Are narcissists evil or disabled?

Photo by Nick Coleman on Unsplash

Personality disorders are most often a response to trauma. And narcissistic personality disorder is almost impossible to cure because it tends to cause the person afflicted with NPD to play mind games with therapists. It’s a really awful personality disorder. Sadly, it means that whilst their interpersonal communication skills are top-notch from a marketing/PR perspective their relationships tend to be very superficial and built on finding a supply to feed their ego with in a vain attempt to feel better about themselves. They’re really tied up quite tightly by their personality disorder and it’s almost impossible to treat NPD because narcissists play mind games with therapists and aren't capable of being vulnerable enough for therapy to be helpful.

Unfortunately, society not only normalises narcissistic behaviour (whilst also shunning and blaming victims of trauma) but it encourages it. Capitalism is a narcissist’s dream because the only rule is “Die with the most toys.” The only way to deal with a person suffering from narcissistic personality disorder is to stop feeding it by reducing your contact with them and limiting their ability to do harm in your workplace.

I personally have struggled with narcissistic abuse from my family as well as landlords and roommates and I believe that cutting them off was the best decision I ever made. It became crystal clear that they were only arguing with me to get me to lower myself to their level and fight back and had no interest in actually discussing or resolving the issue they were raising. They were just systematically going through a list of my insecurities and seeing what would make me lose my cool which is their only goal. It would have been hilarious if it hadn’t been so sad. And they did it because I tried to hold them to the same standard that they held me to. They were triggered. And I realised that all of the nice things they did for me was grooming and something to put in the bank and use as emotional blackmail later. I was finally able to see that nothing they did or said had anything to do with anything that was “wrong” with me and everything to do with this personality disorder they were trapped in. It was freeing but it also made me sad that there was really nothing I could do to break them out of it. In a way, NPD is similar to OCD because the compulsion they have for…