Agree narcissists capable of ANY remorse?

Is it true that psychopathy is like narcissism plus Machiavellianism plus being antisocial?

From what I've read about the subject and from how I understand myself, yes.

That's a pretty big overstatement of the impact you can have on a narcissist. They can pretty much get over anything even if initially distressed. It's temporary. They will have rationalized it in a way that suits them in no time. I gave up on my NPD father and it didn't take him long to conjure up his own distortion to write me off.

What you are looking for isn't actually remorse so much as change. You want her to change and be sorry. Historically, she's shown a pattern of not showing remorse and not changing. NPD aside, you can't change other people. You can only change yourself. That's what has to be accepted.

This is excellent advice and I encourage the original poster to read this reply with a healthy dose of rational thought.

You never have to change for anyone.

We don’t know that the PippaIsAlone’s mother is really a narcissist. We only know that she thinks she may be. She also thinks that “giving up on her would be like slitting her throat and watching her die right in front of me”. So the way that I do rational thought – with some concern for the people I love – I can understand if PippaIsAlone feels she is in the midst of a dilemma. If my daughter thought/thinks that I am a narcissist and that I would have rationalized her giving up on me in a way that suits me in no time, I can certainly tell you that she is mistaken. I can’t tell her because she is not communicating with me. I think she’s gotten some bad advice but she’s an adult and there’s nothing more that I know to do about the situation except continue to sweep my side of the street, which I have.

I’m not going to try to defend the concept of dissociation – that’s too big a job, I don’t have the credentials for it, etc. So I’m going to write assuming that readers can just accept the idea for the moment, for the sake of argument.

I experienced a “shock” trauma in the hospital when I was 3 years old, in 1950, and had my tonsils taken out. I was rolled into the operating room, my mother had to stay outside, and I got very scared. The staff held me down, kicking and screaming, while a nurse put the yellow ether mask over my face (that’s how they delivered anesthesia then) and I lost consciousness. I have a “flashbulb” memory of those events. Have had, all the years since then.

I also remember waking up, alone, and my throat horribly painful. But what I did not recall, until about 4 years ago, was how horrible and unbearable it was to feel alone, abandoned, not cared about. That memory just emerged out of the “blue”, in a way, as I was telling my therapist about a cousin who I felt was trying to dominate me. Only I didn’t know I was feeling like she was trying to dominate me, just that I didn't like how she was acting – that feeling of someone (female) trying to dominate me was connected with how I felt about the nurse all those years ago, and not part of my normal conscious experience up until then.

I adapted as a child by trying to be a “good girl”. Most of my adult life I found my identity in roles and rules. Had some friends but no really close ones as an adult, except for my late husband. I had kind of an off/on switch with my anger/rage. Could usually “control” it, keep it “off”. But then I didn’t have the feelings associated with being “hurt”, either, as I said, and couldn’t interpret social nuance. Was likely "emotionally unavailable".

My feelings – and my capacity to sustain an authentic ego/container/”skin” -- came “back to life”, so to speak, through the process of “having a relationship” with my therapist. She knew how to do it, I didn’t, but my interpersonal feelings came into play over time. I developed a better sense of “self and other”, both of us being valid, neither of us being perfect, the relationship getting mended after “ruptures”, where she was not OK for me and I was not OK for her.

So why couldn’t that have happened earlier in my 50+ year therapy journey? My therapist thinks it’s mostly because the therapists had not done enough of their own therapy.

This does point to it though. I can definitely identify that all too familiar guilt-tripping that's going on here with her and her mom.

This looks a lot like child of a narcissistic parent. The parent blows the slightest things out of proportion to such an extent that the child is scared to death of the consequences to ever disagree in any way with the parent.

Narcissistic parents impose this immense fear on their children in order to control them. My dad did exactly the same thing. I always had to consider how something I did would affect him so much, that I completely forgot about any benefits it might hold for me, so I give up on anything I want to try.

Narcissistic parents like to get everything their way, so they create an immense sense of guilt and fear in the child if he/she even thinks of doing something another way.

If you think of yourself even once, suddenly you've "crossed" them and "betrayed" them and you get the whole "I can see now, deep down you really hate me, and love to break my heart" and "maybe it'll just be better for everyone if I die" saga.

I know because I used to get that a lot.

As children of Narcissists we need to learn to re-parent ourselves and move on from the crap our parents put on us. I struggle with this all the time. I have gotten better and set more firm boundaries.

And I limit my time around them. I don't let them guilt me into spending more time with them.

