I think I'm getting fogged again

[OddFamily]

So I've mainly posted about my grandmother here, but I'm writing about a different family member today, my father. I'm beginning to wonder if he's got some PD elements, and what my next move is.
The situation's complicated, so considering many of you have commented that they seem to all use the same playbook, what confirmed for you that your parent had some PD elements going on?

[Cat of the Canals]

The real confirmation for me was reading When Will I Be Good Enough? and Understanding the Borderline Mother. My mother fits the "Queen" subtype of BPD in the latter book perfectly. But maybe it would be helpful if I listed her PD behaviors:

1. Never apologizes or takes fault for anything.
2. Sulks and pouts when she doesn't get her way.
3. If she's upset or in a bad mood, she takes it out on everyone else. (She once told my dad that if he didn't do XYZ, she was going to "make him miserable.")
4. Makes up lies to serve her agenda.
5. She's very black and white about people. They are either "the most wonderful person" or are "an idiot/asshole."
6. Obsessed with being friends with "important" people.
7. She is big on exaggeration and hyperbole. (She says her friend won an Oscar but she actually was NOMINATED for some other award but did not win.)
8. Very passive-aggressive. Her most frequent punishment is the Silent Treatment. When she's "over it," she simply goes back to normal and pretends nothing ever happened.
9. She never lets people outside of the family see any of these behaviors. She can turn on her "nice persona" at the drop of a hat if there are other people around.
10. Refuses to accept "no" as an answer. Comes up with elaborate/sneaky ways to get around established boundaries.
11. If I don't do what she wants, she wonders if I'm "brainwashed."
12. Frequently uses bribery, guilt trips, and triangulation/Flying Monkeys to try to get her way.

My MIL is also unBPD, so she has most of these traits in common with my own mother, but is a bit more Hermit/Waif subtype, so here are a few more, specific to her:

1. Catastrophizes even minor problems. (Our basement flooded once and she would asked about it almost every time it rained, for years. DID YOUR BASEMENT FLOOD AGAIN? It was like she wanted us to be anxious about it.)
2. Loves complaining to customer service.
3. Believes everything has a "secret message" intended to cause her insult. (She found poop on her doorstep and automatically assumed someone had put it there to "send a message." It turns out a fox was marking its territory.)
4. Very judgmental and fixated on how other people spend money. Always seems vaguely jealous that someone has some "new" thing.
5. Inserts herself into anything dramatic/tragic. She wants front row seats and all the details when something bad happens.
6. Has no sense of social propriety and gossips to strangers (cashiers and bank tellers) about everyone and everything.

[pianissimo]

They both have a tendency to manipulate.
My parents usually have conflict around an issue, my mother uses me to triangulate. She asks me to convince my father to something she wants. I think she did that even when I was a child.
They play favorites. My mother did this more so. As a child, I knew my mother favoured my brother.
My mother seems to value us kids based on success or looks.
As a child, I always offended my mother. Later I realized, my mother was sharing her adult problems with me, and she was taking my responses as a child personally.
My mother doesn't seem to understand that I'm her child. It seems like she has no understanding of how I'm emotionally bound to her. I think she's able take advantage of this tie, but she doesn't realize how the way she talks affects us her kids.
Perhaps, the reason for the above is her lack empathy.
Both parents do big gestures with huge emotional absence. For example, my dad was willing me to buy a car, but not support me (with words, you know)  when I wanted to buy my own car.
They both don't apologize. If I confront them about a resentment I have with them, they don't go to this place "Well, yeah, I guess that wasn't a great decision on my part." They become defensive.
Until I drew boundaries, my father used to talk to me like he was my boss (in relation to work, did you do this? why not?).
My father is a very controlling person. I guess one indication is both my brother and I work in the same sector as him, because we felt his support only in that one.
My father uses fear to control us. Either manipulates us or intimidates us.

I might be in the fog too though. Despite all this, I still wonder if they are just people. But, I guess there is PD element to their personalities. In my last visit, I said something that triggered my mother. Interestingly, she realized she had something going. Then, the next day, she brought it up again because it seemed like she still couldn't get over it. I guess she went to that troubled place in her mind, and she brought up things that happened way in the past. This time, I was able to see what was going on didn't have much with me. My father was there, and I asked him if there was any method they used when my mother got like that. My father seemed to be unaware of the situation though. Then, my mother kept going a bit, and I sat there giving her a moment. Then, she came back somehow. I don't know what happened there. Was she genuinely losing it and made effort to regulate herself, or did she see her agitated state wasn't having effect on me and dropped the act? In the moment, I thought the former, but, in the end, I don't know.

