Were my parents CPTSD survivors and not narcissist/borderline?

[Unbroken1]

Since learning about the nature of how narcissism is engendered in families through intergenerational trauma, I can't help but wonder if my parents actually suffered from lifelong CPTSD and their dysfunctional behavior wasn't due to personality disorders at all.

I'm an only child and grew up with a mother who was treated for chronic clinical depression and heavily medicated during the 60s and 70s. She grew up during the depression with an alcoholic mother and a stern, cold, unemotional father. She attempted suicide at least twice and was a repeat visitor to local mental health facilities from the time I was around 10-11 years old into my high school years, where treatment at the time consisted of electroshock therapy combined with more medication, usually antipsychotics or heavy tranquilizers (chloral hydrate, trazodone, valium, etc).

After a lot of reading about the disorder, I had come to the conclusion that mom suffered from uBPD and was of the "waif" subtype since she abdicated her self-responsibility to dad until after he died, when she made a brief attempt at adulting before reverting back to her old helpless ways. Before that I had been thinking she was a collapsed somatic narcissist since she had represented her home town in a state Miss America pageant in 1950. She did not go on to the National event and I wonder if this was a narcissistic injury for her. At any rate, her pregnancy with me put an end to a brief post-college career, and being a mother of a newborn was how I believe she got her supply at the time. In my youth and early adulthood, the supply that I provided for her (and my suspected covert uNPD father) was a vicarious association with my academic and career achievements.

After dad died, the narcissistic side of her became much more prominent and she became a recluse focused on QVC binge spending for cheap jewelry and clothes, much of which she would return out of guilt. She was taken advantage of financially by some predatory individuals who borrowed money and never repaid her (she didn't care and I believe she willingly let this happen to further her victimhood narrative). At the time I was managing her financial affairs along with other issues she refused to handle herself, and it became obvious to me that she would eagerly spend herself into destitution without intervention, so I had to hire a family attorney to create a trust to handle her needs and to provide an allowance.

Dad on the other hand, pretty much emotionally checked out of the family early on and was a quiet, snarky and silently angry man who implicitly taught me never to expect anything good out of life for myself and tried to step on my dreams and aspirations even while taking credit for my academic and professional achievements. He had no wisdom to pass along to me, took little interest in who I was or what my interests were and rarely encouraged me. I don't even think he liked me, to be honest. Nothing I could do would ever, ever be enough to be the person he wanted me to be. When I was in high school, I became rebellious and we had it out, almost coming to blows. Ever after that his demeanor toward me changed. He became distant, judgemental, and he outsourced the parental emotional labor (except for anger, of course) to my mother.

To the community and all our friends, family and acquaintances, dad was easygoing, humorous and likable (except for the times when he would diss my mom in front of everybody, passive-aggressively showing his contempt for her in the guise of humor). But his temper could be explosive (never in public, though - mom and I were his sole audience). Later on, when he was older, I would hear comments from cousins about how dad would gather with extended family and in subtle, suggestive ways, badmouth me out loud for something he perceived I was mishandling or problems he thought I was responsible for creating for myself. The last time I saw him, he had terminal cancer and I told him that if he ever wanted to talk, I was there for him. Nothing but crickets in response. That was Thanksgiving and he died about 2 months later. After he died, mom told me he was surprised that his friends would take the time to visit him in the hospital when he was there for chemo or radiation.

So after what seems to be infinite hours of reading about NPD, BPD and CPTSD, I had decided that...  dad was covert uNPD and mom was uBPD/NPD. I know personality disorders are not neatly defined and many can overlap, but I am even more confused about who these people were. Decades after their deaths, I feel like I was raised by strangers whom I never knew and who didn't really care to know who I was. I have to admit to feeling a profound loss and a depth of grief and rage that I'm afraid I may never come to terms with. I unconsciously decided when I was young that I wasn't going to risk inflicting my family dynamics on any children I might have, and never felt that I had it in me to be a good enough parent, given the toxic family system I came from. Without any siblings I can't compare or share my experiences with someone else who might understand what it was like, so I continue to guess.

I'm not asking anybody here for diagnoses, but I would be interested to hear from others here about how to differentiate behaviors that may be from CPTSD as opposed to those that come from personality disorders.

[Cat of the Canals]

In my opinion, all NPDs and BPDs are CPTSD survivors. But not all CTPSD survivors are NPD or BPD. If I had to be more specific, I'd say they exist on a spectrum that's something like:

Mild CPTSD ---- Severe CPTSD ---- Borderline Waif ---- Borderline Hermit ---- Borderline Queen ---- Borderline Witch ---- Malignant Narcissist ---- Sociopath

I've heard others say things like: BPD shouldn't really be it's own diagnosis, because it's really CPTSD.
Or: BPD can be treated with therapy, but NPD can not.

