Understanding and Loving a Person with Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Biblical and Practical Wisdom to Build Empathy, Preserve Boundaries, and Show Compassion

Stephen Arterburn, Patricia A Kuhlman

• Publisher: David C Cook
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781434710581
• eBook ISBN: 9780830772728
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

If you live or work with someone who has narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), you probably often feel put down. You feel ashamed of your own needs. Your relationship may feel so out of control that you wonder if you've lost your sanity. As a clinical psychotherapist for nearly thirty years, Patricia Kuhlman has worked with many people who have been victimized by another's NPD. She joins Stephen Arterburn to explore:

• Practical tools to break the cycle of pain and find healing
• What narcissism is and how people become narcissists
• The most current research about NPD
• How to define, express, and establish personal boundaries
• A how-to, self-care program including sample responses to narcissistic behaviors

Most importantly, Kuhlman offers validation, understanding, and encouragement. Being in relationship with a narcissist can be lonely and confusing. Find stability and truth in this practical guide.

Chapter 1

It All Began with an Apple

Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.

—Psalm 42:5 ¹

This book is intended to help you understand the very specific nature of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. To see it revealed on a continuum from narcissistic traits and features to a full-blown, clinically diagnosable case of NPD may make it difficult at times to identify, particularly when additional co-occurring disorders are present. What we do know is that if you have picked up this book, you have probably been wounded by the person you love as he repeatedly belittles, discounts, betrays, and even lies to you for what seems like no understandable reason. Your relationship may be so out of control that you feel as though you’ve lost your sanity.

People with Narcissistic Personality Disorder may not realize there is anything wrong with their thinking or behavior. Symptoms differ, depending on where they fall on the NPD continuum. Generally though, people afflicted with this disorder have problems relating to others and handling stress, while strongly maintaining a self-image that differs from how others perceive them. Narcissistic Personality Disorder is now believed to play a significant role in each of the other personality disorders, which include: Histrionic, Borderline, and Antisocial personality disorders. Individuals in that particular group of disorders, called Cluster B, are characterized as possibly having experienced more adverse psychosocial experiences in childhood and exposure to more trauma and higher rates of physical abuse.

The representative stories presented here are composites created from real-life experiences of people who have lived with a narcissist or have been in a close relationship with someone who exhibits Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD). Maintaining the confidentiality of all the people involved in this project has been our goal, although as you read their stories, you may begin to believe that someone really does know and understand what you’ve been living with. Our attempt is to present situations that you may have heard about or have already experienced as you live with or closely interact with a person with NPD.

Some of the stories include situations involving verbal and emotional abuse, lies and betrayal of marital vows by infidelity, along with much more. In cases of toxic NPD, physical and sexual violence often occurs. However, our primary goal is to help you, the reader, begin to understand and learn from your experience while ultimately growing in empathy for the person afflicted with this very complex and damaging disorder. Listen closely as you review these pain-filled stories. Do not be surprised if you find yourself relating more than you might have imagined.

When Ella arrived on the doorstep of my psychotherapy practice, I noticed her moods shifted quickly from anger to tears. She spoke so rapidly that it seemed she was afraid she wouldn’t get to tell all that was in her heart and mind. When she slowed to catch her breath, she looked up and asked a pointed question, “Do you think I sound like I’m truly crazy?” I quickly asked, “Has someone been telling you that you are crazy?”

Ella sounded desperate. “Richard refuses to discuss any important matters with me—like finances, our adult children, even planning for his pending retirement. He either creates a scene by telling me I’m trying to control everything and then walks out the door, or he yells at me saying, ‘How many times do I have to tell you these things? You may think you’re a smart woman, but you are dumb when it comes to common sense.’” Ella identified for me that she had run a successful small business operation for years that involved complex communication with others while helping them work through their own life difficulties. “How can I possibly be so inept in my marriage yet be a help to so many others?” was the question that plagued her mind.

Ella continued trying to express herself by telling me the many crazy-making behaviors that had happened over years of marriage but were now escalating as she and her husband became empty nesters.

“His latest crazy-making behavior is turning out the lights in the bedroom or bath when he’s done getting ready for work,” Ella related. “I’ve asked repeatedly why he does that when I’m standing in the same room. He repeatedly denies ever turning out the lights on me and chides me with his sarcastic cackle, saying, ‘You know I wouldn’t do that to you.’ He tells me I never said things that I know I’ve shared with him in detail, and he’s always saying I’m the one losing my memory. His ultimate dismissal of me happens when he says, ‘You’re just crazy and I think you’re losing your mind!’

“I know I need help, but I’m pretty sure I’m not crazy. I can’t trust anything he says because he changes his mind later and feels absolutely no responsibility to let me know. He makes assumptions about me without asking me and acts on these like we talked it over. I feel like the first chair flute player in his orchestra, but he never gives me the music so I can perform at my best or deliver what he wants.

“I’m a Christian woman, and I know God doesn’t like divorce, but now that the children are gone, I live in a constant state of fear and anxiety. I can’t sleep. I’m exhausted trying to figure out what’s going to happen next. Years ago, he moved his teen children into our home one at a time without any discussion or notice they were coming. By then, we had two small children of our own. I felt stuck in a kind of insanity that no one even suspected from outside. We looked like the successful, all-American family.”

I felt certain I could help Ella reclaim her life and take back her personal power to make better choices for herself. She had clearly lost this ability during years of constant conflict, verbal shaming, and the discounting of her personal and professional contributions to their blended family. Richard now treated Ella as if she didn’t exist in the house. She felt insignificant, invisible, and out of control of her own emotions. Richard used “stone-walling,” like the “silent treatment,” when he wanted to avoid any decision-making or discussion while cutting off communication for days.

