Compensatory Narcissistic Personality Disorder questions

ddreamer wrote:thanks for asking. interestingly, even though i thought i knew the answer, it's not easy for me write it down. i guess it helps me to reflect on my childhood. i was a kid with some (undiagnosed/untreated) ADHD, error prone, forgetful, daydreamer lost in fantasies, acting out on my impulses, but also bullied in school a lot. my defense was to create a facade of a perfect myself who is intelligent, eloquent, well read, and knows everything. my perfectionism was mostly about how hard i worked toward my goals of becoming someone of high status and power. in that sense, it helped me to achieve some of that, but with a side effect of ignoring the kinder, softer, and sensitive self i was inside. unfortunately, the perfectionism also contributed to procrastination and self loathing when i failed to be perfect (obviously often)

When did you realize that it was a facade? And it sounds like you've had at least some achievement in your life, so is it all a facade?

I've fallen into the same trap of focusing on being seen a certain way, and to a large degree it worked. People would describe me in those terms. But it's meaningless. What does it matter if people see you as intelligent or well-read? It amounts to nothing. These days I'm focused on outcomes. I'd rather have my name attached to a noteworthy deliverable, something of real value, as opposed to an adjective. It's been a long journey to get to this place.

flightrisk wrote:When did you realize that it was a facade? And it sounds like you've had at least some achievement in your life, so is it all a facade?

only realized it recently, in the last couple of years that all that ambition was to cover my childhood weakness and shame. i consider that a facade, because sometimes i have that imposter syndrome when it feels like it's not the real deal.

flightrisk wrote:I've fallen into the same trap of focusing on being seen a certain way, and to a large degree it worked. People would describe me in those terms. But it's meaningless. What does it matter if people see you as intelligent or well-read? It amounts to nothing.

to me it was an important source of self esteem. you can call it a narcissistic supply, i guess.

flightrisk wrote:These days I'm focused on outcomes. I'd rather have my name attached to a noteworthy deliverable, something of real value, as opposed to an adjective. It's been a long journey to get to this place.

good for you. i also accepted who i'm, and i'm concentrating on the positive things that i can contribute to the world.

ddreamer wrote:what interests me greatly is the oscillation between the grandiose and vulnerable stages of narcissism. I saw it clearly in myself, and that reminds me a bipolar disorder (BD). i actually thought a while i might have BD-2, but not sure anymore. as you, i'm sure, know, grandiosity is a part of mania and depression and vulnerability seem similar too.

i just found out there is some support for what i felt about a connection between narcissism and BD. that connection could be perfectionism.
https://www.realnatural.org/bipolar-dis ... ectionism/

A notable recent study on this aspect of bipolar disease and perfectionism comes from researchers from the University of New South Wales’ School of Psychiatry, who studied 142 patients diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

The researchers conducted extensive questionnaires and interviews with patients, in order to determine if there was any relationship between their bipolar disorder and a tendency to be self-critical and perfectionistic.

The idea is not new. Several years of research has accumulated evidence that bipolar disorder is related to a person’s levels of stress – in conjunction with an expectation of perfection by the subject.

ddreamer wrote:i just found out there is some support for what i felt about a connection between narcissism and BD. that connection could be perfectionism.
https://www.realnatural.org/bipolar-dis ... ectionism/

That seems very forced. if I have two sets of numbers A and B, both length 100 and they share a set of numbers C with length 10, then of course there is a connection in the sense between A and B that they share C but that's still 90 percent of the numbers being different, it doesnt give you any information about why the numbers are in both sets, or the structure of the set etc.
On the other hand side if there's something in there that's so important to you that it makes you overvalue certain facts leading to a logic error, I think it makes sense to investigate why.

fair enough. i'm going to think over that a bit more.

