(Nimue)
I have a very loud neighbour who tends to shout his conversations. His life is clearly falling apart, and he has no idea why. Some days he loudly blames me for how much noise I make. Apparently I read loudly! What happens is never his fault, it's always down to someone else. He's on a path, and he does not know it, and he won't seek help. It's a common problem.
A lot of mental health problems are caused by stressful and traumatic experiences. While we can act to try and protect ourselves from these, a good attitude will only get you so far if life is grinding you down. Narcissism is entirely different in that it is a state people get into because of the choices they make. That can start with trauma and a desire to protect yourself from further hurt.
No one wants to be uncomfortable or to hear criticism. No one wants to find out they've messed up, or got something wrong, or misunderstood. However, we all have to square up to those moments now and then. Handling it well gives us room to fix things, improve and grow. Refusing to be accountable and finding ways to blame someone else instead is the road to madness.
The process of bending reality so that you're never wrong, creates cognitive dissonance. It can feed paranoia, and the idea that someone else is causing you harm. You can end up believing that a person who is simply flagging up issues, is unfairly attacking you, and that reasonable criticism is actually bullying. A person doesn't have to get far into this for it to seriously impact on their relationships. You can't have substantial or sustained relationships if you can't own your mistakes, and instead make other people responsible for your actions.
Narcissists gaslight other people primarily because they are so involved in lying to themselves. They can cause tremendous damage to others. It is however much easier to escape from a narcissist than it is to live with the consequences of being one. The further a person goes down this route, the more harm they do, the harder it becomes to admit that they're getting things wrong. That leads to doubling down on mistakes and on justifying ways of behaving. Thus the person doing this to themselves gets ever more detached from reality, and has ever more to lose if they admit what they've been doing.
We can protect ourselves from this horrible illness with self-honesty, and self-respect. When you own mistakes you give yourself power to change your life for the better. Embracing opportunities to learn is about developing courage and integrity. Admitting that you've fallen flat on your face is honourable.
We can help other people to stay well by being kind in face of error. If we don't punish each other for honest mistakes, its easier to admit to them. If we help each other to learn and do better, and if this is done kindly then there are fewer reasons to be defensive in the first place. When we see people being blamed unfairly, we can speak up and affirm what's real.
Narcissism is destructive, and causes huge harm to the person who falls into it. While it is absolutely a condition created by personal choices, that is also informed by the wider culture we live in. If people fear punishment and humiliation when they make honest mistakes, it is harder to act well. There's also interplay between narcissism and privilege – it's far more likely to be an issue for people who think they should have everything their own way and that the slightest infringement on that is wholly unfair.
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