Can NPD be treated or cured?

I've not posted anything for several weeks, and that's because I had almost finished a particularly brilliant and detailed post (even if I do say so myself), which I'd spent many hours researching, only for it to mysteriously disappear (even despite frequently 'saving' it) just before I was ready to publish it. So that set me back a bit.

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.com/2015/11/04/can-narcissism-or-npd-in-narcissistic-people-be-cured/

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/

The elephant in the room, and all her babies

• I was originally going to call this post "Just get over it", because I have lost count of how many times people have said that to me. Recently, even my own sister basically told me to "get over it", which is absolutely flabbergasting, when she is even more damaged than I am. But then she continues to live with Denial, because although it's a lot less comfortable than acceptance, it is easier. She's become accustomed to the discomfort of Denial, so the emancipation of acceptance seems too daunting. I get that. I really do.
  
  While I have been able to accept that my mother's appalling treatment of me is due to the fact she is profoundly mentally sick and disordered, I cannot explain away my sister's treatment of me in quite the same terms. She is not a narcissist, and I do not think she is in danger of ever becoming one - although she is entirely self-absorbed, that self-absorption is based on self-destruction rather than pathological selfishness. Years ago, she and I had a good relationship. We grew up in solidarity and relative harmony with each other. I adored her, and I still do. I always will. Her betrayal - because that is what it is, aided and abetted by our mother, of course - has ripped the heart out of me. Things started going wrong between us when she discovered a predilection for alcohol, back in the late 1990s. When drunk, my sister can be an extremely nasty person - upfront-and-loud nasty, not insidious, 'under-the-radar' nasty like our mother. Escaping into alcoholic oblivion has been her coping mechanism. Every child of a narcissist needs something to help them cope or deny (usually the two are effectively the same).

  
  

  

  
  

  My sister was very close to our dad - even closer than I was, because as much as I like the occasional drink, I find it impossible to consume the vast quantities that my dad and sister could. (Indeed, for me, it would be lethal.) After his death in 2007, my sister (who I shall refer to as Jenny) spiralled into an abyss of despair, and when her husband died three years later after a protracted and horrendously cruel illness, I think she must have reached her "maximum pain" threshold, because ever since, she has been a total stranger to me. I literally know nothing about her any more - nothing. She has chosen to stonewall me, and for every attempt I have made with her to establish contact (even after her betrayal), she has ignored me. Worse, she has ignored my children, her nephews. She had a baby herself last year, and the fact I will probably never get to know my beautiful niece is a crippling concern that haunts me every day.

  
  

  Should I accept some of the blame for this? Well, possibly. While I am big on communication, having been raised by a deranged, loveless woman for whom honesty and reality are anathema, perhaps I tend to gloss over the issues that really matter. At least, I used to. "The elephant in the room" was habitually ignored in our house; we merely tiptoed around it, pretending it wasn't there. The weight and breadth of the elephant increased daily, with every violent admonishment, every insult, every dismissal, every subtle dig, every narcissistic outrage. I am uncomfortable with conflict and confrontation. It deeply upsets and disturbs me, and Jenny has always been the same (although when intoxicated, she usually has no problem expressing and misdirecting her anger). Since finding out about NPD, however, I have been singing like a crazed canary, and for every person that tells me to "just get over it", I will sing a little louder. I am out of my cage now, and singing my heart out, and nothing but NOTHING will shut me up. I no longer care who I offend or upset with my honesty. I certainly don't care if I bore or irritate anyone who dares to assume that parental narcissism is "not that bad". And I absolutely don't give a flying fuck if my new-found propensity to be honest and open makes a few people feel awkward. I WILL NOT SHUT UP AND I WILL NOT GO AWAY.

