What's the difference between NarcisisticPD & BorderlinePD?

What is the difference..?


I think I'm one of them with the others traits, I think he's the other one with traits of the other.


How do I safely end this?

I posted this in the relationship forum and the NPD and BPD forum.

IWant as many different opinions and perspectives as possible

Borderlines are marked by being preoccupied with being abandoned and feeling empty. They can resort to just about anything to try and keep someone around, even if it means attempting suicide to get someone's attention. In general they'll do ANYTHING to keep people around and not feel abandoned.

Narcissists are... Narcissistic. They have a preoccupation with themselves, react badly to criticism, even the most minimal, and have unreasonable feelings that they should be treated superiorly. In general they're obsessed with themselves and dont' really give a damn about you unless you recognize their awesomeness...

Those are generalizations... There's more to them, but in general that's the skeleton.
The two disorders are really too different to be mistaken for each other, in my opinion...
So I'm not sure where you're confused.

SmileXx wrote:Borderlines are marked by being preoccupied with being abandoned and feeling empty. They can resort to just about anything to try and keep someone around, even if it means attempting suicide to get someone's attention. In general they'll do ANYTHING to keep people around and not feel abandoned.

Don't be giving yourself or this guy a label. Having a PD is rare, and having NPD is incredibly rare. He may just be an arrogant guy, but being arrogant is far from NPD.

morning star wrote:Don't be giving yourself or this guy a label. Having a PD is rare, and having NPD is incredibly rare. He may just be an arrogant guy, but being arrogant is far from NPD.

Wise advise.

Yet the behaviours we are both exhibiting seem to be rather similar to that of NPD and BPD..

What's the safest and healthiest way to step away from these behaviours for my children and I??

morning star wrote:Don't be giving yourself or this guy a label. Having a PD is rare, and having NPD is incredibly rare. He may just be an arrogant guy, but being arrogant is far from NPD.

Star, I see no reason to discourage Rai from using PD labels. Clearly, she is not using them to suggest she knows his NPD traits have risen to the diagnostic level. None of us can make such a determination. It nonetheless is critically important for Rai and the rest of us to use PD labels. Otherwise, we would not be capable of recognizing a strong pattern of PD traits when it occurs.

One reason is that, when you are looking for a prospective marriage partner, you need to be able to spot the red flags and you certainly will not have a psychologist in tow when going on dates. With BPD and NPD, for example, many young people find themselves hopelessly in love -- or married with a child on the way -- before having a clue what they are dealing with.

In my case, I spent over $200,000 on taking my exW to six different psychologists for weekly "couples counseling." None of them told me she had BPD because it is not covered by insurance and, even if it were, she would terminate therapy if they even got close to mentioning such a thing. Never mind that she was a text book case of BPD, including the abusing sociopathic father.

As I discussed in other threads, all adults have the nine BPD traits to some degree. With a little bit of reading, it is quite easy to identify all nine of them. You can learn to spot projection and splitting, for example, without having a PhD in psychology because this is not rocket science -- and because you occasionally exhibit those traits yourself.

For Rai, who is considering whether to terminate the relationship with her BF, it hardly matters whether his NPD traits warrant a clinical diagnosis. What matters, instead, is whether they are so severe that staying with him will leave her stuck forever in a toxic relationship. Significantly, even when BPD traits are well short of the diagnostic threshold, they can make the relationship very destructive for both individuals.

My view is that, with some basic information, any intelligent adult can spot a strong pattern of BPD or NPD traits when it occurs. You don't have to be capable of diagnosing NPD, for example, to know strong selfishness and arrogance when you see it. So I believe people should learn to spot PD traits, especially when they are young and in the dating stage. They need to be able to spot red flags because, once they have fallen in love, getting out is extremely painful and -- for codependents like me -- highly unlikely (until the BPD walks out 15 years later).

Another reason for learning how to identify PD traits -- and the labels describing each trait -- is that you are not safe after leaving the toxic relationship. Unless you understand what role you played in that relationship, you are at great risk of being attracted to another person just like the one you left. This risk is especially great for codependent Nons like me.

Of course, that risk of finding another PD sufferer would be minimal if having a PD were indeed "rare," as you state above. That is not the case, however. On the contrary, having a PD is quite common. A 2004 study, for example, found that approximately 15% of the USA population had a PD during the study's five-year period. Similarly, a 2001 study found a 13.5% incidence in Norway.

Those figures understate the problem because they reported only the prevalence at a point in time -- which is why the BPD prevalence was only 3%. Yet, when the 2008 NIH study (of nearly 35,000 people over 17) looked at the incidence of people having BPD at some time in their lives, the earlier figure nearly doubled to almost 6%.

The lifetime incidence for NPD also was 6%. Even if NPD were only 1%, the older figure that had been reported for years, I would not describe NPD as "incredibly rare." See http://www.psychiatrist.com/abstracts/a ... 070801.htm

Because none of us on this forum are psychologists, we try hard to avoid suggesting that any undiagnosed person is "diagnosed BPD." I say "try hard" because we write so much that we occasionally slip up. What we aim for, instead, is to speak of "strong BPD traits." Making that statement is well within our province because (a) we all have such traits, (b) forum members have read enough to be able to spot them, and (c) we also can spot strong occurrences of those traits.

Finally, when forum members refer to "BPDs" and "NPDs," they are not pretending to make a diagnosis or be "armchair psychologists." Instead, they are simply using shorthand labels to avoid having to write "untreated individuals exhibiting a strong pattern of BPD traits" in every sentence.

So, Rai, I encourage you to use the labels that are so necessary for spotting the various traits and for describing them to others on this forum. It was appropriate for you to state, for example, that "the behaviours we are both exhibiting seem to be rather similar to that of NPD and BPD."

