How I became a Cluster B basketcase.

Posted on August 21, 2015 by luckyotter

I had some new insights today on the genesis of my disorders. Not actual new memories, but insights on memories I already had that I know now led to my covert narcissism and BPD. I can pinpoint the exact events that turned me into a borderline, and later on, a covert narcissist.

I’ve been a borderline since about age 4 (in a young child incipient personality disorders are known as attachment disorders). A few weeks ago, following my trip down the rabbit hole, I mentioned having remembered that someone told me something when I was 4 years old that was significant in the development of my BPD.

I still don’t remember what was said, or who said it, but somehow I know I began to be sexually abused at that age. By who or in what context, I can’t tell you because I don’t actually remember. I just know I was.

That’s when things began to get weird for me. I have a vague, dreamlike recollection of sitting on the short flight of carpeted stairs of our split-level house in New Jersey, watching my parents (who were probably drunk) dancing in the living room. They were doing the Cha Cha Cha, a dance popular at that time. I remember feeling unreasoning (and probably Oedipal) jealousy at that moment, because my father was ignoring me, even though I was calling to him to dance with me too. I believe that’s when my hatred toward my mother began. Instead of reassuring me or including me in the moment with them, I was simply ignored and impatiently told to go back to bed.

I don’t remember what happened after that, but I began to have terrible nightmares, and sometimes would wake up screaming. Sometimes after I woke, the dreamlike, dissociated state would continue. I remember hearing, ghostlike, the theme from the TV show “The Mickey Mouse Club” playing somewhere–although it was 3 in the morning and in those days, it wasn’t possible for anyone to have recorded the show and play it somewhere later. I got out of my bed to find out where the music was coming from, but the house was completely dark and everyone was asleep. It was very eerie. I also remember one morning, having gotten out of bed for breakfast, seeing tiny colored sparkly objects that looked like glitter, falling everywhere around me. No one else seemed to see them. I asked my parents if they saw the falling glitter and they looked at me like I was crazy. There was something else that happened around that time that was equally strange, but I can’t recall now what it was. It’s not far from my conscious awareness though. I think I’ll remember soon. I might remember what was said to me and who said it too–because I know it was important.

I started doing things like banging my head against the wall in the family room, because it felt good to me for some reason. My mother would tell me to stop but I’d keep doing it, because I couldn’t stop. It seemed to relieve some kind of congestion inside my head. I don’t know–I tried it recently just to see if it still felt good, and it didn’t at all. It hurt! I also began to develop strange ticks and habits like pulling my hair and sucking on it. My mother started keeping my fine hair short because “I was ruining my hair” by doing that.

I began to get a taste of rejection in kindergarten. I always felt somehow different from the other children, but couldn’t figure out why. Not different in a good way, but in a defective one. I’d already internalized the conflicting golden child/scapegoat messages given to me by my parents, who expected me to serve both roles because I was their only child. No wonder I longed for a younger sibling! This alternating, unpredictable and crazymaking golden child/scapegoat treatment exacerbated my BPD (which I think already existed) and set the stage for covert narcissism–unworthiness and inferiority (beaten into me by being their scapegoat) that overlaid grandiosity and a sense of being better or more “special” than other kids because my parents sometimes told me I was when they weren’t punishing me. I didn’t know who I was. When people told me to “just be yourself,” I had no idea what they meant. Who was I? I couldn’t live up to their lofty idea of the perfect little girl they wanted me to be or thought I was; but it also made no sense when they wouldn’t allow me to try new things or make decisions on my own, always saying things like, “you can’t do that,” or “you know you don’t want that.”

Their punishments were severe and I became a fearful child, and feared rejection wherever I was. How could anyone like a child that was so bad, but at the same time, was supposed to be this perfect princess but could never live up to being one? I was so confused and felt so apart from others. I remember when I wasn’t crying (I wrote a article about what a huge crybaby I was), I was nervously asking the other kids at school if they liked me. Was that my true self or a newly minted false self asking them that? I’m not sure, but I think it was a last ditch attempt of my true self to get reassurance, love and acceptance, because I sure didn’t get it at home.

I was an unpopular, oversensitive child and everyone always told me how sensitive I was too. I remember being mortified and embarrassed by this but had no idea what to do about it. my mother used it against me too, calling me out for my “hypersensitivity” in front of other people, or making excuses for her hurtful comments by blaming me for “always taking things the wrong way.”

I started to try to hide my emotions but wasn’t very good at it, and the other kids could always see right through that transparent mask I tried to wear. I was intelligent, and my grades were okay, but my teachers always told my parents that I was an underachiever and a daydreamer and of course “too sensitive.” They also wrote on my report cards things like, “Lauren is intellectually brilliant and very creative, but she is an underachiever. She could be doing so much better if she applied herself. She also has problems socializing appropriately with the other children.”