One thing we always come back to on this board is: abuse is abuse. The underlying cause is ultimately academic. If someone has CPTSD vs. BPD, it doesn't make their abusive behavior more acceptable.

[easterncappy]

What Cat of the Canals said, more or less.

You can be a victim of one evil thing and a perpetrator of another evil thing. My mother would always cite the fact that my father got beaten and neglected severely as a child to justify his abuse of me (no, she didn't see the irony of saying that) - but every human being is responsible for sorting through their trauma and not hurting others. There comes a point where you look at a 50 or 60 something year old person and you have to say "no, you've had literal decades to figure it out, what you went through as a kid is not a valid excuse for your behavior".

I know. It sounds harsh. But how else is anyone supposed to break these cycles if what we went through as kids is a get out of jail free card for abusing others?

Have you ever heard the theory that sociopaths become that way as children to cope with something very terrible that's happening to them? I'm not saying anyone in our families is a sociopath, but I think a lot of personality disorders are acquired similarly. I think that a lot of people develop personality disorders as a response to being mistreated by family members, when they are very small and don't have the capacity to cope in a more sophisticated way. They pick up flea after flea, and this never goes challenged, until it just becomes who they are. A lot of them are just repeating the dysfunction they saw when growing up, and then making the conscious choice to not challenge their toxic behaviors and thoughts as adults - that part is on them.

[Boat Babe]

 

I do like your continuum of dysfunction. It rings true for me.

I now vacillate between thinking my mother is uBPD or has had C-PTSD all her life. Either way, she's been a monumental pain in the arse my whole life (whilst also doing some things right in the parenting department as well, which is why I am LC rather than NC) At the end of the day, it doesn't matter what the label is; there's only her emotional dysregulation and my experience of it. *sighs

[NarcKiddo]

I agree with the previous posters.

My uNPD mother had a uNPD mother and I actually think my grandmother was a fully-fledged psychopath.

Intellectually I can completely understand why my mother might have issues. I can even understand some of her behaviour patterns (and I have picked up plenty of fleas from her, which I am trying to deal with).

BUT

here I am, recognising that there is a problem, trying to modify my own behaviour and having actively chosen to remove any possibility of passing this dysfunctionality down further generations by not having children. She's a highly intelligent woman. She need not have inflicted that level of crap on her children. None of us is perfect but her lack of self-awareness is astounding. For all practical purposes I don't care what label her behaviour should have. Knowing she has narc tendencies is helpful to me because at least I can research how to help myself against that. Seeing her as a survivor/victim is all fine and good but does not help me if it makes me feel sorry for her and allow her to abuse me.

Sorry if that all sounds a bit raw and harsh but I'm having this sort of discussion with my therapist at the moment so you've hit a bit of a nerve!

[NarcKiddo]

And to add to the above - what I meant to say, but posted too soon, is that I would invite you to consider carefully how it might affect you if you decide to look at your parents as survivors. It's all very well to seek the truth, but sometimes we strive for empathy, so we can prove to ourselves we are not like our PD parents, at our possible peril.

[easterncappy]

Knowing she has narc tendencies is helpful to me because at least I can research how to help myself against that. Seeing her as a survivor/victim is all fine and good but does not help me if it makes me feel sorry for her and allow her to abuse me.

Yes! I'm 100% unqualified to diagnose anyone with a personality disorder. A lot of the self-help stuff online is incredibly useful, like the articles about how to deal with narcissistic or HPD or BPD people always hit at least a few of the things I've had to deal with, but I just have no right to diagnose her or confidently say that she's definitely one thing or another. She's never going to go to therapy either so she won't get diagnosed herself, so it's pointless to speculate beyond "she tends to act like this thing, and sometimes like this other thing". The thing I am confident in is that I was abused and I need to heal from it so I don't end up like her. That is in my control.

I also sometimes feel sorry for my parents... if I see a picture of either of them as a baby, for example. Both of them were born into very bad families and were just innocent babies at one point. But now they're 50 years old and have had literal decades to figure out how to stop hurting others, so the sympathy wanes very quickly. No character development or attempt to properly rectify behavior in 30+ years = not my problem and not my responsibiltiy to help them figure it out.

[Cat of the Canals]

here I am, recognising that there is a problem, trying to modify my own behaviour and having actively chosen to remove any possibility of passing this dysfunctionality down further generations

[Andeza]

The big umbrella of neurodivergence has a whole lot of different things under it. Personality disorders, perception issues, dyslexia, autism, dyscalculia, multiple personalities, bipolar, PTSD, C-PTSD... It's a BIG umbrella. Certain forms are more destructive to self or others, and others are less so.

