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This is all well and good advice. But sometimes you have to work with people who demonstrate traits of Narcissism Personality Disorder or Borderline Personalit

This is all well and good advice. But sometimes you have to work with people who demonstrate traits of Narcissism Personality Disorder or Borderline Personality Disorder. E.g. someone who never accepts responsibility or someone frequently demonstrating emotional lability. I am not sure the best course of action in these situations.

llamaLord 3y ago
Yeah I think it's important to note that these techniques are for situations where trust has broken down due to something external, not due to a fundamental issue with one of the people involved. This stuff will never help with narcissistic ass holes.
- ransackdev 3y ago
  Narcissist seems to be a label that’s often applied to confident people who are direct in what they say, and because they know that what they are saying is correct (hence the confidence), they tend to be pretty inflexible on any suggested alternatives. The other parties naturally feel unheard or steamrolled over and end up calling the person a narcissistic asshole, but in my personal experience, that’s hardly ever actually the case, or at the very least, there’s no way of knowing if they are actually a narcissist. If my experience is common (and let’s be real here, unless you’re in the psychology field none of us are qualified to diagnose narcissism), of course this stuff won’t help because the person is right and nothing would sway them, and bitter folks, or maybe jealous folks, decided to proclaim the person has a mental illness (read, they are now flawed and you are superior) as well as insulting them calling them an asshole. And it’s kinda weird the other way too because if they do indeed have a mental illness, then they are not trying to be abrasive and often wouldn’t even be aware that they were until after the fact, so you’re calling a mentally ill person an asshole because they are mentally ill. Try doing that to someone with any other mental issue and see how well that goes over. But it’s fine to do for this one and everyone is fine with it. It’s shitty to go into a conversation with the best intentions and yet you always end up fucking it all up, hurting the relationship with that person when your goals were the exact opposite, being confused about why that always happens, and reflecting after the damage is done and seeing where you fucked up, tossing that onto the never ending pile of regret that follows you though life, your lonely lonely life because it’s impossible to maintain any relationship at all, not for long anyway… and then on top of it you’re called an asshole by someone who doesn’t have any idea how much it blows having narcissistic personality disorder (or what kind of childhood environment it takes for such a disorder to take root), or, they don’t understand that it’s not the same thing as someone choosing to be a dick in a conversation.
  - llamaLord 3y ago
    To be clear, I don't think genuine pathological narcissism is actually a particularly common trait, maybe 5% type levels. The problem is that a single genuine narcissist can make an environment absolutely horrible for a large number of people, meaning that even at 1/20, if you work in an area with 50-60 people, you're likely to have at least 2-3 narcissists in that group. One other thing, I wouldn't call narcissism a "mental illness". There's a difference between a "mental illness" and a personality disorder. Narcissist Personality Disorder is effectively the clinical name for what is commonly known as "being an ass-hole", in the same way that anti-social personality disorder is just the clinical name for what is commonly known as "being a psycho".
vonwoodson 3y ago
If you're dealing with someone who has a mental illness then "the rules" are different. Folks throw words like "Narcissism" around when they don't really mean it. Communicating with someone with a mental illness is difficult at the best of times and you should not hold yourself to such a high standard that you will be good at communicating with them; It's not your responsibility to be able to handle every situation, especially from reading a blog post.
_yb2s 3y ago
Yes, this advice is counter-productive at best for dealing with a narcissist. They will re-frame your efforts to be friendly and not abrasive into an admission of guilt over whatever the problem at hand is. In those cases, if you can't avoid communicating, just be neutral and stick to plainly stating the facts of whatever you must talk about.
ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
I do it all the time. There's no "rule book" on it. Just my PoV: Everyone is different, and we need to start by doing our best to understand them. Sometimes, we understand that they are selfish, cowardly pricks, and that we just have to accept that. That's seldom the case. One of the lessons I learned, a long time ago, is that hurt people tend to be incredibly self-absorbed. This is people in mental or physical pain. Mother Theresa might have kicked her cat, when she was having a particularly nasty headache. We'll never know. Understanding people is different from advocating for them, or "taking their side." If you want to understand rats, talk to an exterminator. I know a couple, and they really understand the little buggers. But also keeping control of my side of the relationship is incredibly important. It should not depend on them. If they are unreliable or dangerous, then it is incumbent upon me, to limit the scope of our relationship. Easy enough, if we are not in a situation that demands we work together, but I have also done a lot of work, with some very difficult people. It can be done, but, in my case, it requires that I be quite self-aware, and take responsibility for my part of the relationship; which includes not expecting stuff from people that can't give it. WFM. YMMV.
screye 3y ago
Good will has to be rebuilt. If someone has exhausted all goodwill, then your relationship should take a transactional form. Transactional relationships don't have to be malicious. They're just all 'over the table'. I ask you to do X, have you done X ? Mental illness is just 1 cause for breakdown of goodwill. It's better to ignore the cause, and focus on the optional communication mode for the level of goodwill you're operating from. just to be clear, trust != good will.
ranting-moth 3y ago
Agree. I think the advice in that blog only applies of the trust has broken down for a very specific set of reasons. At least, this tactic wouldn't work in the trust breakdowns I've had or witnessed.
toast0 3y ago
Overcommunication isn't necessarily a bad way to handle that type of interaction, either. Trying to get things into a recorded medium helps, if nothing else, when you look back on the interactions and find that you communicated what you'd do, did what you said, communicated what you did, and the other person is unreasonable, you have evidence (at least for yourself) that you're being reasonable and the other person isn't. Then you can take whatever appropriate actions after that. Sometimes that's get yourself out of the situation where you work or live with them. Sometimes it's decide that while this person is unreasonable to deal with, the rest of the situation makes it reasonable for you to stay, at least for the moment.
awb 3y ago
Unfortunately, these diagnoses seem to get flung around by people quite unqualified to do so. My guess is that context and timing matters a lot and that these conditions are quite rare.
- watwut 3y ago
  Estimated lifetime prevalence of narcissistic personality disorder varies widely but may be up to 6.2% of the general US population, more in men. Since we work in male dominated field, it is not rare at all and most of us all worked with at least one.
  - awb 3y ago
    What I’m seeing is 0.5%: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_personality_disorder https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_personality_dis... > Frequency 0.5% https://www.therecoveryvillage.com/mental-health/narcissistic-personality-disorder/npd-statistics/ https://www.therecoveryvillage.com/mental-health/narcissisti... > Approximately 0.5% of the United States population, or one 1 in 200 people, has the disorder Regardless, your point does appear valid about male dominated fields: > There are significant gender differences when it comes to the prevalence of the disorder; about 75% of people with narcissistic personality disorder are men.
    - watwut 3y ago
      Literally your first link: > As of 2018, overall prevalence is estimated to range from 0.8% to 6.2%.[68][69] In 2008 under the DSM-IV, lifetime prevalence of NPD was estimated to be 6.2%, with 7.7% for men and 4.8% for women
- kubanczyk 3y ago
  True, a more useful diagnosis in such case is "I don't trust this person and I expect anything I say will be used against me". Am I qualified to determine that? I think I am.
bell-cot 3y ago
There are far, far more problems in the DSM-5 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DSM-5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DSM-5 ) than just Narcissism and Borderline. Some people have long "cycle times" in their symptoms. Or random-ish "episodes". Or are perfectly fine - until some f'ing idiot new psychiatrist assigned to them decides to switch them off a medication that was working fine for them, to something "new". (This has happened more than once to a good friend's niece. Fortunately she's survived...) And there are plenty of people with no real psychiatric disorder, but who are "problematic" to deal with. And there is the question of how interested the other person is in rebuilding trust. And there is just asking yourself "am I a person with the the personality, understanding, skills, and patience to deal with this situation?".

