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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I have known a narcissist who misunderstood empathy. They believed that empathy meant identifying with some aspect of another person's life. So if they knew someone who was starting a new job, they'd compare it to when they were starting a new job and thought they were "empathizing" over the shared experience. But really they were just thinking about their own experience and projecting their feelings/reactions onto the other person. They were big advice givers and they believed their advice must be very good because they had been through "the exact same thing." But generally they'd not really listened past the initial mention of a situation. The rest of their thinking was about themselves.

This person used words like empathy and boundaries a lot because they'd been in therapy and read a lot about these issues. They were fantastic at speaking authoritatively on the subjects and it became part of their narcissistic charm. But the fundamental misunderstood these concepts, or in some cases, understood them but applied them very differently to themselves and other people.[/quote]

I'm dealing with a friend (end of the friendship) like this, but she's a licensed practicing counselor. (As a side note, she throws around the narcissist label quite freely, almost as though she doesn't understand the clinical diagnosis).

She calls herself an "empath." But she comes off as a self centered narcissist because her supposed heightened empathy allows her to feel like SHE knows what's right and best for everyone.

I realized that there have been many situations where I feel...gaslit (sorry to use another pop psy buzz word, but it's the best way to describe it) by her telling me things about me and my family that make me feel crappy. And she can dish it out but absolutely can't take it - because she's an empath, she always knows better than anyone else about everything.

I'm probably not explaining it well, but it's a mindfu*#.[/quote]

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