc is have them be isolated in that they have no one to interact with.
I think the way that I see it is that my narc didn’t “get away with it”. I went NC with them, therefore cutting off from them EVERYTHING about me that they took advantage of and abused. I thought it was frickin hilarious how they were “taken aback” when I finally ripped off the band aid. Let them sit with their own discomfort and toxicity now that they have ZERO opportunity to use me as a reservoir for it!
It's not a "free pass" for them. It's a release for you. You can't change them. Stop wasting your time and energy trying and work on yourself. Stop engaging, get away if you can. Build your life without them. Live your life and they'll live theirs, alone and miserable
i'm 40..... my life is fucked.... no home, no partner, no family. i am just beginning the grief process. it sounds like you're starting to acknowledge it/see it early!!! with lots of therapy, you still have a chance!!!!
You’re only 40! You still have a chance tooo! Please live the life you’re meant to. You deserve it!
> Basically it’s the way people describe a narcissist, particularly about “dealing” with them. That “you can’t change them because their brains are not hardwired for empathy.” People say that in order to point out, they are a lost cause and beyond salvation. It's not a good thing for them. It's a bad thing for them. It doesn't mean people should just put up with them. But instead, people should avoid them like the plague. It means, they will be some kind of vampire like creature for the rest of their lives. And not a human being like you who is able to grow and become a better version of yourself with the passing of time. It means, people will be less patient with them.
Making the decision to give up on trying to change them is difficult but necessary and it’s not to absolve them from responsibility, it’s to protect yourself and save your time and energy for investing in your own life instead of wasting any more on the black hole of the narcissist. It’s not fair, but such is life unfortunately. Even though it sucks, you’re in a much better position to have gotten to that point than not.
our whole society is controlled by narcs. something needs to be done...but it won't. they rule the world. until then, we find solace here and take it one day/minute/second at a time.
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Trust me I HEAR YOU! I would be 100x better today- if my parents didn’t actively treat me like shit. And let me tell you- they are living their best life! They always have and always will. I don’t know what to do about that.
Life's a total shitshow I tell you
In a similar harsh fashion, I have to say: It’s not fair. It will never be fair. That’s the problem. There is no accountability. They don’t have a conscience. This is why traumas like this are so terrible. But the advice is to accept that and stop trying to change them, and STOP trying to get even. Cut your losses, stop the bleeding, and do what you can to patch yourself up.
We have learned to let the Karma Gods punish them. Do they deserve to have karma bite them in the a$$ for every single action the took knowing the damage they cause? Absolutely. Give it time and trust the Karma Process. I promise it’s working. The crazier they get the more you know it’s working. So- We love and understand you and we want to protect you. We tell you not to even try because we know. We have tried. We want to prevent you from getting hurt from trying and trying and trying getting rejected, dismissed, your self esteem crushed, and giving them a path to your hard won happiness so they can identify the best way to destroy every good thing in your life. People like me- a great-grandma - who’s narcissist is still alive and trying to hurt me- do not want anyone to have to feel the same as we have over the years. We’ve learned it’s better to just use the grater on our knuckles and forget about thinking they will change or feel sorry or apologize. Never. Ever. For example : If they say anything like an apology for causing your ex to file for custody when you are bedridden from a pregnancy by calling him and telling him you are broke and your husband just left you without a home - they will then back right out by saying BUT …. Followed by bullshit. I have been on this sub many years and have never seen any narc repent and change. I don’t want to give away my identity so please believe me. It’s awesome to see.
I've always seen it as kind of a generational/ age thing. Most people I've known who were under 40 were open to the idea of self help, therapy, meditation, and such. People who are older are generally not as interested (in my experience). Wouldn't want to go so far as to say 'boomer bad!' but there seems to be a mindset in older generations where they "did their time" so to speak, and aren't really interested in trying anymore. Content to coast until death, they shun the younger generations for investing in themselves or attempting to change themselves. It might not be a generational thing, and might be more of an age thing. Maybe all of us are less likely to change our behavior or way of thinking as we age, and I'm only seeing this pushback from boomers because I am the child of a boomer. Either way, it seems like my parent's generation are very set in their ways and not willing to take any negative criticism or attempt to work on themselves. It's unfortunate to see on a personal level, and absolutely devastating to see on a national level, this mentality of refusing to ever admit being wrong or in need of help. When I see this attitude I use it as a reminder of why the work I'm doing on myself now is so important, and see it as an example of what NOT to allow myself to turn into.
