who here is npd...

pinkbunny wrote:

As someone who has been involved with Ns romantically and via my father, the confusion has been what's been most painful. Confusion about what happened to the relationship, confusion about the protective lies told, and the seeking out of "supply" by the narcs. Personally, I have an enormous amount of compassion for both Ns and people like myself (BPD.) none of us chose to end up like this, and it all stems from early childhood wrongs.

Personally, I believe that self knowledge is the key to happiness. Even just over the past two weeks after discovering this about myself, I've even been able to see when my intense rage and abandonment issues are getting flared up.

It's good to hear that. I think nons and Ns can be of help to each other, since most of us who post here came from abusive relationships and/or have suffered some sort of childhood trauma. There's a lot of overlap between people with PTSD and people with NPD (I'm of the belief that personality disorders are really just complications of PTSD, which began in early childhood).

It's funny, because until just recently, i didn't even know I was reacting to abandonment issues. I really thought I was reacting normally to an abnormal situation.

Some of the things you start realizing about yourself are shocking, aren't they! But self awareness, whether you're NPD or PTSD or BPD or ABC or XYZ, is always a huge plus. It might be painful at first, but I agree with you that knowing yourself is the key to happiness.

-- Wed Nov 04, 2015 4:56 pm --

pinkbunny wrote:
Do you other narcs have the same bad sleeping?

I don't generally have problems sleeping (I love to sleep!) but sometimes I have this free floating anxiety when I'm trying to fall asleep, with racing thoughts/racing heart/sudden awakenings. It's very unpleasant. They're akin to panic attacks

I rarely have nightmares. I had a LOT of nightmares as a child though, and they got so bad my parents took me to a child psychologist who put me on Benadryl (the antihistamine was used as a mild tranquilizer for children back in the day and may still be). Melatonin helps, and give you more vivid dreams too. My dreams, when I remember them, are usually pretty bland, but sometimes they are teachers too.

Hmmm...I'm a Non and I didn't come here to see a freakshow. I grew up with an N stepmother and married an N husband, who was raised by an N mother, and I sometimes wondered if I'm the Freaky one who cried and tried to wring tears from cold hard stones.

The best thing that happened to me was to finally learn that pwNPDs belong to a distinct group, independent and separate from what I am, a Co-D, despite the polar attraction.

I'm learning that yes, these are stones I have lived with, and yes, there is something wrong with me demanding feelings from them, they are after all, stones.

Both groups are a mess unto themselves...but I believe Co-Ds are more fortunate in that it's easier for us to recover and attempt to rejoin the real world, despite the PTSD.

Here, I'm mingling with aware Ns, it's really different from dealing with the Ns in my life, I can talk to you all, but I can't even begin to have a conversation with my Ns, to them, there's something wrong with me, as I am not giving enough of myself and my possessions to them, not making them feel good enough about themselves, not thanking them or grateful enough for their kind criticisms of me.

It's difficult for the Ns here to understand the devastation and toll on the soul to live like this, and the hatred that emerged.

Someone said it's like drinking poison and hoping the other person would die.

I'm trying hard to recover, I'm sick too, the drinker of poison, and coming here to commiserate without judgment with Ns who never did a thing to me, helps me on my way.

Pangloss wrote:Someone said it's like drinking poison and hoping the other person would die.

I'm trying hard to recover, I'm sick too, the drinker of poison, and coming here to commiserate without judgment with Ns who never did a thing to me, helps me on my way.

That was Malachy McCourt:

"I had a murderous rage in my heart of Limerick, the humiliation of coming out of the slums,'' he says of his hometown in Ireland, the setting of his brother Frank McCourt's Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir, ''Angela's Ashes.'' ''It made you feel like nothing and there was no place to go but down. It was assumed we'd be low-class the rest of our lives. But who can you blame? Governments and churches that are gone now? It's useless. Let those things live rent-free in your head and you'll be a lunatic. Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die." -- http://www.nytimes.com/1998/07/29/books ... wanted=all

Buddha said:

[Holding onto anger] is like a man who wants to hit another and picks up a burning ember or excrement [with the intent of throwing it] and so first burns himself or makes himself stink.

