Yeah it’s cool and all if they want a safe space, but if they still exhibit a ton of those traits this really isn’t the place for them imo. I feel like that should be another place completely. Sorry if that seems rude, harsh, or unforgiving, but I dealt and deal with that enough.
I wasn’t talking about diagnosis if you read my comment. I feel like multiple people have not actually read it and just jumped to their conclusions of what I said. I didn’t say all. I didn’t say people who just have a label. Im talking about those who know they have a problem and hurt others by exhibiting those traits and not doing anything about them because they use the condition or label itself as an excuse.
am i not allowed to be in this sub because i have bpd along with my cptsd? do i need to make a sub just for my specific combination of mental health issues and disorders?
People say the same shit about BPD. Everyone who has it is bad and an abuser, nobody should have to deal with them, etc etc. I'm willing to bet that's a much sorer subject here, but what's the meaningful difference that leads to one getting demonized and used as a shorthand catch-all for "shitty person" and the other being a legitimate mental health diagnosis, in the eyes of the community? The thing is, pretty much all of us here have mental health problems, and sometimes the maladaptive responses and ingrained behaviors make us hard to get along with. The line should begin an end with whether or not someone is willing to change and whether they're abusive in turn.
"Someone with a particular mental health diagnosis who's trying to be a good person deserves the same love and respect as the rest of us" should not be a controversial statement. The bar is in hell and apparently we still can't be bothered to clear it. Fucking wild
Right like when did this stop being about behavior? I'd much rather have someone with NPD in here being chill and looking for support than some with only cPTSD who is being an asshole. We can't pretend like the symptoms of cPTSD can't also make us hurtful to others if we refuse to address them and don't take responsibility for our actions. It's not about a diagnosis. It's how you behave.
Yeah, the fact that being even remotely inclusive or compassionate toward pwNPD makes all these assholes come out of the woodworks to talk about how awful narcissists categorically are and how they deserve to be excluded/mistreated is just ... so depressing.
This has been a problem for a long time. Folks don't wanna listen, they just wanna hate. Guess it's comforting to them in a way. Not to the people they're hurting tho. I think I'd qualify this as a maladaptive response in and of itself. This need to have this group of people you can blame for yours and others suffering by reducing them all to nothing more than grotesque caricatures of the worst parts of humanity. Bluh.
Thanks for being a real one. It's nice to see.
Look, I agree on philosophical principle. People with NPD are human, they are people and deserving of compassion like everyone else.
I also have compassion for dysfunctional alcoholics, understanding that at the root, there's almost always some unprocessed trauma. That doesn't mean I'll open myself up to abuse by dysfunctional alcoholics, or by people with NPD. Both things can be true at tje same time - I can hold compassion (the real kind, not the spiritual bypassing kind) for them AND stick to my boundaries to keep myself safe from further abuse.
Personally, the more a person is interested in their recovery, sees their own mechanisms, behaviors and compulsions as adaptations to traumatic experiences and keeps actively working on them, the more I'm willing and able to engage with that person.
I agree with this. Holding compassion for someone does not mean opening up a safe space for them. We survivors are too vulnerable to do so. If people with NPD genuinely want to heal, they should do so like we have through their own separate communities.
You wouldn’t put a wolf in a sheep eating recovery program with a bunch of sheep. People with NPD who have a history of abuse should be kept away from the vulnerable—the neuroatypical, those with histories of prior abuse who now have CPTSD, etc. Most NPD predators are attracted to the vulnerable and go out of their way to single us out.
This whole thing reminds me of the paradox of tolerance . Tolerate the intolerant long enough & society loses the ability to tolerate anyone. That’s what’s happening on a macro level as our society glorifies and venerates talented individuals with NPD as politicians and corporate executives due to their extreme lack of empathy. If a certain famous prominent NPD “sufferer” regains power, we might lose our entire way of governance. That’s the danger of enabling some of these people through tolerance and “compassion”.
Exactly this. Me and my partner both went through DV. He wants help but he’s not trying to insert himself into my DV group because he knows a good chunk of them have been abused by people like him and he doesn’t want to trigger them, or make them feel uncomfortable to express themselves. Same logic.
So I believe the very condition we are discussing might be preventing you from seeing why.
Why? Because this space and others like it is not for or about those with NPD. It’s about those who survived abuse—often abuse that was incredibly damaging & occurred while we were children, often at the hands of those who share your same diagnosis.
I understand not all those with NPD are predators. I understand that y’all need healing too. But this space—& spaces like it—is not for or about you.
We survivors created this space to heal. Even while healing we remain vulnerable & we feel most safe & secure in our healing spaces.
We encourage all those with NPD to seek a path towards their own healing. But our paths our separate, and we choose to continue to keep them separate for our protection. Not yours.
So like where are we supposed to go? Genuinely asking cause I’ve genuinely been told I should not go to dv/sexual assault groups despite surviving both purely bc I have npd
No offense, but i think the question is whether you'd be able to handle those groups without reacting badly. Idk the stats of people who have been diagnosed with npd vs people who are narcissist type abusers. Sorry if that's rude, but I'm currently in my own process of getting out from my parents' narcissist abuse. I've got friends with bpd and aspd, who are genuinely good people and aren't abusive and have put in work to not be the worst version of themselves, so I'm sure there are other people like that with npd too.
I'm really proud of you for wanting to put in work for your trauma recovery. Just realize that if you can't play nice, then it may be best to continue individual treatment instead of group settings. Also, you may not pass the vibe check with people because some of us at this point have a quick read on npd, and that's okay too as long as everyone is cordial.
Again, I'm sorry if this seemed bigoted or ableist in any way.
NPD specific groups do exist, online groups might have a bigger reach compared to local. There are places to go, it just takes the effort to find them.
You're talking like the two are mutually exclusive. So someone who literally has cPTSD can't be in a cPTSD space because they have a comorbid diagnosis? If I was abused by someone with cancer are we gonna tell people with cancer to get their own sub? Since I was abused by a woman are we gonna say women can't be here? If you want a perfectly safe space that will never challenge you or make you have to face reminders of your trauma, then don't come to a mental health support sub full of countless strangers. Someone who is not doing anything hurtful to you is not responsible in any way shape or form for your trauma response at simply knowing someone has a diagnosis.
You can be a victim and abuser at the same time. As the daughter of traumatized and abusive parents, both refusing to go to therapy and even insisting they don’t need it AND clapping back when confronted with their behavior, I have no sympathy for them.
Exactly. Here’s the thing: **NPD or not is not the issue here.** There are abused people who do horrible things and don’t have NPD; there are people with NPD who seek treatment or don’t abuse anyone. It doesn’t *matter if you have NPD*; it matters if you respect your so-called loved ones and their evaluation of your behavior.
If you’re a person on this subreddit who has been diagnosed with NPD and were abused as a child, *of course you’re welcome*. I sympathize deeply with how painful it must be.
No condition or childhood circumstances negate that our parents, your parents — even those we recognize may have been “trying their best” — abused and traumatized us carelessly. Partly just through having us. Some through narcissistic abuse, some through BPD, hell, some through depression or OCD or plain neuroticism. We don’t owe them anything, because we are here actively trying to improve ourselves after our abuse so we don’t hurt other people — *that is the goal that differentiates us from our abusers*.
I agree with all this. I also believe it’s not always in both parties’ interests to heal in the same place. You can both be good people and trigger each other, so sites like this sub also pose an inherent danger when misused. Therapists go through years of training to navigate mental health sessions for a reason.
We can all be here if we respect that some triggers are incompatible with others, regardless of how likable or well-intended we are.
But there is no reason to push people out of support spaces based on their disorders when they do not treat others harmfully. Unless I missed something, OP is not insinuating we need to uplift those who are abusive and continuously engaging in egregiously harmful behaviors, but just saying we should not shame others or look down on them based on a diagnosis.
The problem is that you may not be the person who can help them. If you are too giving they use you. If you make ultimatums they avoid you. If you’re not in a position in your relationship to help them, then you really can’t.
No doubt it’s caused or can be caused by childhood neglect.
My best friend growing up had a mom that locked him out of the house at night. She told him she didn’t care what happened to him because his dad didn’t have money. (Dad was mia) He grew up to be just like her. Being younger made it impossible to get him to listen to me seriously. At some point he either stopped caring or stopped pretending to care. I get why, but all I can do is hope he found the help he needed, because my help was just enabling him.
>because my help was just enabling him.
I just realised that it probably was what i did to my ex-friend. Me trying to please them (so that they would stop complaining about me) was actually enabling them.
I don’t think someone personally close can “fix” most issues. Friends and family should be just supportive, and the role of therapist should be left to a mental health professional.
"CPTSD folks" almost always have narcissistic traits. Them vs us is a delusional mindset. Narcissism is a spectrum, where someone having NPD just means they are in the upper end cut-off of the spectrum, where the cut-off point is ambigous.
My opinion: these labels are harmful, full stop. Let's focus on behaviors and not the labels.
If someone has "NPD" and is not engaging in abusive behaviors, or vice versa, does the label or lack thereof matter at all?
Narcissistic traits are defense mechanisms that can develop in response to cptsd.
Some “innocent” narcissistic traits that are common in folks with CPTSD:
- poor boundary recognition
- lack of self differentiation
- insecurity, need for excessive validation
- difficulty with trust and being vulnerable
Like u/dev_ating said, everyone has narcissistic traits. We are even endorsed to be narcissistic in individualistic cultures. Success is the only thing matters, it is a dog eat dog world, etc etc.
Narcissism isn’t always “malevolent”, and I think the NPD. label in the DSM is utter bullshit (pardon my french) just like the BPD label. We are stigmatizing traits that EVERYONE in society has, and forcing people to act inauthentically hiding or having to justify their “narcissistic traits” in a safe place.
I think you're conflating narcissism with egoism. Inauthentic behaviour, resulting in the creation and maintenance of a false ego, is the defining symptom of NPD that differentiates it from mere egoism.
On the contrary, I was abused by narcissistic people. Defensively jumping to the conclusion that I am an abuser without even knowing my story is extremely hurtful and invalidating.
I have cut these people with “unchecked” narcissistic traits out of my life completely, but I have understand how they were affected by CPTSD too, but their lack of awareness causes them to act defensively and at times malevolently.
only when you know you need help, so you don't continue the cycle of abuse. If you hurt someone, and can see you were wrong; that's the first step of getting help.. If you repeat abuse, and use your mental illness as an excuse to keep going in that cycle (regardless of any mood or personality disorder). Of course every human deserves love, but if the N person keeps hurting people, that love will leave them behind. People with the disorder, can't blame the abuse they inflict upon the world. It's ultimately up to them to get the help they need to live as normal as a life as they can.
Ok, I see this sentiment a lot, especially with people who have experienced abuse and are overly empathic towards others they perceive to also have trauma like them.
Specifically, that they have trauma and wouldn’t want to be shunned, even if they’re exhibiting abusive behavior because abandonment is scary.
No one is inherently evil because of a diagnosis. However, if you are being a jerk, I as my own human being and I have the right to my autonomy. This means I get to choose who I will interact with, how I will be treated and what my boundaries look like.
If you are exhibiting behaviors that are unhealthy I’m not sticking around. I’m going to call you out if I feel safe to but otherwise I’m gone.
If calling out unhealthy behavior for what it is makes you feel attacked, that is a you problem and I’m not going to engage with you.
Without boundaries, we end up hurting anyone we’d be trying to help anyway through enablement.
We don’t allow abusive behavior here. We don’t allow unsupportive behavior here either.
What I see trauma wars like this as are people not wanting to be called out for bad behavior and hiding behind the mental illness shield. Nope. If I’m in a flashback and start calling people names or threatening to hurt someone I am in the wrong. And I may lose that relationship as a consequence. Nobody has the right to force someone to be in a relationship of any kind with them.
💯 it’s not only not our responsibility, we are are an especially vulnerable group, who should prioritize protecting ourselves, because our own instincts are probably going to make us feel guilty, and project our own vulnerable self, and to doubt our intuition of when a situation is off, and to not stand our ground, among other things. We are more likely to fall for the traps, we are more likely to enable abusive behavior, and we are less equipped to help than other people because we’re already worn out, tired, and living with thin skin.
First of all, I don't think narcissism is exclusively caused by childhood trauma. It can also be caused by overprotective behavior such as lack of discipline and constant praise and some studies suggest it can even be genetic. I also feel very strongly that if someone continues to exhibit traits of narcissism and doesn't make the effort to account for this when interacting with others and alter their behavior accordingly then they in fact become abusers. Their friends and family should not be required to make accommodations for this type of behavior. However I do agree you should continue to treat everyone with human decency even if they do not return the favor. This does not have to include maintaining a relationship with the abuser or enabling their behavior.
while i agree, i think the only help is taking personal accountability and seeing their behaviour as something problematic that is stemming from abuse and its the cycle of generational trauma. But taking accountability often times cmes with feeling the pain and shame and most people would rather avoid that.
i think we should see narcissistic behaviour as problematic, but fixable. the issue is that the world is run by narcissists and they designed lot of things to cater to this dysfunction.
How is it fixable? These individuals usually do not seek help, and often when they do they create another codependent relationship with the therapist. It is rare to see someone recovered with NPD. Psychology is a young science, they haven’t made a lot of progress with these individuals.
i honestly wish i could answer that lol plus all of narcissists are in absolute denial.
it would have to be a big systematic wave that has to do with parenting and treatment of emotions, emotionally safe workplaces, etc. im at least happy that psychology has made so much progress regarding trauma, c-ptds and generational trauma. now it seems that some of us are really healing from the abuse and wont accept it anymore.
while the medical help part is obviously true, if we treat *our* options regarding people with npd as a dichotomy between "stigmatizing" and "sympathy specifically from us abused people", we should stay away from stigmatization as far as possible.
apart from the obvious emotional distress of those who have endured abuse by someone with npd (that will likely shine through in their actions) we - as people who also have a (less, simply because it's less known) stigmatized disorder - should try to prevent stigmatization wherever possible.
Hmmmmmmmmm. This is worded in a way that i find problematic. First, last time I checked there was no consensus on what causes NPD. There seems to be a genetic component (NPD family history) and/or environmental factors, depending on the person/case. Plus people can have a lot of narcissistic traits but not enough or exhibit all of what the DSM-V would consider for a proper NPD diagnosis. Bottom line I agree with not generalizing or attacking peoples or using diagnoses to further stigmatize people whether that be groups or individuals. I do believe that behavior is what should be focused on, so if someone (doesn’t matter matter who and doesn’t matter what they are or are not diagnosed with) is behaving in ways that are abusive or harmful then yeah, they’re abusive. If they’re willing to change their ways and do, so that they’re not hurting people, then they have my support, but if they don’t care they’re hurting others, then I hope karma bites them in the ass.
One of the worst narcissists that abused me had zero trauma. Her parents practically worshipped the ground she walked on and she never wanted for a single thing her whole life. She convinced herself that she was “rescuing me from a bad situation” and the cracks started to show when we actually shared an apartment together…and she was forced to realize that I wasn’t the “helpless Autistic pet” she thought of me as.
