It's not BPD it's NPD!

[Gointothelight]

Last year I had a crisis at work (burned out) and I suddenly had to find out why this keeps happening to me. I know I work too hard and it's hard for me to say no and I know my FOO is probably not healty but I never figured out why. I had all kinds of help and read all kinds of resources. My father was never there, and my mother had depression frequently. OS and I had to take mental and emotional care of mum on a daily basis. I talked to my mother for hours trying to 'help' her.

In my journey to heal my trauma I've read the C-PTSD book by Pete Walker and this opened my eyes about my own trauma-behaviour which is flight-fawn, and - as a back up response - freeze. This made me aware of my 'weak spots'. This got me on the track of  codependency and I've read about this a lot. It seemed to make sense and with this 'theoretical framework' in place I was certain I could now work on these issues.

But then I first got in some sort of fight with my OS. It wasn't even a fight, but she totally bailed on me all of a sudden on a moment where I really needed her. I was confused. Why did she do that. And that's where I first started to see this pattern that I couldn't at first. Also, not long after that I had a fight with my best friend and a few months after this we had a second fight.

All these fights were about situations where I started to set boundaries for my own health. I struggled a lot with all of this and this confirmed my suspicion I am codependent. And because I found my own 'diagnoses' this started to make me wonder about NPD. And yes, I did see traits of it in my sister, and especially the gaslighting, controlling me and the narcissistic rage. She is partly covert, but reading about covert narcissism had me questioning my (former) best friend as well and she definitely shows some red flags too.

Codependents and narcissists go together like yin and yang, I know this. So how come I became such a codependent? Long story short, I started to question uBPDm and I now wonder if she is a uNPDm... The classic picture of someone with NPD can throw you off track when it comes to covert narcissism and I now realise my mother is probably a covert narcissist with dad being the flying monkey and OS being the golden child. I'm probably the scapegoat/lost child. She totally brainwashed us.

I've created emotional distance between my mother and me years ago, and being away from my dysfunctional FOO and taking time for myself the past year has finally given me insights to help get me Out of the FOG! I'm trying to break my denial and dissociation, but it's hard. I don't have to tell you guys. But I also made progress last year connected with my inner child and got to share my emotions with a therapist which is a big step forward.

I never would have figured this out without all the helpful information out there about narcissm and everybody posting their own experiences about narcism on this site. I've learned so much already, but I will continue to read the resources on this site. It's hard to explain to other people what you have gone through, but I'm glad this forum exists.

[treesgrowslowly]

Awesome post Gointothelight.

I am glad you are here. I joined here years ago, searching for that same understanding of the situation I was in, and how to get out of codependency and into something healthy for myself.

I found Pete Walker's book extremely helpful as well so am always happy to hear it has helped someone else here.

Most people are not healing from their past and so they will have a limited ability to understand the work you are doing to dig at what is beneath the present day behaviors of people in your life. As the scapegoat / lost child, you probably didn't display as much defiance / aggression as other personalities in your family of origin. We get organized into roles that suit the narcissists. 

Sadly, when families are not healthy, people are reduced to performing a function, rather than having healthy relationships with one another. I am glad you have a therapist to work with on this because it is definitely possible and within reach, to make sense of the way your family was organized when you were growing up. It sounds like you are doing very good work on this front, and we get how hard that work is.

Narcissistic parents, they organize the people in their life, all around their need for narc supply. It is a completely different family 'structure' than what a child actually needs.

It is not uncommon at all in our society. But healing from it is. 

A lot of people are in denial about what their parents expected from them as children. For a lot of people out there, it is simply too scary to explore the things you are exploring. They will never be able to read Pete Walker's book, and talk to their inner child. In essence, they will probably spend their life treating themselves the way their parent treated them....they could spend their entire life with an inner critic that says "your needs don't matter, and don't ever criticize mom and dad". Is that not the message all kids of narc parents get when we were young? I've seen a lot of people block their healing because they cannot think about their own needs anymore.

The damage done by parental narcissism is real. But we can heal from it, doing the exact things you are doing.

What you are doing is brave, loving and necessary, and yes, you will meet people who get it, don't get it, or sorta get it, but not really.

To be blunt, the only people who really understand what you are doing to heal, are other people who are doing that same work. For years I really missed the clues that I was doing healing work that other people are not doing. I was reading Pete Walker's book for example, but no one in my FOO could ever do such a thing (they could pretend to read it, they could parrot some of the ideas, but they would stay in denial about their own behaviours, their gaslighting has no end!).

