Why Diagnosing a Narcissist Doesn't Help and What to Do Instead

In this insightful episode, we delve into the complexities of understanding why an NPD diagnosis won't help you heal and what you need instead. 

Here's a little peek at what you can expect:

3 Keys You'll Learn in This Episode:

1. Why seeking a diagnosis of NPD may not provide the validation you're seeking after an unhealthy relationship.

2. The importance of finding a community of individuals who understand and have experienced narcissistic trauma.

3. Tools and strategies for recovering from the trauma, overcoming emotional triggers and regaining a sense of self in the aftermath of narcissistic abuse.

Join us in StrongHER - the Narcissistic Trauma Recovery Group.  We begin February 1st, but even if you catch this episode at a later date, the doors are still open and you can join us at any time! 

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Corissa is a Somatic Trauma-Informed Relationship Coach™ & Narcissistic Abuse Specialist ™ who empowers women after they’ve endured narcissist trauma to rediscover who they are, reclaim their power and find the clarity and courage to move forward and live a life they love. Corissa is also a recovering people-pleaser and codependent who has endured way too many narcissistic relationships to count! She coaches not only from her knowledge and training but also from the wisdom she has gained from her own healing journey.

Book a FREE 30-minute Confidential Clarity Call HERE.

Ways to connect with Corissa:

Podcast Website
Website: www.corissastepp.com
Community: StrongHER
Instagram: @corissastepp
Facebook: Corissa Stepp

We'd love to hear what you think so leave a voice message on our Podcast Website. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, review, or share it so we can reach more people!

Transcript

Corissa Stepp: 0:04

Welcome to the Stepping into Meaningful Relationships podcast. I'm your host, carissa Stepp. I'm a somatic, trauma-informed coach and narcissistic abuse specialist. This is a podcast for you if you are looking to improve your most important relationship, the one you have with yourself, so you can more meaningfully and deeply connect with those around you. This podcast will equip you with valuable tools, tips and tricks essential for recovering from toxic relationships and guide you towards cultivating healthy, fulfilling and intimate connections with others. But first, let's start with you. I'm so excited you're here taking this powerful step forward. Thank you for tuning in. Now let's get to today's episode. Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of Stepping into Meaningful Relationships.

Corissa Stepp: 0:57

Today we're going to be talking about why getting a diagnosis of NPD or trying to diagnose someone that you know as a narcissist, doesn't actually help. The reason why I want to have this conversation is because I know that a lot of times when we're in unhealthy relationships, we immediately try to figure out what is going wrong. We try to understand if there's something that we can be doing differently. We try to seek out help and support that we think might make a difference. Sometimes we might even look at our partners and start to try and diagnose them with something that would make the whole relationship make more sense or at least maybe explain away why you're having certain problems in the relationship. I've had a lot of conversations with women who have gotten out of narcissistic relationships who have felt like they needed to channel all of their energy into trying to get their narcissistic ex into a therapist's office to get the diagnosis of NPD. The reason why, I believe, is because they are trying to get validation that what they experienced was abuse. I'm going to tell you right now getting the diagnosis is not going to make you feel any better. I understand you want validation. I understand that you want to know that what you have been through that totally sucks and has been really crappy for however long, was in fact abuse and that it's not your fault, but you don't need a diagnosis to do that.

Corissa Stepp: 2:49

There's also a lot of problems with even getting diagnosed with NPD because, according to the DSM-5. Which is the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, in order for someone to get diagnosed with NPD, they need to have five out of the nine criteria. Here is what the DSM-5 lists as those nine criteria they need to have a grandiose sense of self-importance, which means that they believe that they are, you know, more important than other people, or they exaggerate potentially their achievements and their talents in order to be recognized and seen as superior. They may have fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty or ideal love. They need to have a belief in being special and unique and that they can only be understood or be associated with people of special or high status or institutions. They require excessive admiration. They may have a sense of entitlement. They might be exploitative in their relationships. They're going to lack empathy or be unwilling to recognize or identify the feelings and needs of others. They are going to be envious of others and believe that others are envious of them. They will also display arrogant and haughty behaviors or attitudes. So the problem is the criteria that the DSM-5 lists are not all-encompassing.

