Sub-types of NPD.

tracybluebird wrote:I had always been sort of confused how both my ex and my father could be NPD, because they were entirely different types of people. This article made it all make sense, because it was spot on description of my ex, vulnerable, and father invulnerable. You could just plug their name and occupation in the blanks.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/stop-walking-eggshells/201111/two-types-narcissists-pose-somewhat-different-challenges

Yes, I could totally relate to me ex as the vulnerable one. Best description I have read yet.

Hello

I would like to ask a question about covert NPD.

I have the GAD diagnosis for about 10 years. I always think "what if", I often seek help, feel defenceless and I have a fear of rejection and social problems which most of them I don´t understand. Therefore I try to be like other people, quite often and I´m always confused and unsure of everything. I very often seek a solution, help, a way out of my problems and try to understand it. Therefore sometimes I ask myself maybe I have BPD or NPD or a trauma or PTSD. My emotions the anxiety makes a lot of stress and I´m therefore often in a hurry and need to be sure.

My question is:
What´s the difference between GAD and the covert NPD and could I have a NPD or covert NPD?

Thank you in advance

OverwhelmedFear wrote:Hello

I would like to ask a question about covert NPD.

I have the GAD diagnosis for about 10 years. I always think "what if", I often seek help, feel defenceless and I have a fear of rejection and social problems which most of them I don´t understand. Therefore I try to be like other people, quite often and I´m always confused and unsure of everything. I very often seek a solution, help, a way out of my problems and try to understand it. Therefore sometimes I ask myself maybe I have BPD or NPD or a trauma or PTSD. My emotions the anxiety makes a lot of stress and I´m therefore often in a hurry and need to be sure.

My question is:
What´s the difference between GAD and the covert NPD and could I have a NPD or covert NPD?

Thank you in advance

What have you read about covert narcissism/NPD? What definition of covert N that you've seen makes you wonder if you have it, and what traits in said definition do you think you have, or do not have?
I consider myself a covert narcissist. (I don't know and don't much care whether I have "NPD".) I crave supply and am insecure when I don't get it, or have doubts it's genuine (maybe I'm mis= or over-reading people's attention, situations, etc.)
You've been diagnosed so have seen a pro. How long did you stay with him or her? Are you seeing a pro now? Have you asked him/her these questions? What has he/she said?
I'm not a pro, but my understanding of GAD is that it's an anxiety whose source is vague or unidentified. The anxiety of the narc---I prefer to call my "angst"---pretty clearly stems from the half-repressed fear or knowledge that his "ideal self" is a delusion, false, or at least, greatly distorted, or uncertain. If it is, his "supply" is threatened as also false. That's my own analysis.
I'm afraid I don't know much about BPD (borderline personality?). Maybe somebody'll step in & help you with that.

Hello heracles

In the past I often asked my therapist what if I have Borderline or something else because I was seeking a way out of my problems and especially my social problems. My therapist said that I´m not and that I think that I could have something else than GAD because I try to avoid situations and I think that he is right and I should have learned more about GAD than reading something about other psychological issues.

But I really need help. Because of my feeling of being defenceless I can get in real trouble. Once I needed to write a contradition but I haven´t because I thought that I am defencless and I can´t do anything. My neighbour stole my microwave but I have done or say anything because I feel defenceless. I need to have a minimum of selfesteem.

I don´t have a therapy at the moment. I can´t. My symptoms started for about 12 years and I first had therapy for about 10 years till 2012. I have the GAD diagnosis since my first therapy. I´m always very confused and have thoughts like "What if". I haven´t read books about GAD and haven´t found any. I read some books about social phobia because of my shyness and social anxiety and some books about obsessive compulsive disorder because I often controll for example the door because I´m not sure and ask myself "Perhaps I forgot to close the door" and I read some books about trauma. Because there where two situations which changed my life, it´s like I´m still in this situation and because I thought that I maybe have and I read some books about Borderline PD because for me it´s difficult to do something if I feel overwhelmed and I´m so confused that I often don´t know and I´m not sure what I want or not like them.

As my ex fianceé said to me that I´m a narcissist I read some texts about NPD and as I saw the youtube video about the differences of GAD and NPS from Sam Vaknin I thouth that maybe I have a covert NPD. As I understood, NPDs have a low self esteem and try to over compensate it and NPDs shows themselfe as special person to get the narcisstic supply and covert NPDs shows themself shy and helpless to get the narcisstic supply. So it is a different way but with the same goal.