llamaLord 3y ago

Yeah I think it's important to note that these techniques are for situations where trust has broken down due to something external, not due to a fundamental issue with one of the people involved. This stuff will never help with narcissistic ass holes.

ransackdev 3y ago
Narcissist seems to be a label that’s often applied to confident people who are direct in what they say, and because they know that what they are saying is correct (hence the confidence), they tend to be pretty inflexible on any suggested alternatives. The other parties naturally feel unheard or steamrolled over and end up calling the person a narcissistic asshole, but in my personal experience, that’s hardly ever actually the case, or at the very least, there’s no way of knowing if they are actually a narcissist. If my experience is common (and let’s be real here, unless you’re in the psychology field none of us are qualified to diagnose narcissism), of course this stuff won’t help because the person is right and nothing would sway them, and bitter folks, or maybe jealous folks, decided to proclaim the person has a mental illness (read, they are now flawed and you are superior) as well as insulting them calling them an asshole. And it’s kinda weird the other way too because if they do indeed have a mental illness, then they are not trying to be abrasive and often wouldn’t even be aware that they were until after the fact, so you’re calling a mentally ill person an asshole because they are mentally ill. Try doing that to someone with any other mental issue and see how well that goes over. But it’s fine to do for this one and everyone is fine with it. It’s shitty to go into a conversation with the best intentions and yet you always end up fucking it all up, hurting the relationship with that person when your goals were the exact opposite, being confused about why that always happens, and reflecting after the damage is done and seeing where you fucked up, tossing that onto the never ending pile of regret that follows you though life, your lonely lonely life because it’s impossible to maintain any relationship at all, not for long anyway… and then on top of it you’re called an asshole by someone who doesn’t have any idea how much it blows having narcissistic personality disorder (or what kind of childhood environment it takes for such a disorder to take root), or, they don’t understand that it’s not the same thing as someone choosing to be a dick in a conversation.
- llamaLord 3y ago
  To be clear, I don't think genuine pathological narcissism is actually a particularly common trait, maybe 5% type levels. The problem is that a single genuine narcissist can make an environment absolutely horrible for a large number of people, meaning that even at 1/20, if you work in an area with 50-60 people, you're likely to have at least 2-3 narcissists in that group. One other thing, I wouldn't call narcissism a "mental illness". There's a difference between a "mental illness" and a personality disorder. Narcissist Personality Disorder is effectively the clinical name for what is commonly known as "being an ass-hole", in the same way that anti-social personality disorder is just the clinical name for what is commonly known as "being a psycho".

vonwoodson 3y ago

If you're dealing with someone who has a mental illness then "the rules" are different. Folks throw words like "Narcissism" around when they don't really mean it. Communicating with someone with a mental illness is difficult at the best of times and you should not hold yourself to such a high standard that you will be good at communicating with them; It's not your responsibility to be able to handle every situation, especially from reading a blog post.