And I did. I never fit in anywhere. I got bullied throughout my elementary and most of my high school years. It didn’t help any that we moved three times within my first 8 years of school, requiring me to start two new schools in the middle of the year (actually, the second school was due to my having been bullied so badly my parents were forced to have me change schools). I used to be chased home by bullies everyday and was never invited to parties or after school activities that weren’t teacher- or parent-planned.

I did manage to always have one or two close girlfriends so I’d sometimes get a respite when a sleepover was scheduled. But for some reason, my mother wouldn’t allow me to go on sleepovers very much. She didn’t like the idea of me doing things on my own without her. It got so bad that around the age of 11 or 12, I got very upset one night because she had failed to come in to the bathroom to wash my hair while I sat in the tub. I felt like I couldn’t handle something like washing my hair on my own, and more than that, I felt…rejected and forgotten! I remember going downstairs crying and asking my mother to tell me she still loved me, just because she had failed to come in to wash my hair. I don’t think I got that reassurance. At the time I still went out of my way to make friends. But I was too friendly and clingy too, so although at the time my debilitating shyness hadn’t set in and I made new friends fairly easily, I didn’t keep them for long. I was already demanding too much from them, I guess.

My parents divorced when I was 14, and I moved to New York with my mother. I already blamed her for their divorce, and already had pegged her as a narcissist, although I didn’t have a word for it then. I remember telling her how “empty” and “shallow” she was. This would make her rage. But under my anger was terror. She scared me on some deep gut level and she seemed to hate me. Even as an adult, I’d always revert back to being a child in her presence. She was drinking heavily, and I began to drink too. She didn’t try to stop me. She had a string of lovers that came and went, and to get to the kitchen or bathroom, I’d have to walk through the living room where she and some boyfriend were sleeping. One of her lovers used to love to make fun of me with her. I remember sitting at the dinner table with the two of them laughing at my worries, speech, the way I looked, and anything else they could pick on. I remember running away from the table in tears more times than I can count. I was left alone in the house often, which I actually liked because it meant I didn’t have to deal with her or her nasty boyfriend, and I’d cook my own dinner, usually a TV dinner or frozen pizza. Inside, I secretly worried that this woman who seemed to always want me by her side when I was younger (and be her mini-me) didn’t seem to want me around at all anymore. I wondered what I had done wrong to make her stop loving me. Now I know she never had.
I was a depressed, sullen, underachieving teenager who lived in a fantasy world inside my head because I was learning to hate people.

At age 15, I was rejected by a group of girls that I described in “Crybaby.” That was devastating to me, and I spent several days literally sick in bed after that. I don’t remember if I cried. I think I might have already stopped being able to cry easily, but I felt like I wanted to die. I remember making a promise to myself I would never again reach out to anyone in friendship and that I’d have to hide my emotions from that day on.
I think this was the beginning of my narcissism–my false self was born. Up until then, I’d displayed borderline attitudes and behaviors (as they would appear in a child), but after this event I became increasingly aloof and tried to pretend I didn’t care what anyone thought of me.

I began to act up more at home too, and outwardly rebel. My mother and I got into huge drunken screaming matches that would end with her either passed out on the floor drunk, or with us both throwing things at each other. One night, unable to control my rage, I grabbed a kitchen knife out of the drawer in the kitchen and went after her with it. She was drunk. I held it in front of her to scare her but did nothing, then dropped it and told her I was sorry when I realized what I’d done.

That was the night she kicked me out. I was 17. I went to live with my father for a time before entering a girls’ residential facility for a year that treated adolescents with emotional or behavioral problems.

But even though I can’t say I blame her for kicking me out since I probably scared her to death with the knife incident, being kicked out by my own mother was traumatic. I took this as proof she never loved me, because threatening her with the knife had been a desperate cry for help, to be validated. Even though I can understand why she didn’t want me around anymore, the hurt from her total rejection of me (she didn’t speak to me for another three months after that night) stayed with me and ate away at me for years. I believe this incident–being literally tossed out of the house by my own mother before I reached 18–was what solidified my narcissism and when my false self became a permanent fixture.