Corissa Stepp: 4:19

Narcissists will exhibit many different types of behavior. They will use many different types of manipulative tactics that will involve psychological abuse, emotional abuse, financial abuse, sexual abuse, spiritual abuse, and so, as a result, it's not really effective to get a diagnosis of NPD. Npd doesn't have a cure. A doctor cannot write a prescription for someone with NPD and heal them or make them better. The other problem is that most narcissists number one are not going to be showing all their cards to a therapist, meaning that they're going to show up in a way where they feel like they're going to get therapists validation and approval. So most likely they're going to be sharing with the therapist their external persona, not the persona that maybe you have experienced behind closed doors, which is them essentially gaslighting the therapist.

Corissa Stepp: 5:15

Number one. Number two even if the therapist is really good and can start to identify and discern that perhaps this person is a narcissist, the problem is that the narcissist is never going to accept accountability for their actions and they're not going to show remorse. They might not even acknowledge that what they have done is harmful or hurtful or abusive. And if they can't take accountability for their actions, they can't acknowledge that what they have done was hurtful Then they cannot do the work to change their behavior because they don't see themselves as a problem. And if you don't see yourself as part of the problem, you're certainly not going to be part of the solution. Now, a narcissist is just going to blame someone else. It's always going to be someone else's fault or something else's fault. So the bottom line is that getting an MPD diagnosis is essentially a waste of time. Number one it's not going to heal the narcissist. Number two the narcissist is most likely not even going to do the work to break free of the habits and heal their trauma that have resulted in them becoming a narcissist to begin with. Narcissists are created. They're not born.

Corissa Stepp: 6:29

The diagnosis is also not necessary for you to get validation of your experience. Now I understand you want to receive and to feel validated that what you have been experiencing is not okay, and I get that. It's important for your healing to get that validation. But there are better ways. One of the best ways is to, number one, work with somebody who understands narcissistic abuse, someone who can validate for you what you've experienced. And the other way is to find a community of people who have also been through what you've been through.

Corissa Stepp: 7:09

Oftentimes women will feel really isolated in these relationships and obviously there are dynamics of play that might be causing you to isolate, where maybe the narcissist has used a lot of triangulation tactics to distance you from people that you're close to. You also might self-isolate because maybe you are embarrassed of your relationship. Maybe you're ashamed of having people in your home because you know that behind closed doors, how the narcissist is showing up is embarrassing. How you get treated is embarrassing and you're afraid that someone else is gonna pick up on it or they're gonna witness it, or they might feel the tension or they might feel the unhappiness in the home. So finding a community of women who get that and understand it is important and it's the whole reason why I have created Stronger.

Corissa Stepp: 8:11

Stronger is based upon a community, a community of women who have come together, who have experienced narcissistic trauma. The narcissist might be an ex, the narcissist might be their current partner. The narcissist might be their parents, a sibling, someone they work with. It could be a combination of all of those right. So these women have experience with narcissistic relationships and so they understand and they get what you've been through and, as a result, when we all come together, we get to validate each other's experiences by sharing hey, I'm going through this right now or hey, I've experienced this. I'm curious has anyone else been through this before and what did you do about it? How did you handle it? That is the power of a community coming together. In addition to that, stronger has a group coaching call every week with me, where I'm gonna be teaching strategies and tools and bringing awareness to your behavioral patterns, helping you understand, maybe, your family dynamics from childhood, understanding what it is that you've experienced, helping you make sense of it, giving you some clarity around all of it and then again bringing you those tools and those strategies to help you move forward, to help you to release those emotional triggers so that you no longer feel like you are walking around on eggshells, or where you no longer feel like you're walking around like a complete zombie and completely disconnected. We're gonna be helping you come back into feeling present and grounded so that you can actually begin to enjoy life again and enjoy the little things.

Corissa Stepp: 10:00

The hardest part of having experienced narcissistic trauma is struggling to find your smile again. It's struggling and being able to connect more meaningfully with people in your life that you love, including children. You may find that you have less patience for them and for others. You may find that you feel like nobody knows who you are because they have no idea what you have experienced and you're too scared or ashamed to share it with them. If that's you, come and join us. Come be a part of this incredible community. Come experience the healing that is on offer for you.

