Can a Narcissist Change?
Narcissists have been the way that they are for a long time. But this doesn’t necessarily mean that they can’t change.
However, it’s not the amount of time that they’ve been a narcissist that means that they can’t change.
It’s that the defences that they have built and maintained over the years and decades of being a narcissist that are the reason they won’t change.
Their heart is protected by a castle, with archers on the walls and crocodiles in the moat. Every day they throw another crocodile into the moat, or make sure that the drawbridge is raised and very secure.
There is NOTHING that you do that will ever be able to break through those defences.
It’s not YOUR actions that will heal a narcissist.
Just the same as you can’t change anyone.
You are not responsible for how they are.
Although I’m sure they’ve made you feel like that and this is how they reel you in. And try to keep you.
Your loving, caring heart is exploited by a narcissist. Not cherished and appreciated as it should be.
A narcissist knows that you care.
Sadly, they don’t have the ability to care, they lack care, compassion and consideration for other people.
The whole of your relationship has been a series of tests by the narcissist. They are constantly checking you to see what they can get away with, and it gets progressively worse.
It’s a gradual process.
But the common theme in these tests is that the narcissist is making sure that they are your priority.
If they started off with some of the later tests earlier in your relationship, before they’d had enough time to work on you, you would have run.
Then at the same time as they are testing you, they are systematically destroying your trust in yourself and in your loved ones, isolating you, blaming you and making you rely on them.
It’s a toxic combination.
You won’t see it, probably until it’s gone too far. And even then, you won’t want to see it.
During this time when they are working on you and testing you, you are feeling greater sadness and heartache for them. Your love and care for them is growing.
The more they share with you, the greater intimacy you feel with them. The deeper and darker their secrets, the more you feel close to them and a greater need to help them.
These secrets they share with you, become the excuses they make for unacceptable behaviour. Sometimes they don’t even have to make excuses themselves, you excuse them for it.
What you see as intimacy, is the narcissist reeling you in, bringing you closer to them.
They want to ensure that they have power and control over you. That is all that they are interested in.
Sometimes these things that they share with you, or hint at aren’t true. Or if there is any truth in it, it’s been twisted and distorted.
Although their hurt and emotion about these subjects seems real, it isn’t.
A narcissist knows how to act, it’s how they get by in the world. Without this act, they wouldn’t have anyone in their lives.
In addition, they know how to pretend, how to be what people want them to be.
Whatever the situation, they will fake being whoever they think the other person wants them to be.
Then, over time and with the challenges of life, their true self seeps out. They simply can’t maintain the act for too long, it’s exhausting for them, and they are lazy.
Once their mask slips, it’s shocking.
And then that’s the beginning of the end for you because that mask will slip more and more. What is more, it never gets any better from that point.
Whilst you cling onto the person that you thought they were, their actions show more and more that they are not that person.
Sure, maybe once in a while they will turn on the act again but they can’t sustain it. And they will only do it if they can be bothered, and want to keep you, because that act is the only reason that you are with them.
A narcissist will never take responsibility for their actions.
So, when that mask slips, their true self seeps out, you will be blamed. Somehow, no matter how tenuous the reason, you will be solely responsible for whatever they did. And their fury and rage will be directed at you.
Likewise, if you try to sort out issues in the relationship, you will encounter their rage.
Whilst you are trying your best to feel loved and cared for in the relationship and sort out anything that gets in the way, the narcissist isn’t. To them, it is unreasonable that you would expect anything from them. But, of course, they expect everything from you.
Their rage may be anger, shouting and insulting and make you feel afraid, or it may be cold, silent treatment and stonewalling. Or a combination of both.
Whatever it is, their desire is to scare you into silence and to continue taking their treatment. They want to maintain the status quo; they like it the way it is. Your feelings about it don’t matter.
Consequently, you could sacrifice yourself at the narcissist’s alter. You could dedicate the rest of your life to trying to help and heal them.
But it would be entirely wasted.
To begin with a narcissist would take, take, take from you. Just the same as they always have done.
Instead of healing them, your attention, energy and love feeds them. It’s what they need to feel alive.
The more you do for them, the more invested you are in them, the more you will suffer for it. They will use it against you, use it to abuse you.
Your desperate love for them, is something that they deeply resent. To them it’s a weakness, they hate you for it. But they need you to feel it because it keeps you focused on them.
The more you focus on them, the less you consider and think about yourself. How you are suffering for your need to help them.
Your needs, and those of your loved ones, will be ignored, not just by the narcissist, but by yourself.
Your health, mental state, emotional condition, family, friends, career/job, finances and interests will suffer.
Bit by bit, you’ll lose yourself in your quest to save the narcissist. But you won’t see it, not until something serious happens, a health scare or crisis, or the break down of a serious relationship.
It’s such a gradual thing, it scares you once you start to see it.
You’ll ask yourself, how did I let this happen? It’s not like me to do these things, why did I let it go on?
Your beautiful and loving heart is the reason why you got there.
Instead of it being cherished and appreciated, it was used and abused to get the narcissist what they wanted.
Those moments when their mask slips and you see their true vileness, those times are when they show you the truth about how they feel about you.
And it hurts.
It takes time to reconcile what you though the narcissist was with the reality, what you see in their behaviour.
https://comebackbrighter.com/2023/08/01/can-a-narcissist-change/
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