How do you deal with an elderly NPD parent from whom you have cut almost all contact as they become increasingly unwell with old age and may even be approaching their last days?

Answer 1

You should treat your parent with dignity and respect. If you have the opportunity to care for your parent, by all means do so. Go out of your way to make their life comfortable. Since you are now an adult and realize your parent is narcissistic, it should not have a negative effect on you to be around this parent. Just remember that your parent is narcissistic and take it for what it is worth. You should honor your parent no matter the circumstances. Let your parent know that you love them and forgive them for any wrong they have committed against you. You are now in a position of control (over your own psychological well-being) and can handle the negative impact a narcissistic personality has on those who love them. You will be thankful and happy one day that you rose above your own negative feelings and cared for this parent. Also, you will set an example to your own children and/or those around you of how we should treat our family members as they grow old. Honor is a requirement and it is the right thing to do. Forgiveness is for you, not for the person who hurt you. One day you may be elderly and it will be comforting to know that your children will take care of you... Good Luck and God bless you and your elderly parent. ________________________________________________________ I would actually like to take some issue with the above. While the answer above is praiseworthy in being very high-minded, and indicates good intentions, it doesn't have much realisitc bearing on the endgame of an actual NPD parent relationship with their grown children. I think to state "you can handle the negative impact a narcissistic persnoality has on those who love them" is clearly an abstract rather than realistic statement, and probably one made by a person who DOES NOT have a narcissistic elderly parent. Aging, and all the normal diminishments of health, looks, intellect, and mobility that aging involves, seems to particularily ravage the N because these natural and normal diminishments threaten and errode the precious dance steps they have relied upon to dazzle casual acquaintances and strangers alike for decades. N's do not mellow with age. They become more jagged, dangerous, harmful, and unedited, and their shenanigans become more difficult as they become more desperate. The lies become more transparent and preposterous. You have never seen denial until you have dealt with the insistance of an N parent that they alone are not like all the others, who are OLD. They are NOT average! They are NOT the same as other 95 year olds! They have years indeed decades to live! Can you not see that? You also haven't seen anything until you have seen the temper fit that is the daily, hourly life of the N elder deprived of their N supply, and fixated beyond belief only on how to get it back. It's worse than the most spoiled, indulged, overtired, sugar-stuffed toddler on the planet. BINKIE I want my BINKIE, MY BINKIE MY BINKIE!!! and the Binkie is the N supply. Give me back my office, my shop, my clients, my wonderous sex life, my adoring public, my friends, my glories, and my minions!! How dare you keep me here in this jail (never mind you rescued them within hours of death) by making their life a living hell (um, yes a living hell indeed of nice home, clean sheets, adult diapers, regular meals, attentive care, and visits from new grandchildren and other loved ones when they can stomach coming around...) when they far prefer squalor, incontinence, starvation, physical perils of every variety, and their own ravings --- at least they had their supply!! The office door was open and the adoring pubic still shuffled through! And there is nothing sadder than to see the dementia creep in, and to realize how fully the grandiosity overtakes any more regular thoughts that once helped to moderate them. Of course I can drive! I can get my license back, what's the matter with you! OF course I can open a new office, there are clients clammoring to see me, and YOU are stopping me from the kind of life that I want! I have never been more miserable!! Never mind this elderly person has multiple broken vertebrae, has broken both hips, can barely walk from the bed to the bathroom, spends their waking hours in a wheelchair and gets dressed about once a week. That is not the reality of how they see themselves, and very sadly the raving, out of touch N personality thoughts seems to render them incapable of any sort of self-examination or understanding of their CURRENT situation. All they can think about and rage for is the time machine they need, to get back to their Supply. There is no Zen of aging with an N!! So here is my take, after living this. Don't blame yourself - just figure out how to SAVE YOURSELF! If it were a normal situation, you would naturally be on the course mentioned above, but it's far, far from a normal situation. Be clear that you arent' the one who mistreated them or abused them when they were very little to cause this N mess. Try to retain enough distance from their nonsense to keep your compassion, because I warn you, too much contact will dissolve it possibly for good as things get very advanced, and that's a place you don't want to go. But realize YOU CANNOT FIX THIS monstrous thing called NPD, SAVE YOURSELF, and get the hell out of their way. Find cheerful, semipro care that will deal with your N parent in shifts, without engaging them or attaching to their story. Find a home where they can be cared for and listened to, by new people who aren't worn out to the bone and don't have to be with them for more than a few hours per day. There will come a day when you will crack. You will have had enough of the stories of yet unattained glory, the constant complaining, enough of the endless self-fascination, the unending complaints of boredom (my BINKIE, MY BINKIE!!!) and the complete and utter lack of gratitude combined with a large side helping of arguements and demands. You will crack under the pressure of trying NOT to think of how much and how long this person has cut a swath through your life, and made YOUR life difficult and painful by their neglect, unlove, malignant action, shabby treatment, chaotic living, denial of reality, outright lying, and total self-absorbtion. The fact is, they never planned to get old and certainly did not plan to DIE, so not a penny was ever saved and their affairs couldn 't be more intractably fouled-up and out of order. All the plans to help them come at the last possible minute (they will have made no plans..) so also at the maximum expense when you, the calvarly (CUE YOU, the dedicated adult child or children..) who must ride in with lives shoved aside, checkbooks open, and emergency planning in full force. You will crack because there will finally be ONE conversation of complaint too many, and you will decide you are not A DOORMAT or a FOOL and you will decide to save yourself, because it's crystal clear THEY CANNOT BE SAVED. It is sad and beyond sad to note that many adult children of N's come finally to a place where they must adhere to a policy of "no contact" to simply learn to function and live any sort of quality of life of their own. This is a desperate, difficult decision but I applaud and support anyone who thoughtfully chooses to save one life rather than trash two, as the N is going down no matter what. You can't fix this -- and your first obligation is to save yourself. NPD appears to get worse and more damaging with age. Dementia seems to go hand in glove with it, and the day the Supply dries up due to the inevitabliities of aging is the day your life as the adult child of an N goes full-throttle into the spin cycle of the sh#t machine. You can't think, you don't have an hour to yourself for their demands, and the phone calls from or about them are on par with a full time job. Don't forget the bills, as they won't have saved a cent. "You will be thankful and happy one day that you rose above your own negative feelings and cared for this parent." OK, I guess give it a try, but DO NOT spend one day too long doing it if you are feeling anything other than "thankful and happy".