I became colder and more aloof. I stopped being able to access my true feelings, except for rage and fear. I could no longer meet people easily. To get too close to anyone meant I’d be rejected, or made fun of. Occasionally I’d explode into a BPD rage, but mostly I kept my emotions inside–so far inside I couldn’t even feel them much anymore. The only exceptions were the times I fell in love. My crushes were intense, insane, overpowering; they were a force of nature. My emotions would be all over the place, and I’d be completely obsessed with some boy I imagined would make me happy for the rest of my life. I couldn’t seem to live without a boy who could reflect me and act as a mirror. I was attractive and seemed to find dates easily, and I had a way of getting boys to fall in love with me (I had the slightly pitiful yet charming waif act down to a science). I think I’d become very manipulative in these relationships. Eventually these relationships would end, and I’d be miserable until the next one came along. When I wasn’t dating, I had intense unrequited crushes and lived in my fantasies of happily ever after. I think I might have been showing histrionic PD traits too, although my narcissism is actually the cerebral type. I was never that interested in sex for some reason.

Without a relationship to validate me and prove that I existed, I felt empty inside. Without a relationship, I was nothing. I had no real interests and any type of hobby I did pick up, I’d eventually drop. I couldn’t stick with anything, and began abusing alcohol and later, drugs. These were the only other things that seemed to temporarily fill the vast black hole I felt inside. I still had no idea who I was or what I was here for.

This was longer than I intended, but it’s pretty clear now when my BPD and narcissism began. My BPD began at age 4 due to some type of sexual abuse and something that was said to me. As for my cNPD, it didn’t happen overnight. It gradually developed in me between the ages of 14 and 17. What solidified it were two things–being rejected by a group of girls who had seemed to like me; and the final boot by my mother. My BPD always lay beneath the narcissism, ready to erupt at the worst possible times.

“Some days I just want to crawl into a hole and make myself very small.”

Posted on August 19, 2015 by luckyotter

This article embarrasses me now, but I think it’s a great example of how narcissistic I can be sometimes, even online. I just thought I ought to call myself out about this whiney, self-pitying, falsely-humble, yet grandiose post that’s like wearing a neon sign flashing the words “I can’t take criticism! Waaaaahhh!” This is covert narcissism and BPD in a nutshell. Narcissistic injury. We’re always so butthurt over everything.

It’s interesting. At the time I wrote it, someone called me on this post being very narcissistic, and that upset and angered me (of course!) I actually couldn’t see anything wrong with this self-indulgent post and thought the person was being a bully. They were, but that doesn’t mean the article wasn’t narcissistic.

Seeing myself this way is like having glasses after years of being almost blind.
But I’m being careful not to beat myself up either. The past can’t be undone, but you can make your own future.

Lucky Otters Haven

DISCLAIMER:
I feel like a disclaimer is needed, though the above photo should be enough of a disclaimer, because it says it all. Someone made a sarcastic remark about how I think I’m a celebrity because of this post, so I let their comment make me set this post to private, because I don’t have a thick skin and am too chicken to come out with a snappy or snarky comeback. I always think other people can get away with doing that, but I won’t be allowed to. It’s because of my past. I was never allowed to speak my mind or have a voice. Now I’ve internalized that and don’t allow myself a voice sometimes. I’m getting better but I’m not out of the woods yet.

In no way do I put myself in the same category as celebrities (who are just people who get wrinkles, have morning breath…

View original post 1,301 more words

How does avoidant PD differ from covert (vulnerable) narcissism?

Posted on August 18, 2015 by luckyotter

Covert (vulnerable or fragile) narcissism (cNPD) can, on the surface, look an awful lot like Avoidant Personality Disorder (AvPD–not to be confuse with AsPD!), which I have been diagnosed with, along with BPD.

But appearances are only skin deep.

I found an article on Psychforums (in the Avoidant PD forum) that describes the differences very well. Because covert/vulnerable narcissism is not an officially recognized diagnosis, and is not included in the DSM (yet), covert narcissists are frequently (if not almost always) diagnosed BPD comorbid with AvPD, as I am. Aspergers can also be easily confused with cNPD, and has been by many. But this article focuses on Avoidant PD, not Aspergers.

“Vulnerable narcissism could be misdiagnosed with at least two other distinct DSM personality disorders: Avoidant Personality Disorder (AVPD) and Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). In the diagnosis of AVPD, there are several criteria that may overlap with vulnerable narcissism. First, avoidant individuals are observed as appearing shy and being fearful of developing close relationships with others. Second, individuals with AVPD may meet criteria for experiencing fears of feeling humiliated, rejected, or embarrassed within individual relationships. Finally, Millon (1996) proposes that the use of fantasy in individuals with AVPD is a major element in the presentation and perpetuation of this disorder. This is striking in the fact that the use of fantasy has long been denoted as primary to the realm of narcissistic pathology.The vulnerable narcissist will likely exhibit significant interpersonal anxiety, avoidance of relationships, and use of fantasy, but this is guided by a core of entitled expectations. That is, vulnerable narcissists may avoid relationships in order to protect themselves from the disappointment and shame over unmet expectations of others, in contrast to fears of social rejection or making a negative social impact typical of AVPD.

