Speaking from personal experience, that’s simply not true. Narcisism is a mental disorder just like any other and can be treated with it’s own form of therapy. You are right that it can be difficult to treat as the onus of understanding falls on the patient choosing to want change in their life which means they have to admit they are wrong. That’s not impossible at all though and many full on narcissists often have a eureka moment when their cognitive dissonance can’t write off an event. On top of that, hormonal changes through life can also play a big role with many people literally growing out of it with different stages of life. Lastly, it’s often adopted by people as a trauma response, meaning that fixing the traumatic stimuli can lead to lessening narcissistic tendencies.
I personally was raised to be a narcissist, lived only with narcissists, and still have narcissistic tendencies that spawn from formative points of trauma. My moment was finding myself alone with a kid I never wanted to have and realizing that I literally had no one in my life to blame anymore. When you put yourself on an island alone so other people can’t fuck up your life anymore only to find out your life is still steadily fucking up on its own, it’s hard not to realize it’s actually you. Couple that with the pressures of parenthood, hormonal changes that no one warns men about, and the realization that I was going to do to my kid what was done to me until he found himself on that same island at 21, I decided to take drastic action.
It’s been a decade. I compartmentalize by joking that I killed that person and took his place. I still occasionally slip, I have a hard time being corrected by people I don’t respect, I instinctually judge things I don’t like as inferior, and I’m sensitive to people blaming me for things, but all of these are now within normal human response levels instead of where I was. Having that kid taught me a lot about empathy. I’m a lot more understanding of people because i realize threat people that aren’t exactly like me aren’t just idiots and fuck ups.
Narcissists are people and nobody is incapable of change.
Speaking from personal experience, that’s simply not true. Narcisism is a mental disorder just like any other and can be treated with it’s own form of therapy. You are right that it can be difficult to treat as the onus of understanding falls on the patient choosing to want change in their life which means they have to admit they are wrong. That’s not impossible at all though and many full on narcissists often have a eureka moment when their cognitive dissonance can’t write off an event. On top of that, hormonal changes through life can also play a big role with many people literally growing out of it with different stages of life. Lastly, it’s often adopted by people as a trauma response, meaning that fixing the traumatic stimuli can lead to lessening narcissistic tendencies.
I personally was raised to be a narcissist, lived only with narcissists, and still have narcissistic tendencies that spawn from formative points of trauma. My moment was finding myself alone with a kid I never wanted to have and realizing that I literally had no one in my life to blame anymore. When you put yourself on an island alone so other people can’t fuck up your life anymore only to find out your life is still steadily fucking up on its own, it’s hard not to realize it’s actually you. Couple that with the pressures of parenthood, hormonal changes that no one warns men about, and the realization that I was going to do to my kid what was done to me until he found himself on that same island at 21, I decided to take drastic action.
It’s been a decade. I compartmentalize by joking that I killed that person and took his place. I still occasionally slip, I have a hard time being corrected by people I don’t respect, I instinctually judge things I don’t like as inferior, and I’m sensitive to people blaming me for things, but all of these are now within normal human response levels instead of where I was. Having that kid taught me a lot about empathy. I’m a lot more understanding of people because i realize threat people that aren’t exactly like me aren’t just idiots and fuck ups.
Narcissists are people and nobody is incapable of change.