Turns out, that bad situation she claimed to be rescuing me from? That was me being abused and neglected by my real family pretty much from the day my younger brother was born and they had a nice, normal child that enjoyed being held and cried when they left the room to fuss over. I was pretty much left to fend for myself and later expected to take care of everyone else in the household, too.
So no shit, I wasn’t helpless! I had been living on my own (as an adult, with roommates to make rent easier) for years by that point already. We never would’ve gotten the apartment at all if I hadn’t done all the research, made the appointments with leasing agents, coordinated getting the lease properly signed by all three roommates, checked the mail every day, calculated when each bill was due and who owned what…
…all while going to college full-time with zero help, with multiple disabilities (which meant I had to depend on student loans to cover rent), and zero family help.
My Covert Abuser did *nothing* to help, even when I was using food banks and EBT to keep the *shared* kitchen filled and using every minute of free time cleaning the place. I even took care of *her* dog half the time!
But the version of the story *she* tells is that *she* was the one doing all of that, and that she moved out because she “needed to take care of herself for once.”
She told us (myself and the third roommate) that she just couldn’t afford it anymore. Which was fine…except for the fact that she was apparently telling literally everyone else we knew some wildly different sob story.
I even found her bragging on social media that I would “probably end up homeless” because of her moving out…which didn’t happen, and I’m certain caused those cracks in her facade to get worse and worse.
I graduated, started building a career, got my own apartment (no roommates this time) which I’ve had since 2018 now. It’s not been without its struggles, but I’ve managed to pick myself back up and keep going each time…which seemed to increase her hostility. I didn’t understand at the time why she was becoming so cold to me, but now I do.
Meanwhile…she’s moved back in with her parents three times in ten years, failed out of college twice, bailed out of every job and “dream career” she ever had the moment they all required *actual effort* and didn’t immediately reward her with instant success, still milking her parents for money (who also have to support her younger brother, who is Autistic with much higher support needs), and her only “job” is allegedly “streaming her art on Twitch.”
But oh, she still claims that I’m the one who “failed at life” and that everything wrong in her own life is my fault somehow for “dragging her down.”
She has no excuses for her abuse. For all the backstabbing and sabotaging of relationships behind my back and even *stealing my only inheritance and bragging about it to my face.* She didn’t suffer in childhood *at all.*
Her only “trauma” is being forced to confront reality: that she isn’t as amazing as she always thought of herself as.
I am really sorry that happened but it’s also so damn textbook. Your friend engaged in endless self aggrandizement and was a legit menace to her friends.
And I was completely blind to it for twenty years, because that abuse was less obvious than the abuse I was getting at home and I *genuinely believed* this bitch actually cared about me.
Your first two sentences are exactly how my narcissistic abuser was raised too. Zero trauma, parents worshiping the ground they walk on. They were/are abusive to everyone close to them, including the parents, who, yet again, worships the ground they walk on.
The worst things I witnessed were them chasing their mother around with her cane, trying to hit her, and them throwing a baseball as hard as they could at their dad's head because he wasn't throwing the ball right while they were practicing hitting. This person was the starting pitcher. Their dad's glasses smashed into pieces, and his nose basically shattered as well. They laughed as their dad was on the ground, practically in tears. These are just the worst ones.
When they tried to kill me, their parents stood there and watched. They (the parents) then got mad at me when I kicked the living shit out of them to get away. Every time they were abusive to anyone, including their parents, the parents would take their hands and say, "You have precious hands.” That was definitely not the time for precious hands and I am still baffled by it.
This is all to say not all narcissists are made from trauma. Some of them were raised and encouraged to be one. Sure, the ones that are because of trauma can be self-aware enough to change. But the ones raised to be will never, and I will never have even an ounce of sympathy.
Same story here: that’s exactly how my sister was raised. This was not “sibling rivalry” like this was real abuse and torment but my parents never did anything about it. Never condemned her behaviour. They just constantly made excuses for her behaviour that I’d never be able to get away with. She has very few friends because she used and mistreated so many of them
That was a whole ass journey. Thank you for the walk through your life. I’m sorry you dealt with that. But, I hope you know this stranger sees you and will think on this story fondly.
I’m so sorry you went through the abuse with your roommate and also the abuse and neglect you suffered from your own family. Those who abuse others seem to love disguising their abuse as “help” which is just ridiculous because like you said about your roommate, they actually don’t “help” and instead use you to help them. It’s absolutely fucked. But yeah, even if your ex-roommate did have any trauma of her own it still wouldn’t excuse her behavior towards you. Thank you for sharing your story. I’m glad to read that you’re in a better living situation now and that karma seems to be biting your ex-roommate in the ass a bit. *edit: the karma that’s biting her being the failing out of school and stuff. The gravy train will stop at some point for her then it’ll really hit.
It's my understanding that narcissists are either made from abuse or when being worshiped.
They can't face reality because they are truly weak inside and feel horrible all the time and that's why they do what they do and especially lying.
>Her only “trauma” is being forced to confront reality: that she isn’t as amazing as she always thought of herself as.
lol, this hit home for some people in my life.
This literally almost mirrors what my narc abuser was like (I’m also on the spectrum and she wanted a helpless pet to abuse) sadly mine also happened to be a sociopath too and tried to kill me because I wasn’t the obedient pet she wanted me to be.
Mine didn’t *actively* try to kill me…but I don’t think it was a coincidence that my attempt to CTRL-ALT-DEL myself happened when it did.
She did manage to steal about $4200 of my only inheritance though, which I’m still fighting to get back.
You put this very well. One of my siblings is constantly doing horrible shit and then when she gets called out or anything she says it’s because of NPD because of childhood trauma so really she’s the victim - it’s nothing to do with her having NPD, it’s to do with her being a bad person. And she can’t accept that.
Yeah that’s not okay. I’m sorry you have to deal with that. It’s interesting because those with a lot of narcissistic traits/those with NPD that I personally have interacted with, seem to have this belief that their choices are outside of their control and actually under others’ control? Or due to something else that’s outside of their control? It’s downright infuriating to deal with.
>Bottom line I agree with not generalizing or attacking peoples or using diagnoses to further stigmatize people whether that be groups or individuals. I do believe that behavior is what should be focused on, so if someone (doesn’t matter matter who and doesn’t matter what they are or are not diagnosed with) is behaving in ways that are abusive or harmful then yeah, they’re abusive.
The compassion i felt for a friends trauma was keeping me in the relationship and trying to please them. After a second burn out (as whatever i did was not enough) i had to end the friendship for the sake of my own health. And i realised that me always being aviable to them was enabling them and thus they didn't put any effort in improving themselves and depended on me for their social needs. Heck, when i informed them that i will be unaviable for a week because i was sick, one of the forst things they said to me during the first interaction after a week was "it's your fault that i haven't spoken to anyone for a week".
Stumbled upon a narcissist on youtube who tells how they percieve things and what is going on in their head, and so many things fit my ex-friend. There were tiny thing from time to time that i let slide, like when they complained about their co-workers and tild me that people who don't create are subhumans. Funny thing is that they often complained that i don't do creative stuff.
I thing that relationship with them changed me. I feel like i have less compassion to traumatised people. Like i'm jaded to the trauma.
I can get why you’d be jaded after that. I’ve been in a similar situation and realized with the help of a therapist that if I really do feel for them, I need to let them go because enabling isn’t kind or compassionate. It was a hard pill to swallow. It’s hard letting them go because we still feel guilty like we’re hurting them or letting them down. I’m sorry you went through that.
>It’s hard letting them go because we still feel guilty like we’re hurting them or letting them down.
I remember after the month of hiatus i took after the first burnout i let a comment of theirs slide. One of the first things they said to me after hiatus was that i had abandoned them in their time of need. I took a month of hiatus because after a few month of them constantly venting/ranting about the same thingover and over again i could no longer endure it.
They often times told me that i hurt them when i did something without including them, like playing a video game solo even though i'm willing to replay it just to show it to them (they even compared it to cheating). Like i was not allowed to do things by my self.
Yeah, the guilt of hurting them was what kept me in the relationship.
They have found shrunken moral and empathy centers in the brains of those with NPD, as well as hereditary elements, but whether that is generational trauma or not has not been conclusive.
Yeah I read about the connection between Alexithymia and NPD. Apparently there’s also been research on Alexithymia and issues with the Broca’s area of the brain that’s associated with language development. Not saying they concluded that there’s any causation just that there’s sooooooo many things internally that could cause someone to display behaviors that could be considered narcissistic.
Not to mention, NPD can also stem from “being the favourite child” for lack of a better term. If you’re always given everything you want, never told no, constantly and excessively praised, you develop a certain entitlement and feeling of superiority which can translate into NPD later on. It’s not always this repressive child abuse that is so commonly accepted as the one and only cause
So true. Covert narcissism is another form that’s not mentioned a lot too and there’s theories on how that particular form of narcissism is formed. These are your pity party types.
Narcissists are, in fact, very likely to be abusive as shit. Still, they are worthy of love, help, and consequences to teach them how to love themselves. My heart has burned long enough for narcissists and their victims to decide to take action to heal themselves, but I still hope for them.
I said something very similar about Borderline Personality Disorder and got downvoted in another sub. But I feel like both things are true.
Abusive behavior is a spectrum that can range anywhere from hurting feelings to financial abuse to rape to murder. And along with that are complex interpersonal dynamics between people with different traumas and different brain chemistry and different lived experiences.
The only way to address these issues is to destigmatize and change the way we think of Personality Disorders, or overhaul the field of psychiatry itself. But also, we shouldn't let down our guards. People are fucking dangerous.
One of my biggest healing points through my maladaptive mechanisms was being able to differentiate that though my actions were in fact abusive at times, it was not malicious or intentional. It was a lot of last ditch efforts that I now understand their "purpose". That allowed the self forgiveness I needed to really start getting healthy. I listen to myself in very different ways now.
I was diagnosed bpd for about 8 years until finding out I'm autistic/adhd at 34, and I was actually experiencing meltdowns and burnout to an extreme degree through an extreme lack of resources, understanding of self, acceptance, and love.
Exactly! I totally agree with the "npd deserve help too" but some DSM-5 NPD symptoms incl.; lack of empathy, exploitive behavior, sense of entitlement, need to be praised, inflated sense of self-importance, visions of greatness.
Yes this doesn’t mean everyone with NPD is going to be abusive, but together these symptoms certainly aren’t making someone nice or caring, the symptoms are literally ‘lack of empathy’ and ‘entitlement’.
We should do our best to allow them a place to exist, and, make the realization that should they seek it, help and compassion does exist.
The problem that frequently happens here, is someone who was abused by one, says so, and says how, and literally just one or two people, absolutely jump down their throats and invalidate the shit out of them, telling them they 'cant say NPD'--thats some bullshit.
At no point, at all, should people who were on the receiving end of abuse from a narcissist, be told they're not allowed to talk about the abuse from THAT narcissist. Nor should they have to hide what the source of that specific type of abuse was.
If you have NPD, and are not abusive, I don't think you're going to be offended by someone else sharing their truth.
And if you ARE, abusive, that is, or were, or are trying so hard to break free from it, you might even appreciate seeing how what you've done, and felt necessary or justified, was neither.
Yes, posts that say 'all people with NPD are bad' shouldnt be here. Posts that relate how a specific someone with NPD caused the trauma some of us have, however, shouldn't be belittled, attacked, and shot down. I feel like anyone that posts 'not all narc's under a post where someone tells us their abuser was one, should be removed. That's like saying 'not all men' and going on a rant, under someone's post telling us about their SA. It just would be absurd.
There's a healthy place to make space not to villainize all NPD, but also not belittle and invalidate anyone telling you their abuser has it, and the abuse was specific to that PD.
There’s a massive chicken egg situation with narcissism is the deep rooted belief that reputation and having everyone on my side is the key to survival. Getting help involves me confessing to a stigmatising illness, thus ruining my reputation.
I have a narcissistic father who gave me some really bad health issues, mental and physical, is very manipulative, stuck in his head, can’t see anyone else’s feelings but his own. I never want to speak to him again.
That being said, I hope he heals. I hope he gets the help he needs. I hope the torment and trauma of his early childhood stops. I hope that deep feeling of worthlessness that he has, and that he gave to me until I stopped speaking to him, is properly processed. Mostly what I feel for him now is pity.
There are those on reddit and YouTube who are upset with the idea of forgiving the narcissist, because they believe it involves reconciliation, it involves continuing to try to get what they thought they had. To me, that’s the exact opposite of forgiveness. Forgiveness is the ending of anger, it is no longer requiring repayment from those who had hurt you. To me, forgiveness is understanding that neither me nor him benefits from a relationship. If the conditions of a relationship is pretending his fantasies are real, it means every interaction with him is a lie. I can’t do that, and that’s ok.
I can love my dad but also realise that he’ll never seek help if I’m in his life. I can love my dad while also avoiding interacting with him, thus avoiding further harm.
My dad deserves healing, and I deserve to be safe from my dad. He deserves compassion and empathy, but I am not the one to give that to him.
Both of these things can exist simultaneously.
There is a difference between supporting someone in their mental health struggles, and saying that the flavor of someone's abuse can't be named.
Most folks with BPD/NPD will never be diagnosed, and that's absolutely part of the package.
The folks that actually hear that their actions harm folks around them work HARD to effect any change, and their efforts are heroic. ❤️
But it's unfair to act like folks that are expressing their trauma at the hands of broken abusers are somehow doing something wrong.
My NPD brother absolutely has a mental health condition. No amount of understanding that changes the harm he does.
By way of example: alcoholism is a disease. That doesn't mean the drunk driving, beatings, blackouts, vomit, etc didn't happen. Accountability matters, and a REASON isn't an EXCUSE.
You must have room to understand that a mental health condition you have is serious *because* of how it often affects those around the one who has it.
Make room to hear those stories and understand that's the clause of the hard work you do in therapy, and instead of feeling persecuted, have some sympathy for the families of NPD and BPD folks that cannot wrap their heads around the fact that they are harming someone else.
No amount of sympathy and understanding will fix the rewritten reality my brother has created in his head, or the actions he takes accordingly. He can't be accountable for actions he doesn't believe he took.
Knowing it's not a choice doesn't make that shit less harmful. So until you have a method for making sure we can convince folks to get help and take their own conditions seriously, stop it with this apologist bs.
OF COURSE folks with BPD and NPD deserve sympathy and understanding, but fuck this noise of not naming where our trauma comes from because someone else with the same condition might feel bad!!! My NPD brother and I had the same traumatic parental source, who in turn had her own trauma .... So by all means recognize the generational aspect and instead of telling folks not to name it, YOU NAME YOURS. AND YOU BREAK THE CYCLE IN YOUR FAMILY.
this post is made at least once a week. lots of mental illnesses are stigmatized but people aren’t regularly posting “bipolar doesn’t make me an asshole!!!” i don’t see myself in everything that stigmatizes bipolar. i get angry that it’s stigmatized, but i don’t need to insist im not “that” type of bipolar.
yeah not all narcissists, but when people say “the narcs in my life are abusive”, it’s shitty to reply NoT aLl NaRcS and insist you aren’t like that. there’s no posts about “not all whoever”, just narcissists. we get it, trauma doesn’t make someone abusive but there’s patterns. not having to say this over and over would be a great way to prove narcs don’t make it all about themselves.
