Narcissism

I stumbled across a psychologist that does YouTube videos about mental health. Some of his videos were just what I needed to understand some of the people in my life. He does several videos on narcissism and just to hear him so eloquently discuss this and the damage it causes felt incredible. It's nice to pinpoint moments in time in which we feel understood.

Everybody who knows one particular member of the extended family knows and agrees he's a narcissist but I didn't know it was a mental health disorder or that there have been studies that document the harm it does to others in the family. This has been helpful & eye-opening! The videos themselves were enlightening but I'm a comments girl. I come for the information and stay for the comments and they did not disappoint.

Some people talked about getting these people out of their lives completely and some talk about finding ways to deal with these people but create a little bit of distance. The doctor has a particular video about how to deal with them but all the efforts are actually a little bit exhausting and I've tried several of them in the past. He said one particular thing that really sticks with me: Narcissism is the only mental health condition that doesn't do any harm to the person who has it but it does a lot of harm to everybody else around them.

It's also one of hardest conditions to treat because those with it don't think there's anything wrong with them and they don't suffer from it personally. There's a funny thing though. I feel so much better after watching several of these videos. Nothing in my life changed. Feeling understood just made me feel more capable of dealing with everything and some burdens were lightened. That's kind of like real-life magic!