Agreed. And (slight hijack) I really get my feathers fluttered when PD’s are used in criminal defense…like the idea that the sociopathic/conduct disordered person can’t help what they’ve done because of their “disorder” rather than more accurately viewing the diagnosis as simply as a means to classify their problem behavior.
I always have to say this when we talk about PDs, just in case people don’t know. There has been research showing that certain PDs are related to biochemical imbalances and genetic factors, such as those linked to bipolar disorder, social phobia, and schizophrenia. NPD isn’t one of them, but borderline, avoidant, and schizoids/schizotypal PDs have been shown to have such links.
People with schizophrenia can act “normal”, even when they’re going through a full-blown episode. They can walk down the street without looking crazy, hold interesting conversations with actual people, take care of loved ones and themselves, and even hold down jobs! They might be struggling really hard inside, but they’re doing it. But still, there would be some sympathy or understanding for them if they started to hula dance at someone’s funeral. Because you would know that sometimes they just aren’t “right”, and no amount of yelling at them will ever fix it.
People with PDs need to be treated the same way. If you don’t want to get sucked into their madness, then get thee the hell away from them! But just as you shouldn’t humor a schizophrenic by pretending you believe in their delusions, you shouldn’t provoke a person with a PD into doing maladaptive behavior. If you suspect someone has NPD and they’re throwing a tantrum, do not make it worse by calling them an asshole. Be the “normal” person in the room and just get away from them. Narcissists tend to do quite fine all by their lonesome, believe it or not.
Just walk away.
Unfortunately, there are many times when you cannot simply walk away.
And narcissists do not do well “all by their lonesome”. They WILL seek out others.
As an adult, you can walk away. If the NPD’ed person is a parent, walk away from their bad behavior and don’t respond to their calls until they leave a civil voice mail. If they are a SO, break up with them and don’t ever return, no matter how much they try to woo you back. If they are a coworker, don’t associate with them as much as possible. Perhaps it’s easy for me to dispose of annoying people, even if they are related to me, so I might be oversimplifying things. But really, I don’t know what else you can do. When someone is in full-blown narcissistic mode and they aren’t consciously trying to improve themselves, then all you can do is get away from them. Because everything you do is either going to enable them or make things worse.
I exaggerate when I say a NPD’ed person does well on their own. No, some of them commit horrible acts when they don’t get their “supply”, such as self-harm and suicide attempts. But they’re usually dealing with depression in addition to NPD. Hopefully these people aren’t in denial of their illness and they’re receiving treatment. But if you’re just deaing with a run of the mill NPD, a little bit of time in the corner is exactly what they need. It’s a good way of teaching them, “Hey, when I throw a tantrum or say nasty things, people disappear. Wonder why that is?” Maybe it will clue them in that perhaps other people are right–they do need help. What too many people do is placate or try to reason with such people–a damn-near impossible task. That’s why I say just leave them alone. And if they chase after you, calmly tell them you’re going to call the police and charge them with harrassment. And follow through if they don’t listen. It’s what I would do if a fully delusional schizophrenic was harrassing me, so I don’t see any reason to feel guilty about doing it with a person with a PD.
They then might go after other people, but that’s not your problem. That’s their problem. And they too can walk away.
When the person is in a job associated with yours, you cannot simply walk away. It is a fantasy to think anyone can quit their job and get another one at the drop of a hat.
When the person is otherwise in a position of power over you, likewise you often cannot just walk away.
Let’s not over-simplify this walking away nonsense.
** applauding quietly **
I think my mom was more BPD but some of these ring familiarly. When I was doing poorly in some classes in college, mom was all “Why are you doing this to me?” When I was dating a non-Indian it was all “What will the community say about me?”
And when I found out I was adopted, it was “She [your mom] told you that to hurt me.”
One more thing - missed the edit window.
It is easy to say to distance yourself, and that it’s your own choices, but the marks a parent leaves on you never really leave you.
Also, meanoldman, i am absolutely with you on telling people I didn’t get along with my mother. They just don’t get it.
Almost two years ago, my sister was involved in a horrible freak accident. Her friend’s car overheated. They pulled over and popped the hood and the radiator exploded. My sister was right in the line of fire and her arm and face were both covered with serious 3rd degree burns. My mom was in Mesquite, about 400 miles away. I was in CA with my other sister, about 750 miles away. We both got back to Utah as fast as we could and I was sick with worry about my sister.