Corissa Stepp: 10:48

We're also gonna be meeting another time during the week, so there's two calls during the week one for group coaching and the second one is a connection call, and on those connection calls is where I'm gonna be giving you individualized support through hot seat coaching. You're gonna be able to ask any of your questions, live with me on a call and you're gonna be able to connect with other people, and so I would love for you to join us. So stop feeling like you have to figure this out on your own. You can read all of the books you want. You can even do therapy for years and talk all of this stuff out and relive your experiences over and over and over again and retraumatize yourself.

Corissa Stepp: 11:30

But when you're ready to start healing and recovering from all of this, so that you can step back into and create your life in a way that feels aligned with who you actually and truly are, then come join us, because in Stronger, I'm going to be empowering you to find your courage to rebuild your confidence and your self-worth and learn how to cultivate a deeper sense of self-love so that you no longer attract these toxic people into your life, so that you can open your heart vulnerably as a way to connect more meaningfully with others, and learn how to trust yourself, how to trust other people, how to set boundaries which is how we get there right Just how we learn who we can trust and who we can't, by who respects our boundaries and who doesn't and helping you to build resilience. You know that you're strong. You know that you are worthy, at a conscious level, of something better than what you've experienced. Now let's get your subconscious mind on board with that belief. We're going to be rewiring neural pathways. We're going to be working with the subconscious mind so that mind, body and spirit are all on the same page, so that what you create comes from a place of love, comes from a place of presence and intention, rather than a place of fear and confusion. You don't need to feel lost, and if you don't know your next step, that's fine too. We can work together and figure it out. I will be bringing human design into this to help you with your self-discovery process, because it's such a beautiful, unbiased lens through which we get to know ourselves at a deeper level, and so I apologize if this week's episode sounds like an ad, but I'm just so passionate about what we are creating and strong her, and I want to invite you into it, because it's going to be pretty special and the doors open this Thursday and right now we have five spots left at the founding member rate of only $29 a month, so I'm trying to make this as much of a no-brainer as possible for anyone who is looking for this kind of support. There's also no time obligation, so you can come in and you can cancel at any time and you'll keep that $29 a month rate for life, so for as long as you're part of the group, and then eventually the prices are going to be going up and they will top out in the spring around $197 a month.

Corissa Stepp: 14:13

So what is it that you need in order to recover from narcissistic abuse? You need to have understanding of what you've experienced. You need to have validation. You need to understand what your behavioral patterns are that may have led you to become susceptible to these types of relationships, and then you need to know how can you disrupt those patterns so that you no longer magnetize toxic people into your life. You need to cultivate a deep sense of self-love. Once you understand who it is, that you are truly away from everything that's been projected out onto you, all of the ways in which you've been conditioned away from who you truly are, by removing and shedding expectations that other people have placed on you, understanding what it is that you really want and what you really need. So often, women who end up in these relationships are people pleasers and they're so focused on what everyone else needs and what everyone else wants that they don't have a clear idea as to what they need, what they want, what they value, what they believe or what they think about themselves. If I were to ask you the question right now what do you want, what are your needs, what are your top five values? It might be really hard for you to answer. I know it was for me and I feel like at some days it's still hard for me and I'm doing this work.

Corissa Stepp: 15:50

This work is an ongoing process. We're never fully healed or recovered. I'm sure you've heard the saying healing is not a destination, it's a journey, and as we get to know ourselves better, we learn something else about ourselves we didn't know before, and that's part of the fun. You'll need to learn how to set boundaries, and we'll be doing a lot of that. We're going to be rewiring neural pathways. We're going to be identifying what your core wounds are so that you know and can have awareness around. When you're being triggered, which core wound is actually being provoked and prodded? I'm going to be giving you somatic tools to help you regulate your nervous system. We're going to be working on how to instill healthy habits, how to learn how to trust ourselves again and then ultimately trust other people.

Corissa Stepp: 16:51

I hope you'll join us. As I mentioned, there are five spots left at the founding member rate of $29 a month, and that offer expires at midnight on January 31st. If you still would like to join us after the 31st, you're more than welcome to. The price will just be going up. Not that I'm trying to put pressure on you, but probably would be a great idea to come in at the $29 price. Alright, everyone, until next week, be well.