A lack of empathy, cured by compassion

Kim and Steve Cooper have struggled for many years to build a relationship out of the mess that Steve's narcissism had created.

Kim decided to take a stand and (eventually) Steve was prepared to cooperate - reluctantly.  By applying  a lot of compassion for each other, the result 10 years on is that they are now good friends.

I will let them tell their own story as they struggle to make sense of how Steve just didn't seem to care about the pain and destruction he was creating in his family.





If you tend towards narcissism yourself, or you have a narcissistic child, or if one or both of your parents were narcissistic, here are some pointers to help you:

1) Egotistical behavior is foolish, self defeating and ultimately self-destructive
2) The capacity for empathy is there in every human person, but in the case of narcissism the empathy is deliberately switched off by the individual to reduce the pain of simply being alive.
3) The constant pain is about a permanent, unchanging situation of not being able to love other people in an honest, two-way relationship. A loveless life.

Never forget that what we call "narcissistic" behavior is an adaptation to despair, pain and loneliness made by individuals who profoundly believe that they will never know a loving relationship.

It's quite simple really - narcissistic people are womb twin survivors whose identical twin died before or around birth and was never responsive so no relationship could develop. The sole survivor craves the closest possible relationship that Nature can provide, and born life without your twin can never, ever provide that.

Narcissus is in love with his own identical twin who he can never reach. To keep the Dream of the Womb alive, he or she becomes unreachable, cold and uncaring and sits in a "comfortable space of hate" like Steve.

This is how the Dream of the Womb is kept alive.

(NO. it's not the "difficult childhood" or the "wrong style of parenting."  This kind of character is formed much earlier and much deeper than that. It is set before birth and will last an entire lifetime if it is not fully understood in compassion by all the parties involved.)