OK, i had some quiet time to reflect some more about NPD, perfectionism, and cluster B personality disorders in general.

here is the thing, NPD is a member of Cluster B personality disorders.
they include: antisocial personality disorder (ASPD), borderline personality disorder (BPD), histrionic personality disorder (HPD), and narcissistic personality disorder (NPD).

they are similar in regards of emotional and self-esteem instability, and they differ how one deals and acts out based on those issues. lets say, one learns (as a child) to defend himself by lying to show himself in good light (ASPD). another one develops perfectionism traits and tries and expects others to be perfect (NPD). some give in the extreme emotions and soothes herself by pain (BPD). finely, some other ones try to be in the center of attention of others (HPD). actually gender roles and expectations in our society can push males into the NPD or ASPD tract, while females gravitate toward HPD and BPD. a lot of these folks may have a mixture of those defense mechanism that may change in time and under different circumstances.

so, in that sense, all of those PDs are compensatory, and the term "compensatory NPD" is misleading, even though it was supposed to mean an overlap of NPD and Avoidant PD.

more on a personal note, i discovered that my mother was more histrionic than narcissistic. i'm also attracted to women with similar traits. that included my first GF, my SO, and one of my LOs. i guess that pattern feels familiar and comfortable, even though it creates relationship problems down the road.

here is the interesting part. a lot of men gravitate toward histrionic women, because they are well dressed, attractive, sexy, fun to be around, and great lovers and pleasers (initially). a significant proportion of them develops limerence toward those types. i saw it mentioned a lot in a forum on HPD.

likewise, a lot of women gravitate toward narcissistic men, because they are well dressed, attractive, sexy, sure of themselves, and frequently high status. i can imagine that a lot of those women develop limerence toward those narcissistic men.

all of those types can be manipulative to get what they want, unconditional love and admiration of their partner (or other people) to make they feel safe, wanted, admired, important, etc. the "supply," like some say.

Perfectionism can be self-imposed, and its focus a definite area. Perfectionists do not necessarily care about how they are perceived. But narcissism is all encompassing and concerned with "looking" a certain way.

It could also be that you are a perfectionist as well as a narcissist, and you chase after a skill to also garner attention. Most narcissists I know struggle with identifying what they are genuinely enthusiastic about - underneath aggressive ambition - while some have a passion that they will keep pursuing no matter how better they get.

Unrealistic standards is the term I was looking for. Not to be confused with perfectionism.

For instance the parent I grew up with had unrealistic standards about my education, to bask in the glow of my performances.

Unrealistic standards are supposed to lessen with therapy, but there is nothing inherently wrong with perfectionism (it is up to you to determine whether it is hurting or serving you).

For whatever it's worth, I think compensatory narcissists learned they are valued for their accomplishments, versus just valued.

It's not just the parents either, though it starts there. Almost nobody really believes you should be happy over being successful at something, but that also goes back to square onr for the compensatory narcissist. I do think compensatory types are aware, or become aware, other's want something from me, they value me for what I do for them, which of course reminds them, others care about who they appear to be and what they provide/accomplish. Hence the jaded nature that develops over time.

Then again I could be making stuff up

But yea, I also grew up being valued for what I accomplished, and that can go many directions. BPD, NPD, AsPD, any direction is possible. Depends on the innate personality of the child, what path they go down, and socially what they are rewarded for.

NPD is probably the healthiest direction, self-reliant, emotionally restrained, sometimes very successful at something.

Like HPD, and BPD, those who adopt the NPD coping mechanism also get the dual messages. I want you to change, but I also want you to be a successful, confident, even arrogant, winner. We may even surround ourselves with people who give us those dual messages. It's what we know, and step easily into that role.

xdude wrote:Then again I could be making stuff up

It's not like you are making stuffs up, but you're bending the truth a little.

NPD is more about the image of success, the status associated with achievements than achievements themselves. To the extent that it does not immediately hurt the status, it is also fair game to cheat or fake it.

Narcissism is about shifting meanings to protect the self-concept (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1158596). Kimera once aptly acknowledged her tendency to "glorify" behaviors associated with the disorder. So controlling behaviors become perfectionism, patronization becomes altruism, to enable becomes to support etc... It is a form of self-deception.

xdude wrote:NPD is probably the healthiest direction, self-reliant, emotionally restrained, sometimes very successful at something.

An embellishment of the truth in its own right, if I may. In these time and days, where your reputation goes down the drain in a matter of a click, narcissists are very much at risk to get sidetracked.

Please do not take any of this the wrong way, I may not always agree with you but I very much value your insights. You've been a steady source of inspiration, I just wish I can be as useful to you as you are to me.