But sometimes you have to work with people who demonstrate traits of Narcissism Personality Disorder or Borderline Personality Disorder. E.g. someone who never accepts responsibility or someone frequently demonstrating emotional lability.
I am not sure the best course of action in these situations.
Mental illness is just 1 cause for breakdown of goodwill. It's better to ignore the cause, and focus on the optional communication mode for the level of goodwill you're operating from.
just to be clear, trust != good will.
This stuff will never help with narcissistic ass holes.
If my experience is common (and let’s be real here, unless you’re in the psychology field none of us are qualified to diagnose narcissism), of course this stuff won’t help because the person is right and nothing would sway them, and bitter folks, or maybe jealous folks, decided to proclaim the person has a mental illness (read, they are now flawed and you are superior) as well as insulting them calling them an asshole.
And it’s kinda weird the other way too because if they do indeed have a mental illness, then they are not trying to be abrasive and often wouldn’t even be aware that they were until after the fact, so you’re calling a mentally ill person an asshole because they are mentally ill. Try doing that to someone with any other mental issue and see how well that goes over. But it’s fine to do for this one and everyone is fine with it.
It’s shitty to go into a conversation with the best intentions and yet you always end up fucking it all up, hurting the relationship with that person when your goals were the exact opposite, being confused about why that always happens, and reflecting after the damage is done and seeing where you fucked up, tossing that onto the never ending pile of regret that follows you though life, your lonely lonely life because it’s impossible to maintain any relationship at all, not for long anyway… and then on top of it you’re called an asshole by someone who doesn’t have any idea how much it blows having narcissistic personality disorder (or what kind of childhood environment it takes for such a disorder to take root), or, they don’t understand that it’s not the same thing as someone choosing to be a dick in a conversation.
The problem is that a single genuine narcissist can make an environment absolutely horrible for a large number of people, meaning that even at 1/20, if you work in an area with 50-60 people, you're likely to have at least 2-3 narcissists in that group.
One other thing, I wouldn't call narcissism a "mental illness". There's a difference between a "mental illness" and a personality disorder. Narcissist Personality Disorder is effectively the clinical name for what is commonly known as "being an ass-hole", in the same way that anti-social personality disorder is just the clinical name for what is commonly known as "being a psycho".
Since we work in male dominated field, it is not rare at all and most of us all worked with at least one.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_personality_dis...
> Frequency 0.5%
https://www.therecoveryvillage.com/mental-health/narcissisti...
> Approximately 0.5% of the United States population, or one 1 in 200 people, has the disorder
Regardless, your point does appear valid about male dominated fields:
> There are significant gender differences when it comes to the prevalence of the disorder; about 75% of people with narcissistic personality disorder are men.
> As of 2018, overall prevalence is estimated to range from 0.8% to 6.2%.[68][69] In 2008 under the DSM-IV, lifetime prevalence of NPD was estimated to be 6.2%, with 7.7% for men and 4.8% for women
Just my PoV:
Everyone is different, and we need to start by doing our best to understand them.
Sometimes, we understand that they are selfish, cowardly pricks, and that we just have to accept that.
That's seldom the case.
One of the lessons I learned, a long time ago, is that hurt people tend to be incredibly self-absorbed. This is people in mental or physical pain. Mother Theresa might have kicked her cat, when she was having a particularly nasty headache. We'll never know.
Understanding people is different from advocating for them, or "taking their side." If you want to understand rats, talk to an exterminator. I know a couple, and they really understand the little buggers.
But also keeping control of my side of the relationship is incredibly important. It should not depend on them. If they are unreliable or dangerous, then it is incumbent upon me, to limit the scope of our relationship.
Easy enough, if we are not in a situation that demands we work together, but I have also done a lot of work, with some very difficult people.
It can be done, but, in my case, it requires that I be quite self-aware, and take responsibility for my part of the relationship; which includes not expecting stuff from people that can't give it.
WFM. YMMV.
And there are plenty of people with no real psychiatric disorder, but who are "problematic" to deal with.
And there is the question of how interested the other person is in rebuilding trust.
And there is just asking yourself "am I a person with the the personality, understanding, skills, and patience to deal with this situation?".
Then you can take whatever appropriate actions after that. Sometimes that's get yourself out of the situation where you work or live with them. Sometimes it's decide that while this person is unreasonable to deal with, the rest of the situation makes it reasonable for you to stay, at least for the moment.
At least, this tactic wouldn't work in the trust breakdowns I've had or witnessed.