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by 4oo4
1495 days ago
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I agree with all this, except for offering them your time. If you're not careful a narcissist will waste all your time and attention for self-validation (or perhaps other malicious purposes, depending on the type of narcissist). At that point you're just feeding the beast and reinforcing their expectation that they can demand limitless time and attention from people for their own vain needs. They will teach you to distrust yourself to suit their own inner narrative if they think you are challenging it. Time and attention granted to narcissists needs to be watched very closely. You're totally right that they need to be approached with empathy, and you don't need to completely ignore them or treat them as pariahs. However it's OK to disengage with them when you're being exploited for their self-validation. Unfortunately, I've really recently come to the realization that a longtime friend of mine has narcissistic traits, I didn't really realize it until another mutual friend started to get frustrated in the same way that I had been from time to time. Then I realized that my intuition was right, and how much the friendship had turned toxic because of how much it caused me to doubt myself, in service of their ego. Since I had been giving them so much time and attention while trying to be a good friend, I realized that they were making me doubt myself so they never had to reflect on themselves or have their way of thinking challenged. They're not a bad person and I think it comes down to insecurities, but the past couple weeks that I'm actively tuning them out when things cease to be a conversation, and rather them just talking at me with no way to get a word in edgewise (sometimes for up to an hour at a time!), telling me the exact same story they just told me yesterday, or even a few hours ago, just to hear themself talk. Since I started creating boundaries like that I have a lot more energy and focus for myself since I realized that it had convinced me to care about propping up their self-image rather than taking care of my own needs. |
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Good for you.