Because of Steve and my experience I believe it can ...
I was scared, nearly out of my mind (and have talked to many scared in the same way) by the lack of compassion, insight, hope, courtesy or any sensible advice given to me when Steve’s NPD was first suspected. The same people who led me to suspect that he was NPD were the loudest to say that there was no cure and that I must leave him and not speak to him ever! Later when Steve got better, these same people said that he must not have been NPD after all, but that he probably only had narcissistic tendencies and that I was just lucky (?)
This bothers me in a number of ways;
1. Back when I needed help, not one person said there was a chance that he only had tendencies (and so that he might improve). Quite the opposite, I was told that I was obviously delusional and lacking in self esteem and co-dependent if I didn’t want to leave him. If I had gone ahead and followed this advice (leaving with no contact) it would have been devastating for us, a psychological, emotional and financial disaster that would have shattered our family and that we may NEVER have recovered from.
2. I have been accused of spreading false hope by claiming a cure, and am told at times that my message is dangerous, while telling someone they are an incurable and hopeless case and refusing all contact is exactly how to provoke a narcissistic type or their partner to violence and despair. I believe that our message and ‘cure’ is much more responsible than this, on every level.
3. Those who say that I was lucky! I asked Steve about this, I said “Do you think that it was luck that changed things, or that I was lucky in any way with what I went through with you?” He just laughed and said “Kim, it was not luck, it was you; I was the lucky one!”
It doesn’t matter if your partner is narcissistic, has narcissistic tendencies (and the experts admit that they cannot even tell the difference) or maybe they are just ‘mean spirited’ or ‘bad-natured’. If you are in an abusive or violent relationship, the point is that you need to improve your safety and learn to deal with criticism and emotional abuse effectively, whether your partner’s behaviour changes or not. We cannot promise a cure, of course not! But we can tell you that Steve was cured by these same methods and that we have helped many people find peace in their relationships too.
I believe that the idea of there being ‘no cure’ comes from the myth in psychology that someone has to want to get better and be prepared to work hard on themselves if they are ever going to hope to change their behaviour. We think this is not always the case. Tough love and parenting bratty kids are two examples of where the problem individual has no motivation to change but the effort of the people around them can bring enormously beneficial results. We believe it would be more accurate for the professionals to say that NPD is not generally helped by conventional therapy. There is research however, quoted by Daniel Goleman in “Emotional Intelligence” that shows that a ‘reparative relationship’ can be very beneficial in personality disordered individuals.
For you to have any hope of a ‘cure’, you will need to become a very strong parental figure and fill in some gaps and heal some distortions this person missed in the development process. The biggest of these is the ability to trust. Just like parenting, if you want to improve a child’s behaviour and character you will need to change your own behaviour towards them. Leaving them or threatening to leave in order to try and force them to change their behaviour will not build trust! Making demands will not work either.
When Steve was assessed as having NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder) everyone said I should leave him. I was made to feel a fool because I believed he could get better. Despite this (and even though he was hurting me) I refused to abandon him. I knew there had to be answers. I made a lot of mistakes and got a lot of professional help and advice (some good and most bad!) and nearly drove myself mad reading all of the advice online from bitter people who had not solved their relationship problems, until I finally found the steps to take. I also discovered that the online self-professed ‘expert’ on narcissism, who has been influencing the medical profession for years saying that there is no cure for narcissism, is no expert at all, but a mentally ill man who may know about symptoms, but is dangerously wrong about what the family of someone with NPD should do to protect themselves and to get help, (it was actually a police officer that first told me that this man was wrong about there being no cure for narcissism). He has many sites and he has influenced many people online about narcissism, and he is very seductive and abusive, so please be careful, many people have fallen under his spell. Don’t be one of them ...
Please snap out of your fear, wake up and begin to take action. There are things you can do to improve your life if you suffer from NPD or you are close to someone who does and we are here to guide you as best we can.
