The reason I haven't been here in a few days

3cats - you're the same as me, except that your dependent traits are or were stronger. This is why I don't like labels. You wouldn't have been in a relationship with a high level narcissist unless you were narcissistic. Your narcissism is the protector personality in the Borderline. If you cured your narcissism, you'd shoot up the Borderline spectrum and become a mess. You'd start to self harm and harm others. I wish I were more narcissistic. I'd be a lot happier and no less self aware. You're narcissism is the icing on the fruitcake! It keeps the fruitcake Border together. There's a good article on Wikipedia about Codependence/Counter Dependence, by the way. Also, YouTube INFJ+Protector. There's a grey BPD awareness ribbon available on eBay if you want to wear your heart on your sleeve. If you want the tee shirt, eBay tee+shirt+red+rose. Just remember that Asian sizes are two below the USA's.

http://youtu.be/Do6owMR1hSY

MeAgain wrote:3cats - you're the same as me, except that your dependent traits are or were stronger. This is why I don't like labels. You wouldn't have been in a relationship with a high level narcissist unless you were narcissistic. Your narcissism is the protector personality in the Borderline. If you cured your narcissism, you'd shoot up the Borderline spectrum and become a mess. You'd start to self harm and harm others. I wish I were more narcissistic. I'd be a lot happier and no less self aware. You're narcissism is the icing on the fruitcake! It keeps the fruitcake Border together. There's a good article on Wikipedia about Codependence/Counter Dependence, by the way. Also, YouTube INFJ+Protector. There's a grey BPD awareness ribbon available on eBay if you want to wear your heart on your sleeve. If you want the tee shirt, eBay tee+shirt+red+rose. Just remember that Asian sizes are two below the USA's.

http://youtu.be/Do6owMR1hSY

Thanks for this info. Actually...I am a mess right now. Since I started doing this self therapy, I've become a lot moodier and more depressed (but still not really acting out), albeit much more self aware. I feel very raw and vulnerable. I think that's a good thing, but maybe doing this myself isn't a good idea. I can't afford therapy though.

I don't want icing on my fruitcake! (I don't want the fruitcake either). And yes, I think I do have NPD. I had doubts for a few days--maybe it was just denial, idk. I've been very confused.
I might get myself the BPD teeshirt. There needs to be more awareness and less stigma, and the same goes for NPD. I wish there were NPD awareness buttons and apparel too. I've never seen any.
On to answer the other posts. I'm facing a lot of sh*t right now.

Après L Orage wrote:Hi Ladywith3cats,

It seems to me mostly that there is a lot to investigate about your relationship with your mother. I do not remember you referring to your father, but even the absence of a relationship with a caregiver is, in general, something worthwhile being investigated. There is often a lot of hurt there as well.

Do you remember when I mentioned the lingering anger directed toward your ex-husband? What I meant (and I am sorry if I did not get my point across at the time) was precisely this. Far from me the idea of pointing it out for the sake of pointing out, what I was hinting at is the fact that this type of anger generally comes from a deeper place. In general, it comes from a hurt inflicted by the caregiver that you reenact later in life with partners, spouses or friends.

Trying to correlate hurts from the present (for example your anger at your ex husband) to past traumatic or simply hurtful memories with the caregiver could be a start. Feel free to ask me questions!

Wow. I have a lot to say. I'm just going to combine yours and BoardUser's posts together and answer everything there. I'm in an incredibly vulnerable and sad state of mind right now and actually crying right now. I know that's good but holy hell, it ######6 hurts.

You're right about my relationship with my ex being a reenactment of my relationship with both my parents. I had a terrible time growing up. The emotional abuse was horrific. I don't want to go there but I know I have to. BoardUser is right that I've been intellectualizing everything to much, which is another kind of defense mechanism against the pain. Intellectualizing allows me to be sort of separate from it, if you get what I mean. I'm going to get into this today. God help me.

BoardUser wrote:3catslady I think you have been a good contributor and are welcome here regardless of what you think your dx is. I haven't read too much into your posts or motivations because I am here primarily for myself, not for diagnosing others.

I do think talking about yourself, what you feel etc. is the most beneficial way to use the forums. You have learned a lot intellectually, I think book learnin' has diminishing returns w/r/t helping you in therapy.