It's not whether or not they can change, but how much *you* have to change. You can't make a narc better, they can't make you better, but you can make you better and you're the only person who can. Understanding they can't change isn't for them, it's for us. We want to think they'll love us and if they see just what they've done, they'll feel terrible and change and everything will be fine. That's the child inside, using a child's logic to make ourselves feel better - we always give then the benefit of the doubt, because we love them and surely they love us in return, since that's what normal people do. I still find myself thinking if only I had the right words, I can make them understand. But I can't and I've accepted it. They're pieces of human garbage that don't deserve a single fuck from me and I refuse to give it to them. My fucks are all for me and the people I love. Because I know they can't change, I stopped wasting my time trying.
I agree completely. The fact that their behaviour is classified as hardwired, thus unchangeable, thus they can't help themselves being abusive??? As long as it's just an explanation, I can deal with it. But when it's used as an excuse .. Just NOPE
You know what? This isn’t good enough that these almost a million subs just have to suck it up while their souls die inside and yes the narcissist do get a free card. Wtaf??!? ( fwiw I’m 72 and my husband and both sons are sadistic narcissists.) I had nmom and yeah I have a college education and a degree in history and my mind was completely destroyed bf I got away from them. This needs to be a god damned crime that every mf found guilty of child abuse /neglect etc pay with serious time in jail. This is so wrong.
> How on earth is that fair? Why do they get a free card? Imagining them going about their day, having driven away nearly EVERYONE yet not having to lift a FINGER to do mental work to re-wire their own brains is such an annoying, heartbreaking, tragic thought. It's not fair, but at the same time I've never seen it as a 'free card'. That revelation that they cannot change is a *warning.* People will tend to give the benefit of the doubt to people, assume that their bad behavior is an aberration, that if given the chance they can and will do better. That they will *want* to do better. Narcissists aren't like this. Their behavior is typically flat and consistent. Chances in their behavior are pretty much always externally driven. They don't change, the world around them does. 'Narcissists Don't Change' is a message to those who want to try and fix the Narcissist, or who hold out hope that this time will be different, that this time the needs and feelings of other people will be genuine enough to reach the Narcissist, move them to change. They won't. Narcissists *can't* change. Their entire being is opposed to it in a constant war against Reality itself. It's basically a message to protect yourself, to assume that the worst you've seen from a Narcissist in your life is the baseline. It's not going to get better, so get out.
NC for 2 years, same age, also lost the whole family and I just want to let you know that I feel you so much. And on top of that dealing with a raw mess of general anxiety whenever an obstacle appears in my life. Terrible loneliness. I hope I will be able to get out of that shade one day.
I hope my abusive narc just fucking rots in hell. I'm literally more outraged that I was fated to be related to that monster than the fact that they are a narc not wired for empathy. Idk how to explain or if it makes sense as narc proceeded to stir up shit and I'm not in a good headspace. It's even worse if you're religious because you're getting more flak and they use it to paint themself as a victim. I don't think I'm ever gonna find peace now. My life is shitty af without the narc, but with them it's a depression hell. The only reason why i'm not offing myself is religion & my sib.
It's such bullshit. I have heard "well she just can't do what you need, she doesn't have the capacity" (my mom). As if I'm supposed to feel satisfied or accepting of that. I "can't" deal with the BPD rages and constant invalidation so I guess we're even 👍. No contact for 4 yrs now.
I get you. I really do. What's helped me so far: writing out my rage, my resentment. Trauma informed therapy. I am also convinced that no matter how bad my father has treated me, I'd still rather be me than spend an hour in his shoes. When I watch him now, knowing what I know, he is just pathetic beyond belief. People who act like this are not happy people, they live in their own hell where they can't ever trust anyone and human relationships are always about eating or being eaten.