I have a fear of rejection like NPDs. I avoide social situations like meet someone, go to holiday, have a job and so on because I fear to be defenceless. I fear a situation where someone do something I don´t want and I can´t do anything or beeing bullying, someone say something about me which isn´t right, someone say things like "look how stupid he is". But I don´t fear critism as long it is constructive .

Like NPDs I´m sensitive.

Like NPDs I controll, want that something is like I want it and get angry if not.
But It´s because I often fear a terrible situation. So I controll that nothing happen or I´m not sure and I get angry because I think that it is very important.

Like NPDs I seek harmony and safety. But I do because it can cause unforseeable problems and situations.

Like NPDs I´m often in a hurry and have a kind of perfection. I´m everything else but not perfect and even not average. I´m in a hurry because I feel defenceless, anxious and I seek help and safety. I have a kind of perfection because I try to avoid unforseeable terrible situations.

But like NPDs I overcompensate. I overcompensate my unsureness and like NPDs I sometimes wear a mask. I try to overplay my social anxiety. Sometimes people say that I'm arrogant because I don´t talk with them. But it´s because I avoid social interactions, even I would like to.

Like covert NPDs I have two sites. I´m very often anxious but I sometimes say to myself "don´t fear. Trust yourself. Take your own desicion. So I show myself sometimes like a person with a very high selfesteem.

Like covert NPDs I sometimes feel dependent. I don´t want to be the strange person. I want to be normal so I adapt.

Like covert NPDs I lose myself in a relationship. I´m too anxious and I feel too defenceless even in a relationship and I´m not sure and confuse also in a relationship.

Like NPD I don´t want to be dependent. I don´t want to feel defenceless. I think that I need help not only because I feel defenceless also because of my GAD but I need to and I would like to learn how I could do it on my own because I think what will be in ten or twenty years. What if I´m alone. I feel often dependent because I´m always confused but I would like and need to change it.

I'm sorry. My text is far too much. So don´t feel that you have to answer or write very detailed.
But I would like to ask one more question. Do NPDs often feel defenceless?

OverwhelmedFear wrote:I'm sorry. My text is far too much. So don´t feel that you have to answer or write very detailed.
But I would like to ask one more question. Do NPDs often feel defenceless?

That's okay about the long post, Overwhelmed.

Here's a lengthy description of the covert narcissist by Michael Holdren in his doctoral dissertation, Causal Attributions among Over and Covert Narcissism Sub-Types for Hypothetical, Retrospective and Prospective Events (linked to in the OP of this thread):

“Covert narcissism using the HSNS and various combinations of the NPDS, NHMF and ESS [psychological measurement scales] has been shown to be related to introversion, defensiveness, anxiety, vulnerability to life’s traumas, sensitivity to slight, lack of social presence, sociability, dominance, depression, hositility, troubled social relationships, irritability, vulnerability, shame, submissiveness, dependency, tendency to idealize, lower affiliation and power motives, higher achievement motivation, inadequacy, unhappiness, worry, difficulties in keeping oneself interested and entertained, feelings of meaninglessness, the perception that time is passing slowly, sabotaging others, a measure of self-handicapping, object relations deficits, the neuroticism factor of the five factor model of personality, social anxiety, and inversely associated with affiliation motivation and the agreeableness factor of the five factor model of personality.” (page 34)

I've bolded the traits that I very clearly recognize in myself. Your "defencelessness" sounds a lot like "vulnerability to life's traumas", also in the list. I'm not sure about that in myself. Maybe, but it's not clear to me.

I'm also Machiavellian and fanatical. Of course, I'm very "covert" about this. Few people know, except maybe my family.

To put in everyday words, a narcissist is vain and egotistical. An overt is confident about himself, a covert is usually self-doubting and insecure. I don't believe I'm a bad person. I'm kind, considerate and high-minded. Not the anti-social monster the anti-narcs rage on about, from a few limited personal experiences with especially sociopathic narcs.

From my post, I don't get the impression that you're a narc, but I could be wrong. You might want to take your post to the Living With Mental Illness forum. More will see it there, and hopefully give you some feedback.