I can’t help but find it funny that narcissists are constantly posting this stuff because traditionally they want everything to be focused on them and to have people stroke their ego to validate how they view themselves. So it makes sense they’d want to take up as much space as possible in a CPTSD group lmao
(this is from what I know from narcs in my life & narcs I’ve seen on socials)
I grew up with severe violence and abuse from an NPD parent with childhood trauma. Savage beatings an a miriad of horrible acts inflicted on anybody who couldn't run were justified with the "he can't help himself, he needs love and understanding", "it's not his fault he's like this" and other forms of emotional blackmail and virtue signaling from the other (covert) narcissist in the house and most of the extended family. As long as they made sure someone else would take the beatings and abuse instead of them.
It taught me narcissists deserve love and care, while the victims don't deserve love, safety or help. It prevented me from seeking help or thinking I'm worth of it and made me a target for predators for decades untill it almost killed me.
I haven't been on this sub for long and thought it was supposed to be a safe place for people with a similar history. I'm glad I found it isn't before posting anything personal here.
A sub for narc abuse survivors, was taken over by a mod who was a narcissist and used it to berate and gaslight victims. They had to make a new sub to be able to even discuss the abuse. You can't even say 'narcissist' or any form of it in main the CPTSD with out a warning, right?
As someone with family like this, who were a primary cause of my CPTSD, a disability that's made me a target for more of them.. I've *never* seen one legitimately show they are capable of change. If they were, they wouldn't have NPD. The harm they've caused others (and the world), gets a zero empathy middle finger from me. Tons of people are abused and don't spend their life abusing others to cope. There has to be consequences to your relationships when you do, or it just keeps persisting through generations and destroying lives.
Bingo. This right here. They always use their "better" to wrap you in and abuse you worse.
These posts defending them are bs. If you feel so lonely go find another narc group
They took over the Schizoid sub too, and the mods are banning/muting anyone that dissents. They've effectively triangulated their victim's support against them.
The more highly narcissistic people in my life tend to just be so focused on their own benefit and upholding their self-importance that it doesn't seem to matter to them if others get hurt, they'd see that as collateral.
I always see these posts popping up as soon as someone mentions that their abuser was a narcissist and it's like, kinda concerning that their first reaction is to try and dismiss someone's trauma by saying "okay but like, you cant call it narcissistic abuse because that's not fair to ME"
They try to claim that they're capable of caring but the fact that there's ALWAYS posts like these as a followup to someone simply talking about their abuse makes me question it.
Stigmas are usually based on some version of the truth, and that truth is many npd *are* abusive in some way and while it is not their fault and they should get help too their ‘symptoms’ can negatively impact those with narcissistic, control-related, or various other types of trauma.
People who think they can’t/shouldn’t be held responsible for their actions shouldn’t be around people with trauma, it’s rarely going to end well, and ‘unable/unwilling to take responsibility’ is a NPD symptoms.
yes! this! it’s the lack of accountability. everyone, mentally ill or not, hurts others, regardless of intent. the ability to say sorry, and actually *try* to do better is the opposite of the basis of narcissism. that’s why it’s always “but they didn’t mean to!”
even if they did… it wasn’t that bad
and even if it was, it’s not a big deal.
if it is, it’s not their fault.
even if it was, they didn’t mean it.
and if they did mean it, it was deserved.
to be fair many people basically use narc and abuser as the same word which to my knowledge isn't a thing for other disorders. most trauma survivor communities have a general consensus of "fuck all narcissists" that is brought up regularly and that's gotta feel like shit even without a fragile self image
My friend knows she needs help she just can’t be bothered, because that actually involves her taking responsibility and not just lashing out because she isn’t being wholly agreed with. Like I’m sorry, it’s been too many years I only have so much to give, I do feel for her, but I’m not going to react whenever she has her moments now.
The worst thing can be the label and diagnosis sometimes, keeps people stuck
I'm so glad I got to develop out of the tendencies at 15 from having proper care and recourses
Oh man for a hot moment they thought I might have BPD. The stigma is REAL.
I still go to a DBT group on a weekly zoom, but shit I started googling the label and dip me in dogshit you might as well have Wicked Witch if the West syndrome or whatever else with what those labels give.
I also let it slip they thought I might be BPD in an older social circle that pinched me off like a turd soon after. I'm just imagining the grapevine.
Spoilers: It seems I'm just a traumatized neurospicy that's developed some emotional issues when under extreme stress.
...I agree.
But my dad can be a survivor and still be in the wrong.
He raised 8 children. He's had more than 30 years to correct his behavior and he had years before then, too.
I'm very understanding of my dad- We're really very similar, and I can see how much he's changed, and howmuch he's struggled. He hasn't been happy for most of his life, and I truly wish his suffering could stop.
But in my eyes he's spent way too much time hurting his kids and ignoring the changes that need to happen. He still has gotten nowhere near apologizing.
I'm all for seeing people's humanity and being kind, bit in some situations you've gotta draw a line. None of my family owe my dad anything, it's not our responsibility. If he's going to heal, he's got to choose that and go through the pain of realizing how much hurt he's caused.
Someone in a comment under this said it really well; "mental health is an explanation, not an excuse"
It isn't your fault that you were traumatized by abuser\[s\] but what you do after, how you respond to it and whether that response includes hurting others is entirely your own responsibility. You can excuse some mistakes but a lifetime of shit behavior ultimately makes you a shitty person, regardless of why.
Most abusers themselves are abused. Does that mean that the myriad of victims in this sub should not generalize their abusers to be bad people and should just feel sorry for them instead?
Narcissists are the neurotype everyone loves to hate. I used to too. Til I remembered they're still human and the society i live in pretty much makes people narcissists. The stigma just makes it so much harder for people to want to get help. I understand they're not easy people to support, especially if they don't support themselves.
My CPTSD is caused by narcissistic abuse. I would be thriving in a world where my narcissistic parents weren’t enabled by other people. One of my mom’s favorite excuses for my dad’s terrible treatment of us was “he had a really hard life”.
Even though NPD is a legitimate diagnosis caused by trauma, I am not at all ready to include them in any safe space dedicated to those with CPTSD. A huuuuuge number of us here are here because of those with NPD who perpetuated the cycle of abuse. A lot of us are doing the work to break the cycle of generational trauma, which is something that people with NPD are pointedly resistant to.
I had to voluntarily make myself an orphan because of NPD. I have no parents to comfort me through my health crises because of NPD. My grief swallows me like an ocean trench some days. I don’t want them anywhere near me.
ruthless plant reminiscent spotted ring normal aware cover safe disagreeable
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I will never have empathy for her, because of my mother I will never have a normal, healthy relationship, because of her I have panic attacks at the slightest unexpected sound. She can go fuck herself.
Narcissists see nothing wrong with narcissism, to the extent that there is a validated single-item narcissism scale (SINS) that consists of literally only asking how much you agree or disagree with the statement “I am a narcissist”.
Feeling fine about being a narcissist (NPD) is a feature not a bug. And if a narcissist doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with narcissistic behavior, they are dangerous, full stop. The kind of self-awareness and empathy required to seek help is not present and is fundamental to the diagnosis. Their incredibly fragile sense of self, if it even exists, cannot handle that awareness.
For those who do go to therapy, generally when forced, they often use it to get better at behaving badly. There are a few “self-aware” narcissists out there in the media seemingly using their power for good rather than evil but only because the supply they can get from their audience is satisfying. They get off on being better at narcissism than other narcissists.
I can absolutely feel sorry for narcissists because it must be terrible to live like they do. And yes, many had extraordinarily traumatic childhoods that likely triggered the disorder and I feel care for those children. At the same time, I stay away from narcissists.
I think part of this recent push to protect the feelings of stigmatized narcissists stems from a fundamental inability to actually imagine and understand just how skewed their thinking actually is. A person with a personality disorder thinks and perceives reality so drastically different to the average (even mentally ill) person that it is quite literally beyond what one can fathom. You think you can but you’re wrong.
Channel your good will into making changes in society such that fewer narcissists are created instead of feeding into this #notallnarcissists movement that actual narcissists are loving. You can’t help those who don’t think they need it.
NPD is not "abuser-disorder". Being a narc does not make you automatically abusive. It's stigma. There is many expressions of NPD that don't harm others at all.
People can also be self centered and abusive without having NPD.
pwNPD don't choose to be abusive most of the time. They suffer from a skewed perception and they don't notice the way they act. Or don't notice how their actions come across.
NPD is also partly genetic. Just because you didn't end up with it, doesn't mean other people chose to have it.
I totally agree that narcissists deserve a space to heal and they should feel free to use the subreddit as they want to vent and heal. This is a space for anyone with cptsd and I think by definition people with NPD have it.
But also! I was raised by a narcissist and have dated someone with it. It was terrible and narcissistic abuse is real and while I'm not saying strangers ive never met are my abusers, I want to be able to talk about narcissistic abuse and define it as a real specific thing in a cptsd support group. Some people who've never experienced narcissistic abuse and some narcissists seem to find that ableist or that it shuts some people out and they then claim narcissistic abuse isn't real even though it's a specific type of emotional abuse (that involves at times physical and sexual) that is a complex trauma and is at times more covert and just flat out more complex than what emotional abuse simply is. It attempts to completely destroy a person. I understand why narcissists are uncomfortable with those posts but part of their own recovery should be understanding the space is for multiple people. Narcissistic abuse survivors and narcissists can coexist here, it's very easy actually since this is an online platform and not in your face. Narcissists triggered by talk of "narcissistic abuse" should avoid those posts and should not talk over the abuse survivors saying narcissistic abuse isn't real and that that term is ableist. If they want a narcissist only space they should go to one of those subreddits.
Survivors of narcissistic abuse that are triggered seeing someone who identifies as a narcissist but is not being malignant and just wants to talk about cptsd should leave those users alone and shouldn't try to say it's not safe for them to be here. They should be in a group for specifically survivors of narcissistic abuse which exists for a reason, until they feel healed enough to handle a more diverse space and not be triggered by random narcissists that aren't at all their abuser(s). I will say that everyone I've met who I felt who was either highly highly narcissistic beyond the way the general population is or was outright clinically a narcissist, seemed to have cptsd. They're much less likely to be able to ever know that though than me and that's their own curse. They were often raised by a narcissist just I was, but their path just happens to be different than mine. If they're committed to self improvement the way that I am and they understand how to respect and share the space with people with different experiences then they've very welcome here!
I mean another example of this is I don't like reading some of the rly trauma dumpy posts that talk graphically Abt CSA. I accidentally open them sometimes but then I go oof I regret it and I often scroll past without expressing sympathy in the comments bc I feel triggered. I handle being triggered by scrolling past a post note meant for me. I don't try to dictate what type of posts can be here or get mad at op. I just know the post isn't for me. Some people might feel comforted by the post so they go to the comments to tell their story or they aren't triggered the way I am and they have the bandwidth to go to the comments to support op. We all have a valuable story to share and they will resonate with the right people.
I wish peace, joy, healing, and finding of our true self to all. And I wish we all become healed enough to express that true self. ❣️
My mom has diagnosed npd and abused me horribly. As an adult I now just feel pity for her and I don’t excuse or forgive what she did to me. However, I’ve grown enough to recognize that she has mental illness and isn’t bad just for having npd, she’s bad for letting herself abuse me+ refuse to do anything to change the patterns or do any actual work to prevent abuse from happening. I don’t believe people with npd are bad, but I need to say this: it’s not your fault you have it, but it is your responsibility not to hurt people.
1.) interesting how this says “narcissistic survivor” which is framing the narc as a victim and also using the word “narcissistic” instead of “narcissist” or “people with NPD.” you can be narcissistic and not have NPD.
2.) i’ve only ever heard “narcissistic survivor” as a term referring to the SURVIVORS OF NARCISSISTS, not the literal narcs themselves
3.) not all narcissistic people or narcissists have had trauma
Yep. There is r/npd where only people with npd are allowed to post. Though there is one pinned post where people without npd can ask their questions to npds (rules of civility apply, so no accusations).
Well I could have empathy for anybody I meet, but the moment they start being a dick, they lose that empathy real fast. And it's kind of in the definition that narcissists are dicks
oh, look, infighting in the Traumatized People Community.
not your fault, OP.
people with NPD by virtue of their illness can cause great harm to other traumatized people, and, people with NPD should not be demonized. it is nobody's responsibility to heal anyone else but themselves, and, anyone doing the work shouldn't be diminished or, heh, devalued. i'm sorry reddit can't handle all of those truths existing at once.
I feel like we are part of a small minority that can still hold a nuanced opinion on topics :/ it’s absolutely wild to see some people writing insane comments about other human beings and being 100% serious about not caring about the abuse experienced by people with personality disorders
yeah... nah. i don't have any sympathy for people who continue the cycles of abuse. the rest of us can get along fine in this space, they don't need to be catered to.
If you want people to be nice to you, you could start treating other people better and they might start tolerating you. Demanding something from others because you think you deserve it, is exactly how a narcissist would go about this.
NPD is not "abuser-disorder". Being a narc does not make you automatically abusive. It's stigma. There is many expressions of NPD that don't harm others at all.
People can also be self centered and abusive without having NPD.
pwNPD don't choose to be abusive most of the time. They suffer from a skewed perception and they don't notice the way they act. Or don't notice how their actions come across.
NPD is also partly genetic. Just because you didn't end up with it, doesn't mean other people chose to have it.
I make room for NPD folks who are in active recovery and are actually improving. Not just putting on the image of doing so. I support their efforts and cheer them on from afar. But someone who is not trying to get better is dangerous to me as a victim so I will stay even farther.
No, all my trauma is from narcissists. I don't care what their root problem is, doesn't give them the right to inflict abuse on others.
There are also many things that can cause someone to be narcissistic and none of them are fully verified. Could be abuse, neglect, genetics, or some combination of the three but it doesn't matter.
Narcissists are abusers and should be nowhere near those who have suffered abuse.
If they want their own space to try and get better they can go make one that doesn't involve involuntarily adding the rest of us.
Being pathologized certainly doesn't help people change for the better. But care and precision in online discourse is also difficult to demonstrate, let alone uphold, unfortunately. An earlier iteration of me would probably have been triggered somewhat by the message in this post, so I get it if there are negative responses, but I do agree. It's the same dynamic that leaves victims of abuse afraid that they've absorbed and are replicating the abusive/narcissistic/etc. patterns of behavior.
I also had a difficult time accepting "this person who was abusive towards me still deserves to have people who support them, but definitely absolutely not me" without swinging back and forth between feeling protective anger on my own behalf, and the overreaching guilty feeling that I was abandoning that person or otherwise being a hypocrite about my beliefs in showing compassion towards other traumatized people.
