What else can we call adult people who lack empathy? They do not have the ability to connect to you or understand how their behavior hurts or impacts the people who care about them.They do not have the normal range of feelings or the capacity to love like most of us. I am not talking about bad days here and there, I am talking consistantly, doing things that hurt over and over, year after year.
People who can only imitate and mimic human feelings but not actually feel them. They know all the right words to say and can apologize, but they are words with out any feeling behind them. They USE WORDS to manipulate the caring feeling people to get what they want and need for their survival only. They are actors giving many award winning performances that make them appear to be like us. They give such great over the top performances for the good and bad guy, you can't be sure which one they are, you get tricked into believing the good guy is who they are. Your mind says they are bad, but your heart only sees the good and believes you can get the good guy. We just can't believe they are a package deal, can't be seperated no matter what we do.
I know I was always aware that "something" was wrong, "something" happened to him but thought it could be worked out because I have empathy, I thought no one would want to be up and down like that. I went through many years blaming alcohol, drinking problem, that could be worked out, quit drinking. He did, but seemed to be more unhappy, dry drunk who didn't work through his issues. No more drunken scarey rages, just angry most of the time. Then I moved onto he is abusive, negative and unhappy, he just needed "sensitivity" training,tried to work on that. He would even read the books I bought, so he said, nothing registered.
I tried talking and reasoning all through the years, I thought I could not find the RIGHT WORDS or I was speaking a foreign language to him. Most of our life did not make sense, we just keep growing older and moving on never getting any answers or anything worked out. He became less abusive but something was still way off.
I found Sams site and was so relieved when I found the answer and the reason for all the madness I had lived through. NPD describes my H and and the life I lived becasue of his disorder. For me it is important to put a name to it to save the little sanity I have left. I searched for that "something" wrong for a long time, NPD is that answer I needed to explain it all. That is not the answer I wanted. I still had some doubt and hope that I could get still get through to him. I could not, it took awhile for me to finally accept he has this disorder and nothing can be done to help or fix him. I do not want to debate it, study it, research it, talk about cures,fight over who is right or wrong.
My education and experience, 41 years of living and taking care of one, that's more than I need to know. The label was important to me at first, to explain my life, and give up that hope, so I could focus on myself. I am in the beginning stages of figuring out who I am, throwing out the things he assigned to me. It is hard getting rid of so much negative garbage that went in my mind. I still go up and down, have flash backs, get sad,not as intense as it once was. I am a work in progress, as bup says I am the captain of my ship, I can sail where ever I want to go, nothing holding me down or back any more. Yes blitzen ,it all about, me ,me, me, me, and what I want to do!!!! I must be one of the N"s you were talking about.
hugs mamolie