Mom beat us to the hospital, of course. And when we got there, all I wanted to do was see Jasie and find out what was going on. Instead, I was subjected to Mom. She bitched about how she had to drive over night. She complained about how scared she was. She recounted how she could barely sleep once she got to the hotel because she’d never had a kid in the hospital. She got in Jasie’s face constantly, hovering over her, fussing around her, generally making herself a pest because Jasie was the center of attention, and she resented it. She regaled me with stories of how she had to eat junk food for lunch and how she found a hat for Jasie to wear and how her vacation was interrupted. She talked and talked and talked and every single sentence was “I…”. While her middle daughter sat in a hospital bed with third degree burns all over her face. Her skin literally peeled away from her. The pain was excruciating and continued to haunt her for months. But for mom, the biggest, most important story of the day was how the situation impacted her life.
I’d never loathed her before that day. And she’ll never, ever understand that her behavior was utterly and completely atrocious.
You’re right. I am over-simplifying. But do you have any other suggestion for dealing with it?
I once had to work with a guy who had some authority over me, who I believe had some major narcissistic traits. So I get what you’re saying about not being able to always walk away. But perhaps because of my own PD or just 'cuz, I would actually walk away from him when he was going on about how great he was and how much everyone sucked and so on and so forth. I didn’t do it rudely; I would just quietly excuse myself and then return when he was gone so I could get what I needed from his assistant. He might have thought I was a jerk and/or an idiot too, but I didn’t care. Because I didn’t care about him (and it didn’t help that he had really bad BO to boot!)
I currently have a coworker who has some minor narcissistic “ways of being”. A few weeks ago I mentioned to her that I had low energy because my appetite had been poor for awhile and I was surviving on Ensure and cold cereal (my weight loss was obvious to a number of people…and I don’t have much reserves to begin with). Instead of offering sympathy or saying nothing at all (which would have been fine), this coworker says, “I’ve been eating cereal too! Because I’m too poor to buy real food. And I’m not even losing weight! It’s soooo not fair!” She continued on this long diatribe about how poor she was, how hard she had it in life as a misunderstood fat girl, how she wish she could find a man. Blah blah blah. Meanwhile, I had my head on my desk and I wasn’t acting or looking like a well person at all, but she was so self-absorbed she couldn’t see that (nor the fact that my body language indicated that I wasn’t listening to her). And in that situation, I couldn’t just “walk away” because she was in my office. So I decided not to talk to her for the rest of the day. She may or may not have noticed, but at least I kept my sanity. And now, whenever she starts blabbering on in her self-absorbed way, I ignore her. I just sit there and think about something else, letting her voice turn into white noise. So I “walk away” mentally, not physically. Funny, she never seems to notice.
So I’m sorry for oversimplying things–though I don’t see how telling someone to walk away from someone throwing a physical tantrum is bad advice. It’s just that I don’t understand how folks put up with live-action horror shows, psychiatric-related or not, without running away from them.
Well, that all makes sense, because PDs don’t usually get along with each other anyway.
And that also reminds me of one of my favorite ways to deal with PDs. I had a light bulb moment when I realized the PDs in my life don’t like other PDs. They don’t like each other, have no ability to tolerate each other, avoid each other, or will just “walk away” from each other without a care or backward glance. And they can’t comprehend how the non-PDs keep getting sucked in by the PDs. Because of being around PDs so much, I became conditioned to thinking only of their needs, and I was out of practice of focusing on my own needs, so I needed some tools to help me work on that. That’s when I hit upon the idea of using the PDs as my role models. When I wanted to get rid of them I started acting just like them, mirroring their behavior right back to them. With a little practice I became quite skilled at appearing distracted and completely self-absorbed, just like them. But for me I was just faking it when I act self-absorbed and like I didn’t care. But for them it’s not fake, because they truly don’t care about others.
I got this advice from a friend about how to deal with these people (I dunno how well it works, but you guys can try it and see.)
Instead of just presenting a problem, ask them for their advice. (Of course, don’t try to take their advice, just ask for it.) According to my friend, they will lap it up.