So then there's the lonely feeling of having to do the work alone. So I am glad you found this site and forum.

Trees

[moglow]

NPD and BPD often go hand in hand - It may well not be one or the other but a combination of the two, as "pure" NPD or BPD are more rare. It makes it all the more challenging to deal with and explains a lot at the same time. Whatever we choose to call it, the behaviors and their effect on us are no less critical and heartbreaking. We're still pieces on their chessboard and are going to get a lot of pushback when we refuse to play our assigned role anymore. That will spill over to other family members when they are left holding the bag for something they're not prepared for, and they'll push for us to go back to our "place" in the line.

People don't realize how deep those conditioned responses go, for any/all of us. I can even see with mother, where her response to any -even the mildest- confrontation or difference of opinion goes sideways in the blink of an eye. Disagreement means you're attacking her, telling her she's wrong, that you're "above" her in some way. Never mind that everyone is going to disagree with something and it's always an opportunity to learn if nothing else. So many time she'd bait me with something and my immediate response was to freeze and [to myself] go "but whyyyyyy?" I'd learned to not respond outright, to think it through and draw her out lest she go apeshit crazy over misspoken or poor choice of words.

I think after a lifetime of it, it would be unusual if we didn't have disordered traits - pd traits are after all normal responses expressed in a highly abnormal way, and we learn what we see. It makes a huge difference that you're looking to yourself and your responses, making corrections and trying to see the big picture. The PD individuals can't and aren't likely to do that.

[Gointothelight]

Thanks for your reply Trees and Moglow

I totally agree that I'm doing some effin' hard work, and you guys probably did too. And I now see the BPD/NPD people in my life more clearly. And I agree, it's much more fluid than I realised and they can hide for a very long time and you don't realise you are dealing with narcissism. But there are warning signs and I'm learning to trust myself when I see them. I've not done that for 45 years, so I'm going to be mild on myself.

I've been watching videos by Dr. Durvasula and this was also very helpful. She talks a lot about this topic. Last video was about calling out the narcissist. Her advice: don't do it. Grey rock them, medium chill them, but DON'T call them out because you will give them the chaos and drama that they crave. You can't have a decent conversation about boundaries with someone with NPD. And also, don't take the bait. I know what you mean when you say 'but whyyyyy'. NPD's can smell codependents from a mile away. My mother baited me once, left me crying for a week on a trip together. I'm NEVER EVER travelling again with my family.

So yes, your replies have been really validating for me. It's true we are very much alone in this. I'm learning when I should engage in a conversation about boundaries, and where I should just disengage. I have not learned to have boundaries as the scapegoat/lost child and having such fluid boundaries and being so codependent has really made my life very hard. Mother and sister would set me straight if I tried to have a mind of my own. But I'm learning and I've moved from unconsciously uncompetent to consciously competent. I'm so glad i can share here, but coming from a 'normal' family where you are allowed to have feelings, people can not imagen how hard it can be if you didn't have that growing up.

IntotheLight

[treesgrowslowly]

That is so true Gointothelight, people who didn't deal with this growing up, they really have no idea. How could they?

The only way that someone who didn't experience it, could get it, is if they really took the time to learn, and even then, they would never know how it feels.

Doing grey rock is essential in my opinion, if you have narc family members that you see, because if you don't grey rock, you will have that chaos and drama on your hands, and you will be blamed for it!!!

Trees

[M0009803]

Sadly, when families are not healthy, people are reduced to performing a function, rather than having healthy relationships with one another. I am glad you have a therapist to work with on this because it is definitely possible and within reach, to make sense of the way your family was organized when you were growing up. It sounds like you are doing very good work on this front, and we get how hard that work is.

Narcissistic parents, they organize the people in their life, all around their need for narc supply. It is a completely different family 'structure' than what a child actually needs.

Agree with this 100%

It's very hard to see it as a child, but the older I got, the more it all felt like theater.   

It was more of a feeling that I got more and more over the years. The interactions felt fake (as when you are older you begin to understand private vs public personas better), and everything (information) went via the person in the middle controlling things (narc).  This caused all the familial attachments (siblings) to kind of be frozen in time as children, while the narc remained the only adult.  This is (in my view) why FOOs rarely stay together, even after the narc passes away. 

I see that clearly now, but it did take several years of reading and self-reflection.

[Gointothelight]

Thanks for your replies Trees and M0009803. I have a basic idea about grey rock and medium chill, but I'm still learning and I'll look into it more deeply. I thought I had found a way to deal with my family, but now they are aging, everything gets turned upside down, because they didn't make plans how to handle it.