Narcissistic Personality Disorder (a novella, sorry)

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

...on the other hand, the extreme of empathy is to absolve them of all responsibility/hope to change.

I am down with the "there is a reason they are the way they are" mentality, but I struggle with my instinctive and permanent writing off of people that I see as being beyond help. I feel bad for them, but I also refuse to deal with them, and I'm not sure if that's more or less moral than hoping to fix them.

Empathy is good. Helping them is good. But self defense is also good. It isn't wise to jump in after someone who's drowning if you can't swim.
It doesn't help, it just adds drama, and complicates the situation. There will definitely be times you feel bad for them, but there's not a damn thing you can do without harming yourself, and times you just can't do a damn thing.

Oh, and if you believe in karma... they deserve it.