While writing, I'm realizing that they both have problems with emotional regulation. They both display explosive anger in those unregulated states. I guess they both rage. This rage is so typical of them. I was very happy when I realized anger isn't the same as rage. There is normal anger, and it's not something to fear.

[NarcKiddo]

My mother is uNPD.

I started to realise this might be the case in my mid 40s when I kept coming across references to narcissistic behaviour online and recognised some of the behaviours. Then I did some more research. I had already discovered the grey rock approach seemed to help me cope with her, though I did not know it as such and I was not applying it rigorously because it was not a planned strategy.

Her behaviours:
Very self-absorbed and has to have her way - tantrums if people stand up to her
Thinks her opinions are always correct and her suggestions must be followed
Inconsistent parenting - you never knew if she would fly into a rage or laugh something off
If she was being nice to us as children she was treating us as a friend (confiding in us about her marriage, her sexual affairs or whatever)
Uses money to control people and tries to get money from other people
Intrusion into other people's relationships (e.g. tells my father when he should contact his sister, unhealthy interest in her children's boyfriends - she actually had an affair with one of them)
Triangulation
Snobbish and speaks ill of all friends behind their back - mostly interested in people for what they can do for her
Insists nobody tell anyone outside the family about "family matters"
Has to be praised

I could go on...

[OddFamily]

Thank you everyone for your insight. What's got me questioning is the following:

-I dare to have an Opinion that is Not His. He hates it when you have an opinion that is not his own, and even trivial stuff. I once stated I don't like root beer floats, his response was I kid you not, BS. Big stuff too, if you don't agree with his take on politics and vote for this political party, you're horrible and part of the problem.

-He keeps trying to pick fights or just lecture about his opinions. If I do not feel like engaging (and I usually don't), I walk away saying I am not having this conversation now, and he says I'm being disrespectful when he was disrespectful first for just wanting to argue or lecture for no reason.

-He keeps physically poking me thinking he's being funny and I've told him clearly more than once it is unwelcome, I finally got it to stop when he startled me and I sloshed hot coffee all over him. When I was younger the physical displays of anger (hitting walls) were enough to keep me quiet and on eggshells. They did stop after a period of time, and I highly suspect mom went to the senior pastor at church and the pastor intervened.

-For years he nagged me about my weight, and when I made an effort to do something about it (losing weight for me, not for him) he'd get all put out about the changes I was making. There's a reason he's on an information diet because his nose is not needed or wanted in my business.

-Even though I'm in a career that pays a good wage with benefits in an always in demand field I like, he keeps pushing me to go into a career that I have no inclination for because it's closer to his career and pays more money. If I even hint I'm the least dissatisfied with my job the commercials for this start up again. Same thing with moving to a lower cost of living area. My job may or may not come with me, I have long term health treatments where my care team is here and I need to stay as a result, and I simply have no desire to start over elsewhere at this time.

It's escalated recently but these patterns have been long standing, I'm not living at home but I do visit frequently, mom will take him to task on the more egregious stuff, but I'm wondering is it him where the issue lies or is it me?

[justducky]

Based on what you've described, your father displays narcissistic behaviors. Some are abusive.

- get upset/offended if you don't share his opinions
- demanding attention by picking fights and lecturing
- punching walls (physical abuse)
- poking after being told the action is not welcome (physical abuse)
- generally getting up in your business

It's not you.

He's similar in some respects to my uPD father, who I believe was an anxious, non-grandiose narcissist. The one thing my father never did was punch walls, poke, hit, or grab (that I know of). His physical abuse was sleep deprivation and trapping people in rooms or cars so he could rant at and berate his targets (enabling mother, my sibling, and me).

[pianissimo]

I also think it's him. They seem to be emotionally abusive behaviours.

[Cat of the Canals]

It's escalated recently but these patterns have been long standing, I'm not living at home but I do visit frequently, mom will take him to task on the more egregious stuff, but I'm wondering is it him where the issue lies or is it me?

He sounds pretty narcissistic to me. Sometimes when I have the "is it me or them?" question running through my head, I play a game called "Would I do this to someone else?" Another variation is "How would I react if someone other than my parent did this to me?"

If I run through your examples, these are all things I would 1. NEVER do to someone else and 2. Would be furious/upset/angry if someone else did them to me.

[Liketheducks]

Sounds like you may be.    I like asking myself the same questions - Cat of the Canals mentioned.   Is this something I would do to my child?   (Gee, I REALLY hope not).    I know none of us are perfect, but these are some fairly consistent and dysfunctional behaviors.     Further, I don't think a NPD has the ability to look at themselves in that critical light.   So, if you're asking yourself if this is something you'd do.....you're probably not the one with dysfunctional coping mechanisms.    If it looks like a fish, smells like and fish, and swims.....it's probably a fish.