  
  
  

  

  
  
  

  There is a massive fucking great elephant in the room, and it is called PARENTAL NARCISSISM. That colossal pregnant elephant gave birth to big bouncing babies, which shat all over the place and destroyed everything in their path, and those babies were called Morbid Alcoholism, Domestic Violence, Emotional Abandonment, Self-harming, Drug Abuse, Suicide, Schizophrenia, Brainwashing, Depression, Delusion, Sadism, Projection, Denial, Anxiety and Complex-Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. THEY ALL LIVED THERE WITH US. And we continued ignoring all of them, all the time. 
  
  Complex- Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, which I affectionately call 'C-PTSD' (more about that later), and his little sister, Anxiety, are two elephantine gifts my mother allowed me to keep with me, always, throughout my adult life. They have trampled on just about every aspect of my existence. Drug Abuse stayed with me for a while (I actually quite enjoyed his company; he's good fun but only because I do not, mercifully, have an addictive personality); while Denial taps at my window most nights, although I will never let him in again.

  
  

  

  
  

  
  Recently, I tried reaching out to Jenny, for the first time in a few months (I had promised her, and myself, that I would stay away, but I love her, goddammit, and I want to 'save her'). To my astonishment, she responded (redacted as necessary):

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    "...As for this lack of contact thing.. Quite honestly, the reason I haven't stayed in touch is because I'm just at a complete loss as to what to say. I find it all so exasperating. Rest assured I'm not in mum's 'manipulative grasp' or anything.. my relationship with her is just as difficult and dysfunctional as it ever was and ever will be, believe me. I keep minimal contact with her. She just sends me endless emails which I tend not to read. When I do see her she tries to pass on much unwanted parenting 'advice' of which I either completely ignore or go out of my way to do completely the opposite (if she's taught me nothing else it's how NOT to be a mother)... And she goes on and on and on about the situation with you. It's all so very sad and tiresome... I just want some peace and bloody quiet. I want to heal properly from the last 8 years, raise my little girl and hopefully be the kind of mother I always yearned to have.

    You and me are just on completely different pages in our mother-coping strategies and I don't appreciate you trying to bludgeon me with this stuff. You've let it consume you so utterly. Just let it go and start enjoying your life ffs!"

    
    
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    My response (which she has read, but will not, I have no doubt, respond to):
    

    
    

    "We are on different pages in everything, Jenny. In everything. I have not let it consume me - I DID let it consume me, for YEARS, and it damn near killed me. But now I am being open and honest about it. I am HEALING. Recovering. Slowly. Very slowly. I AM enjoying my life, because SHE IS NO LONGER IN IT. You say you want to heal from the last 8 years? It's longer than that sis.... much, much longer. It goes back to the early 1980s. I worry about you. I don't care that you don't need me to worry, I don't care that you think I am 'bludgeoning' you with stuff. That's not true anyway. I have kept my distance, in fact I couldn't really be more distant. WTF happened? To us? Don't pin all the blame on me, you know that's not true. Peace and quiet... yes, we all deserve peace and quiet. Don't tell me I've "let it consume me so utterly", as if somehow you are not consumed by it. We are both consumed by it. Both of us. Like Elle was. Like dad was. Don't live in denial. I am glad you are keeping contact to a minimum. I do not hate her, and I could never hate her. I love her deeply but I am so scarred by the past that I don't think I will ever feel like a complete human being. This isn't self-pity, it's honesty. I am doing the same: being the best mum I can be by doing the exact fucking opposite of what she did with us. Yes, being the "kind of mother I always yearned to have". ****** and ****** are vibrant, happy boys, and I dote on them. I hope one day they will get to meet their cousin. I love you Jenny. xx"

  
  

  

  
  

Will I Ever Be Good Enough? by Dr Karyl McBride

I have recently finished reading this book for the second time and will provide here a brief overview and review, including extracts and quotes that I particularly identified with.