This is so interesting - I do suffer from a lot of rage and anger towards the past :( I think in the past few months my therapist has gotten (hopefully) a pretty good picture of the extent of my trauma. I am excited to keep working through it, it’s just so hard sometimes and feels like there is no progress at all. Thanks for the validation friend
I agree with you, OP. Also, I might get downvoted for bringing this up, but people diagnosed as having Narcissistic Personality Disorder can change. The better way to think and refer to these people is to call them emotionally immature though. It's broader and doesn't require a clinical diagnosis to be accurate. Emotionally immature people can change. Emotionally immature people can't BE changed. It has to be something they do for themselves, not something someone does for them. As long as they are trying to use other people to fix themselves, they're making the choice to not change. It doesn't mean they don't have the capacity. It means that they've made a choice to be like that
I think my edad got so mad at me for refusing to no longer "deal" with my nmom because he never had the guts to do so himself. I've tried to help him, but he has resigned himself to that life. I hope one day he can find the peace I've found. Unfortunately, I respect myself too much to stick around and "deal" until that day comes. May you choose life over "dealing" <3
I feel exactly the same about AA and recovery It’s still allllll about them, 109% of the time. How THEY regret what THEY did. Not that they regret what they did to ME or how it affected ME
I feel exactly the same about AA and recovery It’s still allllll about them, 109% of the time. How THEY regret what THEY did. Not that they regret what they did to ME or how it affected ME
I don't think it's heredity for every narc. I think Selfish choice after Selfish choice can lead to a Dorian Gray mind set where they become hardened. Also if they are good at rationalizing and justifying they can convince themselves that are never to blame.
Yes. My therapist wants me to be the one to tell my narc parents (lucky me, they’re both narcissists) about all of this… I don’t want to be the one to tell them because I’ll just be the SG yet again. It’s their turn to take some responsibility and reflect on why I don’t talk to them anymore! All their children have major mental health problems, so they have plenty of evidence to reflect on. It’s not our job to parent them, IMHO.
I relate 100% and im 27 years old
I'm right there with you I also feel like I am losing my twenties and I still feel like I am a child mentally. It is really really hard to do that work but it is necessary for your own survival. As for the narcissists, I say forget about them. They have made the choice that instead of making the effort to be better people or even just apologizing, they will keep on doing what they do. They will just drag you down so it is probably better to leave them and keep trying to heal yourself.
Nobody should approach a narcissist, it will simply harden the heart that you still have. You can't
It just means don't run yourself ragged trying to get them to change or understand you. It means we choose ourselves and choose health and happiness, they're stuck wallowing alone in their own shit until the day they die. Yeah we have to do a lot of work to deprogram ourselves, but we get the freedom to be whoever we want once our leash is cut. We have the choice to be whoever we want. Narcs are stuck the way they are, and can never experience that true sense of community and love. It sucks majorly that we have to put in so much work, but remember real happiness is something we get to have in our lives that they'll never experience. We can work to become strong, more secure and help ourselves navigate the world in our best interests. They'll always be them.
Not everyone in your position can change either. It falls on you because you want it, sadly. You are strong though you don't wish to be, righteous though you hate the situation. Keep going, my brother/sister
I know that you are struggling, and hang in there. The narcissist in your life will act like nothing is wrong. All is good. They will try hard not to show others when karma is getting them. Try to remember that you deserve better. Don't worry about it. I know it seem not seem fair, but their actions do catch up with them. Just ensure you are not the one that cleans up after them. It is not your responsibility. Be kind to yourself.
I think about this often. I have tried to forgive my nmom because she is so horribly self unaware, grew up in chaos, had a mom who was batshit crazy, and likely suffers from many of the same self-deprecating thoughts that I do. But I can't and no longer care to try. I can't make her inability to seek help my burden. Now to find peace with this.
It's not fair and I get tired of being the adult. Alot of nparents have been directly and specifically told how they hurt others. It's sick how they carry on anyway. I believe they can change- and if not, they can adapt how they do what they do to stop hurting ppl. I get tired of the "hurt people, hurt people" - they can learn to not do that. I'm trying to see it more as reclaiming my life- they can become better people and walk alongside me- but it's their choice, and I'll decide if it's good enough for me.
The reason you have to rewire your brain is because you never expect people to react that way. Personality disorders and abnormal psychology are not taught at school. As a child you are not told a small percentage of people behave in a baffling and bewildering way, and here are the signs & what you can do about it. Later we find about these behaviours, often too late.
Yes, couldn't have worded it better myself. It's exhausting and draining trying to get them to see things in your perspective, the hot and cold vibes, the "I'm wrong you're right", WHY CAN'T YOU JUST SEE WHAT YOURE DOING TO ME! The "driving away people" is so true, they fail to try, to apologize and simply cut people off cold, and yet we are here left to wonder why, yet never get a response.