I also see some of the in friends and acquaintances.   Not so much, mind you.   I don't usually keep company with people who do that sort of thing.   But, we have one friend whose wife does this constantly.    I've noticed that if I don't take her bait, the wind completely comes out of her sails.      Life is too short for me to spend time engaging in this.

[OddFamily]

Thank you everyone for sanity checking me, I figured these behaviors were out of line, and there are a reasonable amount of times where he's been normal for lack of a better word which was confusing me. That and I didn't think the odds would favor having 2 potential PDs in their life. My grandma's behavior is a queen/hermit/waif mix.
But now we've established that the behavior is in fact over the line, the question is now what to do? Do I call him out on bad behavior, does it even work?

[NarcKiddo]

Thank you everyone for sanity checking me, I figured these behaviors were out of line, and there are a reasonable amount of times where he's been normal for lack of a better word which was confusing me. That and I didn't think the odds would favor having 2 potential PDs in their life. My grandma's behavior is a queen/hermit/waif mix.
But now we've established that the behavior is in fact over the line, the question is now what to do? Do I call him out on bad behavior, does it even work?

I don't think it is actually that big a surprise to have more than one PD in a family. If your grandma is on your father's side then there is genetics at play as well as nurture. If on your mother's side then your mother will have been subject to PD behaviour while growing up and may have gravitated to that sort of thing in relationships. It happens a lot.

What to do? I'd check out the toolbox for some ideas. I have a uNPD mother and the worst possible thing I could try to do is call her out. My sister once tried to call her out as a child over some bad behaviour aimed at me because my mother was angry that my sister fell off her bicycle and blamed me (and punished me).  Anyway, the calling-out did not end well. But it may be that your father can be reasoned with to some extent. Or it may be that he values certain things you do for him so you are in a position to say "If you behave like x then I will not do y".

[justducky]

Sometimes when I have the "is it me or them?" question running through my head, I play a game called "Would I do this to someone else?" Another variation is "How would I react if someone other than my parent did this to me?"

uPD father projected his nonsense on enMom and me often. Once when I was a teenager and I was standing my ground he snarled, "Do you do this to other people?"  I replied, "No one else treats me the way you do."

That stopped him cold for about 30 seconds. Then he picked up where he'd left off with his bullying.

[justducky]

Thank you everyone for sanity checking me, I figured these behaviors were out of line, and there are a reasonable amount of times where he's been normal for lack of a better word which was confusing me. That and I didn't think the odds would favor having 2 potential PDs in their life.

IMO it makes sense for there to be multiple PDs in an extended family. Abusive behavior seems to come from a combination of learned and genetic causes.

But now we've established that the behavior is in fact over the line, the question is now what to do? Do I call him out on bad behavior, does it even work?

I strongly advise against calling it out. I've tried it; it doesn't work. At best the PD will ignore the calling out and pretend it didn't happen. At worst it prompts even worse behavior from the PD.

As others have advised, check the toolbox. Decide for yourself what you will and won't tolerate. That will help you create boundaries. Boundaries are things that you do; there's no need to inform the PD of them. It's unlikely that a PD would care about your boundaries anyway.

Here are some ideas for boundaries for the abusive behaviors you described earlier.

He keeps trying to pick fights or just lecture about his opinions. If I do not feel like engaging (and I usually don't), I walk away saying I am not having this conversation now, and he says I'm being disrespectful when he was disrespectful first for just wanting to argue or lecture for no reason.

Walking away from verbal abuse is a great boundary! If he accuses you of being disrespectful, so be it. That's his opinion. He can have it. No need to debate.

It sound like he doesn't poke you any more. Good! Should he start that again, you could tell him to stop, that it hurts and you don't like it. If he ignores it, that's a clear sign that he's not a safe person to be around. You could visit less and when visiting keep a lot of space between you and him.

You already figured out to keep him on an information diet to prevent him from nagging you about your weight. Well done! Same thing with him bugging you about your profession. Don't talk about it when he's present. It stinks, but you know how he'll likely react.

Having multiple PDs in your family stinks. It's unfair. You're handling it well! 

[Cat of the Canals]

Agree with what's been said above. I am especially fond of the Medium Chill guide in the toolbox. Lots of good examples of things to say and how to react when someone is in "boundary-pushing" mode.

For many of us here, some combination of Medium Chill and Gray Rock along with limiting contact to various degrees is the only way we are able to maintain some semblance of a relationship along with our sanity.

I also highly recommend the book Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Lindsay C. Gibson