The book has been described in glowing terms by many reviewers: "...it truly helps the reader to reflect on her pain, as well as relish the hope that she can end the legacy of narcissism..."
"... an amazing journey out of pain."
"The recovery section offers a rich variety of ideas and techniques to use in everyday life."
"...A guide to halting this insidious form of mental abuse and neglect." (The word 'insidious' is so applicable to the nature of narcissistic abuse that I have been tempted to use it in just about every one of my blog posts, and Karyl McBride uses it herself several times in the book (e.g. page 6, "...aspects of maternal narcissism tend to damage daughters in particularly insidious ways")

In the video below, Dr McBride is asked:"What is maternal narcissism?"

She replies: "In simple terms, it is a mother who is incapable of unconditional love and empathy."

If you are reading this blog and wondering whether or not you have a narcissistic mother, the answer will be revealed EVERY TIME you need love, compassion, respect, validation, recognition, moral or emotional support from her. A narcissist will FAIL to do this EACH AND EVERY TIME, even if you explicitly ask her for it, or will begrudgingly do so only on her own terms, with judgement and conditions as standard. For example, if your mother helps you and then later on uses this as a stick to beat you with ("I did this for you, therefore you owe me"), she might not have full-blown NPD but she sure as hell has some severely unpleasant narcissistic traits.

The above video introduction to Karyl McBride's best-selling book explains how narcissism exists on a spectrum, with extreme NPD/malignant narcissism at one end of the spectrum, and people with one or two (normal, healthy) narcissistic traits at the other end (where the majority of people reside). In between these two extremes exist many millions of mothers (and fathers, and others), all over the world, and naturally the further towards the 'extreme' end of the spectrum they are, the more damage they cause and the more suffering they inflict.

As Dr McBride goes on to describe, a narcissistic mother is one who "has her own deep wounds that create barriers so that she can't tune into the emotional world of her children, and it leaves the daughters with this... emptiness".

She then touches on a very important point: the sanctity of motherhood, and the taboo subject of the 'unloving mother': 
"Good girls don't hate their mothers. Good girls don't talk bad about their mothers."

Indeed. But while acknowledging the absurdity of 'not being allowed' to feel NATURAL rage against an abusive woman who shows us nothing but hatred, disrespect and contempt, and the fact that this rage is disallowed (and thus repressed) just because that abusive woman happens to be the one who gave birth to us, Dr McBride then states: "This is not a book about anger, rage, resentment or blame." (This assertion is also made on page 6 of the book: "Healing comes from understanding and love, not blame.")

While I uphold the admirable virtuousness of the sentiment, I want to talk about this somewhat 'touchy-feely' aspect of the book before anything else, because it's my main problem with what was otherwise an extremely validating and intelligent read. In the acknowledgements section, Karyl McBride thanks her parents (note: the plural) "for teaching me about perseverance, good work ethic and fighting for what you believe in". All well and good. I could probably think of one or two things to thank my mother for too, apart from giving birth to me, although they would be incidental things, like 'resilience' (I HAD TO BE bloody resilient to survive my childhood), 'bloody-minded determination' (ditto) and 'the ability to enjoy my own company' (ditto). But then, in the introduction, Dr McBride speaks affectionately of her mother when she recounts telling her, with some trepidation, about writing her book: "My mother, bless her heart, said 'Why don't you write a book about fathers?' And of course, she was worried about being a bad mother, which would be expected."

I can only assume from this that Karyl McBride's mother is/was NOT a malignant narcissist. A malignant narcissist would categorically NOT GIVE A SHIT about "being a bad mother", and even faced with hard evidence would DENY to her dying breath having been a bad mother anyway; which is precisely why they manage to be the worst mothers on the planet. 