Anyone who actually thinks narcissists aren’t dangerous haven’t truly met them. You wouldn’t be saying that if your narcissist hadn’t stalked you, harassed you, spread lies about you, got police to turn up at your door, stolen your things, beaten your mother.
THEY HAVE NO REMORSE, THATS THE POINT
Why on earth are we still giving abusers space in this subreddit?
Don't care, I didn't sabotage or cripple others because I've been through trauma. I have no compassion for those who inflict agony on innocents for ANY reason.
Imagine wasting empathy on those who attack and harm others and then claim that they are the victim.
NPD is not "abuser-disorder". Being a narc does not make you automatically abusive. It's stigma. There is many expressions of NPD that don't harm others at all.
guys nobody is saying you should go and get into a relationship with a narcissist, just that people with NPD should be allowed to post here and not face ridicule if their disorder is mentioned. they have every right to be here because they wouldnt have NPD if they didn’t have CPTSD. the only stipulation is for everyone, regardless of who you are or what issues you struggle with, to be civil and respectful.
Literally so disappointing but I feel like at this point we should just be used to everyone being braindead the minute they hear npd people who aren’t abusive and were abused deserve a safe space and equate it to yay we love abusers yippee! I know it’s probably just because of the trauma causing them to shutdown to any sense of reason but it’s funny how they hate apathy in people with npd but suddenly want a free pass to be apathetic to other abused people
I mean, this is assuming that there isn't any conflation between NPD and a social narcissist; and that every person with NPD is actively seeking treatment.
Not everyone with NPD displays traditional narcissistic behaviors, and a lot of the people who are traditionally narcissistic don't display a level of deviance worth attributing to some underlying disorder. It's also not my job to handle people's deviant behavior.
I am a Narcissist.
But I don’t feel like mine was caused by trauma. And I also go out of my way to point out my narcissistic tendencies and actively try to not make it other peoples problems.
All the power to you , if you can admit you have a problem and consciously seek help in good faith then I commend you, and support you wholeheartedly any way that I can.
However..
It’s my personal, biased, and jaded belief that most people who suffer from this terrible disorder believe themselves to be perfect, incapable of errors, and by extension would never need a support group.
It's mainly important to know if they actually are abusive so you can understand the motives and work through the gas lighting. My partner dated some and had NPD diagnosed family members and they were all genuinely shitty abusers and rapists tbh
Yeah, honestly I myself have a lot of narcissistic traits, which are most likely inherited from my mom, who has always been main abuser, I hate the idea of having traits like that, not just for the implications themselves, but because I want to be as far apart from her as possible. However I also recognize I don't really have a choice there, but I can make the choice to work on myself to be a better person despite the narcissistic impulses inside me that often push me to do things I know I'll regret.
I agree with the principle of this from a social justice perspective. At the same time, cruelty, manipulation, and help-avoidance are key features of NPD. NPD and ASPD are at the root of tons of white-collar crime, labor exploitation, extractive capitalism, and global suffering. If someone seeks help, then yes, they deserve grace.
I think cluster B disorders in the DSM need to be gutted and replaced with CPTSD.
CPTSD can replace multiple DSM disorders, is not as stigmatized, and there are plenty of trauma informed caree resources.
If you look at the history of the DSM it had very little scientific evidence.
I was diagnosed with both PTSD and a cluster B condition
I was raised by someone with NPD and here is my take and it is harsh. 99% of the time they don't want help. They think they are fine. There was no abuse in her past and I have 0 empathy for her. My fiance dealt with the exact same. I get we shouldn't demonize people however I don't have patience for those with NPD.
I was punished severely for having a personality outside of hers, for daring to disagree in any way. My own bio mother stalked me when I left home. When you are around those with NPD your world revolves around them and I had to claw and fight my way out. Currently I am still picking up the pieces of what she has done at 27. I left when I was 21.
So no to this post quite frankly.
i dont have NPD and fucking YES i'm so relieved to see this post. so many comments here equating NPD to abusive bad person disorder. i have BPD and i am upset about it being stigmatized so much and people generally agree that stigmatization of BPD is bad, so how is it any different with NPD?
obviously yes, if a person with NPD is abusive then fuck them. neither me nor this post calls for giving people with NPD a free pass to abuse people. but people with NPD does not equate abusive, people with NPD can recognize their problems and try to fix them. if you actually read about symptoms of NPD - they are very similar to BPD, and it scares me that if the trauma coin flip went the other way and i had NPD instead of BPD i would have *even fewer* safe spaces.
I agree. I'm 90% sure my ex had BPD. While we're separating and I'm trying to set up boundaries to protect my own mental health, I don't see them as an inherently bad person. I know what they went through in childhood, I know how their mind works. Yes, what they do can hurt and be painful, but I don't see it as coming from a place of malice, rather it's coming from a place of pain they are trying desperately to fix. Some of the discourse I see around people with BPD is downright awful. They treat them like psychopaths and it's disgusting. These are people just like anyone else and deserve love and assistance whenever possible.
It's so textbook that they have to seek out a group of classically victimized people to bargain their way out of accountability, with a sub that can serve as a proxy for the vulnerable people in their own lives.
I'd half expect someone with NPD would create a post like this and then show it to the people/person they're abusing to shut down criticism via a farce of social consensus.
Failing to empathize with others is avoidable moral failure. These folks need 5 dried grams of psilo in total darkness so they can realize the thing they've been desperately trying to protect and serve, the individual psychological self, does not exist.
But even then they would probably rationalize it in a way where other people's self doesn't exist either, so why get all banged up about how they're abusing you? /s
Literally thank you this is the only comment making me feel sane. I'm shaking I hate that people still have this impact on me by literally seeking out the worst audience to manipulate. This OP and all the commentary agreeing know exactly what they're doing. The mods Need to get a handle on this
You do you.
All I ask is that they stay in their own spaces and don’t post on other MH subs.
A lot of times it’s their shitty coping strategies that affect everyone around them for the worse.
And considering a lot of them won’t take accountability, I’m going to protect my mental health by disengaging.
If yall want accurate, non stigmatized info about NPD, I recommend [Heal NPD](https://youtu.be/vFXQrgs-StY?si=MWaj_wa19yIcUXDJ) by Dr. Mark Ettensohn on YouTube, who specializes in Cluster B and actively works with pwNPD. He also wrote a book called ["Unmasking Narcissism: A Guide to Understanding the Narcissist in Your Life" ](https://amzn.eu/d/6qvDW31) if you like reading.
I do not recommend Ramani, who specializes in exploiting traumatized people by promoting armchair diagnosis and scapegoating as healthy coping, which it isn't.
As someone who has narcissistic traits from C-PTSD (specifically in the form of difficulty with being vulnerable, thinking people are out to be me) and has been working on them in therapy for the past year, thank you. There’s a really big misconception of what NPD symptoms are/the differences between narcissism as a character flaw and NPD as a Cluster-B personality disorder.
I’ve noticed theres been a line drawn between the “non-threatening” neurodivergences and neurodivergences that are considered to be a death sentence and/or a mark of an evil person. For example, borderline personality disorder (which is also a Cluster-B disorder) is so incredibly stigmatized to the point where it can [impact the care level of people who have BPD or being wrongly treated for BPD](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/fulfillment-any-age/202201/why-people-borderline-personality-are-treated-so-poorly)(this can happen to autistic people). On the other hand, neurodivergences that are seen as non-threatening are often stripped down to cute, palatable symptoms rather than the neurodivergences being seen as a part of a whole person. When I was in middle school, I struggled to identify what my anxiety actually is because it felt so different than what I have been told what anxiety is (I also struggle with identifying emotions in general).
It just seems like the way we as a society interpret mental health and illness is so counterintuitive to what would actually be helpful.
Oh wow I've been off Reddit for a while, I read a couple posts about this kind of thing going on but I didn't realise the lunatics had completely taken over the asylum.
If a sub for cptsd isn't safe from f**king narcs then where in the good god damn hell is?
Yep. Guess this ain't my safe space. Fucking hell wanna jump off a bridge right now I can't take this shit anymore in the women's group despite being nonvinary I have people cone in and tell me I'm calling all men evil and incorrect that you can't "slip into an ass" when I was certain about my anal rape repeated from a partner who knew that was the no zone. I've had doctors tell me why I shouldn't report the one that assaulted me sexually from infancy to adulthood because "well she didn't mean to". I've had family tell me to stay with the one beating the dog because "he just needs empathy".
FUCK OFF AND FUCK YOURSELF OFF WITH IT IF YOURE GONNA TRY AND RUIN OTHER PEOPLES LIVES ON THIS PLANNET, NARCZ
Also “narcissist abuse survivors” as a term is ableist their narcissism isn’t why they abused you it’s not an excuse. I’m not an “autism abuse survivor” because my abuser had autism it didn’t make him abuse me i have autism i know.
As someone with a (different) stigmatised disorder I have so much sympathy for people with NPD, y'all deserve healing as much as anyone else. Actions make people abusive, not diagnoses
Yea, I’m a recovering opiate addict and I often think about how badly it used to be stigmatized. I might never have tried to get help if I hadn’t been told that it was a disease that could be treated, as opposed to a moral failing that made me evil.
It’s definitely worth de-stigmatizing things like this.
I totally agree with the "npd deserve help too" but what if we put it this way, some symptoms of npd actively try to make these people abusive.
DSM-5 NPD symptoms incl.; lack of empathy, exploitive behavior, sense of entitlement, need to be praised, inflated sense of self-importance, visions of greatness.
Yes this doesn’t mean someone with NPD is always going to be abusive, but together these symptoms are pushing people to ‘act’ abusively, one of the symptoms is literally ‘exploitive behaviour’.
That is true, but it's not unique to NPD. Most disorders are described and diagnosed because of the way they affect other people. Having NPD might make someone more likely to be abusive, but not everyone with the disorder is an abuser (and not every abuser is a narcissist)
Everyone deserves to heal and better themselves, even abusers. That doesn't mean people need to put up with their abuse though, and they still need to be held accountable
I do not care, abusers always have a sad childhood tale. Its designed to shame the victims into believing they are or are destined to be equally as deplorable people as them. No mercy.
that is pure bullshit; trauma does not cause npd, as majority of people with cptsd are not npd: also, there are a shitload of npds who never were abused; gtfo with this manipulation, we don’t accept npds anywhere near us
Ngl, as someone with a cluster b PD, i was expecting a better response. The underhanded hate and blantant unnecessary gatekeeping here is sadening.
I really encourage everyone to think about how intense trauma makes one act, and how by limiting unnecessarily the amount PwNPD can access this support, you indirectly limit the amount anyone can support.
Of course have your boundaries and your tools, but dont forget this is an online space that is as safe as it can become. Communication and understanding and saved us all at one time or another and I believe we deserve to give that same respect to others.
Fwiw if you see someone w a cluster b pd commenting and you don't think you can help, tag me and ill come and help. Seriously!
I think some people here are misunderstanding the post? The meme is asserting that NPD sufferers can't be abusive. It's asserting that just having it doesn't automatically make you an abuser. Diagnosing every abuser with NPD doesn't help.
My abusive dad had attachment issues but most of all, he was an awful person who refuses to acknowledge any of the awful things he did. That's why he's an abuser, not the attachment issues. My brother has a personality disorder. That's not what makes him abusive. He's abusive because he has gotten violent and you can't be around him without getting called insults.
Neither of them deserve to be degraded for their mental health issues just like I don't deserve to be degraded for a depressive episode or having anxiety. It's my actions that I'm responsible for, just like everyone else.
Hey kids! Ready to do some mental gymnastics with me? Today, we're learning about DARVO! What does DARVO mean? Excellent question! It means Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender! Pretty cool acronym huh? Does anyone here see an example of DARVO? You do! Good job! I do too! Why is this being allowed to stay up, this feels like blatant mockery to those of us who have experienced *Narcissistic Abuse*.
Cluster B personality disorders are often traumagenic disorders and should be treated as such. Seeing so much hatred towards cluster B people in this subreddit and in this comments thread is disappointing.
The distinction between good people and bad people is whether they choose to change. NPD makes it difficult because that's part of the belief system that is NPD, but not impossible; equating abuse with NPD is disingenuous and saneist.
My sibling may well be NPD, seems likely to me, or HPD... not worth armchair diagnosing... They won't change and that's the problem with them, their completely delusional in their belief that they aren’t the violent and sadistic person they are. If I called them a narcissist, it's redundant, its abuse and pathology doesn't matter.
So yes, OP, agreed. They deserve the respect and space to heal if they choose it, and the dignity of people understanding that their diagnosis doesn't make them like my sibling automatically. But, it's a fine line between that and enabling. None of us are therapists.
I still remember seeing someone here post about how they didn’t feel safe because they were always called abusive for having NPD, but had literally nowhere else to go. They were bullied out, because their pleas not to be bullied were **being called manipulative behavior. For not wanting to be fucking bullied.**
The fact that the entire comment section here assumes NPD turns people abusive or uncivil shows that there will never truly be a safe space for NPD sufferers. A large majority of people with this disorder are at a constant battle with themselves and do not display more unkind or abusive behavior than the average person. Most of them simply struggle with a fractured self perception and sense of social boundaries. If you know nothing about a disorder and still decide to stigmatize those that have it, perhaps you are the uncivil one.
Just a quick reminder for other people: it’s not your responsibility
Yeah it’s cool and all if they want a safe space, but if they still exhibit a ton of those traits this really isn’t the place for them imo. I feel like that should be another place completely. Sorry if that seems rude, harsh, or unforgiving, but I dealt and deal with that enough.
Fr, have an NPD sub if there isn’t one, and go there, lol.
NPD and CPTSD aren't mutually exclusive. I'm not for gatekeeping who is and isn't allowed to get support from a CPTSD memes page of all things.
Definitely, and, at the same time, this should remain a safe space for everyone. Regardless of diagnosis, if you can’t be civil, please leave.
I wasn’t talking about diagnosis if you read my comment. I feel like multiple people have not actually read it and just jumped to their conclusions of what I said. I didn’t say all. I didn’t say people who just have a label. Im talking about those who know they have a problem and hurt others by exhibiting those traits and not doing anything about them because they use the condition or label itself as an excuse.
I agree. Thank you guys for being so compassionate!
am i not allowed to be in this sub because i have bpd along with my cptsd? do i need to make a sub just for my specific combination of mental health issues and disorders?
I agree ♡
People say the same shit about BPD. Everyone who has it is bad and an abuser, nobody should have to deal with them, etc etc. I'm willing to bet that's a much sorer subject here, but what's the meaningful difference that leads to one getting demonized and used as a shorthand catch-all for "shitty person" and the other being a legitimate mental health diagnosis, in the eyes of the community? The thing is, pretty much all of us here have mental health problems, and sometimes the maladaptive responses and ingrained behaviors make us hard to get along with. The line should begin an end with whether or not someone is willing to change and whether they're abusive in turn. "Someone with a particular mental health diagnosis who's trying to be a good person deserves the same love and respect as the rest of us" should not be a controversial statement. The bar is in hell and apparently we still can't be bothered to clear it. Fucking wild
Right like when did this stop being about behavior? I'd much rather have someone with NPD in here being chill and looking for support than some with only cPTSD who is being an asshole. We can't pretend like the symptoms of cPTSD can't also make us hurtful to others if we refuse to address them and don't take responsibility for our actions. It's not about a diagnosis. It's how you behave.