Another false positive diagnosis that may occur as a result of misinterpreting vulnerable narcissismis in the diagnosis of BPD. Masterson (1993) forwarded this issue in an elaborate discussion about the potential for misdiagnosis of the closet narcissistic personalitywith BPD. Misdiagnosis can occur because of a clinician’s attention to the overt presentation of the emotional lability in the individual to the exclusion of an understanding of the cognitive and socio-emotional experience that guides the lability. As with social avoidance, the emotional lability of the vulnerable narcissist is influenced by his or her covert entitlement and difficulties managing disappointment and self-esteem threat. In contrast, the emotionally lability of the individual with BPD is a byproduct of unrealistic anaclitic needs (e.g., the need for a strong caretaker to manage his or her fears of being independent).

Both the AVPD and the vulnerable narcissistic character will likely report difficulties with feeling self-conscious in interpersonal situations, along with the tendency to avoid situations in which they expect to be ridiculed. The difference between AVPD and vulnerable narcissistic characters lies in their expectations for themselves and others. Individuals with AVPD have needs to be liked and accepted by others, but fear they will fail to be acceptable to others. In contrast, vulnerable narcissistic characters need others to respond favorably to them and to admire them regardless of their behaviors, beliefs, skills, or social status, but fear that others will fail to provide them with narcissistic supplies. For vulnerable narcissistic characters, it is not mere concern about being liked or not. Rather, the vulnerable narcissist’s fear is that he or she will not be admired. Furthermore, vulnerable narcissistic individuals experience significant injury and anger in response to perceived slights. Their avoidance of relationships is based upon their fear of not being able to tolerate the disappointment of their unrealistic expectations.

The assessment of entitled expectations and exploitative motivations are important variables that would guide how an individual approaches and experiences relationships, including a therapeutic relationship. Not acknowledging narcissistic entitlement when it is present could lead to important misinterpretations of clients’ experiences that either reinforce their sense of entitlement or lead to unrecognized self-esteem threat in the therapeutic relationship (Gabbard, 1998).”

From “Interpersonal analysis of grandiose and vulnerable narcissism” Dickinson, Kelly A; Pincus, Aaron L

The Cluster B stigma and the nature of evil.

Posted on August 17, 2015 by luckyotter

I don’t care if what I’m about to say is controversial or unpopular.

There are some folks in the ACON community who think ALL narcissists are evil, and some think all BPDs are evil too. (In fact there are some BPDs who are worse than some narcs).
It’s understandable why people feel that way (and I did for a time myself), but the people who abused them were usually high spectrum malignant narcissists or sociopaths so they think all narcissists (and even all Cluster Bs) are as bad as the abusive or rejecting parents who raised them.

The stigma against Cluster B disorders is very pervasive and it’s getting worse. NPD used to just be a psychiatric diagnosis. Now it’s a condemnation to hell. Even if a low-mid spectrum narc or a borderline is self aware and wants to get better, they’re still put in the “evil” box along with the malignants, psychopaths and sociopaths. It’s always assumed they “have an agenda” or are “full of shit” and everything they say is a lie. I wondered why hearing people say this used to bother me; now I know why. It hurt my feelings because inside, I already knew I was one. I’m self-identified now and really, really want to change and every word I say on my blogs is my reality and truth. It’s my true self speaking, always. I think.

Cluster B’s are cut no slack by some ACONs. We are told we deserve no sympathy even though we were abused too and were victims too. This is extremely damaging to those of us who want to be rid of our Cluster B disorders.

The Cluster B stigma also makes it hard for those of us who want treatment to find it. Many therapists won’t get near someone with NPD or BPD with a 100 foot pole. I remember one therapist I had an intake session with, who I felt comfortable with, but said he’d need to order my psychiatric records before we could go any further.
A few days later he called me and said, “I’m sorry but I don’t treat Borderlines.”
Even if a therapists is willing to see someone with a Cluster B disorder, most insurance companies or government-funded health insurance like Medicaid or Medicare won’t pay a claim for a “Cluster B diagnosis” because it’s assumed they’re incurable. So we are given some other diagnosis instead and treated for THAT disorder (such as depression or anxiety) which doesn’t get to the root of our real problem but only treats symptoms.

People who judge and demonize all narcissists are doing exactly what NPDs and BPDs are so well known for-–engaging in black and white thinking. They don’t believe or realize that narcissism is a spectrum disorder and those in the bottom half of the spectrum probably aren’t evil, even if they’re usually PITAs.