“Richard rarely takes responsibility for anything that happens,” Ella told me. “He usually twists around what I say until it becomes all my fault, as well as my responsibility if I want anything changed.”

Ella was puzzled about Richard’s behavior, and I was curious about his childhood and recent past. Richard had retired from a long and successful professional career. He was aging, and health issues made it difficult for him to regularly play his favorite sport. He was anxious and agitated most of the time now, and he regularly told Ella she was the one who was angry all the time.

I inquired what Ella knew about the kind of family Richard grew up in. He was the oldest child of five. His father worked by day but tended bar nightly while drinking regularly as Richard was growing up. Because of his father’s neglect, Ella’s future husband had become his mother’s surrogate spouse and confidant, helping her with everything she needed. She was always complaining about how nothing her husband ever did was good enough, so she would burst into tears, relying on Richard to comfort her.

Richard resented not having the nice things his peers had and felt awkward—like he stood out in a crowd because he didn’t have nice clothes or live in a nice house. He never believed he could attract the popular, good-looking girls, and he secretly hated the other boys, whom he viewed as having better luck than he had. But since Richard was the only child to attend college, his mother was proud of him and focused on his achievements.

Ella said Richard always commented first about every woman’s appearance. It started with his mother. He was embarrassed by her appearance because she never looked as good as the other moms did. Richard’s father was so passive and absent from his daily life that he always longed for that male approval while never feeling that he got it.

Richard’s mother manipulated him into taking care of all her “illnesses.” Ella believed his mother was a true hypochondriac—never happy or satisfied, yet controlling everyone around her with her sicknesses and victim mentality.

Richard’s mother also confided in him behind his father’s back, telling Richard his dad wasn’t much of a husband. Raised by a narcissistic, controlling mother with a passive, absent father left Richard vulnerable and lacking the skills to even know how to have a healthy marital relationship.

He picked Ella for her attractive, well-groomed appearance; she was a college graduate several times over. However, it was obvious that Richard lacked the ability to trust women for fear of being engulfed by another one, so he worked to develop an exterior of excellence while concealing his internal lack of self-worth. He never felt good enough, comparing himself to all his peers while concealing the inner rage he had stuffed for a lifetime. Richard prided himself on not getting angry. Instead, he buried it deeply … until Ella said or did anything contrary to his expectations.

Ella was Richard’s third wife. Sadly, he couldn’t understand why his first two wives both had extra-marital affairs. It was obvious from Ella’s story that Richard was totally closed off from his own wounded, emotional self, which was the result of having been used as his mother’s narcissistic supply.

Richard had been neglected and abandoned emotionally by both of his parents. As a result, he couldn’t relate to or really feel comfortable with any woman. After all, the first woman in his life—his mother—used him to meet her own self-centered emotional needs. This set him up for failure in his adult relationships because children or teens can’t meet the emotional needs of a parent, nor can they take on the emotional responsibilities of a father who neglects his own marriage.

Richard continued that same behavior in each of his three marriages by emotionally neglecting his spouses. He was angered each time Ella expressed her needs. Particularly when physical illness incapacitated her, Richard neglected and abandoned Ella physically, leaving her to fend for herself. There can be no intimacy with a heart closed off by years of having to consider another’s needs first. Richard had no idea how to relate to an adult woman unless he was in charge and the boss. When Ella tried to express her own thoughts, feelings, and ideas, Richard took it as a personal affront, believing one more time that he couldn’t do anything right or even “good enough.” Thus, he often accused her of “attacking” him.

Janet’s Story

Let’s now turn to Janet’s story, which involves a lifetime relationship with a mother who is both narcissistic and alcoholic. You might want to consider any similarities in actions or words from Ella’s story—or from your personal experience. Twenty years before, Janet had been part of a codependency group in my office where she’d disclosed growing up with an abusive, alcoholic mother. For the past eighteen years, Janet had overseen her mother’s life, health, and the troubles she regularly got herself into.

Janet’s mother was clearly narcissistic from an early age. She was adopted into a family when her mother died early in her life and her father couldn’t raise her alone. Her mother was viewed as very special in her adoptive family where she was doted on like a princess because she was loved so much.

But Janet’s mother had no tolerance for her own children and seemed void of any motherly instinct. Despite having a twin sister and a younger brother, Janet and her siblings barely had food for school lunches. Their mother spent most of her time sewing pretty party dresses for herself. Janet took over her mother’s household and child-care responsibilities at an early age, saying “when life got too hard, Mother just checked out and was taken to the local hospital to dry out for a few days.”

Janet now needed help dealing with her eighty-four-year-old mother’s out-of-control behavior that regularly involved calling the police to assist in getting her to the hospital emergency room for treatment. By now, Janet’s mother had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, but she rarely took her medication. Always combative, taking no responsibility for anything that happened to her, Mothe...

Table of contents

• Introduction
• Preface
• 1. It All Began with an Apple
• 2. Nothing Is Wasted, Especially Your Suffering
• 3. A Darkened Mind
• 4. Treatment Interventions for NPD
• 5. Boundary Setting Skills with the Narcissist
• 6. Practical Helps That Can’t Hurt
• 7. What to Do When What You’ve Tried Isn’t Working
• 8. Surrender—Not My Will, Lord, but Yours Be Done
• Appendix
• Notes
• About New Life Ministries
• About Stephen Arterburn
• About Patricia A. Kuhlman