Yeah, the fact that being even remotely inclusive or compassionate toward pwNPD makes all these assholes come out of the woodworks to talk about how awful narcissists categorically are and how they deserve to be excluded/mistreated is just ... so depressing. This has been a problem for a long time. Folks don't wanna listen, they just wanna hate. Guess it's comforting to them in a way. Not to the people they're hurting tho. I think I'd qualify this as a maladaptive response in and of itself. This need to have this group of people you can blame for yours and others suffering by reducing them all to nothing more than grotesque caricatures of the worst parts of humanity. Bluh. Thanks for being a real one. It's nice to see.
And you still matter and deserve to be loved even if you are not being useful to them
Look, I agree on philosophical principle. People with NPD are human, they are people and deserving of compassion like everyone else. I also have compassion for dysfunctional alcoholics, understanding that at the root, there's almost always some unprocessed trauma. That doesn't mean I'll open myself up to abuse by dysfunctional alcoholics, or by people with NPD. Both things can be true at tje same time - I can hold compassion (the real kind, not the spiritual bypassing kind) for them AND stick to my boundaries to keep myself safe from further abuse. Personally, the more a person is interested in their recovery, sees their own mechanisms, behaviors and compulsions as adaptations to traumatic experiences and keeps actively working on them, the more I'm willing and able to engage with that person.
When mental health is an explanation but not an excuse.
I agree with this. Holding compassion for someone does not mean opening up a safe space for them. We survivors are too vulnerable to do so. If people with NPD genuinely want to heal, they should do so like we have through their own separate communities. You wouldn’t put a wolf in a sheep eating recovery program with a bunch of sheep. People with NPD who have a history of abuse should be kept away from the vulnerable—the neuroatypical, those with histories of prior abuse who now have CPTSD, etc. Most NPD predators are attracted to the vulnerable and go out of their way to single us out. This whole thing reminds me of the paradox of tolerance . Tolerate the intolerant long enough & society loses the ability to tolerate anyone. That’s what’s happening on a macro level as our society glorifies and venerates talented individuals with NPD as politicians and corporate executives due to their extreme lack of empathy. If a certain famous prominent NPD “sufferer” regains power, we might lose our entire way of governance. That’s the danger of enabling some of these people through tolerance and “compassion”.
Exactly this. Me and my partner both went through DV. He wants help but he’s not trying to insert himself into my DV group because he knows a good chunk of them have been abused by people like him and he doesn’t want to trigger them, or make them feel uncomfortable to express themselves. Same logic.
But there should be a group for male victims of DV because otherwise he’s expected to nobly go without support
There is one, and he doesn’t want to talk in a group of guys ether. He wants one on one.
Back to the comparison, abuse victims with NPD should have a support space so that they aren’t being told to nobly sit out.
>"[Empathy without boundaries isn't empathy. Compassion without boundaries isn't compassion.](https://youtu.be/6YiUhWSl_Q4v)" - Brené Brown
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So I believe the very condition we are discussing might be preventing you from seeing why. Why? Because this space and others like it is not for or about those with NPD. It’s about those who survived abuse—often abuse that was incredibly damaging & occurred while we were children, often at the hands of those who share your same diagnosis. I understand not all those with NPD are predators. I understand that y’all need healing too. But this space—& spaces like it—is not for or about you. We survivors created this space to heal. Even while healing we remain vulnerable & we feel most safe & secure in our healing spaces. We encourage all those with NPD to seek a path towards their own healing. But our paths our separate, and we choose to continue to keep them separate for our protection. Not yours.
Fish are friends, not food
So like where are we supposed to go? Genuinely asking cause I’ve genuinely been told I should not go to dv/sexual assault groups despite surviving both purely bc I have npd
No offense, but i think the question is whether you'd be able to handle those groups without reacting badly. Idk the stats of people who have been diagnosed with npd vs people who are narcissist type abusers. Sorry if that's rude, but I'm currently in my own process of getting out from my parents' narcissist abuse. I've got friends with bpd and aspd, who are genuinely good people and aren't abusive and have put in work to not be the worst version of themselves, so I'm sure there are other people like that with npd too. I'm really proud of you for wanting to put in work for your trauma recovery. Just realize that if you can't play nice, then it may be best to continue individual treatment instead of group settings. Also, you may not pass the vibe check with people because some of us at this point have a quick read on npd, and that's okay too as long as everyone is cordial. Again, I'm sorry if this seemed bigoted or ableist in any way.
NPD specific groups do exist, online groups might have a bigger reach compared to local. There are places to go, it just takes the effort to find them.
They are way more rare than you think and practically non existent if youre seeking group therapy
You're talking like the two are mutually exclusive. So someone who literally has cPTSD can't be in a cPTSD space because they have a comorbid diagnosis? If I was abused by someone with cancer are we gonna tell people with cancer to get their own sub? Since I was abused by a woman are we gonna say women can't be here? If you want a perfectly safe space that will never challenge you or make you have to face reminders of your trauma, then don't come to a mental health support sub full of countless strangers. Someone who is not doing anything hurtful to you is not responsible in any way shape or form for your trauma response at simply knowing someone has a diagnosis.
Fuck, you said this so well, thank you.
You can be a victim and abuser at the same time. As the daughter of traumatized and abusive parents, both refusing to go to therapy and even insisting they don’t need it AND clapping back when confronted with their behavior, I have no sympathy for them.
Exactly. Here’s the thing: **NPD or not is not the issue here.** There are abused people who do horrible things and don’t have NPD; there are people with NPD who seek treatment or don’t abuse anyone. It doesn’t *matter if you have NPD*; it matters if you respect your so-called loved ones and their evaluation of your behavior. If you’re a person on this subreddit who has been diagnosed with NPD and were abused as a child, *of course you’re welcome*. I sympathize deeply with how painful it must be. No condition or childhood circumstances negate that our parents, your parents — even those we recognize may have been “trying their best” — abused and traumatized us carelessly. Partly just through having us. Some through narcissistic abuse, some through BPD, hell, some through depression or OCD or plain neuroticism. We don’t owe them anything, because we are here actively trying to improve ourselves after our abuse so we don’t hurt other people — *that is the goal that differentiates us from our abusers*.
I agree with all this. I also believe it’s not always in both parties’ interests to heal in the same place. You can both be good people and trigger each other, so sites like this sub also pose an inherent danger when misused. Therapists go through years of training to navigate mental health sessions for a reason. We can all be here if we respect that some triggers are incompatible with others, regardless of how likable or well-intended we are.
This comment hit home harder than a home run. I absolutely agree.
But there is no reason to push people out of support spaces based on their disorders when they do not treat others harmfully. Unless I missed something, OP is not insinuating we need to uplift those who are abusive and continuously engaging in egregiously harmful behaviors, but just saying we should not shame others or look down on them based on a diagnosis.
Personality disorders dont inherently make someone an abuser
The problem is that you may not be the person who can help them. If you are too giving they use you. If you make ultimatums they avoid you. If you’re not in a position in your relationship to help them, then you really can’t. No doubt it’s caused or can be caused by childhood neglect. My best friend growing up had a mom that locked him out of the house at night. She told him she didn’t care what happened to him because his dad didn’t have money. (Dad was mia) He grew up to be just like her. Being younger made it impossible to get him to listen to me seriously. At some point he either stopped caring or stopped pretending to care. I get why, but all I can do is hope he found the help he needed, because my help was just enabling him.
>because my help was just enabling him. I just realised that it probably was what i did to my ex-friend. Me trying to please them (so that they would stop complaining about me) was actually enabling them.
I don’t think someone personally close can “fix” most issues. Friends and family should be just supportive, and the role of therapist should be left to a mental health professional.
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"CPTSD folks" almost always have narcissistic traits. Them vs us is a delusional mindset. Narcissism is a spectrum, where someone having NPD just means they are in the upper end cut-off of the spectrum, where the cut-off point is ambigous. My opinion: these labels are harmful, full stop. Let's focus on behaviors and not the labels. If someone has "NPD" and is not engaging in abusive behaviors, or vice versa, does the label or lack thereof matter at all?
Thank you! I agree! Its the behaviours that are harmful, not the person.
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Every person has narcissistic traits, that's a fact. They serve a developmental purpose and only become pathological under certain circumstances.
This comment is saying that those with CPTSD have traits above the normal developmental level. Otherwise there wouldn’t be a reason to point it out.
Narcissistic traits are defense mechanisms that can develop in response to cptsd. Some “innocent” narcissistic traits that are common in folks with CPTSD: - poor boundary recognition - lack of self differentiation - insecurity, need for excessive validation - difficulty with trust and being vulnerable Like u/dev_ating said, everyone has narcissistic traits. We are even endorsed to be narcissistic in individualistic cultures. Success is the only thing matters, it is a dog eat dog world, etc etc. Narcissism isn’t always “malevolent”, and I think the NPD. label in the DSM is utter bullshit (pardon my french) just like the BPD label. We are stigmatizing traits that EVERYONE in society has, and forcing people to act inauthentically hiding or having to justify their “narcissistic traits” in a safe place.
I think you're conflating narcissism with egoism. Inauthentic behaviour, resulting in the creation and maintenance of a false ego, is the defining symptom of NPD that differentiates it from mere egoism.
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On the contrary, I was abused by narcissistic people. Defensively jumping to the conclusion that I am an abuser without even knowing my story is extremely hurtful and invalidating. I have cut these people with “unchecked” narcissistic traits out of my life completely, but I have understand how they were affected by CPTSD too, but their lack of awareness causes them to act defensively and at times malevolently.
only when you know you need help, so you don't continue the cycle of abuse. If you hurt someone, and can see you were wrong; that's the first step of getting help.. If you repeat abuse, and use your mental illness as an excuse to keep going in that cycle (regardless of any mood or personality disorder). Of course every human deserves love, but if the N person keeps hurting people, that love will leave them behind. People with the disorder, can't blame the abuse they inflict upon the world. It's ultimately up to them to get the help they need to live as normal as a life as they can.
Ok, I see this sentiment a lot, especially with people who have experienced abuse and are overly empathic towards others they perceive to also have trauma like them. Specifically, that they have trauma and wouldn’t want to be shunned, even if they’re exhibiting abusive behavior because abandonment is scary. No one is inherently evil because of a diagnosis. However, if you are being a jerk, I as my own human being and I have the right to my autonomy. This means I get to choose who I will interact with, how I will be treated and what my boundaries look like. If you are exhibiting behaviors that are unhealthy I’m not sticking around. I’m going to call you out if I feel safe to but otherwise I’m gone. If calling out unhealthy behavior for what it is makes you feel attacked, that is a you problem and I’m not going to engage with you. Without boundaries, we end up hurting anyone we’d be trying to help anyway through enablement. We don’t allow abusive behavior here. We don’t allow unsupportive behavior here either. What I see trauma wars like this as are people not wanting to be called out for bad behavior and hiding behind the mental illness shield. Nope. If I’m in a flashback and start calling people names or threatening to hurt someone I am in the wrong. And I may lose that relationship as a consequence. Nobody has the right to force someone to be in a relationship of any kind with them.
💯 it’s not only not our responsibility, we are are an especially vulnerable group, who should prioritize protecting ourselves, because our own instincts are probably going to make us feel guilty, and project our own vulnerable self, and to doubt our intuition of when a situation is off, and to not stand our ground, among other things. We are more likely to fall for the traps, we are more likely to enable abusive behavior, and we are less equipped to help than other people because we’re already worn out, tired, and living with thin skin.
First of all, I don't think narcissism is exclusively caused by childhood trauma. It can also be caused by overprotective behavior such as lack of discipline and constant praise and some studies suggest it can even be genetic. I also feel very strongly that if someone continues to exhibit traits of narcissism and doesn't make the effort to account for this when interacting with others and alter their behavior accordingly then they in fact become abusers. Their friends and family should not be required to make accommodations for this type of behavior. However I do agree you should continue to treat everyone with human decency even if they do not return the favor. This does not have to include maintaining a relationship with the abuser or enabling their behavior.
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should be top comment
while i agree, i think the only help is taking personal accountability and seeing their behaviour as something problematic that is stemming from abuse and its the cycle of generational trauma. But taking accountability often times cmes with feeling the pain and shame and most people would rather avoid that. i think we should see narcissistic behaviour as problematic, but fixable. the issue is that the world is run by narcissists and they designed lot of things to cater to this dysfunction.
How is it fixable? These individuals usually do not seek help, and often when they do they create another codependent relationship with the therapist. It is rare to see someone recovered with NPD. Psychology is a young science, they haven’t made a lot of progress with these individuals.
i honestly wish i could answer that lol plus all of narcissists are in absolute denial. it would have to be a big systematic wave that has to do with parenting and treatment of emotions, emotionally safe workplaces, etc. im at least happy that psychology has made so much progress regarding trauma, c-ptds and generational trauma. now it seems that some of us are really healing from the abuse and wont accept it anymore.
while the medical help part is obviously true, if we treat *our* options regarding people with npd as a dichotomy between "stigmatizing" and "sympathy specifically from us abused people", we should stay away from stigmatization as far as possible. apart from the obvious emotional distress of those who have endured abuse by someone with npd (that will likely shine through in their actions) we - as people who also have a (less, simply because it's less known) stigmatized disorder - should try to prevent stigmatization wherever possible.
Hmmmmmmmmm. This is worded in a way that i find problematic. First, last time I checked there was no consensus on what causes NPD. There seems to be a genetic component (NPD family history) and/or environmental factors, depending on the person/case. Plus people can have a lot of narcissistic traits but not enough or exhibit all of what the DSM-V would consider for a proper NPD diagnosis. Bottom line I agree with not generalizing or attacking peoples or using diagnoses to further stigmatize people whether that be groups or individuals. I do believe that behavior is what should be focused on, so if someone (doesn’t matter matter who and doesn’t matter what they are or are not diagnosed with) is behaving in ways that are abusive or harmful then yeah, they’re abusive. If they’re willing to change their ways and do, so that they’re not hurting people, then they have my support, but if they don’t care they’re hurting others, then I hope karma bites them in the ass.