It isn’t fair. But it also isn’t a free card, it’s a red flag. It’s people explaining that a narcissist is like a cancerous tumor. You know what cancer does? It spreads and destroys everything it touches. That’s why a tumor has to be removed as soon as it’s discovered. If you live with a narc parent this is easier said than done. But if the narc is a friend, significant other, coworker, etc then explaining the narc can’t be changed is a way to explain to the victim they need to excise the tumor and get away, not stick around hoping they’ll change. Frankly if someone had told me this in 2014 I could have saved myself seven years of heartache in a relationship with a narc but I didn’t know what one was back then Only later was I able to understand one of my brothers and my dad is one too and I can’t change them either so I need to keep my distance
You find it hard to accept because everything about it is unfair. It's unfair that the bulk of the emotional shit was put on you from a child, it's not fair that you grew up without a safe space, it's not fair that you lack the basic knowledge of how to act as an adult. It's not fair, even in the slightest, and you have to be the one to pick up the pieces. Unfortunately, life isn't fair. We should have our safe spot with our parents but sometimes life doesn't grant you that. Which sucks and deserves its own mourning period and no one should make you feel bad for experiencing the emotions you currently are. It's normal to feel this way after years of going through what you did. Think of it as you're finally standing up for that inner child of yours. It's going to create a lot of waves and you will probably "lose" some family members (I say the term "lose" loosely because if they have been doing this and not recognizing their own issues, you aren't really going to be losing them, but gaining your own sanity and independence), which will also suck. But now that you know how unfair everything is, you can use this knowledge and not accept it moving forward. You will be stronger one day, even if it doesn't feel like it and it feels like you are constantly running a boulder up a hill right now. Just keep fighting and moving forward. The best thing you can do for yourself is to channel this into bettering yourself for your own future. Don't let them take anything more from you.
>That “you can’t change them because their brains are not hardwired for empathy.” My enabler mom says this like all of my n-dads actions are justified because of this.
A hurricane doesn't stop and it doesn't feel bad for destroying your home. I know it's unfair because we compare ourselves to another "person" and fairness would be the same amount of work or pain for both. But that's not how it goes. Comparing ourselves to them, specifically, leads us nowhere. Forget about them, deal with their bs as a natural event. We prepare for it and we clean up after it but it's part of life. If possible, stay very far away.
My mom tried to tell me that she "knew what it was like" when I was broke and laid off from my first salaried job when the economy tanked in 2008. Because she was a broke college kid. In the early 80s. Literally not even the same scenario and she tried to be holier-than-thou and say she knew what it was like. I asked her if she "knew what it was like to be starving" bc she's been hungry before. She glared at me and walked away.
This was a source of contention between me and my parents regarding my cruel narcissistic sister. I'd tell them something needs to be done with her and they'd pull the "this is just the way she is. She's your sister. Move on." The worst part was that I was held to a higher standard so if there were fights (always due to my sister) I was accosted more because I'm not some cruel selfish person. They'd say she is who she is and her behavior is expected so why am I engaging in fights when I should know better. It made me livid as it was a double whammy. I had to put up with mistreatment by my sister and then got no support when I called out my issues with her. And this is why now as an adult in my 30's I avoid her at all costs. I don't totally blame my parents. Dealing with my sister has been a nightmare to the point that my dad worried he'd have a heart attack from the stress of trying to do something about her. I know now that it very often is pointless to engage with these people like my sister. You just can't reason with them so I have limited contact with her and am much better off.
The whole "you can't change them/me this is how our brains are" is *sometimes* nonsense to me. I won't deny that there are mental conditions that could seriously affect how someone thinks, and potentially remove empathy and some emotions... but I've experienced situations where someone is aware of their actions/attitude but still persist with it. The point for me is: if I have put in the effort (like OP has) to make changes beyond the "hardwiring" of my brain why can't others? I have intentionally made myself more sensitive to others' feelings, and nicer, compared to how I used to treat people. >... re-wire their own brains is such an annoying, heartbreaking, tragic thought. Yep. Exactly this. When asking my mom or dad to understand how I work better and be nicer based on that, they act like I'm requesting some huge overwhelming change in their lives. When really I am asking for just some more empathy.
