The narcissistic parent 2

Okay, so what do we do about it?

For starters, we don't want to get into the business of diagnosing people. Or, to put it another way, there is psychological narcissism and there is moral narcissism. Psychological narcissism is more properly called Narcissistic Personality Disorder or Borderline Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Only a professional can properly determine whether someone has these problems. And only a professional can do anything about it; assuming something can be done and it may not be the case that anything can.

It might be moral narcissism. What's that? It's what happens to anybody who acquires mental habits that lead them to react in narcissistic ways. In our culture, that's most of us. Which brings the first of two problems into focus: Who am I to be pointing out the speck in someone else's eye? And the second problem is like unto it: It's not going to do any good at all to point a finger at someone else and accuse them of narcissism.

It might, might!, help to occasionally suggest that some behaviours that someone else does are unfair. On the other hand, the sort of person capable of accepting that sort of criticism should also be morally mature enough to figure it out for themselves.

But we don't see that as lay people just trying to get by. We only see someone who just keeps doing stupid, destructive things to others and themselves. If we care, and we should, our first temptation will be to try to get them to see the problem. That's tricky because "just trying to get someone to see something" is the way manipulative people describe their attempts at manipulation. It seems so obvious to us that the other person "just doesn't get it" and, therefore, it starts to feel justified that we should hold their views on the matter in low regard and to start using "whatever it takes" to get them "to see reason'.

And, somewhere along the line, this other person has been reduced to a thing that needs to be fixed and not a proper person anymore.

The most, it seems to me, that we can do is make the person aware of what we don't like and then leave it up to them to determine whether they should change.

From that there follows a second question: How many chances do you want to give them? What we need to do is draw a line. Don't tell anyone else about it but draw it for yourself. And if they cross it, you want to distance yourself from them. You probably don't need to cut them out of your life but you will need some distance for your own happiness.

Okay, that's the person with narcissistic tendencies but what about the parent with such tendencies. That's not a problem I currently have to deal with but I think the first step is still the same. The next step is to subject yourself to serious scrutiny. Why? Because this parent has influenced you all your life. All the tendencies I described in the last post will be well internalized in you too. And you need to fix yourself, quite possibly with professional help. The way forward is going to require that you reject pretty much all the values this parent has taught you. That will be like amputating your own arm without anesthetic.

Still well worth the effort though.