Looks like we're on the same page, Valentina.

My experience dealing with my own stuff is that it's important to recognize and accept how your parents affected YOU. If your parents can't accept that (yet) -- it's hard, because then you have to validate your own perspective. Once you can, then maybe things can be different because then you have your own good psychological "skin" that keeps THEIR stuff on their side of things.

I could tell by what you said that your mother was a classic guilt-trip artist.

Boy, if I had a nickel for everyone time I've heard the "woe is me because YOU BETRAYED ME AND IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ME BEING A BUTTHOLE so I might as well die" kind of rant from Narcissists I'd be a very rich woman!

I'm not posting here to demonize Narcissists just to be clear, they're still human beings but I can't help but find their rants like this amusing.

This is an excellent post, thank you for sharing a bit of your journey here. The last sentence about therapists not having done enough therapy, boy isn't that the truth?

Is remorse defined as actually feeling guilt for something I've done wrong or could it be that I'm worried how I may be perceived for what I did?? Food for thought!!! For me definitely the latter.

That was beautifully honest.

The lack of empathy you see in narcissism can be similar to the lack of empathy you see in antisocials (sociopathy). You would think a narcissist would respond more to the needs of others but in the DSM you see no apparent distinction when they mention this. The big distinction between both diagnosis is that individuals with antisocial personality disorder and narcissistic personality disorder although share a tendency to be tough-minded, glib, exploitative, and lack empathy, individuals with antisocial personality disorder may not be as needy of the admiration of others.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog...issistic-trait
Narcissists' Lack of Empathy Detected in Brain Scans | Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Best wishes...

Originally Posted by PippaIsAlone
is it possible for narcissists to feel bad for the pain they've caused to others?

NOPE.

Maybe the fact is that a narcissist doesn't see how you see. The definition you may seek probably means something completely different to an "N". Please explain the type of pain and situation a LITTLE more and I could possibly help. Marmaduke so quick to answer, are you a fellow NPDer or are you on the other side of the fence? I do enjoy hearing about others emotional distress caused by a narcissist. It allows me to see how others operate on both teams.

Underground, my father was a fragile narcissist, mother malignant, middle sister is a powerful overt narcissist.
I had no self esteem, no sense of 'self'. I married a NPD, I Iook back and realized I'd 'married my mother'
I have suffered with chronic depression, OCD, social anxiety and PTSD which left me crippled with reoccurring thoughts, scenarios playing out in my mind over and over again driving me mad.
So a few years ago I began to research why would a mother be so cold and found she ticked the NPD boxes. It explained so much.
She was cold, micro controlling and had a streak of sadism.

Understanding mother has helped in as much now I realize I am not the dreadful person she told me I was.
Narcissists are 'The People Of The Lie'

People of the lie... It's interesting how I've had yet to meet a narcissist who thinks him/herself dishonest yet they do lie... To themselves, and to others. Their seeming lack of awareness about how dishonest they truly are is fascinating to me and likely infuriating to most of their victims.

I know when I'm lying, I just don't care.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

As you can probably tell, I tend toward the codependent side of “wounded narcissism”. But the effect is the same with regard to “hurt” – either numbed out or else sometimes objecting to and raging at other people’s behavior.

There’s a blog post by “Dr. Sanity”, a psychiatrist who’s no longer adding new stuff or commenting, that explains the “all-about-you” and “all-about-me” polarity. I think I’ve posted a link before on PC somewhere so I won’t do it again unless somebody wants it.

Mamaduke so quick to answer’s response seemed like a “jab” to me. I felt some pain myself, now that I can feel hurt, even though I’m not diagnosed with NPD. Seemed like a rejecting, shunning, “I’m better than those people are” response.

Several years ago my daughter said that I should know that my “emotional outbursts” caused hurt in others. I replied “How can I know if you don’t tell me?” If there had been a way then, before I had to go through the trauma therapy to reconnect with my old childhood pain, to tell me what it was I did that hurt people and why. . .but the dynamic is very complicated.

Underground, probably saying that you “enjoy" hearing about others emotional distress isn’t the best way to put it to encourage them to tell you! But I get it. Your “best self” would like to know, as did mine.

I read People of the Lie years ago and in the end the psychologist author could not help his client. He could identify and describe what he felt was evil but could not help her. She left and said she needed a different kind of therapist. I hope she found one. I identified with her a lot.

Ah yes I know what you're talking about. Interesting that you identified with that particular case...

Please tell me more. . .

Based on the fact that you identified with that case, would you have called your old self "evil"? I'm just curious...