shanzeek wrote:I actually caught myself wishing it to be "various traits of their parents but don't fit any of the cluster B disorder" rather than an actual CNPD label, as label seems imprisoning somehow, I feel threatened to be defined solely through it. Then I remembered you have the opposite case and are in search of a fitting label.
Well in my case that's a combination of compulsive behaviour (the need to define and understand a thing in order to combat anxiety) and my discomfort at dealing with my own emotions. In a sense the label I have isn't great, in that EPCACE is poorly defined and often requires I do the one thing I really don't want to do. A personality disorder would probably be easier for me to integrate.
Though it should be said even when I was going round thinking I was a narcissist or an antisocial or whatever it did not affect how I felt about myself. People making assumptions about my character on the basis of it was annoying and I would argue with them but I certainly wouldn't lose any sleep over it. At the end of the day we will both be who we are irrespective of labels or the opinions of others.
Out of curiosity, though, what stopped you from being emotionally engaged with him (other than his "bitchiness"), and turning him from foe to a potential friend (still remember your friendship criteria
)? Could you be friends with someone you're in some kind of a professionally competitive relation? (my ex and I share a profession and it wasn't always pleasant..)
The EPCACE was a major factor, I do not trust people easily. To be honest I always found him a little too unpredictable, too emotionally reactive. I am a great believer in the idea that respect and trust have to be earned, in fact I often don't understand why people feel I should trust them or admire them when they have shown me no reason to do so. As I said he was too familiar, almost in the way that a borderline is though no way near as volatile.
Yes, I am often friends with people I have or have had competitive relationships with. In this regard other people are often more the barrier than \myself. I have a very aggressive combative style which people can take serious emotional offence at. Quite often people have complained that I don't take into account their feelings or opinions and this is usually because they don't understand that I am very objective-based and it takes either a rational reason or a moral argument to change my position. And let's face it, sometimes I can be a bit of a dick.
Personally I find that competition or conflict with a person may actually increase the respect that I have for them, assuming that they conduct themselves well. Even if they don't, I am usually prepared to change my assessment of them should they behave differently in future. Once I understand them I tend to be more open. I also don't usually take the conflict personally. I am more concerned with getting the right answer than I am in winning. Unfortunately other people don't tend to see the world the same way, what for me was a learning experience even if I lost, to them really didn't have an upside. None of which is to say I like conflict for the sake of it, just that it has its place in valuable human interactions. Two of my closer group of friends are people with whom our relationships began with conflict.
Ah. This happens to me occasionally (I'm never at mercy of other people's egos as a whole, mostly at mercy of those I give this power over me willingly - those I idealize).
People assuming I'm confident upon meeting me and later getting surprised/disappointed when they realize that's not precisely the case. It occured to me it could have also been the reason my ex devalued at one point. However, I don't fully identify with this irrational switches that occasionally appear making me feel completely worthless and incapable, they seem to come and go as they please, I perceive it as a "foreign-body disability" attacking me rather than a part of me that I'm hiding under some facade.
(I can see how not identifying with it might be another denial I'm living in..) It was why I started abusing various substances, in order to keep it under control in times I can't afford to have it messing with my life.
I meant it more in the sense of his reaction to other people's grandstanding or high self-esteem. For instance if someone was saying how well they were doing, even when it was quite clear at least to me that they were full of sh*t, it seemed to have a negative effect on him. He would get depressed or anxious or angry about his own performance. I mean we all get a little insecure if someone is saying how well they are doing and it is clearly a lot better than we are doing, I think under those circumstances it is normal to re-evaluate their performance. However when someone is quite clearly talking out of their bum my personal reaction would likely be sardonic, it might even make me annoyed if it was being done
at me in an offensive manner, but I wouldn't internalise it the same way that he did. He would also blow it out of proportion if he only did a little bit worse than somebody else. I find grandiosity irritating, mostly because I dislike the distortion of reality however he seemed to find it abrasive to his own self-esteem if it wasn't coming from one of his "chosen people". It was very much like borderline behaviour in response to somebody getting sick, in that they often feel jealous of the attention. He saw the world through the lens of his own low self-esteem.
Are you though blaming him for appearing as confident and driven when in reality he's not? I don't see any way around it, not if you have any ambition at all..I'm sure both him and I would choose to have your confidence and mindset any time, had we been given the option to choose..
This one's a bit of an odd question, no I am not blaming him. I am not sure why I would blame him given that it was clearly causing him problems wasn't causing any for me. there wasn't really that kind of assessment going on, I am just saying how he seemed to me.
Is there another option? Yes I think so. I don't think anyone would have minded if he had been more cautious and introverted, in fact he probably would have done better. Yes he would have had some problems with that particular specialty but trying to be somebody else didn't make those problems go away either.
I would like to know whether you think he lacked empathy or not? Being able to feel a wide range of emotions as well as not having impaired empathy is what's confusing me in regard to this CNPD thing. I am open to possibility that I'm living in some kind of denial and confusing empathy that I think I possess for something else, but I think I'd figure it out by now if that was the case.
This is quite difficult to judge in another person. I would say that he had empathy in very much the same way that people with BPD have empathy. He both displayed emotions and was reactive to other people's emotions, often far more so than someone like myself. However it was all seen through an egosyntonic lens.
It seems that whenever I detect something as narcissistic in other's (and your) posts, I get triggered..(One of your triggers seems to be holier than thou people, I'm interested to know why though?)
Also, am I wrong to think CNPD bears more similarity to BPD than it does to (grandiose) NPD and shouldn't even be in this sub-forum?
Holier than thou people are displaying narcissism on a moral basis, rather than an intellectual or personal basis.... Maybe
I don't know, I certainly don't like being lied to and I certainly don't like that people come here to play the good guys to the narcissists bad guys. That's just annoying because we all have significant dark sides to our characters and a failure to recognise that, in my view, is either grandiosity or self-denial. Utilising people with a mental disorder to make yourself feel morally superior, is a bit like utilising people with a learning difficulty to make yourself feel intellectually superior.
As for CNPD I think it's half and half, narcissism and borderline personality disorder share some symptoms in any case. There is something of a gender divide in the sense that men with BPD tend to be mildly grandiose whilst women with NPD tend towards a more covert form. Ultimately I think the fact that CNPD is more concerned with accomplishment and idealised professions or successful people(bearing in mind that there are many metrics of success) means that it bears greater relation to NPD.
I have to say throughout this whole discussion I have been kind of wishing that Kimira was still here. She probably could have given you a better idea of covert narcissism from a successful (or at least striving) woman's perspective
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