Lacking Empathy

...what confounds me about narcissists

After my ex cheated on me, what was most jarring to me was the lack of accountability and acknowledgment of what he had done—the truth of it or any contrition.

After taking a step back, his emotional abuse and narcissism became apparent.

Interestingly, I have a couple of close friends who are also dealing with narcissism in their family members.

After understanding I endured narcissistic abuse, I strove to further understand how I ended up in this situation.

So, I did what I do, what I did after the deaths of my family members, I looked for stories. I read. And I read and I read.

As such, I have learned a lot about narcissism personality disorder.

It is alarming how many people are narcissistic.

I understand that they are some of the most traumatized, wounded, insecure and shame-filled people. Deeply embarrassed of their own mediocrity.

But—what differentiates them from the rest of us—because doesn’t the above also describe most adults? Traumatized, wounded and insecure?—is that narcissists refuse to acknowledge their own junk.

They won’t ask themselves—am I a narcissist?

I can get my mind around that.

What I struggle to understand is how they can go from such trauma to such grandiose sense of selves and then allowing that to manifest in a total lack of empathy for others. That inability to see others as human beings, to treat them humanely and compassionately.

Rather, they are hopelessly self-oriented.

Don’t get me wrong, I am glad that I can’t get it. I am happy that that is so out of touch from me and how I process my pain, that it boggles my mind. When I am unhealthy and mentally unwell, I self-harm over harming others. (Quite certainly not healthy either.) But I give others more credit than I should. (Obviously). More credit than they deserve.

The lack of empathy I find deeply disturbing. When you are unable to treat another human being with compassion, to understand yourself as so special that you can only use others and cause utter destruction to them, using them as pawns in your own game of life, it’s confounding.

This is why it makes sense that narcissists vacillate between the victim or the hero, but never the villain even when they are completely wrong and caught red-handed in cheating and lies.

These people will deny, they gaslight, they lie and cheat, they set people up, pitted up against each other. They are all shades of cruel and manipulative. But, of course, they have masked it well from the beginning. It’s deeply disturbing to know that when in romantic relationships with someone with narcissistic personality disorder, your relationship will never be as good as it was at the beginning, during the love bombing stage. They perform well. Their energy and dynamism can be alluring. But—unlike with normal relationships, that strengthen over time, these relationships will only get more unstable.

They will discard you as though you meant nothing to them. Finding closure is something you need to provide for yourself, because narcissists are not emotionally mature enough to provide that for their partners.

These are sociopathic tendencies. It’s hard to grapple with how (many) people are like that.

But it’s also interesting to learn how they look for those who are empathetic and loyal. They test you, to see that you are people-pleasers, and try to overwhelm you with love and devotion—love bombing—and co-dependents are the ones who they latch on to—

I am both empathetic and was modeled co-dependency from my mother. My marriage was also rife with co-dependency.

I share this to raise awareness for the signs of narcissism.

While I know that people are the worst, I had no idea just how deeply evil, cunning and deceitful those with NPD could be.