I find it helpful to imagine the brain as a giant metropolis. There are a number of major streets, highways, a few interstates, and then smaller streets and alleys. You can use all of them to get to your destination. A neurotypical person might need to go to the store, so they jump on the highway, take the exit closest to the store, pop down the street and there it is. An autistic person, however, might have a highway full of potholes, and instead of taking the highway takes a frontage road to the street where the store is located. Somebody with C-PTSD may have a bridge out on the highway, and the frontage road might be closed for repairs, so they take a secondary street, plus a couple of extra connections, and then they get to the store.

We all have brains full of neurons connecting and pathing pulses of energy and interpreting all of that in order to function (or malfunction) our way through life. Neurotypical individuals have very well-mapped brain scans that represent what constitutes "normal" but there's a large chunk of the population that, when scanned in the same circumstances, would look totally different. Brain scans of, for instance, BPD individuals, turn up very different routes between the different processing centers of the brain. They perceive and interact with the world in a vastly different way accordingly.

This is why there is a ton of potential for overlap between conditions. Add to that, some forms of neurodivergence are recognized as being "acquired" while others you're just born with. C-PTSD vs autism would be a good example. I don't have a single source for all of this because it's a conglomeration of a lot of different information I've acquired by researching info about my uBPDm, and also the potential that I'm on the autism spectrum. (But Temple Grandin gives an interesting talk about it on YT if anyone wants to get a little more info, "Temple Grandin: The Autistic Brain" will turn it up.)

All that to say this. Having C-PTSD or PTSD does not preclude the possibility of having a personality disorder. They would go hand in hand quite nicely, potentially establishing causality even. It also does NOT give anyone with a PD an excuse to just say "This is how I am" because the neural pathways of the brain, through therapy and hard work, CAN be altered, within reason. Pruning is a thing after all. And if they acquired the PD from their experiences, then they can mitigate the negatives of that PD with hard work, help, and potentially medication. Many choose not to. Many choose their disorder over loved ones and quality of life. It is sad, but it's their choice ultimately.

[Hazy111]

The "fight" defense of  C-PTSD is PD according to Pete Walker.

They f*** you up, your mum and dad.   
    They may not mean to, but they do.   
They fill you with the faults they had
    And add some extra, just for you.

But they were f***** up in their turn
    By fools in old-style hats and coats,   
Who half the time were soppy-stern
    And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
    It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
    And don't have any kids yourself.

Philip Larkin, "This Be the Verse" from Collected Poems.

[Unbroken1]

 

Thanks for posting. I remember this verse from long ago and always wondered who wrote it. I moved away from home at 18, got as far away as I could, and never wanted kids so I wouldn't risk passing along whatever it was that made my FOO a living hell.

[Pepin]

In my opinion, all NPDs and BPDs are CPTSD survivors. But not all CTPSD survivors are NPD or BPD. If I had to be more specific, I'd say they exist on a spectrum that's something like:

Mild CPTSD ---- Severe CPTSD ---- Borderline Waif ---- Borderline Hermit ---- Borderline Queen ---- Borderline Witch ---- Malignant Narcissist ---- Sociopath

I've heard others say things like: BPD shouldn't really be it's own diagnosis, because it's really CPTSD.
Or: BPD can be treated with therapy, but NPD can not.

One thing we always come back to on this board is: abuse is abuse. The underlying cause is ultimately academic. If someone has CPTSD vs. BPD, it doesn't make their abusive behavior more acceptable.

This, 100%

Abuse is abuse no matter where it comes from or how it is started.  I highly recommend looking up the Crappy Childhood Fairy on YouTube and also Patrick Teahan.  Both of them are amazing and even join together for a podcast - which literally, knocked me to my knees.  I am extremely aware of my own C-PTSD but I needed to understand that others around me were also dealing with their own C-PTSD and how they were dealing with it -- this includes my own siblings, my father, DH and his siblings and parents.  All of them are more or less a mess -- and how they choose to respond is what determines how I set boundaries and deal breakers that become NC.   

[Justme729]

Families are complicated. 

Something I am learning and processing is:  she can have her own trauma.   However, it doesn't justify the trauma that she inflected on me.  Her c/ptsd doesn't account for her own narcissistic and BPD traits.   I can feel empathy that she was beaten by her father and grandfather.   I can understand that she did the best she could with us kids.  I can also accept that she can't accept what she did as trauma without processing her trauma as a child.   She is still responsible for her actions, no matter what the diagnosis and/or trauma she experienced.   

[Hazy111]

Her c/ptsd doesn't account for her own narcissistic and BPD traits. 

I think you maybe a little confused as others are re PD. PD is a result of trauma. PD isnt inherited or caught off someone like a virus.

All PD is a result of trauma or C-PTSD in the first year of life.  Peter Walker calls it the "fight" response.

