Pondering

[Gaslit]

I wonder how many narcissists actually get diagnosed and how many actually seek help for their disorder and have success with getting  better?????

[NarcKiddo]

Hi, and welcome.

From what I have heard and read, many fewer than actually exist. Part of the problem is that they won't/can't accept anything is wrong with them. Deep down they probably sense how deficient they are but they are unable to cope with that. Seeking help requires admission that help is needed.

[Srcyu]

Well, that would mean admitting to being the problem so I can't see many of them doing that.

[LikeTheSea]

They think we're the problem.  I was told I was projecting when I told my ex-h I thought he had a pd.

[Jolie40]

our whole family went to "family counseling" when I was a teen
I heard the counselor say parents were treating me as scapegoat

even though they were told that, they didn't stop the behavior


if narcissists attended counseling, would they change their behavior?

[Catothecat]

Narcs seem to live in a win-win world, so why should they change?  When everything is going their way, why change?  When things aren't going their way, it has nothing to do with them and everything to do with someone else, so again--why change?   If WE were living in such a reality, would we change it?

I even encountered a narc in group therapy years ago.  She wasn't there for help, she was there for reinforcement of her view that people in her life were giving her trouble she didn't deserve.  She was always the innocent victim and would hijack session time over and over and over because she "needed to talk."  On the rare occasions when the therapist would give her some push back, he would meet a blank wall of incomprehension.  Then she would be off again and we'd have to sit there like her audience which is exactly how I think most narcs view the rest of us.

[easterncappy]

Every time I've implied to my mother that there's something wrong or abnormal about my family, she said "YOU don't get to decide what's right or normal". From reading people's stories on here, most PDs get similarly defensive at the mere idea that they are not all the way right. There are a few hard steps between admitting there is something wrong and going to therapy about it. Ain't happening.

[treesgrowslowly]

I have yet to see it.

Trees

[SeaBreeze]

I know one professionally-diagnosed narc. (Ex-friend from high school, who was ordered mandatory counselling after a juvenile offense.) Guess what...he unapologetically uses his diagnosis to excuse his poor behavior. I was the last of our old high school clique to stop talking to him, in our early 30s. (Yes, I held out the longest while other friends asked "Why do you still talk to him??") His parting words to me after our final disagreement were "You know what I am, what did you expect?" I guess he had a point.