I, personally, would never be able to insert the incongruous endearment 'bless her heart' when recalling ANYTHING my own mother has said or done to me. Not because I am a less forgiving person than Dr McBride - I suspect I'm too forgiving for my own good, in fact. But I do not - yet - forgive my mother. I think I will, and I hope I will, but that is not actually my ultimate goal. My ultimate goal is not to even understand my mother - I will NEVER understand her. I do love her, and I could certainly never hate her, but that's beside the point when you're dealing with a malignant narcissist anyway. Yes, I want to recover and heal, all casualties of narcissistic abuse DESPERATELY want to recover and heal, but I don't like the assumption that anger will 'get in the way' of the recovery process. I disagree. Anger is a CRUCIAL part of the recovery process, and not just to "work through it" (i.e. get rid of it). I will always feel angry, and although the anger is diminishing by the day, it will NEVER diminish to nothing, and I do not WANT it to diminish to nothing. I embrace that anger. I have fucking EARNED that anger, every last blazing particle of it. That healthy, NORMAL and inextinguishable spark of anger means I will NEVER get fucked over by a narcissist again - oh, and that's something else to 'thank' my mother for, I guess.

Dr McBride says herself that "you cannot completely 'cure' the scars of a childhood trauma". You can only work through them, to make them more bearable.

She labours the point slightly that "no person is all good or bad" (page 201). "Whether your mother has narcissistic traits or full-blown NPD, she has some goodness in her. She likely passed along talents, passions, interests and knowledge to you. Remind yourself of the gifts she has given you."

This 'every cloud has a silver lining' mentality does jar with me slightly. I am not so seething with irrational resentment that I am unable to grasp the concept that even the most twisted  and hard-hearted person is capable of doing good things, and of bestowing positive feelings. I do not even consider my mother to be a particularly twisted and hard-hearted person - I am perfectly capable of acknowledging her achievements and virtues. The problem is, I just have no way of knowing whether they are 'real' or not, because she is such a mental, monumental FAKE. 

Early on, the book asserts that "the complexity of the mother-daughter connection" means it is often "rife with conflict and ambivalence" (even the best mother-daughter relationships have their ups and downs), and yet, echoing the thoughts of every daughter (or son) of a narcissistic mother, Dr McBride describes how she "felt something different - a void, a lack of empathy and interest, a lack of feeling loved."

This is the very essence of maternal narcissism. Also: "Like a good girl, I tried to make excuses and take all the blame." (There's that reference to 'good girls' again.)

The most enduring and helpful message I got from this book is that empathy, being the "cornerstone for love" is the one thing that unites ALL narcissistic mothers by its ABSENCE. I could probably easily have forgiven my mother for everything she has done to me IF she had only displayed some genuine empathy for me from time to time, just occasionally "felt what I was feeling". I would probably be no less damaged or pissed off, but at least I might be permitted the precious illusion that a small part of her does have some vestigial love in her heart for me. 

Pages 145-6 look at the Stages of Grief, and I will examine this important topic in another blog post, because I think those stages that Karyl McBride mentions, as proposed by Dr Elisabeth Kügler-Ross in her acclaimed 1969 book "On Death and Dying" (denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance), are really not applicable to the unique grief process we go through as daughters of narcissistic mothers. 

Page 208 looks at 'accountability' (my emphases): "Being accountable for your own feelings and behaviour is vital to your mental health and peace of mind. As daughters of narcissistic mothers, what we saw most of the time was the 'blame game' in action. Mother was typically not accountable for her behaviour or feelings and projected them constantly onto others - and particularly onto us." 

YES - a resounding YES to this. This seems to support the theory that there is a fine, blurred line between NPD and mental illness.

I didn't gain a huge amount of insight from the middle section of the book - some of the recovery tips are helpful and some of them are downright weird (e.g. 'doll therapy', p.151), but this book is clearly not intended for EVERY daughter of EVERY narcissistic mother. (Such a book is an impossibility.) It's pitched for slightly to severely damaged, hurt and confused daughters of mildly to moderately narcissistic mothers. 

If you are profoundly traumatised in many ways - physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually - by a tyrannical malignant narcissist mother who terrorised you to the edge of insanity for most or all of your life, it will probably barely scratch the surface.