You're right, I do tend to try to intellectualize everything, but that's really just another defense mechanism that sort of keeps me detached from having to feel the pain. But reading all these posts have got me thinking and right now I'm feeling a LOT of pain. I want to talk about that and hope it doesn't bore everyone to death. I do want to use these boards more for self help instead of just overanalyzing everything to death and acting like a know it all (if that's how I've been coming across).

Also as far as the dx: I don't think cNPD is a kinder, gentler form of overt narcissism. Part of me is fully grandiose, egotistical, controlling, etc. etc. but it doesn't extend outward as much. There aren't many overts here, but I can identify with them. IMO the overt false self is more "authentic" than the cNPD false self because it has more emotion pumped into it. If you can't identify with the overts at all then you probably just have N traits.

That's funny, I always thought of overts as being LESS emotional than coverts, more outgoing and prone to rages perhaps though. But maybe you're right. There's still so much about NPD I don't know, even though I know more than the average person. I always thought of cNPD as having two false selves--the overt and grandiose one that lies underneath the kick-me, shy one. Maybe it's all just the same FS, but it just seems like there are two, so more sh*t to get through to reach the TS. And yet, cNPDs seem more willing to change. Can you explain how overts are more emotional than coverts?

Okay. Big sigh. I actually need to talk about this. I'm in a horrible place emotionally right now. Or maybe it's really a good place for someone with NPD trying to heal. I'm going to come right out and say it. My life's a mess. I have no one. I'm so lonely and scared. I feel worthless. I feel like I want to die (no, don't worry, I'm not suicidal) and I'm actually crying right now writing this.

My parents are very disordered. My mom (who I am no contact with for 3 years) is a somatic malignant narcissist with histrionic traits. My dad is either borderline or cNPD and very codependent. He also shows psychopathic traits. He is not married to my mother anymore, he is with his third wife, a narcissist with OCD or OCPD traits. She is very rigid and controlling. She hates me and has made my dad cut me out of the will (but he might have done that anyway, I'm not sure and don't want to know). I am the black sheep of my family and even if I wasn't NC I was the scapegoat anyway and rejected from the family when I went back with my ex and stayed with him for 7 more years like a damfool.

Growing up, I was controlled and treated like a doll by my mother. I was supposed to be her mini-me. Both she and my father always told me how "perfect" and "special" I was (and how much "better" our family was, lol) but even at an early age I knew they were full of sh*t. I used to pray for a sibling to take some of the pressure off. If I didn't live up to their impossible standards of perfection, I was severely punished, and sometimes beaten. Then I was told I was bad, worthless, an embarrassment to the family. I always felt different but in a bad, defective way. I was so confused by all the mixed messages but internalized the message that I was bad because I knew I could never be what they expected me to be.

I'll interject here how cold my mother was--my father was her second husband and she actually left her first two daughters by her first husband at the ages of 3 and 6 to marry him without a second thought. My father, at the time he met my mother, had just lost his favorite son who got hit by a train. He was 3. My mother appeared very compassionate and he fell in love with her. They had me less than a year later. I was a delicate and fussy baby, always sick, always crying. I've always been incredibly sensitive (as most Ns are) and took everything to heart. I remember as a preschooler having strange dissociative episodes. I remember one morning coming down to breakfast and seeing glitter falling everywhere. Maybe I was still dreaming, idk. I asked my parents if they saw the glitter and they looked at me like I was crazy. I also heard music late at night, would go to look for where it was coming from and of course it was in my own mind. At age 4, I remember sitting in the family room of our split level house and banging my head against the wall. It felt good to me, like it was relieving some kind of conjestion inside my head. My mother told me to stop but I couldn't stop. I used to chew on my hair all the time and my mother had to keep it short because she said "I was ruining it." I had very fine hair and she'd get frustrated with the way it knotted while I slept and yell at me when she brushed it out in the morning because I cried because she'd yank out the knots and it hurt. She told me I was doing something to ruin my hair, but I was doing nothing. It was just very fine and knotted easily. One time she got so frustrated she chopped it all off and sent me to school that way.

As a grade schooler I was bullied constantly. I was hypersensitive and prone to tears. I definitely think my BPD was already in place (I think that accounted for the dissociative episodes at age 4) but by now I went around anxiously asking the other kids if they liked me. This tended to lead to more bullying. I don't know if I already had the beginnings of narcissism or not but I hadn't shored up a false self yet. I was so vulnerable, so sensitive, omg. I cried constantly, and this just made everything worse. I went home and my parents were always fighting. My dad was an alcoholic and my mother wasn't far behind him. One time, drunk, she pushed him down the stairs and he broke his arm. I used to hide in my room or be told to stay out the way, but I'd always listen to these fights in horrified fascination. I felt so different from the other kids at school, who seemed to have normal parents who loved them. My mother did hug me, but I always felt like it was fake. I could see right through her. She scared me. I used to have nightmares about her being a demon.