_yb2s 3y ago

Yes, this advice is counter-productive at best for dealing with a narcissist. They will re-frame your efforts to be friendly and not abrasive into an admission of guilt over whatever the problem at hand is. In those cases, if you can't avoid communicating, just be neutral and stick to plainly stating the facts of whatever you must talk about.

ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago

I do it all the time. There's no "rule book" on it. Just my PoV: Everyone is different, and we need to start by doing our best to understand them. Sometimes, we understand that they are selfish, cowardly pricks, and that we just have to accept that. That's seldom the case. One of the lessons I learned, a long time ago, is that hurt people tend to be incredibly self-absorbed. This is people in mental or physical pain. Mother Theresa might have kicked her cat, when she was having a particularly nasty headache. We'll never know. Understanding people is different from advocating for them, or "taking their side." If you want to understand rats, talk to an exterminator. I know a couple, and they really understand the little buggers. But also keeping control of my side of the relationship is incredibly important. It should not depend on them. If they are unreliable or dangerous, then it is incumbent upon me, to limit the scope of our relationship. Easy enough, if we are not in a situation that demands we work together, but I have also done a lot of work, with some very difficult people. It can be done, but, in my case, it requires that I be quite self-aware, and take responsibility for my part of the relationship; which includes not expecting stuff from people that can't give it. WFM. YMMV.

screye 3y ago

Good will has to be rebuilt. If someone has exhausted all goodwill, then your relationship should take a transactional form. Transactional relationships don't have to be malicious. They're just all 'over the table'. I ask you to do X, have you done X ? Mental illness is just 1 cause for breakdown of goodwill. It's better to ignore the cause, and focus on the optional communication mode for the level of goodwill you're operating from. just to be clear, trust != good will.

ranting-moth 3y ago

Agree. I think the advice in that blog only applies of the trust has broken down for a very specific set of reasons. At least, this tactic wouldn't work in the trust breakdowns I've had or witnessed.

toast0 3y ago

Overcommunication isn't necessarily a bad way to handle that type of interaction, either. Trying to get things into a recorded medium helps, if nothing else, when you look back on the interactions and find that you communicated what you'd do, did what you said, communicated what you did, and the other person is unreasonable, you have evidence (at least for yourself) that you're being reasonable and the other person isn't. Then you can take whatever appropriate actions after that. Sometimes that's get yourself out of the situation where you work or live with them. Sometimes it's decide that while this person is unreasonable to deal with, the rest of the situation makes it reasonable for you to stay, at least for the moment.

awb 3y ago

Unfortunately, these diagnoses seem to get flung around by people quite unqualified to do so. My guess is that context and timing matters a lot and that these conditions are quite rare.

watwut 3y ago
Estimated lifetime prevalence of narcissistic personality disorder varies widely but may be up to 6.2% of the general US population, more in men. Since we work in male dominated field, it is not rare at all and most of us all worked with at least one.
- awb 3y ago
  What I’m seeing is 0.5%: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_personality_disorder https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_personality_dis... > Frequency 0.5% https://www.therecoveryvillage.com/mental-health/narcissistic-personality-disorder/npd-statistics/ https://www.therecoveryvillage.com/mental-health/narcissisti... > Approximately 0.5% of the United States population, or one 1 in 200 people, has the disorder Regardless, your point does appear valid about male dominated fields: > There are significant gender differences when it comes to the prevalence of the disorder; about 75% of people with narcissistic personality disorder are men.
  - watwut 3y ago
    Literally your first link: > As of 2018, overall prevalence is estimated to range from 0.8% to 6.2%.[68][69] In 2008 under the DSM-IV, lifetime prevalence of NPD was estimated to be 6.2%, with 7.7% for men and 4.8% for women
kubanczyk 3y ago
True, a more useful diagnosis in such case is "I don't trust this person and I expect anything I say will be used against me". Am I qualified to determine that? I think I am.

bell-cot 3y ago

There are far, far more problems in the DSM-5 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DSM-5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DSM-5 ) than just Narcissism and Borderline. Some people have long "cycle times" in their symptoms. Or random-ish "episodes". Or are perfectly fine - until some f'ing idiot new psychiatrist assigned to them decides to switch them off a medication that was working fine for them, to something "new". (This has happened more than once to a good friend's niece. Fortunately she's survived...) And there are plenty of people with no real psychiatric disorder, but who are "problematic" to deal with. And there is the question of how interested the other person is in rebuilding trust. And there is just asking yourself "am I a person with the the personality, understanding, skills, and patience to deal with this situation?".