Or, more generally:

All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become.

Proverbs (27:19), "As water reflects a man’s face back to him, so is the heart of one man to another."

See the revenge thread for more.

Thank you TTL, I read Angela's Ashes a while back, how can I forget the quote? It was brilliant.

Waiting for you and Lw3C to write your tome.

Pangloss wrote:Waiting for you and Lw3C to write your tome.

Mine will make you happier.

Ooohh...happy is good!

See, the Nons here won't find closure with the Ns in our lives, so we've got to find it ourselves. If Awares can play a part that is almost karma.

pangloss,

"See, the Nons here won't find closure with the Ns in our lives, so we've got to find it ourselves. If Awares can play a part that is almost karma."

That.

Pangloss wrote:Hmmm...I'm a Non and I didn't come here to see a freakshow. I grew up with an N stepmother and married an N husband, who was raised by an N mother, and I sometimes wondered if I'm the Freaky one who cried and tried to wring tears from cold hard stones.

I think it in the nature of narcissism to enforce its subjectivity onto others. That is the whole point -unfortunately for you and other people who are involved with NPDs.

I'm learning that yes, these are stones I have lived with, and yes, there is something wrong with me demanding feelings from them, they are after all, stones.

It is good to accept their limitations, but whether you want to have an ongoing relationship with them is another matter entirely.

Here, I'm mingling with aware Ns, it's really different from dealing with the Ns in my life, I can talk to you all, but I can't even begin to have a conversation with my Ns, to them, there's something wrong with me, as I am not giving enough of myself and my possessions to them, not making them feel good enough about themselves, not thanking them or grateful enough for their kind criticisms of me.

That about sums up life with a non-aware NPD. Do you really want that kind of life?

I'm trying hard to recover, I'm sick too, the drinker of poison, and coming here to commiserate without judgment with Ns who never did a thing to me, helps me on my way.

I wish you luck and the strength to make the right choices for yourself.

Truth too late wrote:Mine will make you happier.

I'd prefer a book of your avatars. Some of them are very expressive.

Although none of them will be able to supplant the first elephant one.

Thank you all, TTL, reality, Lw3C, Stillface, Nons and Awares.

It would be easy to break up if I had found out about NPD earlier, which is why my first advice to any Nons is to cut and run. There were moments in the early dating phase when I was so appalled I wanted to break up but ended back with him because I mistook his abject misery as a sign of his "love" for me.

We have been married for 13 years, with children hitting puberty, our lives are so entangled, as are our careers, it's not easy to find a way to separate. I have simply moved with my son to another city to commence his secondary education, thereby avoiding living with the N husband and possibly my N daughter who preferred to stay with her current school and her father. He spoilt her, acting almost CoD with her, even cowering before her demands...it is a strange sight.

I don't know if he will attain awareness - he certainly "sees" his mom's narcissism, but he seems to think it's no big deal, it's normal and just the way she is. He has tried to change and correct some behaviors, but those are not enough to stop him from words, deeds and decisions that hurt me and the family.

I will continue to live with my son near his school, supporting us with my savings and earnings from a project I recently completed.

My N husband has never supported me a single day of his life, I paid for the rent, the bills, food, kids' schooling because I mistook doing that as "loving your spouse", his earnings, his accounts, he kept them completely from me, he only told me he had nothing left after paying for the office overhead. I believed him and neither of us considered the unfairness and injustice of it all.

I am intelligent in general but emotionally, stupid, clumsy and CoD. I am now doing freelance work for a friend's company and possibly an exClient while living with my son in a beautiful but quiet city. This is my reward for my own soul, to take a vacation, and hopefully, to embark on a new life without N husband forever.

I won't give up on dating, but I will do it when I am so emotionally healed, I'm ready to enjoy a normal, mutually loving, and giving relationship.

I wish the same for all of us here!