Working relationships with people with NPD

Grey rock. Basically, be as boring as possible so that they won't see you as a source of narcissistic supply. https://lovefraud.com/the-gray-rock-method-of-dealing-with-psychopaths/

Worked for me in dealing with my covert narcissistic mother.

>>18672045
The problem with that is that I *have* to have a lot of confrontational interactions with them because of work and because we are both very driven.

We are a great team but I don't want to be written out of the picture. Because of this I have decided that It would be prudent to cash in a leave ASAP, unfortunately ASAP is three or four years from now.

>>18672012
Hey, person with NPD and Schizoid PD here (professionally diagnosed).

>what are the best ways to work with someone with NPD over long periods of time and push towards win-win situations?
I try to divide work in projects into self-contained areas that can be handled by individuals as much as possible. I don't really like working with others or having contact with people all the time, so that is what works best for me. The things that I've done where I have to consistently work with people, I've found it effective to have it clear who's in charge of what so that there aren't arguments about that type of thing, and to balance areas so no one feels left out or subordinated.

>Does it make sense to be machiavellian and manipulative or to take a more passive and defensive approach?
Personally, I'm not a manipulative type. I've had a lot of experience with manipulative people and I hate it and can sense it really easily. This would just piss me off and lead to confrontations.

Feel free to ask me questions or whatever. I'll probably check this

>>18672045
I genuinely feel bad for the person who feels the need to write a contentless article just to call people with mental disorders names. Sounds like they're the one making drama for their self.

>>18672094
>I'll probably check this
...in about an hour.

>>18672094
>Hey, person with NPD and Schizoid PD here (professionally diagnosed).
>I genuinely feel bad for the person

lol nice try retard

>>18672094
>The things that I've done where I have to consistently work with people, I've found it effective to have it clear who's in charge of what so that there aren't arguments about that type of thing.
This a lot of sense to me and I can see this in the person I work with. In terms of hierarchy they call the shots on a lot of things, but in many areas of our work it is collaborative and no one person has more authority than the other.

>Manipulation
Unfortunately the person I work with is quite manipulative (and even vain about their abilities in this). I wouldn't say that I am manipulative but what I am talking about is more like trying to contrive scenarios where every party wins and there is a minimum of workplace strife. I would like a happy environment for everybody and for people to get credit where credit is due.

This person is seeing a psychologist (or similar) for a few mental health issues and (as far as I can tell from our conversations) they are looking at the narcissistic tendencies as part of this. I am curious as to how psychologists work with people with NPD? While people with NPD often seem to be aware of their behavior and lack of empathy, they tend not to see these traits as bad things or things that need correcting (from my limited experiences).

>>18672155
Narcs in therapy is a bad thing. All it does is make them more dangerous. It's not like they can be cured.

>>18672181
that doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, why would a therapist work with them?

>>18672155
Hey NPD anon again.

In my case, my psychologist is trying to work with me to form a relationship built on mutual trust (between me and him), so it's a lot of just talking back and forth. We also do some CBT for little things like anger outbursts and better reactions to criticism, but CBT can't help with full blown PDs. For the SPD he encourages me to get out and involved in things and talk to people (I pretty much work alone, I'm an artist in a ceramics studio, I have coworkers but don't do much collaboration), but I really don't have a huge interest in doing that and he doesn't press it too much.

>they tend not to see these traits as bad things or things that need correcting
Yeah, so two points on that. People with NPD develop their PDs during periods of time when the traits help them. I developed the disorder when I was sent to a chain of abusive boarding schools (literally abusive: all of them have actually been shut down) as an adolescent. The issue isn't the development of the traits, since they're used as coping skills, the issue is that they become perceived as maladaptive when you enter the "real" world.

The second point is that PDs are very deep disorders that affect core values. What any person sees as a "good" or "bad" trait is dependent on these values. So since people with PD's have different core values than "normal" people, it stands to reason what they see as good and bad would be different from what you see as good and bad.

Anyway, I wish you luck and I hope that you're able to stick it out for as long as you want. Don't make your life miserable over it though.

>>18672217
>why would a therapist work with them?
Because a narc's money is as good as anyone else's

>>18672333
Thank you for your responses.

>>18672012
My step mother is this way. These people can't be reasoned with and are absolutely toxic. My advice is to indulge them and tell them what they want to hear. But whatever you do not tell them anything personal unless you want it used against you.

>>18672417
I am happy to indulge (though I don't do this unless I feel it's warranted) the problem is that I also need (non-emotional) things from this relationship and it's possible I won't get these.