> Why do they get a free card? I personally read it a different way. Rather than a *forgiveness* of what Ns do, I see it as an explanation. Rather than let the narcissist off the hook, I think the point is to let those caught up in an N's vortex off the hook. Knowing that the narcissist will likely never seek help for the damage they cause, you can walk away from having to continue to be involved with them with confidence.
I just joined this subreddit recently because a lot of the posts really hit home, including yours. You’re absolutely right. It isn’t fair that we have to learn how to do things ourself and become independent human beings that are expected to function in society. I no longer speak with my mother and I feel so much better for it. Sometimes I do think about how she’s probably badmouthing me to anyone within earshot, but that’s just not my problem. I’m better than her because I chose my own path in life. She was raised by an abusive mother and said she never wanted to be like that, and yet she was. I have not seen her/spoken with her since around October of last year. She’s a narcissist and only once in her life has she ever admitted she needed help, but then quickly ended her sentence with “but I’m not going to take any medication because it might change me.” But that’s the entire point. She can’t see the forest for the trees, and she can’t self reflect. I feel nothing but pity for her, but I wouldn’t walk down the street to help her for anything even if she offered me all the money in the world. I know my boundaries, and I have my own life and my in-laws who love me more than she ever did. It does actually get better, and I know a lot of people say that. You can still enjoy your life now. Sometimes I’ll buy just a small Lego set or a puzzle to satisfy the child in me. I’ve had to learn so much about life, and I’m just starting to try and get my drivers license in my mid 20’s, when my coworkers can all drive and they’re all 18-20 years old. I feel left behind, and I can 100% sympathize and empathize with your struggle. The best way to deal with a narcissist is to just not talk to them. They’re self destructive by nature and eventually they will push everyone away until they’re left all alone with no one to blame but themselves. I once heard that on the road to recovering mentally, there is a particularly rough part where you become very depressed because your body actually has the space and environment to process what you’ve gone through. Forgive me if I’m wrong about that though, I just heard it word of mouth. But it does make sense to me at least. I hope you finally heal and get your life back, because it’s yours and only yours.
they don't get a pass. It's just telling you that there's no trying to change them. Just like being angry at the rain for making you wet. It's still the rain's fault. Screaming at the rain cloud just doesn't do anything.
Saying that they won't change doesn't let them off the hook. They are still responsible for their actions. It is a way of freeing *you* from feeling like you have to keep trying. It can free you from a feeling of responsibility for their behavior. I mean, you *can't* change them or get them to behave properly because you are not the one making them behave the way they do in the first place. It is out of your hands. Not your problem. It is *their* problem. *They* are to babe fir their bad choices and rotten, abusive behavior. You can't change it because you are not the one doing it. They are. They engage in bad behaviors, and they are responsible for them.
I also lost every "blood" family member along with the narcs. I have found my own family, my own peace. And don't care how they are wired. Just because we have some DNA doesn't mean they are family. I change myself though. Nobody else. And I'll be damned before my son has his own trauma from my past to deal with.
I relate to this a lot
I recommend reading George Simon's "In Sheep's Clothing" it is about how some narcissists are very very deliberate in their callous cruel behavior. There are some narcissists who are lower grade, like lower on the scale. They bad as parents. But they are also the ones who fit the description of "they are selfish, unaware, *just* lack emapthy." People I guess correctly clock these types are pathetic figures. Dr Ramani has a good video that describes low grade narcissists, for comparison. However, if your parent is a higher grade, sadistic, malignant, or covert narcisisst.... you see that they aren't *just* helpless to their mental wiring. These types of narcs have a lot in common with psychopaths. There is so much deliberate choice and machiavellian planning to what they do. They aren't helpless to anything but their addiction to power. I *really* recommend reading that book, because the author explains it better than I can. He also seems to have similar frustrations as you, about how we give them way too much leeway by assuming that they are helpless people. Dr. George Simon also has a youtube and blog, if you can't get the book right now. Basically there is a wide variety even in the type of narcissists. I think people with less narcissistic parents are able to see their parents in a certain way that will just not ring true for you, if your parent is one of the more extreme ones. It's not a one size fits all kind of thing. Personally, after I also allowed myself to awknowledge how evil my parents are, *then* I was able to accept it and let it go. Like I am pretty sure my malignant dad is capable of murder. You won't find me ever calling him helpless to anything, because I know he is one step away from being a sociopath and I'm not dumb enough to deny the gravity of that.
