evile

When you see a question from someone asking about their "ex narcissist" doing something normal and reasonable, do you assume the person asking the question is using the word improperly and/or begging for sympathy?

I think that a lot of people who have recently ended a relationship are hurting and confused, possibly angry as well.

In times of high emotion, it seems that people do revert to primitive defense mechanisms to protect their egos. So, to me, it seems calling the other person a narcissist whether they are one or not would line up with this defensive behavior.

Many people in the aftermath of a breakup will do a lot of soul searching and try to figure out ‘why’ it happened; retreating into your head space is more comfortable to most people; it’s difficult to sit quietly with feelings of grief, betrayal, confusion, hurt, and anger and just allow yourself to feel and let go without putting labels and analysis on it. Many people are just more comfortable with thoughts than with feelings, so they want to label the other person, analyze their behavior, and figure out what went wrong. I think this is a normal part of processing the loss of a person and a relationship that were very important and close.

Some of the questions here do seem silly, and I do caution against issuing a mental health diagnosis when you are not the person’s therapist, BUT, this is normal human behavior and I think it’s possible have compassion for someone in pain without feeding their ‘victim of a narcissist’ scenario. If you see someone who is ‘begging for sympathy,’ what does it cost you to give them some? And, online at least, it's also just as easy to quietly scroll on by and ignore posts or questions that seem silly or misguided.

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