I don’t trust it when a Narcissist (or abuser, or manipulator…) says they are working on themselves by themself.
Think about this for a minute…
If their thinking got them there, how are they going to get themselves out of it?
Most people focus on actions and the behaviors of an abuser; the angry outbursts, the escalated fights, not caring, dismissing your feelings, not listening, telling you that you’re wrong for what you feel….the list obivously goes on.
You probably think that if they just took accountability and validated how you feel, everything would be better.
That is focusing on the behaviors – the things they are doing.
You need to focus on WHY they behave that way — which is because of their THOUGHTS.
Your thoughts and the way that you think leads your behaviors which leads to actions.
We talk about this a lot in coaching because most of our thoughts are unintentional and we have to work to make them intentional.
With healthy clients (non abusive clients, non toxic clients), it takes a lot for them to move from the unintentional to the intentional, to move out of what they are habitually thinking to what they choose to think.
Abusive people rarely see the problem with their actions, let alone their thoughts, so for them to get to the point of change is a huge hurdle. Therefore it is easier to blame you and everyone else in their life.
They must change their thinking.
If they choose to change to commit to the work, they have to commit to change what they THINK and admit and deal with all the ways that their manipulative THINKING led to behavior that hurt people they care about.
This cannot happen without having someone in their life who can help them rework their thoughts. This is a non-negotiable.