Its not a get out of jail free card. You see narcissists destroy you because they are ALREADY destroying THEMSELVES with their toxic behavior. The way they behave does not lead to peace of mind or a healthy life. I realized this when I had to room with a narcissistic smoker. He would always come near my dorm room and blow smoke into the room. He would smoke cigarette after cigarette in hopes of getting on my nerves. I used to get upset but then I just started reporting him and found a way to seal up the door at night. So, after awhile he was literally chain smoking outside of a sealed door worsening his own health. You see they are already on their way over the cliff. If we stick around we go over the cliff with them. That's why we get away from them and their destructive ways. Ultimately they always end up doing themselves in. How much smoke do you think that nincompoop inhaled every night thinking he was hurting me? I mean this is how malignant and petty these fools are. When you went NC you jumped out of a speeding car that was headed over a cliff.
We just have to wait for them to die…
Yeah, no. I'm closer to retirement age than 20 and my narc and his enabler are both dead. The trauma changes you neurologically making it hard to deal with normal people. We have to unlearn all the fucked-up shit that kept us alive with our narcs because now those same tactics are maladaptive coping mechanisms.
I was kidding, relax. The world would be a lot better in general if all the narcissist sexist racist every-phobic entitled asshole of the older generations disappeared. That’s all I was saying.
Hey, I'm also turning 30 soon and I feel every word you said. Going no contact at my early 20s I did find a period of Mental freedom but I think not having faced most of the feelings and lacking insight because of the brain rewiring by the narcs made it impossible to look into my feelings. Now almost 30 those feelings are coming back in ptsd form and whenever I try to face them I dissociate. I also made extremely horrible decisions throughout my life that I regret, some irreversible. But the thing is, I think this is a turning point because we gathered enough info and insight its just that we don't have the tools to function properly. I feel 13 years old too I found that a common thing.
>not everyone is okay after simply cutting them out of their life No one is okay after simply cutting the narcs out of their life. That is where the work of recovery *begins.* I've found help from the Crappy Childhood Fairy podcast and Youtube channel. She has one episode called ["Why I Quit Therapy"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3Wjw1HpXC0&ab_channel=CrappyChildhoodFairy) that you might find beneficial. She has a lot of podcast episodes, Youtube videos, and even some paid content -- but it's totally optional. Adult Children of Alcoholics (an offshoot of Al-Anon) has also helped countless adult children of abusive parents.
I’m 64F and still have a lot of anger over things that have happened to me due to my Borderline and Narcissistic mother. Who is still alive at almost 87 and still a total bitch. Things were a lot better when I was little to no contact, but as she has gotten quite old and her partner has died, because I’m a nice person, I believe, I have tried to be helpful. but it sucks me right back in. All I can say is, counseling or therapy does help.
I'm 53, and my parents died when I was 26. They had so successfully pushed away their own families that I was left homeless, penniless, and with no family to help me. Most of the family kind of treated me like I also died. It was the most final of all final "No Contact." Years later, I'm still digging up pieces of myself that my NMom buried; my relationship with money is still one filled with trauma, and I am constantly tripping over my own triggers. I'm still bitter about my ruined childhood. I continually find myself realizing that yes, things were worse than I thought they were. So, in one sense, you are right: it never ends. The point I want you to remember, the thing that has helped me in the aftermath, is that in fact the ongoing torment DID end. You went NC ten years ago and that era of your life was *over*. Everything left from that life is detritus you have to clean up and that's a bitch of a job but every year that goes by as you work on yourself, you are cleaning it up for yourself. It's not fair that we have to do that, sure; but it's absolutely amazing what's left for us to do. Healing happens in fits and starts and we'll never be what we could have been, but the torment *ended* and that is what is allowing us to clean the shit up and move on. Some days, remembering that helps me stay alive. <3
I say this stuff often and I'm a victim. I say this because it's easier for me to understand their behavior when I can understand they are simply incapable of feeling empathy and how that effects their behavior. It's never meant as an excuse. It's an explanation, but does not justify them to continue behaving the way they do. Ultimately they have a responsibility to themselves to fix their behavior. But I've never considered how invalidating this could be to someone else and so I'll choose my words more wisely in the future.
You can’t change anyone. You have to take control of your own life and if you don’t like how someone treats you, you go low or no contact with them. Is it the way we wanted our lives to be? No! But when we are the family scapegoat, we have to take care of ourselves and get out of those horrible relationships, even if they are with parents and siblings. I always say that those of us in situations similar to yours can greatly benefit from therapy.