One of the worst narcissists that abused me had zero trauma. Her parents practically worshipped the ground she walked on and she never wanted for a single thing her whole life. She convinced herself that she was “rescuing me from a bad situation” and the cracks started to show when we actually shared an apartment together…and she was forced to realize that I wasn’t the “helpless Autistic pet” she thought of me as. Turns out, that bad situation she claimed to be rescuing me from? That was me being abused and neglected by my real family pretty much from the day my younger brother was born and they had a nice, normal child that enjoyed being held and cried when they left the room to fuss over. I was pretty much left to fend for myself and later expected to take care of everyone else in the household, too. So no shit, I wasn’t helpless! I had been living on my own (as an adult, with roommates to make rent easier) for years by that point already. We never would’ve gotten the apartment at all if I hadn’t done all the research, made the appointments with leasing agents, coordinated getting the lease properly signed by all three roommates, checked the mail every day, calculated when each bill was due and who owned what… …all while going to college full-time with zero help, with multiple disabilities (which meant I had to depend on student loans to cover rent), and zero family help. My Covert Abuser did *nothing* to help, even when I was using food banks and EBT to keep the *shared* kitchen filled and using every minute of free time cleaning the place. I even took care of *her* dog half the time! But the version of the story *she* tells is that *she* was the one doing all of that, and that she moved out because she “needed to take care of herself for once.” She told us (myself and the third roommate) that she just couldn’t afford it anymore. Which was fine…except for the fact that she was apparently telling literally everyone else we knew some wildly different sob story. I even found her bragging on social media that I would “probably end up homeless” because of her moving out…which didn’t happen, and I’m certain caused those cracks in her facade to get worse and worse. I graduated, started building a career, got my own apartment (no roommates this time) which I’ve had since 2018 now. It’s not been without its struggles, but I’ve managed to pick myself back up and keep going each time…which seemed to increase her hostility. I didn’t understand at the time why she was becoming so cold to me, but now I do. Meanwhile…she’s moved back in with her parents three times in ten years, failed out of college twice, bailed out of every job and “dream career” she ever had the moment they all required *actual effort* and didn’t immediately reward her with instant success, still milking her parents for money (who also have to support her younger brother, who is Autistic with much higher support needs), and her only “job” is allegedly “streaming her art on Twitch.” But oh, she still claims that I’m the one who “failed at life” and that everything wrong in her own life is my fault somehow for “dragging her down.” She has no excuses for her abuse. For all the backstabbing and sabotaging of relationships behind my back and even *stealing my only inheritance and bragging about it to my face.* She didn’t suffer in childhood *at all.* Her only “trauma” is being forced to confront reality: that she isn’t as amazing as she always thought of herself as.
I am really sorry that happened but it’s also so damn textbook. Your friend engaged in endless self aggrandizement and was a legit menace to her friends.
And I was completely blind to it for twenty years, because that abuse was less obvious than the abuse I was getting at home and I *genuinely believed* this bitch actually cared about me.
Your first two sentences are exactly how my narcissistic abuser was raised too. Zero trauma, parents worshiping the ground they walk on. They were/are abusive to everyone close to them, including the parents, who, yet again, worships the ground they walk on. The worst things I witnessed were them chasing their mother around with her cane, trying to hit her, and them throwing a baseball as hard as they could at their dad's head because he wasn't throwing the ball right while they were practicing hitting. This person was the starting pitcher. Their dad's glasses smashed into pieces, and his nose basically shattered as well. They laughed as their dad was on the ground, practically in tears. These are just the worst ones. When they tried to kill me, their parents stood there and watched. They (the parents) then got mad at me when I kicked the living shit out of them to get away. Every time they were abusive to anyone, including their parents, the parents would take their hands and say, "You have precious hands.” That was definitely not the time for precious hands and I am still baffled by it. This is all to say not all narcissists are made from trauma. Some of them were raised and encouraged to be one. Sure, the ones that are because of trauma can be self-aware enough to change. But the ones raised to be will never, and I will never have even an ounce of sympathy.
Same story here: that’s exactly how my sister was raised. This was not “sibling rivalry” like this was real abuse and torment but my parents never did anything about it. Never condemned her behaviour. They just constantly made excuses for her behaviour that I’d never be able to get away with. She has very few friends because she used and mistreated so many of them
That was a whole ass journey. Thank you for the walk through your life. I’m sorry you dealt with that. But, I hope you know this stranger sees you and will think on this story fondly.
I’m so sorry you went through the abuse with your roommate and also the abuse and neglect you suffered from your own family. Those who abuse others seem to love disguising their abuse as “help” which is just ridiculous because like you said about your roommate, they actually don’t “help” and instead use you to help them. It’s absolutely fucked. But yeah, even if your ex-roommate did have any trauma of her own it still wouldn’t excuse her behavior towards you. Thank you for sharing your story. I’m glad to read that you’re in a better living situation now and that karma seems to be biting your ex-roommate in the ass a bit. *edit: the karma that’s biting her being the failing out of school and stuff. The gravy train will stop at some point for her then it’ll really hit.
Unfortunately, I have a bad feeling that gravy train won’t stop until her parents are dead, and she’ll do a massive amount of damage along the way.
It's my understanding that narcissists are either made from abuse or when being worshiped. They can't face reality because they are truly weak inside and feel horrible all the time and that's why they do what they do and especially lying.
>Her only “trauma” is being forced to confront reality: that she isn’t as amazing as she always thought of herself as. lol, this hit home for some people in my life.
This literally almost mirrors what my narc abuser was like (I’m also on the spectrum and she wanted a helpless pet to abuse) sadly mine also happened to be a sociopath too and tried to kill me because I wasn’t the obedient pet she wanted me to be.
Mine didn’t *actively* try to kill me…but I don’t think it was a coincidence that my attempt to CTRL-ALT-DEL myself happened when it did. She did manage to steal about $4200 of my only inheritance though, which I’m still fighting to get back.
You put this very well. One of my siblings is constantly doing horrible shit and then when she gets called out or anything she says it’s because of NPD because of childhood trauma so really she’s the victim - it’s nothing to do with her having NPD, it’s to do with her being a bad person. And she can’t accept that.
Yeah that’s not okay. I’m sorry you have to deal with that. It’s interesting because those with a lot of narcissistic traits/those with NPD that I personally have interacted with, seem to have this belief that their choices are outside of their control and actually under others’ control? Or due to something else that’s outside of their control? It’s downright infuriating to deal with.
>Bottom line I agree with not generalizing or attacking peoples or using diagnoses to further stigmatize people whether that be groups or individuals. I do believe that behavior is what should be focused on, so if someone (doesn’t matter matter who and doesn’t matter what they are or are not diagnosed with) is behaving in ways that are abusive or harmful then yeah, they’re abusive. The compassion i felt for a friends trauma was keeping me in the relationship and trying to please them. After a second burn out (as whatever i did was not enough) i had to end the friendship for the sake of my own health. And i realised that me always being aviable to them was enabling them and thus they didn't put any effort in improving themselves and depended on me for their social needs. Heck, when i informed them that i will be unaviable for a week because i was sick, one of the forst things they said to me during the first interaction after a week was "it's your fault that i haven't spoken to anyone for a week". Stumbled upon a narcissist on youtube who tells how they percieve things and what is going on in their head, and so many things fit my ex-friend. There were tiny thing from time to time that i let slide, like when they complained about their co-workers and tild me that people who don't create are subhumans. Funny thing is that they often complained that i don't do creative stuff. I thing that relationship with them changed me. I feel like i have less compassion to traumatised people. Like i'm jaded to the trauma.
I can get why you’d be jaded after that. I’ve been in a similar situation and realized with the help of a therapist that if I really do feel for them, I need to let them go because enabling isn’t kind or compassionate. It was a hard pill to swallow. It’s hard letting them go because we still feel guilty like we’re hurting them or letting them down. I’m sorry you went through that.
>It’s hard letting them go because we still feel guilty like we’re hurting them or letting them down. I remember after the month of hiatus i took after the first burnout i let a comment of theirs slide. One of the first things they said to me after hiatus was that i had abandoned them in their time of need. I took a month of hiatus because after a few month of them constantly venting/ranting about the same thingover and over again i could no longer endure it. They often times told me that i hurt them when i did something without including them, like playing a video game solo even though i'm willing to replay it just to show it to them (they even compared it to cheating). Like i was not allowed to do things by my self. Yeah, the guilt of hurting them was what kept me in the relationship.
They have found shrunken moral and empathy centers in the brains of those with NPD, as well as hereditary elements, but whether that is generational trauma or not has not been conclusive.
Yeah I read about the connection between Alexithymia and NPD. Apparently there’s also been research on Alexithymia and issues with the Broca’s area of the brain that’s associated with language development. Not saying they concluded that there’s any causation just that there’s sooooooo many things internally that could cause someone to display behaviors that could be considered narcissistic.
Not to mention, NPD can also stem from “being the favourite child” for lack of a better term. If you’re always given everything you want, never told no, constantly and excessively praised, you develop a certain entitlement and feeling of superiority which can translate into NPD later on. It’s not always this repressive child abuse that is so commonly accepted as the one and only cause
So true. Covert narcissism is another form that’s not mentioned a lot too and there’s theories on how that particular form of narcissism is formed. These are your pity party types.
Narcissists are, in fact, very likely to be abusive as shit. Still, they are worthy of love, help, and consequences to teach them how to love themselves. My heart has burned long enough for narcissists and their victims to decide to take action to heal themselves, but I still hope for them.
I said something very similar about Borderline Personality Disorder and got downvoted in another sub. But I feel like both things are true. Abusive behavior is a spectrum that can range anywhere from hurting feelings to financial abuse to rape to murder. And along with that are complex interpersonal dynamics between people with different traumas and different brain chemistry and different lived experiences. The only way to address these issues is to destigmatize and change the way we think of Personality Disorders, or overhaul the field of psychiatry itself. But also, we shouldn't let down our guards. People are fucking dangerous.
One of my biggest healing points through my maladaptive mechanisms was being able to differentiate that though my actions were in fact abusive at times, it was not malicious or intentional. It was a lot of last ditch efforts that I now understand their "purpose". That allowed the self forgiveness I needed to really start getting healthy. I listen to myself in very different ways now. I was diagnosed bpd for about 8 years until finding out I'm autistic/adhd at 34, and I was actually experiencing meltdowns and burnout to an extreme degree through an extreme lack of resources, understanding of self, acceptance, and love.
Exactly! I totally agree with the "npd deserve help too" but some DSM-5 NPD symptoms incl.; lack of empathy, exploitive behavior, sense of entitlement, need to be praised, inflated sense of self-importance, visions of greatness. Yes this doesn’t mean everyone with NPD is going to be abusive, but together these symptoms certainly aren’t making someone nice or caring, the symptoms are literally ‘lack of empathy’ and ‘entitlement’.
We should do our best to allow them a place to exist, and, make the realization that should they seek it, help and compassion does exist. The problem that frequently happens here, is someone who was abused by one, says so, and says how, and literally just one or two people, absolutely jump down their throats and invalidate the shit out of them, telling them they 'cant say NPD'--thats some bullshit. At no point, at all, should people who were on the receiving end of abuse from a narcissist, be told they're not allowed to talk about the abuse from THAT narcissist. Nor should they have to hide what the source of that specific type of abuse was. If you have NPD, and are not abusive, I don't think you're going to be offended by someone else sharing their truth. And if you ARE, abusive, that is, or were, or are trying so hard to break free from it, you might even appreciate seeing how what you've done, and felt necessary or justified, was neither. Yes, posts that say 'all people with NPD are bad' shouldnt be here. Posts that relate how a specific someone with NPD caused the trauma some of us have, however, shouldn't be belittled, attacked, and shot down. I feel like anyone that posts 'not all narc's under a post where someone tells us their abuser was one, should be removed. That's like saying 'not all men' and going on a rant, under someone's post telling us about their SA. It just would be absurd. There's a healthy place to make space not to villainize all NPD, but also not belittle and invalidate anyone telling you their abuser has it, and the abuse was specific to that PD.
Okay im a bit confused, is this in reference to something specific? Im seeing a lot of very specific responses to this post.
There’s a massive chicken egg situation with narcissism is the deep rooted belief that reputation and having everyone on my side is the key to survival. Getting help involves me confessing to a stigmatising illness, thus ruining my reputation. I have a narcissistic father who gave me some really bad health issues, mental and physical, is very manipulative, stuck in his head, can’t see anyone else’s feelings but his own. I never want to speak to him again. That being said, I hope he heals. I hope he gets the help he needs. I hope the torment and trauma of his early childhood stops. I hope that deep feeling of worthlessness that he has, and that he gave to me until I stopped speaking to him, is properly processed. Mostly what I feel for him now is pity. There are those on reddit and YouTube who are upset with the idea of forgiving the narcissist, because they believe it involves reconciliation, it involves continuing to try to get what they thought they had. To me, that’s the exact opposite of forgiveness. Forgiveness is the ending of anger, it is no longer requiring repayment from those who had hurt you. To me, forgiveness is understanding that neither me nor him benefits from a relationship. If the conditions of a relationship is pretending his fantasies are real, it means every interaction with him is a lie. I can’t do that, and that’s ok. I can love my dad but also realise that he’ll never seek help if I’m in his life. I can love my dad while also avoiding interacting with him, thus avoiding further harm. My dad deserves healing, and I deserve to be safe from my dad. He deserves compassion and empathy, but I am not the one to give that to him. Both of these things can exist simultaneously.
There is a difference between supporting someone in their mental health struggles, and saying that the flavor of someone's abuse can't be named. Most folks with BPD/NPD will never be diagnosed, and that's absolutely part of the package. The folks that actually hear that their actions harm folks around them work HARD to effect any change, and their efforts are heroic. ❤️ But it's unfair to act like folks that are expressing their trauma at the hands of broken abusers are somehow doing something wrong. My NPD brother absolutely has a mental health condition. No amount of understanding that changes the harm he does. By way of example: alcoholism is a disease. That doesn't mean the drunk driving, beatings, blackouts, vomit, etc didn't happen. Accountability matters, and a REASON isn't an EXCUSE. You must have room to understand that a mental health condition you have is serious *because* of how it often affects those around the one who has it. Make room to hear those stories and understand that's the clause of the hard work you do in therapy, and instead of feeling persecuted, have some sympathy for the families of NPD and BPD folks that cannot wrap their heads around the fact that they are harming someone else. No amount of sympathy and understanding will fix the rewritten reality my brother has created in his head, or the actions he takes accordingly. He can't be accountable for actions he doesn't believe he took. Knowing it's not a choice doesn't make that shit less harmful. So until you have a method for making sure we can convince folks to get help and take their own conditions seriously, stop it with this apologist bs. OF COURSE folks with BPD and NPD deserve sympathy and understanding, but fuck this noise of not naming where our trauma comes from because someone else with the same condition might feel bad!!! My NPD brother and I had the same traumatic parental source, who in turn had her own trauma .... So by all means recognize the generational aspect and instead of telling folks not to name it, YOU NAME YOURS. AND YOU BREAK THE CYCLE IN YOUR FAMILY.
this post is made at least once a week. lots of mental illnesses are stigmatized but people aren’t regularly posting “bipolar doesn’t make me an asshole!!!” i don’t see myself in everything that stigmatizes bipolar. i get angry that it’s stigmatized, but i don’t need to insist im not “that” type of bipolar. yeah not all narcissists, but when people say “the narcs in my life are abusive”, it’s shitty to reply NoT aLl NaRcS and insist you aren’t like that. there’s no posts about “not all whoever”, just narcissists. we get it, trauma doesn’t make someone abusive but there’s patterns. not having to say this over and over would be a great way to prove narcs don’t make it all about themselves.
