Defenses

Kimera wrote:It may have been your anecdotal experience, but it clearly struck a chord with me. There's probably more I can, and should, say on that topic - let me have a think on it.

The context of this quote was a response to Quoth relating his experience on another thread about sex with pwPD (not NPD specifically), and he found the experience extraordinarily “empty”. I had a 2-day meltdown after I read that. I said I’d come back to this, so here it is. Kimera running her vulnerability up the flag pole again.

My therapist has said on more than one occasion that I am “heavily defended”. He’s been trying for the past year to get me to lower those defenses a bit; and articulate what it is I’m protecting so strongly. I’ve had a vague sense of the answer but not many words to put around it. It feels like death, is about all I’ve been able to tell him. Total obliteration. He swears that won’t happen, but I think he’s wrong. I know he’s wrong. At an impasse, I’ve ditched therapy for the present. And in anticipation of someone saying that’s what therapy is supposed to feel like and there will be rainbows, unicorns and a choir singing on the other side – seriously, piss off. It’s not helpful.

So here’s how I know my therapist is wrong. To the rest of you who read the confession about my meltdown, that probably looked like progress; for me it was a death of sorts. Now that I see how I was glorifying my own disordered behavior, I can’t glorify it anymore. That bell can’t be unrung. But for me there is nothing to replace it – that glorified behavior was all I had. I don’t have the non-disordered alternative to fill in this new hole. There’s just emptiness and glaring evidence of my own shortcomings. Loss. Obliteration. If you wonder why pwNPD defend their beliefs so violently, this is why.

Most of my defenses are not conscious, but I’ve always been aware that I’m hiding something. Until the last few years I wasn’t sure what that was. Now I know that the thing I try to keep from others is that I can’t connect like a non. I can manufacture connection (it works, at least in the short term), and I can fake empathy (although sometimes it’s real). Initially that’s what struck me so hard about Quoth’s post: the realization that people may experience the emptiness I work so hard to conceal.

I think it’s hard for others to understand the lack of depth:

Quoth wrote:You get no positive internal feedback from doing something for someone or something else?

*reaches for crossbow* Sadly, no. And in real life you’d not know that about me.

My therapist tells me that my ability to connect is there – it’s just being too heavily guarded. If he’s mistaken, I fear I’m headed for the wrong side of the dungeon:

Kimera wrote:

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.

Fire away.

Might not be what you want to hear but I think there is a lot to this. Me personally becoming more self aware has been a curse more than anything maybe we will turn a corner one day who knows? As for other people sensing an emptiness I think SOME people can or at least that something is off or missing.

ZombieZ wrote:Me personally becoming more self aware has been a curse more than anything maybe we will turn a corner one day who knows?

In what ways has awareness been a curse for you, Z?

I over analyze everything I do now.

My therapist questions my connectedness with other people, saying that i only have one-sided relationships. Saying my idea of being connected is taking advantage of someone. But i feel like these are connections. Regardless of how they may look, i feel some sort of connection to people i am using. A sort of dependence on their "supply". I do have feelings. They are just weakly recognized

I am willing to be vulnerable in front of people, and often use this vulnerability to my advantage by gaining the trust of others. Where my defenses lie are in my words to others. I often do not tell the truth, mainly about how i feel. Being bipolar, i am easily activated. But in having AsPD/traits of narcissism, i come off as very stoic. So i may compartmentalize my rage. I may tell you one thing on Wednesday and something completely contradictory on Thursday. I may be so utterly scrambled up that i am left unfeeling, uncaring and unforgiving.

I hope this makes sense, because as i reread it i'm debating deleting the whole thing. It doesn't make sense to me. I think it's all a load of bullsh!t.

-- Wed May 02, 2018 1:49 pm --

It's fine.

Knoxious wrote:My therapist questions my connectedness with other people, saying that i only have one-sided relationships

The way you phrase this suggests your therapist has a problem with how you engage with others, but you don't. No real impetus for change if it works for you

I'm just in a different place.

Knoxious wrote:I am willing to be vulnerable in front of people, and often use this vulnerability to my advantage by gaining the trust of others.

I don't think your description constitutes vulnerability. When vulnerability is being used to gain trust, it's more predatory, no?

Knoxious wrote:I may tell you one thing on Wednesday and something completely contradictory on Thursday. I may be so utterly scrambled up that i am left unfeeling, uncaring and unforgiving.

I hope this makes sense, because as i reread it i'm debating deleting the whole thing. It doesn't make sense to me. I think it's all a load of bullsh!t.

-- Wed May 02, 2018 1:49 pm --

It's fine.

^^^That was awesome

Sorry for only getting to this now Kim.

I’d give the porcupine a hug if I could but it seems I would do better to purchase some kind of anti-crossbow armour.

I think you have identified the chief problem with the trying to demolish NPD; attacking the narcissistic compensations risks collapsing identity and descent to a less functional state. I suspect to a degree that the door to psychosis and suicidal ideation may be more the result of giving up and retreating further inside narcissistic delusion rather than accidentally going the wrong way.

The only thing I can think to compare what you are describing to is extreme grief, a sensation like ‘drowning in air’ when part of your life as been forcibly ripped away. I’m more than a little sorry to have been the cause.

I agree wholeheartedly with your therapist that the ability to connect is there. And while it might not mean much will also say that if I was asked to bet my savings on anyone here being able to find the right door it’d be you I bet on.

I’m just curious what your therapist means by heavily defended? Narcissistic defenses, or you just won’t allow access to certain things?

Quoth wrote:I think you have identified the chief problem with the trying to demolish NPD; attacking the narcissistic compensations risks collapsing identity and descent to a less functional state.

I have a similar reaction when someone I don't trust launches criticism at me - not petty $#%^, but things that really matter to me. It feels like they're trying to destroy me. It's really hard not to see my therapist in the same light if his goal is to dismantle my defenses.

Quoth wrote:The only thing I can think to compare what you are describing to is extreme grief, a sensation like ‘drowning in air’ when part of your life as been forcibly ripped away. I’m more than a little sorry to have been the cause.

I think this is an apt description. You're not the cause, Quoth, just a catalyst. It's really awareness that's the cause. A year ago I would've dismissed what you said about the emptiness and put you on my enemy radar for trying to downgrade my experience. I'm learning how awareness is not a binary beast. Insights drip in slowly over time, presumably when I'm ready to manage them.

Quoth wrote:I agree wholeheartedly with your therapist that the ability to connect is there. And while it might not mean much will also say that if I was asked to bet my savings on anyone here being able to find the right door it’d be you I bet on.

Thank you for saying so. That means a lot to me. I've had my dark moments, I'm sure I'm not alone in that. I compartmentalize really well and am pretty busy with work, so I use that as my escape from dark places.

Quoth wrote:I’d give the porcupine a hug if I could but it seems I would do better to purchase some kind of anti-crossbow armour.

Quoth gives hugs?

ZombieZ wrote:I’m just curious what your therapist means by heavily defended? Narcissistic defenses, or you just won’t allow access to certain things?

Honestly, I'm not sure.

My defenses look like this: When I am not able to deal with a situation I just quit. I leave the room, the conversation ... sometimes I just go to bed and sleep .

Also when I cant handle sth. I just cut off my emotions. I get distant to people that are usually allowed to be close to me. Whatever that means. I cut people off quite easily.