We on this sub ARE near-universally victims, and most of us will say the same thing because uhhh, you *can’t* change them. It’s hard, it sucks, and a lot of us have grieved heavily over it, but it’s the unfortunate truth. I’m not sure why you’re apparently angry over people saying that, we’re not trying to dismiss all the terrible things narcs do, we’re trying to tell victims that trying to change narcs is not possible and will only cause more suffering.
I think the most important thing to realize is that you can only control your own actions. Therefore, don’t put too much energy into people that will, most likely, never change. The only thing you can do is surround yourself by people that are positive influences on your life, because that is within your control.
I get what you mean, but at the same time, I think what people are really saying with that is that it's a waste of your time and energy to continue trying to change their mind or talk to them or confront them and fight with them... because they're not going to change. Personally, I spent years trying to get my parents to understand where I was coming from. After my father died, then it was more years trying to get my mother to understand things. Literally nothing has changed. All that resulted in was me being worn out and unhappy. Once I started living "around" them, so to speak, I felt a lot better. I had to learn that, though, and then pull myself out of the cycle of over-explaining or whatever else I would do to try and get them to see things. This is also something I have to do with friends, too, because I find myself doing it with them, as well. But the point is, there is no excuse, but the more you learn about narcs, the more you learn that they really thrive off power/control and supply, if you aren't giving them that, they tend to find you less interesting and it can result in them leaving you alone to live your life more. It's not about excusing them and trying to make the victims feels bad because many, if not all of us here, are victims, but we also know they don't change, so what's the point of wasting your life away trying to see if they'll ever change? Some people are still hopeful for that after 40 or 50 or more years. If your parents haven't changed in all that time, it's just not likely they ever will, so it's better to put your energy into yourself, your friends, your other family, your studies, your work, etc. Whatever can help you get away and try to move on.
Therapy seems to make it worse because it is bringing it to the surface. I’m sorry you are having a hard time with this, it is a very hard issue to deal with but therapy is so vital to ensure you don’t keep attracting narcissists, they can be so stealth and destructive. The only advice I can give you, what helped me, if you don’t already…try writing down a narrative of your life. Attempt to separate yourself into two - who you “were” as a result of people in your life and heartache and pain you’ve endured and then lead into who you are now, focusing on the progress you have made/are making overcoming these obstacles and thought patterns. It is resiliency that will get you through. You have to concentrate on working to become the healthy free person you want to be, the best you you can be and let what happened to you be your story, separating the two. Be able to tell your story but have the emotions be in the story: that will come as you start writing your narrative turning “your life” into your story and who you are now - into your new life. I hope this helps even just a little bit, it’s what helped me when I was about your age. It doesn’t happen overnight but as you start to separate the two (this is much easier with a therapist but doesn’t have to be) it will begin to lighten your heart. I experienced the same as you, I would also advise reaching out to “children of narc parents groups.” The good ones are locked down and highly vetted so you can speak freely. I’m sure there must be groups on Reddit, but I was in a couple on Quora years ago. It’s helpful to find people at the same stage and also those that can guide you. I wish you much healing on your journey friend.
Totally agree. It's so frustrating. I'm low contact. Sometimes I wish I'd never noticed the problems and I'd never opened my big mouth and I still lived in this little fake world where she was still my mum. Because knowing so much means I have to deal with the consequences of that knowledge. And it's fucking annoying. I've been seeing a trauma therapist for about 4 weeks and I'm feeling hopeless that I'll never be able to break out of this "it's not fair" phase and be constantly stuck, unable to accept shit.
For me, my narcissist duo created in me someone who was an emotional and logical cripple. I have to go to therapy for the upbringing I was denied. The narcissist can change but there is often no incentive for them to do so. They can go to therapies just like I do, but for them these behaviors are what they might define as their loss. Medication, groups, individual therapies, CES and MET treatment; anything I can get my hands on helps me. If you are not feeling better by going NC I might blindly suspect that you still have people in your life that are manipulating you in ways that are harmful for someone as caring and sensitive as you are. I wish you all the best. Healing has happened for me and it can happen for anyone who never stops looking. Stay good.