[Leonor]

Hello all,

I suppose the answer to the question is, "yes."

It doesn't have to be either/or. It doesn't have to be this/that. It doesn't have to be him/her, them/me, good/bad, cptsd/bpd, fault/innocence, abuse/accident.

None of that will get you anywhere, because it's a trap. It's black and white thinking dressed up in therapy words. And it's designed to tumble you right back into trauma, because it keeps you focussed on someone else (he did this. She failed to do that. They still say this. I'll never be like them) rather than you. Who are you? What have you experienced? How did you feel about it? What do you want for your life?

It also keeps you stuck in the fog: fear (what if I turn out like them?), obligation (I hate spending time with them, but they had it worse) and guilt (They were awful to me, so why do I still love them?) It's ingenious, really: the more you try to make them out as bad or not, the more you can flip it all right back onto you as just regular old bad. Or, heads you lose, tails, you lose too.

What happens when you replace "or" with "and"?

[SunnyMeadow]

I now vacillate between thinking my mother is uBPD or has had C-PTSD all her life. Either way, she's been a monumental pain in the arse my whole life (whilst also doing some things right in the parenting department as well, which is why I am LC rather than NC) At the end of the day, it doesn't matter what the label is; there's only her emotional dysregulation and my experience of it. *sighs

This rings true for me as well, especially the pain in the arse and LC vs NC parts. I'm sure my mother had some kind of trauma growing up. Doesn't change the fact that she grew into a smart, calculating woman and could've changed how she raised and interacted with her children. I'm sure there are some people who have no control due to ptsd or cptsd but my mother could go along in life and do the right things in many areas of her life. She just couldn't transfer that to her personal relationships I guess.

I grew up with a mother and father who didn't do the right things and I learned to not parent like they did. I made a choice (many of them actually) and she could have too. At least that's how I think about it.

[pianissimo]

I think c-PTSD is more about the behaviour, and personality disorders are more about the development of self. So, I suppose it would be difficult to categorize a behaviour as a result of c-PTSD or a personality disorder. I hear people with PD just feel weird.

Decades after their deaths, I feel like I was raised by strangers

To me, this sounds like an indication for them to have a PD. Them feeling like a stranger despite being your parents.

In my case, I didn't feel like a part of my family, and I thought it was because something was wrong with me. Actually, I felt more compassion for parents after realizing they might have a PD. I guess I realized it was OK for me to feel whatever I feel about them, and this made it a little easier for me to be around them.Things might change of course.  I have reduced contact.

[carrots]

Intellectually I can completely understand why my mother might have issues. I can even understand some of her behaviour patterns (and I have picked up plenty of fleas from her, which I am trying to deal with).

BUT

here I am, recognising that there is a problem, trying to modify my own behaviour and having actively chosen to remove any possibility of passing this dysfunctionality down further generations by not having children. She's a highly intelligent woman. She need not have inflicted that level of crap on her children.

My M might very well have cptsd, she probably does in fact. Her own mother was medically traumatised as a small child. But I gave her enough chances to change her behaviour towards me but it hasn't happened. Same with my father, with my sibs with their behaviour towards me. It is relentless. My own cptsd is pretty severe, but I'm working on it. For me that's the main criteria: Are you working on healing? Do you admit to having a problem? My FOO does not admit to the latter. They say: "We don't have a problem, just you do." But it's not true, they plainly have all sorts of problems. 

On here, I've classified my M as BPD, witch/queen variety, based on that book Understanding the Borderline Mother. But I wonder about those classifications now. Isn't witch/queen a narc? So I lean more to saying my FOO is dysfunctional and abusive. I do have cpstd - that's confirmed. But I have been given a couple of PD diagnoses as well, though not the biggies.

[Hazy111]

Carrots all Borderlines are Narcs, not all Narcs are Borderlines.

[Starboard Song]

Carrots all Borderlines are Narcs, not all Narcs are Borderlines.

There are many people diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder but not Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

Carrots, you are on to something: these labels get weird, because there is a casual usage, when we call a vain person a narcissist, and a more formal usage, when a person is diagnosed with NPD. And concepts like witch/queen are not part of the formal literature, so they get tossed around informally as well. Around here, we try to avoid diagnosing anyone with certainty, but it is SO helpful to say uBPD, for instance, meaning "you know: THAT kind of person."

There is good sense in discussing people with less emphasis on diagnoses, and more on their traits and the damage done. We often bundle these in the identifiable types. But you know what? It hardly matters what label we apply. What matters is that we are self-aware. We understand people's history of behavior. That we communicate with them properly and establish healthy boundaries. That we heal when necessary.

You are working on that, and for that I commend you. It is fine to let the labels go, and it is simply right to realize that they are soft labels, and not really susceptible to hard and fast rules.