I know there will be some of you who will disagree. That’s fine and we can agree to disagree. I’ll hold to my belief that narcissism is a spectrum disorder with many shades of gray ranging all the way to black (evil).

So what is evil? Evil to me means a person who wants to bring harm to others and has no remorse over what they do and doesn’t care about the suffering they cause–and even enjoys it. It’s a person who goes out of their way to hurt others. It’s a person who tries to destroy the reality or the soul of another human being. It’s a person who never feels guilt or shame over their actions and has no empathy for the pain they cause. All evil people (as far as I know) are of the Cluster B persuasion and most are narcissists (or ASPDs), but not every narcissist or borderline is evil.

To really get a handle on what evil is, Dr. M. Scott Peck’s book “People of the Lie” is the best analysis out there. Most of the stories in his book describe people who would today be called malignant narcissists (high spectrum narcissists with antisocial traits).

Cognitive dissonance and NPD.

Posted on August 16, 2015 by luckyotter

I’ve been thinking a lot about the concept of cognitive dissonance and its role in creating a narcissist or turning a narcissist into a malignant one.

Cognitive dissonance is the mental stress or discomfort experienced by an individual who holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values at the same time, or is confronted by new information that conflicts with existing beliefs, ideas, or values.

–Wikipedia

A computer will crash or stop working when given conflicting sets of instructions. Although people are not computers (because we have emotions and a soul), if we receive conflicting sets of “instructions” or information about ourselves, it causes so much mental distress that a personality disorder can develop if the conflict appears very early in life.

A child who is constantly invalidated by narcissistic parents tries to correct the cognitive dissonance by “becoming” what the parents tell them they are. If the parents tell them they are evil, bad, always misbehaving, etc. they may become aggressive, overt narcissist themselves to “match” the parents’ assessment of them. If they are told they are incompetent, a loser, stupid, etc. they may develop covert narcissism or BPD instead.

Golden/spoiled children.

Spoiling a child is actually a form of abuse, because being a golden child negates the child’s own reality that they are human and less than perfect. The spoiled, golden child will either try to be as “perfect” as they are told to match their parent’s unrealistic assessment (and a grandiose false self develops from that) or they know they can’t ever be the image of perfection their parents insist they be, and to correct the cognitive dissonance they may become rebellious or adopt covert narcissism (in which the child believes they are worthless and the parents are wrong) as a coping strategy.

Other personality disorders.

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is also a way to correct cognitive dissonance. I think BPD develops in many children who were both golden children and scapegoats (which is often the case with onlies) who were given inconsistent parenting, sometimes abused, sometimes treated like little gods. That’s why they’re so conflicted and seem to act in contradictory ways that confuse themselves and those around them.

Not all abused children develop narcissism or BPD, but it’s my belief almost all children of narcissists develop personality disorders, all of which are the adult incarnations of childhood attachment disorders.

Malignant Narcissism.

Malignant narcissism is NPD that is high on the spectrum and mixed with antisocial (ASPD) traits. A low-mid spectrum narcissist (or even a non-narcissist!) can turn malignant during adolescence or even as an adult. I think this is almost always due to some choice they made or action they were forced to engage in that went against their conscience. Let me explain how this works.

M. Scott Peck in his book, “People of the Lie,” (the book that popularized the concept of malignant narcissists as “evil”) told the story of a man who narrowly escaped becoming evil/malignant. The man, a non-narcissist who loved his family dearly, suffered from debilitating panic attacks when crossing a certain bridge on his drive to work. Even though he didn’t believe in the devil, one day while suffering a severe panic attack he made a “deal with the devil”–he told the devil he could take his favorite son’s life in exchange for allowing him to cross the bridge without having any more panic attacks. Of course nothing happened, and the son was fine. The man, filled with remorse over having these thoughts, told Dr. Peck about it, and was told he did the right thing to repent, because otherwise he would have become evil himself, especially had something actually happened to his son. If he had turned to darkness and narcissism, it would have been to correct the cognitive dissonance between what he had done and his internal moral compass. He would have had to discard his previous moral standards and embrace darkness.

A person forced to engage in something they find morally reprehensible, such as a soldier forced to kill innocent civilians, can turn toward darkness. Many veterans return suffering severe PTSD and in some cases seem to have lost the souls they went to war with. Many, who have committed atrocities in war, correct the cognitive dissonance created by doing something that went against their conscience, by discarding their conscience altogether. This isn’t a conscious choice usually, but is the end result of severe PTSD. (I think all personality disorders are, in fact, manifestions of severe PTSD caused by chronic abuse starting when the personality was still forming.)

