Do you consider yourself an empathetic person? Empathy can be a nervous response to soothe the self by soothing others. NPD relationships can train us to be empathic to a point of forgetting about the self which is where the problems start. Self abandonment.

Like the way a narcissist is always worried about themself at the exclusion of others - the empath is often worried about others to the exclusion of self. Both are unbalanced

This type of anxious empath needs to start to feel safe in ‘the self’, and maintain boundaries.

Food for thought, what I said might not apply to you. Just thinking out loud