The only way to cure narcissism

Is to get so brutally beaten down, you are forced to face reality and accept yourself. To be faced with your weaknesses, your true personality.

And I'd rather be "normal", than a sad, narcissistic vampire, who needs to feed on others.

With me, it was a growing idea of how badly I'd treated someone, that came crashing through into full consciousness. Then about a year after that, after doing online personality tests and reading a book about narcissism, I realised that I'm a narcissist.

Since then, some changes have happened naturally. (The superiority's dropped away, and I'm a bit more empathetic.) There are still plenty of the old narcissistic thought patterns there, though.

The only bit of your post that I don't relate to is that I wasn't beaten down by anybody else. My realisation of how badly I'd treated someone happened several months after I'd stopped taking anti-depressants. I did feel increasingly sh*tty during that time, though.

In my experience, there is no cure for narcissism. A cure implies a specific treatment method that eradicates all symptoms; for narcissism, there is no such treatment. I believe that there are many ways to ease symptoms and learn to relate [i]better[i] to the others, oneself, and the world, but I do not see how the fundamental personality structure of an individual can change into something it never once was. I know people can change, as I and many others on this forum have changed. However, the changes are limited -- not in a sense of being limited to necessary ill-effect.

However, I agree with your assertion regarding the necessity of severe discontent as a precondition of any sort of recover. This strikes to the core of human existence and its strategy, as people only change when they absolutely have to. When the negative consequences of a certain behavior pattern become to much to handle, changes will take place -- there is no other positive alternative.

My main goal now is to try to find a way to relate more healthily to the world and my own existence in relation to it. I don't hurt people anymore; it is only me who suffers now, yet my suffering is skin-deep and relieved by petty compliments from people for whom I do not care, or haughty displays of intelligence amongst professors and fellow students at my University.

isn't narcissism a defense? that sounds like it would make it even worse....

It doesn't once you grasp that it's a defense against the past that's carried over into the present.

None of the things we think we feel defensive against in current relationships actually exist. That doesn't mean to say that we're imagining things or we're crazy, they're just triggers from early experiences which we project onto others, which is why our traits and symptoms get so magnified in intimate relationships.

Once you get a hold of that information and make a few connections it becomes a little bit easier to move forward.

You can't heal unless you know exactly what you're healing from.

death

ther is no cure but you can be trained (train yourself)
to have more controle over your actions

I get what you're saying, narcbolan, the only thing is that I don't know exactly what I'm healing from. Even after about 12 sessions of therapy, my therapist can only conjecture that a genetic propensity (from the paternal side) towards narcissism, plus slightly odd behaviour from a mildly narcissistic father, and a mother who perhaps couldn't bond fully when I was a baby, as she probably suffered from pre and postnatal stress and depression, caused by him, caused the beginnings of my narcissism.

All I'm saying in that lot is that I wish that there were strong and identifiable reasons for my narcissism, which I could recall, but there aren't. I'm not dismissing what you and my therapist say, though; I am finally realising that the reasons aren't almost entirely genetic.

My therapy is starting to concentrate on opening up and connecting to the right hand, intuitive, feeling side of my brain, and to that end, I've started to try visualisation exercises and meditation. I'm completely rubbish at them, but slightly better than I was.

madjoe wrote:death

that's the cure
and i'm the doctor

narcbolan wrote:It doesn't once you grasp that it's a defense against the past that's carried over into the present.

None of the things we think we feel defensive against in current relationships actually exist. That doesn't mean to say that we're imagining things or we're crazy, they're just triggers from early experiences which we project onto others, which is why our traits and symptoms get so magnified in intimate relationships.

Once you get a hold of that information and make a few connections it becomes a little bit easier to move forward.

You can't heal unless you know exactly what you're healing from.

Yes, this is it. Internal Working Models are formed during attachment periods. These two correlate to how your needs are perceived as being met or not met in relationships. Look up Internal Working Models and the studies done by Ainsworth for a better understanding. It makes perfect sense how the pieces fit together.