It’s my opinion that adolescence is when malignant narcissism is most likely to develop, because adolescents are by nature risk-takers and trying to establish a separate identity from their their parents. This usually takes the form of some type of rebellion, and rebellion is normal as long as it doesn’t go too far. Some adolescents may be “dared” by their friends to engage in antisocial activities. Adolescents are so eager to be accepted in a group of their peers that sometimes their desire for acceptance overrides their conscience, which isn’t fully developed yet. If these antisocial activities hurt others (such as robbing someone’s house on a dare), the teenager’s fledgling conscience is halted in its growth, and may be discarded altogether. It’s at this point an adolescent can turn to malignant narcissism. This is why the choices kids make are so important. Here’s an excerpt from my article, “Healing Narcissism: Stephen’s Story,” in which a fictional boy I called Stephen turns to narcissism as a coping strategy, and it all began with a dare.

The Choice.

Stephen recalled a dare when he was 8 years old. A group of boys who had bullied him dared him to set a paper bag of dried dog poop on another boy’s rickety wooden front porch and set it on fire. The boys promised him that if he did this, they would no longer bully him and they would be his friend and protect him against any further bullying. Stephen knew that doing this could set the other boy’s house on fire and at first he protested, explaining what could happen. At this point he still had a conscience. But the boys threatened him and told him if he didn’t do it, their bullying would become worse and they would kill his pet rabbit. Stephen believed them, so against his will, he complied.

They set out after dark for the targeted house. The boys watched from the darkened yard as Stephen lit the paper bag on fire and hesitantly walked up the front stairs of the boy’s porch and set it next to a dead potted plant. The deed done, all the boys ran away before anyone saw them. Stephen looked back in time to see the flames ignite the plant, and quickly start to spread over the railings of the rickety old wooden porch. He felt awful and considered going to the police, but he didn’t dare. He went to bed that night and had terrible nightmares.

The targeted boy’s house burned down and he, his baby sister, and his mother had to be taken to the hospital to be treated for smoke inhalation. Soon after, the family moved away, never to be seen again. No charges were pressed because no one knew who the culprit was.

To protect himself from his unbearable feelings of guilt and shame, Stephen shut off his painful emotions of guilt and conscience. From then on, the group of bullies accepted him as one of them, and they continued to engage in tormenting other children and even petty crimes.

This is an example of cognitive dissonance. Stephen would not have been able to live with himself had he not turned to narcissism as a coping strategy. The irony here is that, the more intense the child’s guilt or shame over committing an act that goes against their morals (or the more heinous the act), the more likely it is they will turn malignant, because to do otherwise would mean the overwhelming shame they feel could likely cause them to become severely depressed or even suicidal. This isn’t an excuse for anyone to turn to narcissism (or malignant narcissism) as a coping strategy, but is an unfortunate reality.

Acquired narcissism.

Sometimes people who become extremely successful, such as celebrities, sports stars, business leaders or politicians, can become narcissists, even if they were not narcissistic before their success. It doesn’t happen to all of them, but if it does, this is another example of how cognitive dissonance tries to “correct” things. In order to close the mental gap between their actual assessment of themselves as imperfect humans and the adulation they receive from the outer world that treats them as if they’re somehow more than human, a successful person can turn to narcissism to align their self-assessment with the way they are regarded by others. This is why some celebrities become so full of themselves or manipulative. It’s a form of acquired narcissism, but because it’s acquired fairly late in life and isn’t due to a choice, this type of narcissism may be temporary and only last as long as the person remains famous or very successful. If they fade into obscurity, the person faces a narcissistic crisis, but after that I think they can return to a non-narcissistic way of being in the world.

False self vs. true self.

Posted on August 16, 2015 by luckyotter

UPDATE: I wrote this post during a four-month period of time when I thought I had covert narcissism. I don’t (BPD + Avoidant PD in the same person can look a LOT like C-NPD and even confuses some professionals), but I think this still applies because Borderlines do indeed have a “false self” (and to some extent, everyone does) which is just less developed than someone who has NPD.

Like the wolf graphic above shows, all human beings have a good self and a bad self. But in a narcissist, the good (true) self is dissociated and split off from the bad (false) one, where in normal people all these feelings are integrated into One Self.

I’m beginning to see the woman I can become. The woman I would have been had I not been so abused and allowed myself to fall under the thrall of a malignant narcissist/ASPD man for 27 years.
That woman is taking shape in my mind and all I need to do is find a way to reconcile this new vision with my reality.
She’s someone I like very much–the adult version of the sensitive little girl that brought me so much shame and humiliation because no one mirrored her positively.

