Girl you cannot save him, every time you try to save a narcissist you deeper entrench yourself into co-dependency. He needs to choose therapy for himself or you need to leave until he does bc this goes only ONE way and that's downhill.

This is a trauma bond in the making, someone get Grimes out of there before she subsumes herself to his narcissistic tantrums and loses her self-esteem.

"Saving" sounds dramatic but truly, TRULY you cannot come between a narcissist and their self-destructive behaviors. You cannot put out a fire by throwing yourself on it. It simply will not work and they will target YOU unless they break the pattern by healing the inner child.

I know we like to believe everyone is redeemable, and maybe they are, but the problem is that the narcissist *himself* believes he is either irredeemable or in no need of redemption, too special to change. He is locked into some movie inside his own head, he can't even see you.

And then he has so many other mental health struggles going on! Probably mostly undiagnosed! You can have compassion but friends and family cannot, no matter how hard they try, treat mental illness. It's bigger than anyone.

Someone in the replies pointed me to this article. While it's impossible to know if Musk is a narcissist without an expert examining him (which would be confidential anyway) I'll just point out how his behavior tracks with narcissistic traits. https://www.marieclaire.com/sex-love/a5380/millionaire-starter-wife/

1. Narcissists are attracted to bright, attractive, talented people who are -- this is important! -- at vulnerable times in their lives (heartbreak, grieving) or who lack support systems. The narcissist is looking for someone to *control*. Preferably someone artistic+empathetic.

1. (contd) It's important for the narcissist's partner to be talented at something. This is bc the narcissist feels that whoever they are with must elevate their own status. But also bc *this is the exact thing the narcissist will later criticize in order to gain control*

2. Narcissists start out any serious relationship with "lovebombing" -- going to extraordinary, almost obsessive lengths to court their partner. They will lie (charmingly) and manipulate to get the chosen partner's attention.

Rom-com stuff, right? NOPE. A sign of danger ahead.

3. A classic narcissist's courtship trait is "mirroring." They will make you feel you are the same, and both special. This intensifies the bond they want to form, to keep partners from leaving them. You know Prince Hans of the Seven Isles in Frozen? Love is an Open Door? That:

4. After the lovebombing phase, when the target is sufficiently caught, the narcissist moves into the "devaluation" phase - this is emotional abuse designed to elevate the narcissist and diminish the target so she's easier to control. It's insults all the time.

4. (contd) By the way, the narcissist is not pretending. They really do idealize their targets and think they're special; later, as the target becomes visibly human (flawed), the narcissist is genuinely disappointed, bc they see *themselves* as perfect and flawless.

4) (contd) The narcissist is created from their reaction to a childhood of shame, emotional neglect or abuse. This can be parents or bullying peers. The narcissist builds a wall of "I'm special, I'm magic" to protect their inner child from the abuse and neglect.

4) As a result, narcissists tend to be people with VERY HIGH sensitivity - they read people well -- but low empathy, as if they are seeing other humans thru a TV or phone screen. All they want is control + admiration for that hurt inner child. Anyone else's emotions are a burden.

5. There is no one as important to the narcissist as the narcissist. Their needs always come 1st. This is bc their hurt inner child is always starving, they never feel they have enough emotional resources to feed anyone else. They live in a state of siege. Criticism destroys them

6. Narcissists have specific scripts that they want people to play in their lives. Their partners can only be the "supply" - the source of nonstop admiration, compliments, sex etc. The supply has to look a certain way, be an accessory. The narcissist is the *only* main event.

7. Narcissists hate therapy and counseling. HATE it. First, therapy implies they are not perfect, and they don't like that. Second, therapy could unlock the childhood wounds they have worked so hard to repress and break down the "I'm special" wall - a deep existential threat.

8. Narcissists are also interested in playing out specific scripts and patterns of control. If the supply stops providing nonstop admiration, or worse if the supply starts *healing their own wounds*, the narcissist loses interest. They want the broken love, the pattern replayed.

A few links to previous threads on narcissists/covert narcissists (shy, introverted ones) because these are hard to spot and women especially are often totally unaware of the serious emotional danger and trauma ahead. WALK AWAY.

https://twitter.com/moorehn/status/1284066106404229120?s=21

https://twitter.com/moorehn/status/1286035706935205891?s=21 https://twitter.com/moorehn/status/1286035706935205891

Also very key: The narcissist's big fear is abandonment/lack of attention. This would challenge the idea that they're special. So they create trauma bonds to keep ppl close. These are heightened emotional conflicts - like a war - to keep people attached.

https://twitter.com/moorehn/status/1280458468768583680?s=21 https://twitter.com/moorehn/status/1280458468768583680

Also your reminder that narcissists are very appealing! They work to be. They can be devastatingly handsome, very charming, funny, sweet. That's what keeps people attached. But the closer you get, emotionally, the more the narcissistic traits come out. No one else will see them.

In fact, a key trait of narcissists is that they will keep even their friends and families at arms' length. This is partly because they don't connect well emotionally with others but also partly bc they don't want their darker traits seen.

I will also take a moment here to be FURIOUS with rom-com and literary plots that glorify narcissistic men and "lovebombing" techniques as appealing. Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, things like 50 Shades. These prime some emotionally vulnerable women to fall for narcissists.

I don't assume everyone who reads these threads is the target. Surely some have narcissistic traits themselves. In that case, getting help truly makes a HUGE difference, esp bc unchecked narcissism only goes one way: It destroys the career you have worked so hard to build.

Addressing those childhood wounds can release all the magic that is truly within people with narcissistic traits: It keeps their charm, their talent but then frees them to feel a whole, deep love and to be loved in return. No more scraps from strangers. The real thing.

A couple of other points:

There is a belief that narcissists have no empathy. In fact, they low empathy. They also have *cognitive* empathy, which means they are smart enough to know when empathy is required -- they can fake it, but their actions do not line up with their words

Further on this empathy point: Though we have a picture of narcissists as rife in business, only a fraction are! Many narcissists specifically try to get close to the admiration they need and get *close* to feelings by going into artistic fields or medicine, for instance.

A lot of doctors are narcissists! This is very much a Thing. It allows them to be admired as saviors and heroes, which they need. But they lock away their emotions. This trope is in hospital dramas - ER, Grey's - but people don't recognize it as NPD. https://insightplus.mja.com.au/2019/9/endemic-bullying-narcissistic-personality-disorder-in-medicine/

Also: Recreational drugs are very appealing to narcissists but will not, at all, help the source of the narcissist's anxiety, which is these childhood traumas that need to be brought out and acknowledged and felt. That process is not as bad as they think, but they're terrified.

Because a lot (most?) people haven't gone through therapy, or haven't gone through GOOD therapy that works for them, here's what processing trauma looks like: At first it hurts. Then, when the moment of light comes, it is often TOTAL liberation. Like new eyes.