One of the most important questions, for me, is whether or not NPD can be cured or at least improved. (This relates to a blog post I will publish shortly, about whether it is possible to have a meaningful relationship with a narcissist, or with any toxic person: I think it is, but only if they learn to moderate the way they behave - and that is a monumentally huge 'if'.)
Like all of us, my mother had (has) 'good' days and 'bad' days. Likewise, my schizophrenic half-sister Elle had 'good' days and 'bad' days (by which I mean, sometimes she would appear to be a regular, sane person). My alcoholic father was agreeable company (even irresistibly effervescent company) 99% of the time, even when he was extremely drunk. Sometimes especially when he was drunk...
We are not defined or limited by our afflictions, vices and illnesses - so while I might be accurately described as an anxious, dithering diabetic, I don't consider that to be an entirely fair and rounded description of the person I am. Likewise, my mother is not really a cruel, troubled, deluded narcissist - at least that is not ALL she is, and certainly her friends would never describe her in those terms. (Because they do not know her any better than I do.) Elle was not a tragic paranoid schizophrenic - she was a lovely, compassionate, warm human being who had a catastrophic life of relentless trauma and devastation. My dad was not a shambolic alcoholic - he was an exceptionally clever, witty, warm and wise man, whose life was ruined by the wasteful stupidity of alcoholism. Classifying problems - which invariably entails labelling people in this rather arbitrary, lazy and subjective way - is inherently problematic in itself, as I will discuss in a later post.
If my mother's 'good' ('nice', 'normal') days had significantly outnumbered the bad ('nasty', 'cold', 'inconsistent', 'abusive', 'abnormal') days, there might be no need for this blog at all. Because the 'normal' would be... well, normal. But her 'normal' state was, for want of a better description, profoundly abnormal. Therefore, the abnormal became my normal. (I recently started a new blog called 'Ordinary Abnormal' and my opening post discusses this.)
I have been looking into the long-term prognosis or 'treatability' of NPD ever since I found out that it was a recognised and classified disorder. I've already stated (in my post How do I know my mother has Narcissistic Personality Disorder?) that I am in no doubt that my mother definitely, indisputably has NPD, among at least one or two other mental/emotional issues, which I believe could be bipolar and/or schizophrenia. Sadly, I will never know for sure exactly what troubles my mother, because all her problems and faults are habitually projected onto others (blame-shifting) while she assumes a wearying stance of untouchable moral superiority.
But to assume NPD is treatable - or curable, even - is to assume that it is an organic illness, with a specific and essentially identifiable cerebral impairment, injury or malfunction to target and correct. For example, schizophrenia (or at least its symptoms) can be treated or tamed by anti-psychotics, and a depressed person can take any of the dozens of available anti-depressants to alleviate their symptoms and buoy their mood, albeit temporarily. There are hundreds of prescribed medications available for the dozens of mental and emotional illnesses and disorders, including mood stabilisers and specific anti-depressants (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors, or SSRIs) for anxiety. (Perhaps I would benefit from one of those myself, but I don't want to turn into a walking pharmacy.) It is usually just a case of finding the "right" medication for a particular individual. In the crudest and most basic terms, it's redressing a chemical imbalance.
We all self-medicate from time to time - paracetamol for pain relief, a sedative for insomnia, cough medicine and decongestant for flu and colds, antihistamine for hay fever and allergies, antibiotics for infections, alcohol or other brain-altering drugs (in inadvisable quantities) to escape from reality and stress...
In many cases, we are ignoring the underlying cause of our various problems and targeting only the symptoms of those problems. Much of the time, that's OK, because it works. We get rid of the symptoms of an illness, so we can get on with our lives, and eventually the illness (or problem) itself disappears - the virus passes, the germs dissipate, the migraine subsides.
Even if we accept that NPD is a mental illness (which, strictly speaking, it isn't), it cannot be treated in the same way as mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and depression, because there is no obvious organic basis. While certain narcissistic traits might be ameliorated by certain medications, nothing (in pill form at least) will stop a narcissist from BEING A NARCISSIST. But likewise, there is no agreed definitive 'cure' for depression or schizophrenia - most sufferers just go through periods of remission - breaks of calm and normalcy between debilitating mental and emotional storms. I don't advocate treating mental illness exclusively with pills anyway, for a number of reasons, not least of which is the fact that the medication controls the symptoms without addressing the underlying cause. In fact in many cases, the addressing of the symptoms necessitates a masking or oversight of the cause.
It is tempting to conflate 'sickness' and 'disorder'... surely, if you're disordered, you're not exactly 'healthy'? The website 'Flying Monkeys Denied' explains this well (see Further Reading): "People who are diagnosed [with NPD] do not technically speaking have a disease or even truly a dysfunction. What they do have is a highly efficient and self-serving personality type — and a personality type is not something that is broken. Technically speaking, it simply is what it is."
This seems unbearably fatalistic. But true narcissists are extremely unlikely to seek help for themselves. While they may attend therapy sessions, it is rarely as a means of seeking help for their own issues, because that entails admitting fallibility, vulnerability, imperfection. It entails accepting responsibility - something I now know my mother, like all narcissists, will never do. Can never do. All I ever wanted to hear from my mother, even more than the words "I'm sorry", were the words "I fucked up". How she would have liberated herself with those three words! It would have lifted the weight of the world from her shoulders, if only she had found the strength and the courage to confess: yes, I have been a terrible, terrible mother to all three of my daughters. None of you are to blame for any of our family's myriad fractures and dysfunctions, I am. It is all my fault. ALL OF IT. How can I make it better? For you, for me, for all of us?
A recent article, Is There a Cure for Narcissistic Personality Disorder (see the third link under 'Further Reading'), states that: "When I work with my clients, victims of narcissistic abuse, I encourage them to focus on themselves rather than the narcissist. This is where true change happens. You cannot hope to change him [or her] but you can change yourself. This means refusing to tolerate abuse on any level and taking control of your experiences." [my emphases]
Personality resides in our psyche, and our psyche is undoubtedly the 'soul' of our brain - that endlessly complex, arcane bulk of hectic pyrotechnic convoluted grey matter inside our skulls, which is so susceptible to every life experience and every unpredictable vicissitude of fate. Can we change our personalities? There are certainly aspects of my personality I would dearly love to change, but I fear they have become an intrinsic part of who I am: my anxiety, insecurity, indecisiveness, gullibility, my maddening inability to accept either a compliment or a criticism, my lack of self-confidence (which, to the eternal chagrin of my husband, often translates into a regular and pitifully transparent "fishing for compliments" - compliments that I am unable to accept)... And there is certainly no changing my mother. She is a sad, lonely, bitter, broken, sorrowful woman with a whole range of complex mental and emotional problems that are now so deeply entrenched they have, in effect, become who and what she is. They have usurped the normal, reasonable, pleasant human being that she almost certainly once was. I cannot do anything for her, and I am sick of trying. I am sick of feeling responsible for something that is not and never has been my problem, much less my fault.
I suppose I've got to a point where I no longer even wish for a cure or a solution. I've just removed myself completely from the situation, a situation that was slowly and inexorably killing me off. Removing myself is my only cure, and my only solution, and the only way I am going to see any positive changes in my life. As the 'Your Healthy Tricks' article rightly says, "most people seeking the change are the victims of narcissistic abuse, not the narcissists themselves."
See my blog post What lies behind NPD?
Further reading:
http://flyingmonkeysdenied.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/media-spotlight/201509/can-you-change-your-personality
http://www.yourhealthytricks.com/is-there-a-cure-for-narcissistic-personality-disorder/
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