Overriding maladaptive instincts

It’s interesting how NPD awareness and insight into my behavior comes in waves – ebbing and flowing like the tide.

One aspect of my PD that I am trying to make strides on is my lack of trust in others - or, learning to grant trust to those who deserve it. I’ve always internally interrogated other people’s motives, weighing them and often finding them in opposition to my self-interests and goals. Even someone who should have my trust is under scrutiny. Obviously, this has had a major impact on my relationships.

The epiphany of NPD awareness is that my perceptions are not necessarily an accurate representation of reality. Of all of the things I’ve learned in the last 2 years, this has been the most jarring. I simply never questioned my perceptions because I was completely confident I was right.

The shift in my thinking is coming slowly. My instincts & emotions are still operating under the old rules. I find that I need a “management override”, allowing my reason and logic to overcome baser instincts. It’s really uncomfortable, like I’m betraying myself. The program that runs on autopilot in my brain has a strong hold on the rest of me.

I wonder if, over time, the instincts will adjust and the override will no longer be needed, or if this will always be a challenge. Has anyone else experienced what I’m talking about?

I'm experiencing this, too. Donald Meltzer has written about this experience in pwNPD and pwASPD and their treatment and cure extensively in his book The Claustrum. His - sometimes rather hard to digest neo-Kleinian - ideas focus on the idea that the infantile narcissistic identification has a claustrophobic quality to it, whereby parts of the persona have withdrawn into what he sees as orifices of the inner idealized mother. A side-effect of this is that everyone else is also seen as an intruder, a liar, a thief. Everyone wants to climb the ladder, as there is only a ladder, there is no trust, no working-together, no love, there is just this necessity to get out of the torture-chamber, out of the dungeon into the world of endless sexual joy and then into the world of omniscience, to become god. Depending on the internal structure then some never reach the second or third layer even unconsciousl and they stay stuck in lie and deceit - the place we would ascrieb to the - I would think relatively rare - truly malignant people.
Then he describes that in therapy these people always after a longer while realize taht the therapist is kinda weird - that he is different. That he might not live in this claustrum at all, that he is not a prisoner, but merely a visitor, who comes there out of a motivation that is very hard to grasp because its not bound by the whispers of the ladder at all. With this then comes great depression, sadness, fear, emptiness; a real danger to exit out of the wrong side of the dungeon, too, down into the nothingness of psychosis. But also a chance to exit into the world of external relationships.
So this is a known thing. What he admits he cant do is explain really how this exit process works. But then again maybe thats a good thing. Knowing how it works might hinder it. After all that would invite fantasies of power and control again.

Kimera wrote:One aspect of my PD that I am trying to make strides on is my lack of trust in others - or, learning to grant trust to those who deserve it. I’ve always internally interrogated other people’s motives, weighing them and often finding them in opposition to my self-interests and goals. Even someone who should have my trust is under scrutiny. Obviously, this has had a major impact on my relationships.

The epiphany of NPD awareness is that my perceptions are not necessarily an accurate representation of reality. Of all of the things I’ve learned in the last 2 years, this has been the most jarring. I simply never questioned my perceptions because I was completely confident I was right

It was sometime in the early years of therapy and I don't remember if it was the therapist or I who came up with the assessment but I made it mine and have used it to question reality: I asked myself how could I accept my own perception of reality that although other people encountered normal people and I would only encounter untrustworthy a$$hats that I had to outsmart. I realized it was not statistically probable and it sounded stupid even to myself. So I applied myself to to practice of doubting that "reading of the world".

Later on I heard a funny - but true - analogy that I also apply to myself and others: underneath a peacock there is always a chicken and vice-versa. I.E. when I (or anyone else) is behaving like a peacock, look a bit more closely and you will find a chicken; i.e, when I'm too sure, too confident, to arrogant, to courageous, etc, there is always inadequacy, fear, etc, underneath.

Akuma wrote:So this is a known thing. What he admits he cant do is explain really how this exit process works. But then again maybe thats a good thing. Knowing how it works might hinder it.

This process works by relentless working on it, one step at the time. For me, therapy is always there, never ends. There is always more to work on. In the beginning stages it was hell but I just remember it now as a faint memory of hell. Change is possible.

Akuma wrote:Donald Meltzer has written about this experience in pwNPD and pwASPD and their treatment and cure extensively in his book The Claustrum.