I used to go into these trances she called my "spooky" moods. They enraged her. But going into these "spooky" trances, inside my head, was my only escape from her, the only place I could go where she couldn't reach me. And that enraged her and she'd punish me for it. But I couldn't help it, they just happened. They weren't deliberate. I think I used to go into them when I was feeling especially stressed, or afraid. But I was always afraid, always stressed. I remember one time she got so angry when I went into one of these trances and started slapping me (she was constantly slapping me in the face) and I looked at her and actually saw those black eyes you hear some victims talk about seeing on malignant narcs. She knew I could see through her and she knew why I went into those trances, and I think that's why they enraged her. I became the scapegoat even though I was also the golden child, because I was so sensitive and could see the truth about everything and she hated that.

I remember my dad being more loving, even though he was actually more violent, especially when he drank. I think he might have been BPD. I could never predict how he'd act. He could be punishing and violent but could also be extremely loving. Unlike my mother, I always felt deep inside that he really did love me and tried his best, but was under my mother's thrall. But he'd do crazy things that made me not trust him too. He used to travel for his job and I remember when I was about 7 or 8 he brought home these little bound booklets in differnet colors wrapped up in rubber bands. There were about 40, 50 of them. I took them to my room and used to write little stories and illustrate them. (Even then I loved solitary activities but hadn't started avoiding people yet). The little stories I wrote were extremely personal to me for some reason, like diary entires. I didn't want anyone to see them. One day I came home from school and found some of my finished ones missing. I panicked and started hyperventilating. I frantically looked all over the house for them and finally found them in my father's filing cabinet in a folder with my name on it. I was filled with shame. I felt violated, almost as if I'd been raped. I knew he wouldn't have taken them unless he liked them (he always told me how talented and smart I was) but they were just too private to me. So I stole them back and then ripped them to shreds. I couldn't bear to look at them anymore and stopped drawing (although I continued to write but not as much as I did). I became more secretive and hid things from my parents from then on, and told them less.

God. This is really hard. I need to go eat something and take a breather. I'll be back and continue this in a little while. I hope I haven't bored everyone. I know it's a lot to read.

3cats - Have you considered joining a book group or similar. I'm a lot happier when I'm around people. And the best ego supply is a good relationship. Stay on Forum! If you suddenly disappear people here will worry about you now! Also, are you on medication?

MeAgain wrote:3cats - Have you considered joining a book group or similar. I'm a lot happier when I'm around people. And the best ego supply is a good relationship. Stay on Forum! If you suddenly disappear people here will worry about you now! Also, are you on medication?

I will stay here. I'm comfortable here. Who would have imagined I could feel at home on a board with a bunch of narcs. But that's what i am so that explains it. It explains why I always felt empathy for them once I got past the rage and hate.

Medication? No, I don't have a therapist. Unless weed is medication and for me it probably is. It seems to help with the insights and helps me relax. I don't smoke every day though. I don't drink much at all---I used to be a huge drinker but can't stand the way it makes me feel now. I'll be back in a few to continue telling my story.

See your MD asap. And tell him you are very depressed and anxious. Dr Kev's orders!

MeAgain wrote:See your MD asap. And tell him you are very depressed and anxious. Dr Kev's orders!

No health insurance...no doctor. But there are free clinics. I don't know if they have the best quality therapists though--most of them are just nurse practitioners. I'm sure there's someone I can see. I'll look into it. I'm not suicidal though, just really depressed.

They can proscribe medication. It works. You might have to go on a strong anti depressive until your mood settles down. Check your local drug store and see what they have off the shelf for mood and anxiety. Good luck.

I think Solstices idea of joining a rl group is pretty good. Sure its probably counterintuitive for a person with avpd, but ultimately, when you want to follow through with trying therapy for yourself it seems necessary to also change behaviors. Not just for the sake of changing them, but to challenge the core beliefs that exist there and lead to a negative outlook on the world. If nothing else it's something to regularly get your mind off stuff.