Narcissistic Personality Disorder is a VERY REAL Mental Health Condition
Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) is classified within “Cluster B” by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Personality Disorders, and characterized by unpredictable thinking or behavior and manipulative, exploitative interactions with others.
This means the person who has been abusing you wasn’t being nasty for the sake of being a douchebag… but because the part of their mind that holds their AUTOMATIC instincts has been conditioned to dismiss anything beyond their own needs.
WHY is this important to TRULY and COMPLETELY understand? Why does Carmen repeat this information over and over x1000 again?
Because it’s virtually impossible to physically identify people with NPD, and as such, we project OUR own abilities to bond, empathize, reason, care for, and behave on to them.
It’s a HUGE reason why WE suffer from Cognitive Dissonance!
Invisible Illnesses are REAL
NPD is a VERY REAL personality disorder characterized by the lack of a functioning personality and emotional empathy, as well as a dimmed conscience and the inability (outright refusal) to feel guilt. Brain scans of people with NPD reveal abnormalities in the area of the brain related to compassion.
This isn’t just a “fad”. This disorder is REAL.
NPDs are dependent on external approval and adulation (narcissistic supply) to validate and regulate their self-esteem and self-definition. Their disorder has wiped-out their ability to see beyond their own needs, and their only motivation is to obtain narcissistic supply (approval, admiration, adulation, validation, etc.) to relieve their immediate feelings of emptiness.
This is just so ALIEN from what we are familiar with in our own everyday reality that it is insanely difficult to TRULY grasp what we are really up against. Because of that, we can’t help but expect the narcissist to possess the same ability to love and care for others like we can.
Narcissistic manipulation is so covert; many victims don’t even realize they’re being abused. Some continue to question whether they have been abused at all (still hoping the abuser will prove them wrong… and possibly absorbing the blame themselves) long after the relationship.
Hiding in plain sight…
People with NPD comes in all varieties… from successful entrepreneurs and powerful CEO’s of billion-dollar companies… to supportive social workers and classroom teachers. They may contribute to charitable causes and volunteer to help the less fortunate. They can also be unemployed freeloaders sponging off of one victim after another.
That's why executing NO CONTACT or MODIFIED NO CONTACT is MANDATORY. Unless you remove ALL ILLUSIONS projected by the narcissist from your sight, it will hinder your recovery.
You must shut them out completely because narcissists don’t care about loving or being loved, they don’t long to understand or be understood. They don’t care about the relationship the same way you do.
They LIVE moment by moment feeding off of how other people emotionally react to them .
So even if they drop on their knees and confess they’ve made a terrible mistake… even if they say they’re ready to see a therapist with you… even if they tell you the skies parted, the angels blessed them with a shower of confetti, and they found religion… even if they tell you they now realize there is no one they love more than they love you… NO CONTACT. NO EXCUSES.
* Read my article about this on Thought Catalog *
It’s NEVER about loving you or caring deeply about you. It will ALWAYS be about getting narcissistic supply. ALWAYS.
YOU are the source. ALWAYS CHOOSE YOU.
Love,
Carmen