My True Self…

Enjoying the sun

–Is in touch with her feelings but doesn’t fly into BPD rages or seethe with envy, bitterness and resentment. She’s in control but can feel appropriate emotions at appropriate times, and isn’t ashamed to show them.

–Is naturally introverted (INFJ) but not shy. People don’t intimidate her but as an inward-looking person, she often prefers solitude to pursue activities and interests she loves. (I’m already halfway there).

–Is creative–she uses her ability to write to purge her past and her emotions (I’m already doing this) and sometimes just for fun (my other blog has a lot of silly or humorous posts). She also loves photography, art, music and wants to learn to play the guitar to accompany herself singing. She’s not a talented singer, but sings for the joy of it. Music feeds her soul.

–Is quietly confident and not afraid to let someone know when her boundaries or rights are being violated.

–Is able to make and keep close friends, not just acquaintances she keeps at arm’s length.

–Is an HSP with possible empathic abilities. (I’m not there yet).

–Is authentic and nurturing, and truly wants to help others discover who they are (I actually do want this now, but I’m mainly doing it for myself. If I help others along the way though, it makes me feel good).

–She feels attractive and even sexy, but appreciates the beauty in others and in the world around her too. She feels beautiful by knowingly and mindfully being a part of beauty (and almost everything has a certain beauty).

–Is able to parlay her love for writing into a career as a published author. No feelings of, “but I’d fail at it.” She isn’t afraid to take smart risks to turn her desire to express her insights and emotions into her life’s work.

My False Self…

–Is selfish and demanding, always complaining about how badly she’s treated or disrespected.

–Always thinks everything’s about her. If someone looks at her the wrong way, she lets that ruin her entire day and thinks everyone hates her. If she walks into a room and everyone smiles, she focuses and ruminates about the one person who is scowling.

–Overreacts to slights and occasionally flies into rages (this may be more due to BPD; my DBT skills have mostly got this under control though the rage is still present).

–Is envious; can’t be genuinely happy for someone else’s good fortune (except for my kids).

–Sometimes secretly gets a thrill on hearing someone else’s bad news (I’m really ashamed of this and it’s really hard to admit this). I don’t feel that way all the time though. I don’t try to cause pain to others. I hate being the perpetrator and have a lot of guilt and shame when I know I’ve caused someone pain. I’m a passive sadist, I guess. Isn’t schadenfreude the term for this? I’ve read that everyone experiences it, but I think I have it more than most people.

–Feels secretly superior under a self-loathing exterior. Of course I loathed myself to the core (not so much now), but to correct the cognitive dissonance between what I was and what I wanted to be, I’d denigrate others and put my own actions on a pedestal. For example, when I thought I had Aspergers, I felt “superior” for not being a neurotypical and used to feel contempt for people who had a lot of friends or an active social life, or the ability to feel comfortable in a group setting. I actually envied their ability to connect with and not fear the judgment of others , but I convinced myself I was somehow “better” because I didn’t have to engage in stupid small talk and my mind was probably superior to their anyway.

–No matter what the situation, I always think about how it’s going to affect *me* first.

–Fearful of getting involved in a romantic relationship, yet at the same time I long for one. (This is probably more due to my BPD).

I’m happy to say a lot of these FS behaviors are diminishing, just through the self-discovery I’ve achieved through blogging for the past year. A couple of my FS traits have nearly disappeared. I seem nice now, and I am nice (I don’t think I present my false self on this blog), but I wasn’t always so.

I just noticed I wrote most of this list in the third person–isn’t that something narcissists are known to do?

Fear breeds narcissism; the antidote is vulnerability.

Posted on August 15, 2015 by luckyotter

I think this article applies to anyone trying to heal from any personality disorder, PTSD, or the fallout of narcissistic abuse, so I’m posting it here too.

Emotional vomiting.

Posted on August 12, 2015 by luckyotter

Reposted from Down The Rabbit Hole.

My moods have been as unstable as the ocean before an approaching hurricane. One day euphoric, the next in the depths of rage and despair. My few good moods lately are so easily shattered.

Then I see my own narcissism and have trouble sorting it out from the normal “negative” emotions we all have for survival. What’s worth being upset about? What is just selfishness and entitlement?

I observe and watch myself. Since my revelation, the wall of cognitive blindness that kept me unable to see my narcissism melted away and what is revealed is the underlying envy, rage, entitlement and grandiosity. This layer was always the most painful to me (and hardest for others to deal with, because the false grandiosity (which can be pleasant, even if deluded) came marinated in a poisonous concoction of envy and rage. So the grandiosity and entitlement is toxic to everyone. It’s like snake poison.