I think if we ignored the bad behavior of attention-whores and stopped giving them the very thing they want, then maybe we’d all be better off. But apparently I’m a heartless, non-empathetic, hateful wildebeast for thinking this. But don’t worry. I’ll go back to my cold, lonely hovel after this post.
NPD’s tend to go into major depression when they don’t get their ego-boosting supply. So I say cut off the supply if it’s sucking you dry. Because I don’t care who it is–your mother, your brother, your boss, WHOEVER–you have to keep yourself sane above all costs. Let them sink into major depression, if that’s the destiny they are meant for. If they really love themselves as much as they act like they do, they will get help. Someone who knows how to handle them, talk to them, break down their defenses, and tell them what to do therapuetically. Someone, if they’re top-notch professional, who will tell them:
“You know, John. I’ve really come to respect you as a patient, and you have shown lots of strength, just coming here and asking for help. And since I respect you so much, I must be completely honest with you. I believe your patterns fit a certain personality style. Have you ever heard of narcissistic personality disorder? Yeah, I know that sounds insulting, but it’s actually a real psychiatric condition which many people have and successfully cope with. And I think with some training, we can deal with it too. How do you feel about that? Do you think it’s something you want to tackle?”
If they are in denial and don’t want to change, then all you can do is take the “walk away when they get on my nerves” approach. I don’t know what else to say. The alternative is “let them work my nerves until I have visions of killing them and myself.” If you decide to go that route, you only have yourself to blame, after awhile.
But I’m guess I’m in the minority for feeling this way.
Nope, Monstro, you’re not alone in that feeling. Walking away is the best thing a healthy person can do with someone who is emotionally abusive. I’ve had my own experience of it with it, and it was a long and winding road toward a sane path.
One thing I haven’t seen brought up here is how our society actually reinforces NPD, through a media culture of glamour and cult of personality. If there weren’t proper examples and real personal interaction for kids, they are left to build their ego out of media constructs, which are, of course, mere shells and cartoons of human interaction. I’m no psych professional, but do wonder if this is a factor in a rise of NPD in the modern media age. Any takers on that aspect?
In some ways I do agree that we’ve been shifting more towards a generally narcissistic society, and that it’s now manifesting in our kids. Maybe we’ve been over-correcting for the previous times that we produced way too many doormats? While that wasn’t good either I sure don’t like the current me-ness craze that seems so encouraged and prevalent these days.
But also keep in mind that a Narcissistic Personality Disorder is very different from plain old narcissism, although they are indeed somewhat related. Also remember that as humans we all need a good dose of narcissism in order to keep a good emotional balance. Yes, narcissism is a normal and healthy part of being a whole human being. But NPD is a very serious psychological dysfunction, which is a whole 'nother can of worms.
Besides we even need those who are further towards the extreme end of the narcissism spectrum. After all, our entertainers are inherently narcissists, and I wouldn’t want them to stop being that way either. I just notice that some very narcissistic people are quite fun and entertaining, and then some others aren’t. Some are the life of the party, and some are miserable and angry and want to punish anyone who isn’t making the narcissist the center of their world. Lots of people display strong narcisissitc traits who aren’t really NPDs. NPDs are on the most extreme end, are very toxic to others, and also perceive reality in a very twisted way. So they get their very own separate classification. Well, that should make them feel special, but it seems they typically don’t like it at all.
Great reply, raindrop, very balanced in the scope of society, and very useful in not giving narcissicm an automatic alarm N word status.
For the poor people who do have a real disorder, as I see it, it comes from some immense damage to the ego, and then a sad attempt to bolster that damaged part at all expense of normal interaction. In trying to be compassionate, I’ve tried to figure out what could have happened that caused that kind of reaction. As said, my impetus is that it’s a parent, who caused a lot of pain from their actions. I’ve learned to walk away from abuse for my own sanity, but, cannot just absolutely leave someone in the dust with their struggles. Compassion always tugs back.
So, in a society that tends to reward narcissism, those that have become damaged, for whatever reason, look to the society outside to guide them. If that model is not what is needed to foster mature development, the damaged folks are really left flailing, and take up what looks like the best model for success. It might look shiny and perfect on the outside, but doesn’t have what human beings need for nurture and growth.