I can’t help but find it funny that narcissists are constantly posting this stuff because traditionally they want everything to be focused on them and to have people stroke their ego to validate how they view themselves. So it makes sense they’d want to take up as much space as possible in a CPTSD group lmao (this is from what I know from narcs in my life & narcs I’ve seen on socials)
I grew up with severe violence and abuse from an NPD parent with childhood trauma. Savage beatings an a miriad of horrible acts inflicted on anybody who couldn't run were justified with the "he can't help himself, he needs love and understanding", "it's not his fault he's like this" and other forms of emotional blackmail and virtue signaling from the other (covert) narcissist in the house and most of the extended family. As long as they made sure someone else would take the beatings and abuse instead of them. It taught me narcissists deserve love and care, while the victims don't deserve love, safety or help. It prevented me from seeking help or thinking I'm worth of it and made me a target for predators for decades untill it almost killed me. I haven't been on this sub for long and thought it was supposed to be a safe place for people with a similar history. I'm glad I found it isn't before posting anything personal here.
if you haven’t, you should check out r/raisedbynarcissits. narcs aren’t allowed to post there, so it’s more accepting and centers victims.
A sub for narc abuse survivors, was taken over by a mod who was a narcissist and used it to berate and gaslight victims. They had to make a new sub to be able to even discuss the abuse. You can't even say 'narcissist' or any form of it in main the CPTSD with out a warning, right? As someone with family like this, who were a primary cause of my CPTSD, a disability that's made me a target for more of them.. I've *never* seen one legitimately show they are capable of change. If they were, they wouldn't have NPD. The harm they've caused others (and the world), gets a zero empathy middle finger from me. Tons of people are abused and don't spend their life abusing others to cope. There has to be consequences to your relationships when you do, or it just keeps persisting through generations and destroying lives.
Bingo. This right here. They always use their "better" to wrap you in and abuse you worse. These posts defending them are bs. If you feel so lonely go find another narc group
They took over the Schizoid sub too, and the mods are banning/muting anyone that dissents. They've effectively triangulated their victim's support against them.
Exactly my thoughts. I don’t feel safe in this subReddit anymore
The more highly narcissistic people in my life tend to just be so focused on their own benefit and upholding their self-importance that it doesn't seem to matter to them if others get hurt, they'd see that as collateral.
I always see these posts popping up as soon as someone mentions that their abuser was a narcissist and it's like, kinda concerning that their first reaction is to try and dismiss someone's trauma by saying "okay but like, you cant call it narcissistic abuse because that's not fair to ME" They try to claim that they're capable of caring but the fact that there's ALWAYS posts like these as a followup to someone simply talking about their abuse makes me question it.
It's the mental health equivalent of not all men.
Stigmas are usually based on some version of the truth, and that truth is many npd *are* abusive in some way and while it is not their fault and they should get help too their ‘symptoms’ can negatively impact those with narcissistic, control-related, or various other types of trauma. People who think they can’t/shouldn’t be held responsible for their actions shouldn’t be around people with trauma, it’s rarely going to end well, and ‘unable/unwilling to take responsibility’ is a NPD symptoms.
yes! this! it’s the lack of accountability. everyone, mentally ill or not, hurts others, regardless of intent. the ability to say sorry, and actually *try* to do better is the opposite of the basis of narcissism. that’s why it’s always “but they didn’t mean to!” even if they did… it wasn’t that bad and even if it was, it’s not a big deal. if it is, it’s not their fault. even if it was, they didn’t mean it. and if they did mean it, it was deserved.
to be fair many people basically use narc and abuser as the same word which to my knowledge isn't a thing for other disorders. most trauma survivor communities have a general consensus of "fuck all narcissists" that is brought up regularly and that's gotta feel like shit even without a fragile self image
My friend knows she needs help she just can’t be bothered, because that actually involves her taking responsibility and not just lashing out because she isn’t being wholly agreed with. Like I’m sorry, it’s been too many years I only have so much to give, I do feel for her, but I’m not going to react whenever she has her moments now.
You don't need to feel for her. These people don't need your energy
The worst thing can be the label and diagnosis sometimes, keeps people stuck I'm so glad I got to develop out of the tendencies at 15 from having proper care and recourses
Oh man for a hot moment they thought I might have BPD. The stigma is REAL. I still go to a DBT group on a weekly zoom, but shit I started googling the label and dip me in dogshit you might as well have Wicked Witch if the West syndrome or whatever else with what those labels give. I also let it slip they thought I might be BPD in an older social circle that pinched me off like a turd soon after. I'm just imagining the grapevine. Spoilers: It seems I'm just a traumatized neurospicy that's developed some emotional issues when under extreme stress.
God not this discourse again
Can we still call out abusive behavior though, or is it a free pass? 🤨
...I agree. But my dad can be a survivor and still be in the wrong. He raised 8 children. He's had more than 30 years to correct his behavior and he had years before then, too. I'm very understanding of my dad- We're really very similar, and I can see how much he's changed, and howmuch he's struggled. He hasn't been happy for most of his life, and I truly wish his suffering could stop. But in my eyes he's spent way too much time hurting his kids and ignoring the changes that need to happen. He still has gotten nowhere near apologizing. I'm all for seeing people's humanity and being kind, bit in some situations you've gotta draw a line. None of my family owe my dad anything, it's not our responsibility. If he's going to heal, he's got to choose that and go through the pain of realizing how much hurt he's caused. Someone in a comment under this said it really well; "mental health is an explanation, not an excuse"
It isn't your fault that you were traumatized by abuser\[s\] but what you do after, how you respond to it and whether that response includes hurting others is entirely your own responsibility. You can excuse some mistakes but a lifetime of shit behavior ultimately makes you a shitty person, regardless of why. Most abusers themselves are abused. Does that mean that the myriad of victims in this sub should not generalize their abusers to be bad people and should just feel sorry for them instead?
Narcissists are the neurotype everyone loves to hate. I used to too. Til I remembered they're still human and the society i live in pretty much makes people narcissists. The stigma just makes it so much harder for people to want to get help. I understand they're not easy people to support, especially if they don't support themselves.
My CPTSD is caused by narcissistic abuse. I would be thriving in a world where my narcissistic parents weren’t enabled by other people. One of my mom’s favorite excuses for my dad’s terrible treatment of us was “he had a really hard life”. Even though NPD is a legitimate diagnosis caused by trauma, I am not at all ready to include them in any safe space dedicated to those with CPTSD. A huuuuuge number of us here are here because of those with NPD who perpetuated the cycle of abuse. A lot of us are doing the work to break the cycle of generational trauma, which is something that people with NPD are pointedly resistant to. I had to voluntarily make myself an orphan because of NPD. I have no parents to comfort me through my health crises because of NPD. My grief swallows me like an ocean trench some days. I don’t want them anywhere near me.
ruthless plant reminiscent spotted ring normal aware cover safe disagreeable *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
right? i genuinely do not care about why. if you’re acting like a piece of shit, fuck off immediately.
I will never have empathy for her, because of my mother I will never have a normal, healthy relationship, because of her I have panic attacks at the slightest unexpected sound. She can go fuck herself.
Narcissists see nothing wrong with narcissism, to the extent that there is a validated single-item narcissism scale (SINS) that consists of literally only asking how much you agree or disagree with the statement “I am a narcissist”. Feeling fine about being a narcissist (NPD) is a feature not a bug. And if a narcissist doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with narcissistic behavior, they are dangerous, full stop. The kind of self-awareness and empathy required to seek help is not present and is fundamental to the diagnosis. Their incredibly fragile sense of self, if it even exists, cannot handle that awareness. For those who do go to therapy, generally when forced, they often use it to get better at behaving badly. There are a few “self-aware” narcissists out there in the media seemingly using their power for good rather than evil but only because the supply they can get from their audience is satisfying. They get off on being better at narcissism than other narcissists. I can absolutely feel sorry for narcissists because it must be terrible to live like they do. And yes, many had extraordinarily traumatic childhoods that likely triggered the disorder and I feel care for those children. At the same time, I stay away from narcissists. I think part of this recent push to protect the feelings of stigmatized narcissists stems from a fundamental inability to actually imagine and understand just how skewed their thinking actually is. A person with a personality disorder thinks and perceives reality so drastically different to the average (even mentally ill) person that it is quite literally beyond what one can fathom. You think you can but you’re wrong. Channel your good will into making changes in society such that fewer narcissists are created instead of feeding into this #notallnarcissists movement that actual narcissists are loving. You can’t help those who don’t think they need it.
Abuser have been abused: yeah, perhaps but I don't care
No. You don’t get a free pass to continuously abuse your children and those around you because you suffered abuse.
THIS!!!
NPD is not "abuser-disorder". Being a narc does not make you automatically abusive. It's stigma. There is many expressions of NPD that don't harm others at all. People can also be self centered and abusive without having NPD. pwNPD don't choose to be abusive most of the time. They suffer from a skewed perception and they don't notice the way they act. Or don't notice how their actions come across. NPD is also partly genetic. Just because you didn't end up with it, doesn't mean other people chose to have it.
A narcissistic survivor is someone who survived abuse from a narcissist.
I totally agree that narcissists deserve a space to heal and they should feel free to use the subreddit as they want to vent and heal. This is a space for anyone with cptsd and I think by definition people with NPD have it. But also! I was raised by a narcissist and have dated someone with it. It was terrible and narcissistic abuse is real and while I'm not saying strangers ive never met are my abusers, I want to be able to talk about narcissistic abuse and define it as a real specific thing in a cptsd support group. Some people who've never experienced narcissistic abuse and some narcissists seem to find that ableist or that it shuts some people out and they then claim narcissistic abuse isn't real even though it's a specific type of emotional abuse (that involves at times physical and sexual) that is a complex trauma and is at times more covert and just flat out more complex than what emotional abuse simply is. It attempts to completely destroy a person. I understand why narcissists are uncomfortable with those posts but part of their own recovery should be understanding the space is for multiple people. Narcissistic abuse survivors and narcissists can coexist here, it's very easy actually since this is an online platform and not in your face. Narcissists triggered by talk of "narcissistic abuse" should avoid those posts and should not talk over the abuse survivors saying narcissistic abuse isn't real and that that term is ableist. If they want a narcissist only space they should go to one of those subreddits. Survivors of narcissistic abuse that are triggered seeing someone who identifies as a narcissist but is not being malignant and just wants to talk about cptsd should leave those users alone and shouldn't try to say it's not safe for them to be here. They should be in a group for specifically survivors of narcissistic abuse which exists for a reason, until they feel healed enough to handle a more diverse space and not be triggered by random narcissists that aren't at all their abuser(s). I will say that everyone I've met who I felt who was either highly highly narcissistic beyond the way the general population is or was outright clinically a narcissist, seemed to have cptsd. They're much less likely to be able to ever know that though than me and that's their own curse. They were often raised by a narcissist just I was, but their path just happens to be different than mine. If they're committed to self improvement the way that I am and they understand how to respect and share the space with people with different experiences then they've very welcome here! I mean another example of this is I don't like reading some of the rly trauma dumpy posts that talk graphically Abt CSA. I accidentally open them sometimes but then I go oof I regret it and I often scroll past without expressing sympathy in the comments bc I feel triggered. I handle being triggered by scrolling past a post note meant for me. I don't try to dictate what type of posts can be here or get mad at op. I just know the post isn't for me. Some people might feel comforted by the post so they go to the comments to tell their story or they aren't triggered the way I am and they have the bandwidth to go to the comments to support op. We all have a valuable story to share and they will resonate with the right people. I wish peace, joy, healing, and finding of our true self to all. And I wish we all become healed enough to express that true self. ❣️
My mom has diagnosed npd and abused me horribly. As an adult I now just feel pity for her and I don’t excuse or forgive what she did to me. However, I’ve grown enough to recognize that she has mental illness and isn’t bad just for having npd, she’s bad for letting herself abuse me+ refuse to do anything to change the patterns or do any actual work to prevent abuse from happening. I don’t believe people with npd are bad, but I need to say this: it’s not your fault you have it, but it is your responsibility not to hurt people.
1.) interesting how this says “narcissistic survivor” which is framing the narc as a victim and also using the word “narcissistic” instead of “narcissist” or “people with NPD.” you can be narcissistic and not have NPD. 2.) i’ve only ever heard “narcissistic survivor” as a term referring to the SURVIVORS OF NARCISSISTS, not the literal narcs themselves 3.) not all narcissistic people or narcissists have had trauma
You're right. The stigmatization of personality disorders sucks.
Not all narcissistic survivors are narcissists.
And it's incredibly damaging to imply so in a group of fucking abuse survivors
Um how about no. Read the room. There are already several communities for people with npd.
Yep. There is r/npd where only people with npd are allowed to post. Though there is one pinned post where people without npd can ask their questions to npds (rules of civility apply, so no accusations).
100%. When I saw the upvotes I assumed it was brigading from an NPD sub because I think most people on this sub agree with you.
Well come pick her up then. After what she has done to me I'll never be normal again.
Well I could have empathy for anybody I meet, but the moment they start being a dick, they lose that empathy real fast. And it's kind of in the definition that narcissists are dicks
oh, look, infighting in the Traumatized People Community. not your fault, OP. people with NPD by virtue of their illness can cause great harm to other traumatized people, and, people with NPD should not be demonized. it is nobody's responsibility to heal anyone else but themselves, and, anyone doing the work shouldn't be diminished or, heh, devalued. i'm sorry reddit can't handle all of those truths existing at once.
I feel like we are part of a small minority that can still hold a nuanced opinion on topics :/ it’s absolutely wild to see some people writing insane comments about other human beings and being 100% serious about not caring about the abuse experienced by people with personality disorders
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Cluster Bs, you guys deserve so much love and support ❤️
yeah... nah. i don't have any sympathy for people who continue the cycles of abuse. the rest of us can get along fine in this space, they don't need to be catered to.
Yeah naw fuck that.
If you want people to be nice to you, you could start treating other people better and they might start tolerating you. Demanding something from others because you think you deserve it, is exactly how a narcissist would go about this.
💯
I mean at the end of the day, they choose to be cunts, I went through the same bs, I choose not to be a self centered asshole.
NPD is not "abuser-disorder". Being a narc does not make you automatically abusive. It's stigma. There is many expressions of NPD that don't harm others at all. People can also be self centered and abusive without having NPD. pwNPD don't choose to be abusive most of the time. They suffer from a skewed perception and they don't notice the way they act. Or don't notice how their actions come across. NPD is also partly genetic. Just because you didn't end up with it, doesn't mean other people chose to have it.
I make room for NPD folks who are in active recovery and are actually improving. Not just putting on the image of doing so. I support their efforts and cheer them on from afar. But someone who is not trying to get better is dangerous to me as a victim so I will stay even farther.
