What Do You Do When They Get Help With Their Trauma, And They’re Still An Asshole?
Sometimes, getting help allows their true narcissism to shine.
This is a dilemma that many people face.
When their loved one is going through a tough time (depression, addiction, cheating, or general assholery), they give a lot of chances and the benefit of the doubt because they haven’t sought treatment yet.
Time and a ton of energy are put into helping them with remedies of any fashion. This may be therapy, coaching, support groups, rehab, hobbies, making friends, couples counseling, church, etc. It often ends with an ultimatum -> Get help, or we’re done!
So they go. They go and actually get help for an issue they have, and at the end of it, they are treating you worse than ever before.
What then?
What happened?
Why did it play out this way?
Inner Workings and Symptoms
Not everyone who has been through trauma or abuse is a good person.
Sometimes, the abuse victim is also an abuser. Life doesn’t care if you have a personality disorder or not. If you are a raging narcissist, you can still be abused by another raging narcissist.
It happens.
When we care about someone, we assume they have good inside of them somewhere. Even if that somewhere has only ever been glimpsed in the past. It’s hard to give up on the glimmer of hope that one day they will open their eyes and see how terrible they’ve been acting. That they’ll decide to change and do better.
This kind of projection isn’t spoken about enough. It’s called positive projection, and it’s what keeps people stuck beside abusers for far too long.
In the same way that someone narcissistic will project their paranoid and negative thoughts/ emotions onto you -> you project your thoughts of hope and good intentions onto them. It’s the other side of the coin.
That being said, a narcissist can still be abused by someone and often has been. That’s not your fault, but it does become your problem because they make it your problem. When they act out in various ways, you are the one beside them trying to get them to see the light and come to terms with the way they are outwardly manifesting their inner discomfort.
You put up with the un-put-up-able. You enable the un-enable-able. You stay and do what you do best. You keep up the brave face and tell them that you are there for them and you can help them heal so they can become whole again. You don’t leave when everything and everyone tells you that you should be leaving. You do it because you want them to get help. You want them to move on and start fresh.
You finally accomplished something when they agreed to support, but after they get the “help”, they are worse than ever before. What you thought was a rock bottom was a false bottom, and they sink lower with the hurt they throw your way.
It doesn’t get worse before it gets better. It gets worse and then worser. It continues to get worse into infinity. They worked on their issues and seem to have renewed their energy for nonsense in new, terrible ways.
Energy Distribution
What used to go into symptom management can now go back into their disorder.
It takes a lot of resources to manage symptoms. The time and fuel that went into their depression or addiction can now go toward their dysfunction instead.
Now they can rise up into their full sense of being and purpose. All engines firing for narcissism.
This is one of the reasons why it’s difficult to tell whether or not someone has a personality disorder immediately. If they have layers of other issues to uncover, it can be tricky to separate natural reactions and responses to abuse from behaviors that may be coming from inside the house.
Time will clear that up.
Letting Go Of Control and That Old Illusion
This is in my top 10 of the hardest things to do.
When you have spent countless hours researching, put time and concerted effort into creating opportunities, and dedicated your life to a cause to help someone get better… how do you stop?
The first part is understanding what is happening. Education is key to changing behavior.
Even if they didn’t end up exposing themselves as a massive narcissist, this is often the next step in the process because control with good intentions is still control.
How is this control?
This is what many have a hard time accepting.
It’s control because:
You want to force the outcome.
You don’t let natural consequences happen.
You aren’t ok with letting reality be.
You can’t relax your grip on the vision you have in your head of how things should go.
When you are working hard and helping someone with the objectives of protection and future peace, it can be very difficult to see how your actions are enabling and controlling instead of loving. It can also be hard to see how releasing that control is a natural part of the process.
It’s supposed to happen, but usually doesn’t because people have a hard time changing how they see themselves in a role. Now, instead of being a care partner, their part is downsized, and they are pushed into a background actor role. Before, they were needed on a high level, and now they aren’t. It’s a tough transition, even if they say they wanted it from the get-go.
Natural things can be hard. Like puberty, menopause, or your child leaving the nest after they graduate. It’s a normal part of life, but it still stinks when it happens.
The same thing goes for relinquishing the starring role of they need me to get by.
If they do well and they don’t have a personality disorder after getting help, they will mess up from time to time. Stumbling, backtracking, falling down, mismanaging, stagnating, etc. These are all normal things that happen to everyone here and there. That’s growing pains. They have to go through it to learn how to do better the next time.
If they go to treatment and come out blazing hot with all guns pointed at narcissism, then you MUST let them. But let them do it without you. They don’t need you to be narcissistic. They have it down on their own with or without your help.
With your help, they can be even bigger narcissist because you expend energy so they don’t have to. It helps them carry the load. You also feed them with your resources so they can go off and wreak havoc on the world. This is what narcissistic supply does. It gives them a battery to run on for their plots and schemes.
Nothing can happen until you accept that control was the captain of the ship. If you don’t, it will still run things, but it will run them in a circle, and you’ll end up doing the same things again and again.
Let them take the wheel of their own life. They need to.
Letting Go Of The Illusion Means Stopping In Place
It’s hard to see clearly when you’re in a whirlwind.
If you’re used to running on empty and overusing willpower and stubbornness to move through each day, it can seem impossible to stop in place and let things move by you.
But this is where reality is. It’s in the moment.
This is where plans are made so the future can be walked toward instead of being chased. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could move forward without being pressed and squeezed all the time? If you had a moment to fill your cup instead of trying to force water from desiccated bones.
You stop in place by turning your focus back to you.
Get help for yourself.
The same way you found resources for them, find them for you. The same way you put energy into their recovery, put it into yours. The same benefit of love and caring you gave them, give to your own body and soul.
If they are truly a narcissist, you’ll need it now more than ever.
