One of the favorite descriptions of therapists and mental health professionals is to describe someone who cares for someone with a mental health condition as an “enabler” or “facilitator.”

While this label may be an advantage for a teacher, coach, or HR professional and mean they are good at their job, it means the opposite in terms of mental health and in circumstances where the person “suffering” denies their condition.

What is a Narcissistic Enabler?

An enabler or facilitator is someone who, knowingly or unknowingly, allows someone with a detrimental health condition to continue their negative behavior.

Such behavior is not particularly welcomed by the medical community.

While it is easy to identify enabling where there is a clear relationship between the enabler’s behavior and the outcome of the person suffering, such as feeding a person with heart disease a diet high in saturated fats.

But it becomes more difficult when we look at the issue of cause and effect when the relationship between the behavior and the outcome is linked to a whole host of pre-existing vulnerabilities that are not always obvious to anyone except those with specialized insights or expertise.

This is true of Narcissistic Personality Disorder, a fragile sense of self combined with excessively high expectations placed on one by a parent is enough to do this in some cases, but the “conversion rate” to full-blown Narcissistic Personality Disorder is not 100%, and perhaps not even 50%.

Love is also a factor. Earlier this year, the BBC Radio 4 News programme published a blog post about a woman who enabled her daughter to buy heroin due to a lack of treatment for her addiction.

In extreme cases, a person who loves someone cannot live with themselves if they see their loved one in unresolved pain, and sometimes even tough love misses the mark.

Related : How Does a Narcissist Act When They Are Sick?

Narcissistic Personality Disorder cannot exist in an individual without someone to enable and facilitate them.

The narcissist is enabled first by their parents and needs their supply afterwards, like a heroin addict.

Here I want to examine how one can be an enabler of Narcissistic Personality Disorder without intending to and perhaps why the term “enabler” or facilitator should be used with caution or never used when applied to those in relationships with people with Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

Denial – The Enabling Parent and Narcissism

As parents, we are damned whether we do or damned if we don’t. American author Mish Albom wrote:

“All parents damage their children. It can’t be helped. Youth, like clear glass, absorbs the imprints of those who handle it. Some parents smudge, some crack, and some shatter childhood completely into jagged, irreparable pieces.”

The English poet Philip Larkin expressed similar sentiments, albeit more explicitly, in his poem

“This is the Verse,” which is favored by teenagers everywhere because it allows them to curse with impunity:

• They spoil you, you and your mother and your father.
• They may not mean to, but they do.
• They fill you with the flaws they have
• And add a few more, just for you.
• But on the issue of enabling it, the following verse is most relevant:
• But they were spoiled in their turn
• By fools in old hats and coats,
• Who were half the time cruel
• And half the time fighting.

As parents, damaged by our upbringing, we try to give our children something better.

The parent of a potential narcissist may have suffered from low self-esteem due to low parental expectations, or neglect.

Maybe the eldest child in a large family was overlooked in favor of a prettier or smarter younger sibling.

Maybe the child who, despite his or her intelligence, was unable to go to university or college due to family circumstances. A friend of mine with NPD once told me:

“My father had very high expectations of me. He was smart, but when his father left him when he was a teenager, he had to drop out of school and go to work to support the rest of the family. He was determined that I should make something of myself. He would only accept outstanding performance. I began lying to myself and everyone else about my successes. He never let me forget it when I failed to get into an Ivy League college.”

There was no intent to harm me here, and while parents of people with NPD have a lot to answer for, they are undoubtedly the contributors to the denial and in some ways not at fault.

Ignorance – The Friend or Lover Who Makes Things Easy for the Narcissist

When love is new, we idolize the person, whether it’s a hot new friend or a lover.

This hero worship is the essence of refreshing narcissistic supply. The narcissist tends to have two types of friends.

Those who have a degree of emotional culture tend not to stick around for long, and their ability to provide narcissistic supply is limited by their measured response to the narcissist’s boasts and lies.

The rest have a reduced ability to see through the narcissist’s true colors.

They are the narcissist’s loyal helpers or wives and girlfriends. In their ignorance, they are the gift that keeps on giving.

They will apologize for the narcissist’s rudeness, they will be explainable when the narcissist lies, and most of all they will fail to ask the most obvious questions about grandiose and boastful statements on the part of their loved ones

TheVulnerable – The Helping Hand, The Aging or Ill Parent, The Beleaguered Spouse or Helping Child

There are always some helpers who cannot control their lives.

Even in the 21st century, some are attached to others, even though they may not want to ride the roller coaster ride of their caregiver’s, parent’s, or partner’s behavior and emotions.

Related : 5 Reasons Why a Narcissist Wants You Back

Narcissists have no sensitivity or concern for who is giving them their narcissistic supply.

Without willing volunteers, the default position will always be for those who are weaker than themselves. Like the drug addict who steals money from an unprotected purse, or the alcoholic who hides booze in his grandmother’s accessory, they are immoral and out of control.

The weak and vulnerable have no power to prevent their own empowerment or facilitation of their narcissistic supply.

So, if someone you love has been diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder and you’ve been labeled an enabler or facilitator, be kind to yourself, it’s not as easy to avoid as you might think.

And some therapists might need to walk in your shoes before they judge you!