I saw it in the marriage of a former high school friend of mine.
I watched what being married to the man had done to her. She was a different person: beaten down. Eventually, fearing her suicide, I took steps, after watching as a bystander for two years, and after consulting with an attorney.
That prompted retaliation. He forced her to move with him and the children into the hills to get away from all outside support. She did not then have the will to fight him. He threatened her with legal actions, and lied to her about the various laws.
Fortunately, she met a new and unexpected source of help, and got out after two more years; I had no contact with her during that period. (She indeed considered suicide, I later learned.)
This husband illegally dissolved their IRA; sicced the Sheriff on her and lied under oath to get full custody so as to avoid child support; declared individual bankruptcy which left her holding the bag of debt.
I never entirely trusted him, although I resolved to give him the benefit of the doubt, but most people in our church - yes, church - fell for his blandly harmless and friendly act. I was alone in seeing him as he was for a long time (even she was not fully on to him, since his gaslighting was so effective).
Before his full perfidy was exposed, I was denounced in the church community as a meddler. (I was on the church staff throughout this time.)
This woman home-schooled all four of their boys, devoted herself to being an excellent homemaker, and absorbed the mound of debt he left because she refused to lie as he had. He convinced the boys, and the courts, that she was a bad mother.
To say it was appalling and heartbreaking is an extreme understatement. She was a more devoted mother, and a more dutiful wife, than most women I have known, inside or outside of the church.
That was long ago. Her boys are now grown, and three of four still avoid any real relationship with her.
The damage done to her and her children, and to her relationships, was enormous and irreparable.
God bless you for intervening to help that woman. Even if you feel like you didn’t *do* anything, believe me, you did.
You checked reality for her. These abusers get their victims heads so spun around that the victim begins to believe that she’s crazy, she’s abusing her wonderful partner, and it’s all her fault. She shouldn’t have *made* him mad.
Having a caring person like you in her life, even if only briefly, helped more than you know. You were able to validate her experiences, that she was the true victim, no matter what her husband was telling her. You did her reality testing for her, something she could no longer trust herself to do.
Church is actually not an uncommon place to find narcissists. They love to look good to the community and flout their imaginary moral superiority.
There is more than one type of narcissist among us, but most of them are very invested in image management. That’s why so many can pull off the Pillar of the Community fraud, which torments their victims further. Her credibility gets destroyed.
We are a very narcissistic culture and we’re turning out new ones like never before. Men are more likely to be diagnosed as NPD than women, but we’re closing the gap.
Narcissism is a spectrum disorder, we all have narcissistic traits. They can serve us well in careers, appearance, etc. Too many narcissistic traits earns you the NPD diagnosis.
Because it’s a personality, it’s extremely treatment resistant. Meds are of little use, unless there is another, coexisting diagnosis, eg depression. Meds can help with the depressive symptoms, but fix the NPD.
Certain professions draw more narcissist than others. Not just entertainment and politics. The ministry is rife with narcissists. You will also find an inordinate number of NPDs practicing law or medicine, or working as CEOs.
The important thing to understand about narcissists is this: stay the hell away from them. No good will ever come out of any involvement with a narcissist.
There’s an old joke that no narcissist will ever seek therapy, but he’ll drive four others to it.
They actually do occasionally turn up, but only in the context of: “fix my wife”.
That’s probably much more than you ever wanted or needed to know about narcissism. I can’t help myself, it’s my favorite diagnosis and the one I’ve studied the most.