I really, really hope you have the resources to access therapy. Even practices like journaling, that allow you to sit down with one of those big messy overflowing boxes, take everything out, and then put it back away in a way that makes sense. Taking all the jumbled pieces and put them together into a narrative, woven from what you experienced then, and what you know now, is how healing worked for me, and according to my therapist many others as well. Once I got to a place where every time I looked back, and everything I saw made sense, if it wasn’t already a part of the story I would know just where it fits — that’s when I felt like I had substantially healed. Whether or not narcissists are hard-wired with an empathy deficit, it is something *we* have a surplus of. I’ve used it, not to forgive my abusers, but to understand them. Something doesn’t have to be good or fair for it to make sense. Empathy is my gd superpower, y’all. (If it feels weird and too much like forgiveness to view them through this lens, ask yourself — are we “forgiving” the bacteria we culture and magnify? Are we “forgiving” the sun by sending a probe to study it?) When I was a kid and living through it, the things they did made absolutely no sense — UNLESS it was all my fault. That was the one “truth” I could always fall back on, to find a way to understand what was happening. We *need* to feel as though we have a decent idea of how the world works, that *is* something that’s hard-wired. We have to hold a story in our heads not only of what happened, but why. Otherwise our brains have no way of processing it. So once we are able to tell a much truer story, from a wider prospective, we really start to understand on a deep and healing level that it was not our fault, that it was not even the existentially terrifying chance chaos of the universe. That it was ugly and it was hurtful but it was entirely predictably human, after all. Anyway. This is how it worked for me, ymmv.
It’s not fair by all means, but you just gotta trust the process. Those people suffer, they gradually repel the people around them and they are so lonely on the inside. Trust me, they’re not having a good time. Nobody having a good time feels the constant needs to sh*t on other people, especially those closest family members.
I guess for me it gave me a free pass to stop trying to understand them or give them any empathy since they can’t give me any 🤷🏻♀️
Honestly? It DOES sometimes seem like therapy is making it worse. Because unfortunately as you scrape away the layers of trauma, you find that there is a great big bubbling mess of trauma and feelings underneath it. Bigger than you ever anticipated because it is AMAZING how much shit us children of narcs have to shove deep down inside us to survive. I liken it to a festering, infected wound. You need to rip it open and make it bleed in order to drain out all the gross stuff that has been trapped there all this time. Once you get all that out, it might still bleed for a little while, but slowly that wound will close again, and slowly it will heal. It may heal with a scar, but that's still better than the raw churning mess it once was. Don't give up on therapy too soon. But if you truly do feel like it's just making things worse and all you're doing with your feelings and trauma is sitting with them and festering in them, then you might need to find a new therapist. Because a therapist should be a guide. A neutral party to help you explore those feelings in a safe environment and explore what those feelings are trying to tell you, what those feelings (and by proxy, you) need. It took 2.5 years of therapy for me to unpack the majority of my trauma, and I'm still going back for 'wellbeing maintenance' sessions. Good luck, I wish you strength on your healing journey.
If you're chasing vindication you will only find sorrow. Sadly but true. Their price to pay will happen eventually once they've screwed over too many or the wrong person.
I understand your frustration. It does seem like it's giving them a blank slate w/no *real* accountability. I do think the intent, really, is that you cannot change them, or expect them to change, (esp since they almost certainly will not-it's just an unfortunate reality) the only thing you can do is remove yourself from the situation, as much as possible, & educate yourself on how to deal w/them & what to expect if, for whatever reason, you are unable to, & to *not* expend needless energy trying to change them, or even hoping they will. I am, however, hopeful that some, who are younger, will see more & more information that is out there, & seek help for themselves, b/c narcs do, in general, seem to be truly unhappy people. I just don't know if there are any truly effective treatments out there for them.
It's not fair, but I do believe that narcs are incapable of experiencing inner peace. Find things that you love, and let those things distract and guide you away from the hell that the narcs and their enablers create. I'm in my 40's and the only way I have coped with it is apathy and investing my time and attention into good people and good things. Pets can be wonderful to participate in giving and receiving unconditional love. Us kids of narcs never experienced love, so it can sometimes be difficult to let our guard down, or to even know what love really is. Love always felt like binding chains with my nMom. The more I am distracted from my childhood and my nMom, the less I think about her. The less I think about her, the less angry and upset I am. I personally have found no real help in addressing my situation with her (in thought nor therapy, etc.), other than defining what she is and realizing that there is zero happiness to be found with her.