The only time labels become a serious problem, I believe, is when a Newbie is delaying badly needed therapy because he is too focused on teasing apart one PD from another. In such cases, we urge him to go ahead and get a good therapist and forget about labels for now.

Rai wrote:

morning star wrote:Don't be giving yourself or this guy a label. Having a PD is rare, and having NPD is incredibly rare. He may just be an arrogant guy, but being arrogant is far from NPD.

Wise advise.

Yet the behaviours we are both exhibiting seem to be rather similar to that of NPD and BPD..

What's the safest and healthiest way to step away from these behaviours for my children and I??

All I can say is, that maybe you should get some sort or counselling together. If he refuses, then maybe he could have a PD, because many people with a PD will not recognise a problem.

I will say that him calling you're child " an anti-depressant" is disgusting. That's his own kid and he says that. He need to grow a ######6 spine and be man, or don't have kids. Screw around and use a condom but don't bring a child into the world and say that.

DowntownDC wrote:

morning star wrote:Don't be giving yourself or this guy a label. Having a PD is rare, and having NPD is incredibly rare. He may just be an arrogant guy, but being arrogant is far from NPD.

Star, I see no reason to discourage Rai from using PD labels. Clearly, she is not using them to suggest she knows his NPD traits have risen to the diagnostic level. None of us can make such a determination. It nonetheless is critically important for Rai and the rest of us to use PD labels. Otherwise, we would not be capable of recognizing a strong pattern of PD traits when it occurs.

One reason is that, when you are looking for a prospective marriage partner, you need to be able to spot the red flags and you certainly will not have a psychologist in tow when going on dates. With BPD and NPD, for example, many young people find themselves hopelessly in love -- or married with a child on the way -- before having a clue what they are dealing with.

In my case, I spent over $200,000 on taking my exW to six different psychologists for weekly "couples counseling." None of them told me she had BPD because it is not covered by insurance and, even if it were, she would terminate therapy if they even got close to mentioning such a thing. Never mind that she was a text book case of BPD, including the abusing sociopathic father.

As I discussed in other threads, all adults have the nine BPD traits to some degree. With a little bit of reading, it is quite easy to identify all nine of them. You can learn to spot projection and splitting, for example, without having a PhD in psychology because this is not rocket science -- and because you occasionally exhibit those traits yourself.

For Rai, who is considering whether to terminate the relationship with her BF, it hardly matters whether his NPD traits warrant a clinical diagnosis. What matters, instead, is whether they are so severe that staying with him will leave her stuck forever in a toxic relationship. Significantly, even when BPD traits are well short of the diagnostic threshold, they can make the relationship very destructive for both individuals.

My view is that, with some basic information, any intelligent adult can spot a strong pattern of BPD or NPD traits when it occurs. You don't have to be capable of diagnosing NPD, for example, to know strong selfishness and arrogance when you see it. So I believe people should learn to spot PD traits, especially when they are young and in the dating stage. They need to be able to spot red flags because, once they have fallen in love, getting out is extremely painful and -- for codependents like me -- highly unlikely (until the BPD walks out 15 years later).

Another reason for learning how to identify PD traits -- and the labels describing each trait -- is that you are not safe after leaving the toxic relationship. Unless you understand what role you played in that relationship, you are at great risk of being attracted to another person just like the one you left. This risk is especially great for codependent Nons like me.

Of course, that risk of finding another PD sufferer would be minimal if having a PD were indeed "rare," as you state above. That is not the case, however. On the contrary, having a PD is quite common. A 2004 study, for example, found that approximately 15% of the USA population had a PD during the study's five-year period. Similarly, a 2001 study found a 13.5% incidence in Norway.

Those figures understate the problem because they reported only the prevalence at a point in time -- which is why the BPD prevalence was only 3%. Yet, when the 2008 NIH study (of nearly 35,000 people over 17) looked at the incidence of people having BPD at some time in their lives, the earlier figure nearly doubled to almost 6%.

The lifetime incidence for NPD also was 6%. Even if NPD were only 1%, the older figure that had been reported for years, I would not describe NPD as "incredibly rare." See http://www.psychiatrist.com/abstracts/a ... 070801.htm

Because none of us on this forum are psychologists, we try hard to avoid suggesting that any undiagnosed person is "diagnosed BPD." I say "try hard" because we write so much that we occasionally slip up. What we aim for, instead, is to speak of "strong BPD traits." Making that statement is well within our province because (a) we all have such traits, (b) forum members have read enough to be able to spot them, and (c) we also can spot strong occurrences of those traits.

Finally, when forum members refer to "BPDs" and "NPDs," they are not pretending to make a diagnosis or be "armchair psychologists." Instead, they are simply using shorthand labels to avoid having to write "untreated individuals exhibiting a strong pattern of BPD traits" in every sentence.

So, Rai, I encourage you to use the labels that are so necessary for spotting the various traits and for describing them to others on this forum. It was appropriate for you to state, for example, that "the behaviours we are both exhibiting seem to be rather similar to that of NPD and BPD."

The only time labels become a serious problem, I believe, is when a Newbie is delaying badly needed therapy because he is too focused on teasing apart one PD from another. In such cases, we urge him to go ahead and get a good therapist and forget about labels for now.

Yeah you make some good points. But I'll tell you why labelling someone with a PD is pointless. Most PD's can be mistaken for depression. Especially BPD for example.

Many psychiatrists disagree with one another over what PD a particular person may have. Because most of the PD's have narcissism at the core, and all have an issue of getting along with other people.

Saying someone has a PD means what exactly? It means basically "this person is probably not very nice and I need to get away". So in other words, a bad person. In which case leave. You don't need to call them NPD or BPD, if they're giving you nothing but grief then leave.

Hey guys,