Despite everything they’ve put you through — the psychological torture and mind games — you can’t shake the insidious thought that maybe, just maybe, you’ll be the one to get through to them. Even after seeing their stunning lack of empathy, remorselessness, and consistent cruelty, a little voice inside you whispers, “But what if I can inspire them to finally change?” Part of you believes that change ultimately comes from taking full ownership of oneself, yet another part of you still hopes you can be the hero who rescues the narcissist and helps them heal.

This desperate belief that you can miraculously heal the narcissist’s deep wounds and transform them into a caring, consistent partner isn’t really just naive optimism. It’s actually the result of powerful subconscious forces that many of us internalize from early life experiences. These forces shape our understanding of relationships and our roles within them, making us think we can fix others even when it’s unrealistic. This belief may keep you in an abusive relationship because you think your role is to rescue or fix the wounded, even if it means you end up hurt and wounded yourself — much like a martyr.

The “Fixer” Is Coded Early

For many who grew up in dysfunctional family environments, the unspoken rules and obstacles we faced as children fostered a harmful “fixer” mentality. If we experienced a childhood with contentious parents, rebellious siblings, or emotional neglect, we took on the role of resolving conflicts and creating order from chaos as a means of keeping ourselves safe or surviving that environment. This early conditioning can make us believe that fixing others is our responsibility, even at the cost of our own well-being.

We had to become mini-therapists long before we even knew what that meant. By developing early fixing capabilities to calm the unaddressed chaos around us, we reinforced the belief that our heroic interventions could solve anything, even personality disorders. This early conditioning made us think we could always fix others, no matter how deep their issues ran.

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Our minds essentially encoded a subconscious equation: Fixing family issues = My importance, purpose, and self-worth.

This skewed our natural decision-making later in life, making us gravitate towards damaged potential partners who mirrored our original childhood environments. This pattern perpetuates the belief that our value lies in our ability to fix others, even at the expense of our own well-being.

The Mind’s Self-Preservation

This belief in our fixing skills gets even stronger because our brains always try to confirm what we already believe to make sense of things. Our past experiences shape the way we see the world, so we tend to interpret situations based on those experiences.

So when we face a narcissistic partner’s predictable patterns of idealization, devaluation, and emotional withdrawal, our minds automatically try to make sense of their behavior using the lens of the fixer. We convince ourselves, “Of course they’re acting like this — it’s because they have unhealed abandonment wounds that I can eventually heal if I just____.” You may even spend more time reading about personality disorders or you may even want to become a therapist so that you can find ways to help them but you’re doing all this while neglecting yourself.

When we convince ourselves that we can fix someone’s twisted behavior because of our strong fixing mindset, it shields us from accepting the hard truth: that this person can’t change because their personality is empty and self-absorbed, and they won’t admit to their actions.

Facing that reality feels like we’re denying everything we’ve learned to cope with the chaos and upbringing of our childhoods. It’s disorienting. Our minds naturally prefer the illusion that we can fix things because it’s easier than accepting the truth. It helps us maintain our sanity.

The painful truth is that some psychological issues are too deep for even the most well-meaning efforts to fix. However, understanding why we have this belief in fixing can help us break free from repeating the same relationship patterns that originally reinforced this flawed belief.

In conclusion, the key to true healing lies in fixing ourselves rather than trying to fix others. By breaking free from the false identity of the fixer mindset, we can recognize that our negative beliefs were entangling us in toxic cycles all along. This realization empowers us to see life from a different perspective and take control of our own well-being.

Note from the Author

If you’re ready and you’d like my help with healing, finding peace in life and breaking free from these toxic patterns, then you can book a FREE BREAKTHROUGH CALL with me HERE. Happy healing 💙💙. Feel free to share and comment! Use this information with caution, it comes from my own thoughts & bias, experiences and research😊.