You are such a fount of information, Akuma. This reference is new to me - I don't recall his name coming up before on this forum.

Akuma wrote:His - sometimes rather hard to digest neo-Kleinian - ideas focus on the idea that the infantile narcissistic identification has a claustrophobic quality to it, whereby parts of the persona have withdrawn into what he sees as orifices of the inner idealized mother. A side-effect of this is that everyone else is also seen as an intruder, a liar, a thief.

This resonates for me. Not sure what he means about the orifices of the inner idealized mother -- that sounds odd. But the rest.

Akuma wrote:With this then comes great depression, sadness, fear, emptiness; a real danger to exit out of the wrong side of the dungeon, too, down into the nothingness of psychosis. But also a chance to exit into the world of external relationships.

A rather haunting image, no? The potential to exit out the wrong side has been, and continues to be, very real to me. Not so much into psychosis, but darkness, depression and suicidal ideation. The other door....that one is less clear to me. It sounds suspiciously like cure. Is he suggesting that's a real possibility?

curiousjane wrote:Change is possible.

I forget, @curiousjane, what is your diagnosis? Are you NPD?

Kimera wrote:I forget, @curiousjane, what is your diagnosis? Are you NPD?

The only time I directly asked a therapist about my diagnosis she told me it would not serve me to know it. This was probably in 1979 or 1980.

I recognize in myself squizoid, dissoiative and npd traits and/or coping mechanisms. As I remember myself, 40 or 50 years ago most of those traits were much stronger and had a much tighter hold on my. Some ruled my life.

I think diagnoses (for mental health) are only useful when considered as a collection of traits or a relative placement on a spectrum that will help to determine a possible better course of action (never “the” or the only course of action). I don’t believe in most cases it is useful as a label to give someone which most likely will be carried for a lifetime with more negative consequences than positive ones. And the worse of them being that one starts believing the prognosis of such diagnosis.

If you google the history of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders you will see that what was not too long ago considered a mental disorder is no longer one and vice-versa. And if you would find yourself - like I once did - in a room full of soon to be graduates with power in their hands to diagnose others and you knew the depth of their ignorance, you might also be as dismissive as I am.

When I said change is possible I meant exactly that. Perhaps cure is not possible, whatever the mental disorder. Perhaps only better adaptation to the society we live in is possible. Perhaps what is possible is to only become less of a slave to our own mental constructs, to have more range and more freedom of choice.

What I can say is that regardless of the work involved and the occasional temporary dark phases of the work (some pretty scary and dark), both have been infinitely worthy for me. Is the work finished and the mental discomfort finished? Obviously not.

curiousjane wrote:The only time I directly asked a therapist about my diagnosis she told me it would not serve me to know it. This was probably in 1979 or 1980.

Yes, you've mentioned that before. I had forgotten. I think a lot of therapists are reluctant to dole out labels for a variety of reasons.

curiousjane wrote:What I can say is that regardless of the work involved and the occasional temporary dark phases of the work (some pretty scary and dark), both have been infinitely worthy for me. Is the work finished and the mental discomfort finished? Obviously not.

It's nice to hear a story of progress being made. Thanks for sharing.

A rather haunting image, no? The potential to exit out the wrong side has been, and continues to be, very real to me. Not so much into psychosis, but darkness, depression and suicidal ideation. The other door....that one is less clear to me. It sounds suspiciously like cure. Is he suggesting that's a real possibility?

Well Meltzer was a guy who had no problems analyzing patients with very troubled minds but being a classical psychoanalyst and neo-kleinanian I have not seen many mentions of the DSM qualfiied stuff like BPD, NPD etc. in his books. His approach to psychotherapy seems to have been a very calm one with a pretty strong disregard for those diagnoses. I think that approach made it easier for him to analyze patients with psychotic and strong developmental disorders like autism and gain insight into their mental functioning.
In any event his description of what he calls the "pre-formed transference", his explanations of claustrophobia and paranoia among other things makes it pretty clear he is basically talking about narcissistic phenomena. His approach might have made the need to call it a "personality disorder" quite useless though. From that perspective if the patient can exit the projective identificatory system / a claustrum, has nothing to do with him having a "personality disorder", but depends on the whoel of the individual personality that presents itself over the course of the treatment.
So the short answer is yes and the explanation of the depression appearing etc. and the way the analyst is seen is taken from his summaries of experiences with such patients.