Becoming humble isn’t becoming weak or masochistic. It doesn’t mean you allow people to flagellate you or abuse you. It means knowing you have limits, acknowledging you are only human and not a superman or woman. It means accepting the truth about yourself, even when it hurts. It means seeing what’s real. The scales falling from our eyes may be painful, but in the end this pain will set you free.

I’ve been emotionally unstable for three weeks now. Of course those could be BPD traits coming to the surface too. But I know a lot of it is all the spiritual poison of long term narcissism rising to the surface of my consciousness so they can be purged.

I can feel these black poisons in my body and mind, dragging me down and making me feel sick. I’ve cried more this week than I cried in the past 10 years. It’s cleansing, satisfying crying. It feels good. I feel more centered and relaxed and more at peace when I’m done. The truth becomes clearer. If you really want to get better, tears are the vehicle that carries the sickness from the body. If you have a stomach virus and couldn’t vomit you could die. The same thing goes for spiritual and emotional sickness like NPD or BPD.

I also write bad purple prose poetry where I vomit everything out. I haven’t done that since I was in my teens writing angsty, angry poetry in my school notebooks. It doesn’t matter that the poems are awful. They’re helping me purge myself of the spiritual poison of decades of abuse. It’s part of getting better. Like the crying, writing these poems brings me relief and more clarity. So do writing out my thoughts and feelings, no matter how “ugly” they may be.

The actual nitty gritty of healing from NPD is going to be so painful. I can see how painful and scary it will be. I’ve seen the entrance to the tunnel and it’s dark and vast and depressing, but I’m going in there to rescue my real self, my child self trapped there who never got to grow up or to know who she was. I care about that little girl now. I used to hate her, I wanted to divorce myself from her. She embarrassed me and shamed me. Now I need her help because she has empathy and sensitivity and enormous strength of character and I need those things more than I need a million dollars or a lover. She is my beacon of light. I know she is me but we’re so disconnected; there is so much baggage between us.

Even becoming self aware is painful. Strange, unfamiliar emotions come to the surface of awareness but at first they make no sense. You feel dissociated, apart from yourself, looking inside. But then it starts to make a lot of sense and you can’t believe you never saw it before. Looking inward from the outside is like you’ve been transported to a psychedelic upside down land. You don’t know what’s the true self and what’s the false one. You feel your different selves battling it out, and it makes you confused and disoriented. It also gives me headaches.

This is the stage I’m at right now. I can finally see my behaviors as others saw them, and sometimes stop myself before I act out. I’m getting better but I still slip up a lot. My emotions seem to be rising from both the “good me” and the “bad me” and they fight for center stage. It’s like a collage in relief and you’re not sure which is the background and which is the foreground. You can’t always tell yet which self is the true one and which one is the liar, and you’re begging a higher power or somebody, anybody, to show you what is true.

If the narcissistic mind in the process of healing were the whole universe, this inner conflict would be a battle between good and evil of Biblical proportions. Most of us aren’t evil, we are deeply conflicted and make bad choices.

But only you can know what are the right choices, and what is true–and that takes patience. You have to accept it’s going to take time to be able to internalize what’s right and good and what connects you with others. You can’t give up, no matter what.

I need clarity. I need help sorting out all these conflicting, confusing emotions that churn inside me and make me sick. This cathartic emotional puking–relieved with episodes of expansiveness, optimism, limerence-like euphoria and even moments of real empathy–is removing these toxins from me and I think in time, the episodes of joy and optimism will become more frequent and more stable and replace the episodes of vomiting.

I’m beginning to see the direction God planned for me. Since making this shattering discovery about myself, everything is becoming clearer. Ideas are finally gelling together from my chaos of conflicting ideas and insights. And these ideas aren’t popular and they’re not what I thought they would be; they’re what’s needed. But before I can make these ideas a a reality, I need to face the pain and purge it and remember it’s all part of healing. I need to go in that void and slay the dragons–ether that or reconcile with them.
I’m up for the challenge…I think.

I just wish that in going through this process I didn’t have to engage with the mundane world of work and paying bills. I wish I could isolate myself somewhere on a remote beach, just listen to the waves and feel the hot sun and the coolness of the sea…go inside my beach cabin and play music and write things that elicit my real feelings…and not have to deal with other people for months or even a year or two. Just spend all that time working on myself instead of having to keep up the lie just to survive in the world. When my self imposed exile is over, I’d return to modern life a changed person.

My scarlet letter.

Posted on August 12, 2015 by luckyotter

My “dark night of the soul.”

Posted on August 11, 2015 by luckyotter

Although this post is more related to people who have NPD or BPD, I think it belongs here too because transformative experiences like this can happen to anyone when healing from any mental disorder begins to make itself felt.