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evile ([personal profile] evile) wrote2021-12-22 12:33 pm
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Quora: Are narcissists “evil” or just mentally ill? Should we forgive them

Are narcissists “evil” or just mentally ill? Should we forgive them on the grounds that they can’t help the way that they behave?



Whether a person harmed you because they are evil, or mentally ill, brain damaged, diseased, or just ignorant is not as important as understanding that a person is or was behaving in a toxic way. Understand and recognize that you were harmed by that  person.

They may offer apologies or perform some kind of show of ‘repentance’ or trying to ‘make it up to you’ and that’s up to you as to whether to accept their apology and continue to try to have a relationship with them.

Please understand that narcissists and abusers do not tend to change, improve or stop abusing. There is a cycle[1]of abuse that tends to repeat endlessly until one party either dies or leaves.

It’s possible to get help and change, but part of the pathology of narcissism is that the narcissist is unable to self-reflect and therefore unable to recognize that they need help and need to change.

 

As for forgiveness, I really think it depends on what your definition of ‘forgiveness’ may be.

I had a difficult time defining and understanding the concept for years and years. I first had to understand what forgiveness was not before I could understand what forgiveness is.

Forgiveness is NOT:

  • telling yourself that what was done to you was OK
  • telling the person who hurt you that what they did was OK
  • allowing the person who hurt you to continue to hurt you
  • allowing a toxic person to remain in your life
  • forgetting that a person is toxic
  • a transaction ("I apologized, therefore you owe me forgiveness," "I gave you flowers after I hit you, therefore you owe me forgiveness,")
  • conditional (ie: an exchange of absolution for a promise of improved behavior)

Forgiveness is understanding that someone hurt you and, if you are now safe and free, that your continuing to tell yourself the story of them hurting you is you hurting yourself.

Forgiveness is letting that story go.

Forgiveness is allowing yourself to heal.

No apology from the abuser is required to forgive, but you may need to mourn the end of that relationship and move on as if that person was no longer living; in many ways the person you thought you loved *is* dead, because they never existed in the first place. It was just a show, a false front that the abuser put on in order to draw you in and trap you.

Sometimes you also need to forgive yourself for allowing yourself to be harmed, or for turning a blind eye to the behavior that you know you should have never allowed in the first place. For me, that was the hardest forgiveness to find.

Footnotes

[1] 
 
Cycle of Abuse: Understanding the 4 Parts

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