Good luck.

heracles wrote:

OverwhelmedFear wrote: I'm kind, considerate and high-minded. Not the anti-social monster the anti-narcs rage on about, from a few limited personal experiences with especially sociopathic narcs.

How many experiences do you think we need before we're experts?? lol! I strongly believe the N I know is covert. He's got that fake humility thing going....but underneath he's a lying, scheming, amoral prick who glorifies the idea of living secret lives and having many identities. In fact, if I cared to investigate him I'd probably turn up some "interesting" stuff. Nothing high minded about his MO and I think it's exactly those things that render him narcissist.

Hello

Thanks for the detailed posting and the example.

heracles

I think that it is very important to know oneself to solve problems and I think that it is very good that you know yourself and learn to handle your problems.

Sarahlea

I feel sorry that you problems with the narcisst you met. But you could see it as a life experience.

I think that I have some parts of different personality disorders and also covert narcissism, like vulnerability to life´s traumas, insecure, self-doubting and self-handicapping. I had few thinks that were realy difficult to overcome and I handicap myself by avoiding my life. But I´m not self-focused or egoistical. Therefore, I think that I have few points of a covert NPD but I don´t think that I am a narcissist.

I think that it is really good to know that there are very different types of symptoms and disorders. It gives me a kind knowledge of human nature.

Sarahlea wrote:

heracles wrote:

OverwhelmedFear wrote: I'm kind, considerate and high-minded. Not the anti-social monster the anti-narcs rage on about, from a few limited personal experiences with especially sociopathic narcs.

How many experiences do you think we need before we're experts?? lol! I strongly believe the N I know is covert. He's got that fake humility thing going....but underneath he's a lying, scheming, amoral prick who glorifies the idea of living secret lives and having many identities. In fact, if I cared to investigate him I'd probably turn up some "interesting" stuff. Nothing high minded about his MO and I think it's exactly those things that render him narcissist.

Hello Sarahlea. I'm glad we've finally met.

Post after post after post on this forum attests to the variety, and the complexity, of the many narcissists who come here for advice and companionship, and how they struggle with the contradictions, the enigma within themselves. You seem determined to cling to a monstrous caricature of what we narcs are (if we can be said to be anything, we are so vastly diverse.)

Here's something from the Wikidedia NPD article:

"Other theorists have identified two types of narcissism. Those narcissists who have been diagnosed with narcissistic grandiosity express behavior "through interpersonally exploitative acts, lack of empathy, intense envy, aggression, and exhibitionism." Another type of narcissism is narcissistic vulnerability. It entails (on a conscious level) "helplessness, emptiness, low self-esteem, and shame, which can be expressed in the behavior as being socially avoidant in situations where their self-presentation is not possible so they withdraw, or the approval they need/expect is not being met." (My italics and bold type.)

The "[o]ther" type mentioned is me, and many other narcs. Does this sound to you like the cruel, swaggering lout? The cool, calculating Machiavellian? Your disgust for us is wasted energy. We give enough to ourselves.

Have you read Crime and Punishment, by Dostoyevsky? It was pretty clear to me Raskolnikov was a covert if there ever was one. But didn't even he have a good side? Wasn't even he worthy of compassion, of understanding?

hi Heracles

Here's a more fleshed out description of the covert narcissism you described: http://sparkster.hubpages.com/hub/The-Covert-Narcissist

According to that article--and it certainly meshes with my obervations, coverts are simply that: covert about everything an overt narcissist does openly. Same attitudes and behaviors, but they're just sneaky about it. I even have to wonder if passive aggressives are often covert narcissists.

Without those particular narcissist BEHAVIOURS all you have is your garden variety insecure type. Hell, minus the behaviors, I've carried some of the same insecurities and exhibited some of the same avoidant behavior, easily hurt feelings blah blah blah. Who the hell hasn't at some point in their lives? The only difference is that I can recognize my behavior and take responsbility for my failings instead of harboring secret envy of others. In fact, I think envy and jealousy is a BIG waste of time and lazy. And yeah, in my opinion, anybody who walks around secretly envying everyone else in their lives is not to be trusted. I see them as schemers and backstabbers.

So I stand by what I say. NPD is about a certain set of traits, and ultimately an inability to bond due to arrested emotional development. That's why it's indentifiable. I challenge the notion that it's diverse in its expression.