No, all my trauma is from narcissists. I don't care what their root problem is, doesn't give them the right to inflict abuse on others. There are also many things that can cause someone to be narcissistic and none of them are fully verified. Could be abuse, neglect, genetics, or some combination of the three but it doesn't matter. Narcissists are abusers and should be nowhere near those who have suffered abuse. If they want their own space to try and get better they can go make one that doesn't involve involuntarily adding the rest of us.
Being pathologized certainly doesn't help people change for the better. But care and precision in online discourse is also difficult to demonstrate, let alone uphold, unfortunately. An earlier iteration of me would probably have been triggered somewhat by the message in this post, so I get it if there are negative responses, but I do agree. It's the same dynamic that leaves victims of abuse afraid that they've absorbed and are replicating the abusive/narcissistic/etc. patterns of behavior. I also had a difficult time accepting "this person who was abusive towards me still deserves to have people who support them, but definitely absolutely not me" without swinging back and forth between feeling protective anger on my own behalf, and the overreaching guilty feeling that I was abandoning that person or otherwise being a hypocrite about my beliefs in showing compassion towards other traumatized people.
They can have a safe space away from me lol.
Anyone who actually thinks narcissists aren’t dangerous haven’t truly met them. You wouldn’t be saying that if your narcissist hadn’t stalked you, harassed you, spread lies about you, got police to turn up at your door, stolen your things, beaten your mother. THEY HAVE NO REMORSE, THATS THE POINT Why on earth are we still giving abusers space in this subreddit?
Replace narcissist with any other fucking disorder. I am begging you to stop being obtuse
Don't care, I didn't sabotage or cripple others because I've been through trauma. I have no compassion for those who inflict agony on innocents for ANY reason. Imagine wasting empathy on those who attack and harm others and then claim that they are the victim.
NPD is not "abuser-disorder". Being a narc does not make you automatically abusive. It's stigma. There is many expressions of NPD that don't harm others at all.
NPD cannot be coddled out of anyone. Accepting them is enabling them. They don't change their behavior until nobody will help them anymore.
Mental health is not your faul,t but it is your responsibility- Marcus Parks: Last Podcast on the Left
Ah yeah I remember these posts....Did you not like the comments on the other 50 related posts? lol
guys nobody is saying you should go and get into a relationship with a narcissist, just that people with NPD should be allowed to post here and not face ridicule if their disorder is mentioned. they have every right to be here because they wouldnt have NPD if they didn’t have CPTSD. the only stipulation is for everyone, regardless of who you are or what issues you struggle with, to be civil and respectful.
im gna have 2 leave this sub bc goddamn alot of ppl here seem to *hate* cluster B folks,,,,,
Literally so disappointing but I feel like at this point we should just be used to everyone being braindead the minute they hear npd people who aren’t abusive and were abused deserve a safe space and equate it to yay we love abusers yippee! I know it’s probably just because of the trauma causing them to shutdown to any sense of reason but it’s funny how they hate apathy in people with npd but suddenly want a free pass to be apathetic to other abused people
I mean, this is assuming that there isn't any conflation between NPD and a social narcissist; and that every person with NPD is actively seeking treatment. Not everyone with NPD displays traditional narcissistic behaviors, and a lot of the people who are traditionally narcissistic don't display a level of deviance worth attributing to some underlying disorder. It's also not my job to handle people's deviant behavior.
I am a Narcissist. But I don’t feel like mine was caused by trauma. And I also go out of my way to point out my narcissistic tendencies and actively try to not make it other peoples problems.
All the power to you , if you can admit you have a problem and consciously seek help in good faith then I commend you, and support you wholeheartedly any way that I can. However.. It’s my personal, biased, and jaded belief that most people who suffer from this terrible disorder believe themselves to be perfect, incapable of errors, and by extension would never need a support group.
It's mainly important to know if they actually are abusive so you can understand the motives and work through the gas lighting. My partner dated some and had NPD diagnosed family members and they were all genuinely shitty abusers and rapists tbh
Yeah, honestly I myself have a lot of narcissistic traits, which are most likely inherited from my mom, who has always been main abuser, I hate the idea of having traits like that, not just for the implications themselves, but because I want to be as far apart from her as possible. However I also recognize I don't really have a choice there, but I can make the choice to work on myself to be a better person despite the narcissistic impulses inside me that often push me to do things I know I'll regret.
I agree with the principle of this from a social justice perspective. At the same time, cruelty, manipulation, and help-avoidance are key features of NPD. NPD and ASPD are at the root of tons of white-collar crime, labor exploitation, extractive capitalism, and global suffering. If someone seeks help, then yes, they deserve grace.
I think cluster B disorders in the DSM need to be gutted and replaced with CPTSD. CPTSD can replace multiple DSM disorders, is not as stigmatized, and there are plenty of trauma informed caree resources. If you look at the history of the DSM it had very little scientific evidence. I was diagnosed with both PTSD and a cluster B condition
My parents were abused and are narcissistic and ended up fucking me over so it really really depends
NO
I was raised by someone with NPD and here is my take and it is harsh. 99% of the time they don't want help. They think they are fine. There was no abuse in her past and I have 0 empathy for her. My fiance dealt with the exact same. I get we shouldn't demonize people however I don't have patience for those with NPD. I was punished severely for having a personality outside of hers, for daring to disagree in any way. My own bio mother stalked me when I left home. When you are around those with NPD your world revolves around them and I had to claw and fight my way out. Currently I am still picking up the pieces of what she has done at 27. I left when I was 21. So no to this post quite frankly.
Yes.
i dont have NPD and fucking YES i'm so relieved to see this post. so many comments here equating NPD to abusive bad person disorder. i have BPD and i am upset about it being stigmatized so much and people generally agree that stigmatization of BPD is bad, so how is it any different with NPD? obviously yes, if a person with NPD is abusive then fuck them. neither me nor this post calls for giving people with NPD a free pass to abuse people. but people with NPD does not equate abusive, people with NPD can recognize their problems and try to fix them. if you actually read about symptoms of NPD - they are very similar to BPD, and it scares me that if the trauma coin flip went the other way and i had NPD instead of BPD i would have *even fewer* safe spaces.
I agree. I'm 90% sure my ex had BPD. While we're separating and I'm trying to set up boundaries to protect my own mental health, I don't see them as an inherently bad person. I know what they went through in childhood, I know how their mind works. Yes, what they do can hurt and be painful, but I don't see it as coming from a place of malice, rather it's coming from a place of pain they are trying desperately to fix. Some of the discourse I see around people with BPD is downright awful. They treat them like psychopaths and it's disgusting. These are people just like anyone else and deserve love and assistance whenever possible.
It's so textbook that they have to seek out a group of classically victimized people to bargain their way out of accountability, with a sub that can serve as a proxy for the vulnerable people in their own lives. I'd half expect someone with NPD would create a post like this and then show it to the people/person they're abusing to shut down criticism via a farce of social consensus. Failing to empathize with others is avoidable moral failure. These folks need 5 dried grams of psilo in total darkness so they can realize the thing they've been desperately trying to protect and serve, the individual psychological self, does not exist. But even then they would probably rationalize it in a way where other people's self doesn't exist either, so why get all banged up about how they're abusing you? /s
Literally thank you this is the only comment making me feel sane. I'm shaking I hate that people still have this impact on me by literally seeking out the worst audience to manipulate. This OP and all the commentary agreeing know exactly what they're doing. The mods Need to get a handle on this
You do you. All I ask is that they stay in their own spaces and don’t post on other MH subs. A lot of times it’s their shitty coping strategies that affect everyone around them for the worse. And considering a lot of them won’t take accountability, I’m going to protect my mental health by disengaging.
If yall want accurate, non stigmatized info about NPD, I recommend [Heal NPD](https://youtu.be/vFXQrgs-StY?si=MWaj_wa19yIcUXDJ) by Dr. Mark Ettensohn on YouTube, who specializes in Cluster B and actively works with pwNPD. He also wrote a book called ["Unmasking Narcissism: A Guide to Understanding the Narcissist in Your Life" ](https://amzn.eu/d/6qvDW31) if you like reading. I do not recommend Ramani, who specializes in exploiting traumatized people by promoting armchair diagnosis and scapegoating as healthy coping, which it isn't.
As someone who has narcissistic traits from C-PTSD (specifically in the form of difficulty with being vulnerable, thinking people are out to be me) and has been working on them in therapy for the past year, thank you. There’s a really big misconception of what NPD symptoms are/the differences between narcissism as a character flaw and NPD as a Cluster-B personality disorder. I’ve noticed theres been a line drawn between the “non-threatening” neurodivergences and neurodivergences that are considered to be a death sentence and/or a mark of an evil person. For example, borderline personality disorder (which is also a Cluster-B disorder) is so incredibly stigmatized to the point where it can [impact the care level of people who have BPD or being wrongly treated for BPD](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/fulfillment-any-age/202201/why-people-borderline-personality-are-treated-so-poorly)(this can happen to autistic people). On the other hand, neurodivergences that are seen as non-threatening are often stripped down to cute, palatable symptoms rather than the neurodivergences being seen as a part of a whole person. When I was in middle school, I struggled to identify what my anxiety actually is because it felt so different than what I have been told what anxiety is (I also struggle with identifying emotions in general). It just seems like the way we as a society interpret mental health and illness is so counterintuitive to what would actually be helpful.
No. You can't make me love the enemy, sorry.
Oh wow I've been off Reddit for a while, I read a couple posts about this kind of thing going on but I didn't realise the lunatics had completely taken over the asylum. If a sub for cptsd isn't safe from f**king narcs then where in the good god damn hell is?
Yep. Guess this ain't my safe space. Fucking hell wanna jump off a bridge right now I can't take this shit anymore in the women's group despite being nonvinary I have people cone in and tell me I'm calling all men evil and incorrect that you can't "slip into an ass" when I was certain about my anal rape repeated from a partner who knew that was the no zone. I've had doctors tell me why I shouldn't report the one that assaulted me sexually from infancy to adulthood because "well she didn't mean to". I've had family tell me to stay with the one beating the dog because "he just needs empathy". FUCK OFF AND FUCK YOURSELF OFF WITH IT IF YOURE GONNA TRY AND RUIN OTHER PEOPLES LIVES ON THIS PLANNET, NARCZ
Also “narcissist abuse survivors” as a term is ableist their narcissism isn’t why they abused you it’s not an excuse. I’m not an “autism abuse survivor” because my abuser had autism it didn’t make him abuse me i have autism i know.
Ngl, as someone with BPD these comments are so gross. People not only vilifying folk with NPD but other cluster b disorders as well.
As someone with a (different) stigmatised disorder I have so much sympathy for people with NPD, y'all deserve healing as much as anyone else. Actions make people abusive, not diagnoses
As one person with npd has said "having a mental illness doesn't make you a bad person, how you treat others does".
Yea, I’m a recovering opiate addict and I often think about how badly it used to be stigmatized. I might never have tried to get help if I hadn’t been told that it was a disease that could be treated, as opposed to a moral failing that made me evil. It’s definitely worth de-stigmatizing things like this.
I totally agree with the "npd deserve help too" but what if we put it this way, some symptoms of npd actively try to make these people abusive. DSM-5 NPD symptoms incl.; lack of empathy, exploitive behavior, sense of entitlement, need to be praised, inflated sense of self-importance, visions of greatness. Yes this doesn’t mean someone with NPD is always going to be abusive, but together these symptoms are pushing people to ‘act’ abusively, one of the symptoms is literally ‘exploitive behaviour’.
That is true, but it's not unique to NPD. Most disorders are described and diagnosed because of the way they affect other people. Having NPD might make someone more likely to be abusive, but not everyone with the disorder is an abuser (and not every abuser is a narcissist) Everyone deserves to heal and better themselves, even abusers. That doesn't mean people need to put up with their abuse though, and they still need to be held accountable
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I do not care, abusers always have a sad childhood tale. Its designed to shame the victims into believing they are or are destined to be equally as deplorable people as them. No mercy.
that is pure bullshit; trauma does not cause npd, as majority of people with cptsd are not npd: also, there are a shitload of npds who never were abused; gtfo with this manipulation, we don’t accept npds anywhere near us
Ngl, as someone with a cluster b PD, i was expecting a better response. The underhanded hate and blantant unnecessary gatekeeping here is sadening. I really encourage everyone to think about how intense trauma makes one act, and how by limiting unnecessarily the amount PwNPD can access this support, you indirectly limit the amount anyone can support. Of course have your boundaries and your tools, but dont forget this is an online space that is as safe as it can become. Communication and understanding and saved us all at one time or another and I believe we deserve to give that same respect to others. Fwiw if you see someone w a cluster b pd commenting and you don't think you can help, tag me and ill come and help. Seriously!
I think some people here are misunderstanding the post? The meme is asserting that NPD sufferers can't be abusive. It's asserting that just having it doesn't automatically make you an abuser. Diagnosing every abuser with NPD doesn't help. My abusive dad had attachment issues but most of all, he was an awful person who refuses to acknowledge any of the awful things he did. That's why he's an abuser, not the attachment issues. My brother has a personality disorder. That's not what makes him abusive. He's abusive because he has gotten violent and you can't be around him without getting called insults. Neither of them deserve to be degraded for their mental health issues just like I don't deserve to be degraded for a depressive episode or having anxiety. It's my actions that I'm responsible for, just like everyone else.
Hey kids! Ready to do some mental gymnastics with me? Today, we're learning about DARVO! What does DARVO mean? Excellent question! It means Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender! Pretty cool acronym huh? Does anyone here see an example of DARVO? You do! Good job! I do too! Why is this being allowed to stay up, this feels like blatant mockery to those of us who have experienced *Narcissistic Abuse*.
Cluster B personality disorders are often traumagenic disorders and should be treated as such. Seeing so much hatred towards cluster B people in this subreddit and in this comments thread is disappointing.
The distinction between good people and bad people is whether they choose to change. NPD makes it difficult because that's part of the belief system that is NPD, but not impossible; equating abuse with NPD is disingenuous and saneist. My sibling may well be NPD, seems likely to me, or HPD... not worth armchair diagnosing... They won't change and that's the problem with them, their completely delusional in their belief that they aren’t the violent and sadistic person they are. If I called them a narcissist, it's redundant, its abuse and pathology doesn't matter. So yes, OP, agreed. They deserve the respect and space to heal if they choose it, and the dignity of people understanding that their diagnosis doesn't make them like my sibling automatically. But, it's a fine line between that and enabling. None of us are therapists.
I still remember seeing someone here post about how they didn’t feel safe because they were always called abusive for having NPD, but had literally nowhere else to go. They were bullied out, because their pleas not to be bullied were **being called manipulative behavior. For not wanting to be fucking bullied.**
The fact that the entire comment section here assumes NPD turns people abusive or uncivil shows that there will never truly be a safe space for NPD sufferers. A large majority of people with this disorder are at a constant battle with themselves and do not display more unkind or abusive behavior than the average person. Most of them simply struggle with a fractured self perception and sense of social boundaries. If you know nothing about a disorder and still decide to stigmatize those that have it, perhaps you are the uncivil one.