to think that narcissism is the current MN buzzword.

[OrmIrian]

Never seen it on MN until a few months ago. And now it's everywhere!

Gettingagrip, I totally agree with you; I also think this has been a nasty thread. It isn't just that these people are selfish or self-centred, it's something else that makes them act the way they do. For these people, being nasty comes naturally. A lot of them are bullies, some of them throw tantrums that would make a toddler proud!

Whatever it is that's wrong with these people, these people screw up lives. My ILs (yes, it's both my MIL and my FIL) have screwed up my marriage to their Son so much with their tantrums, nastiness and their expectations that their Son will put them first before me and DDs, that I know I wouldn't marry their Son again if somebody paid me.

And a Mum I met at DDs school was friendly enough until I couldn't put her first just one time. She then threw a hissy fit, started sending nasty text messages and made 'crank' phone calls. Her silly mind games had me in tears in the headteachers office because I didn't know whether she was capable of trying to abduct DDs. Writing to her, saying that I no longer wanted to be her friend because I couldn't cope with her behaviour didn't work. Her phone calls continued and she once rang 7 times in one day. We've ended up having to change our mobile and home phone numbers.

I'm so glad that posters here find it amusing that some of us are trying to deal with these people. I really don't appreciate being told to 'get over myself' and my 'weediness' either; I put up with my ILs behaviour for 12 years before I decided enough was enough. I don't think that's being especially 'weedy'.

So you really beleive that everyone on MN that throws the term around really and truly suffers from it, or knows someone who suffers from it. Or do you beleive that they are using it because it is a more serious way of describing someone behaving in a typically self-centered way?

Sorry you think it's mean. Very sorry. Because if you get upset by this life must be a series of upsets.

But hey, my dad has just come out of a major op and he's still alive. So to be frank I don't care much about anything else right now. So hey, carry on.

I had never heard of NPD until I came here, but I've read the DSM-IV criteria and think it describes the behaviour of my alcoholic father to a tee. Quick summary, he has been in rehab 18 times and never stayed dry, brought his lover to our home on Christmas Eve right before he left my mother because he assumed we'd love her as much as he did, took said lover on trip to Paris that had been arranged for my mother, married said lover and then jumped into her mother's grave screaming about his pain on the day of her funeral, showed up at my wedding screamingly drunk and ceased to speak to ME because I didn't thank him in my speech, followed by endless phonecalls about how he'd managed to go to x's wedding sober and wasn't I proud? and finally, thanked me for finally getting pregnant as it was the best thing I'd ever done for him.. I could go on, but bottom line is he fits the criteria on the DSM-IV and not in any small way. This isn't just a selfish guy, it's someone with a history consistent with the disorder (the only child in a family of eight who were serially sexually and physically abused to escape because he had a heart condition) and serious pathological tendencies that have destroyed his life. No treatment has ever helped him - and he has, bless him, said on a number of times it's because he's too 'clever' for rehab and 'becomes a hero' to other people on the same course of treatment. This is not just that he'd rather talk about his interests than those of his family for Pete's sake, there's no way that any of his behaviour could be described as 'normal' - and it has destroyed him utterly, when by all accounts he was a young man with tremendous potential.

Maybe some people ascribe psychiatric disorders to their parents based on limited markers, but that shouldn't suggest that there is 'no such thing'.

Excellent posts petunia, jamie and gettingagrip.

NPDs can just as easily be female as male.

Anyone who doesn't think these people exist and people are making it up or whinging about it 'beacuse it's easier being a victim'(FFS) is at best naive and wilfully ignorant at worst.

Sorry to hear about your dad OrmIrian.

Maybe people do 'overuse' it. But if it's helping them to deal with a difficult situation, why should that be an issue?

I hven't seen teh word narcissistic on mn until just now.

Thanks janos.

I suspect I posted this in a fit of irritation fuelled by wine and worry last night. I truly don't mean to belittle the genuine condition. That was not what the thread was about at all. But I sometimes get annoyed with the way that these terms get bandied around MN as if every other bugger has it. Condition inflation. No-one can be just selfish, they have to be narc; no-one can be a neglectful, awkward parent, they have to be toxic. Just like no-one can have a disagreement with another child in school without it being bullying. Can you see what I mean?

YABU.

It's not a buzz word. The one thread I had got used to where a small-ish number of people understood exactly what this meant... has disappeared off the relationships board now.

pointy - look harder!

This thread is going to make me angry. I've only got as far as page 1, but you all with your reasonable, decent husbands mock the existence of NPD.

If you'd lived with a man who wouldn't even trust you to make the tiniest decision, who saw your life as a sacrifice for his convenience and who could not and would not be capable of listening to, or understanding reason, or even, another perspective, somebody with no sympathy or empathy, and somebody with a grandiose sense of entitlement then you wouldn't start a thread like this.

GettingAGrip, it's just like our old thread that disappeared, we needed that thread because the vast majority of people just have no notion of what we were up against. They could never understand, because their experience of human nature has never even brought them close to it..

You gave me great advice on the other thread.

mx

I am very sorry for you maggie. But does calling his behaviour narcisstic help? Does it make him any different?

PS read my post of 18:53 before you get too angry please.

So OrmIrian...if I started a thread mocking people for being upset that their fathers had just had a major op that would be ok would it?

A major part of the nightmare of living with Ns is that no-one really understands unless they have been through the same.

Would you mock the victims of Fred West, to take one well known PD example? SO why mock us, the victims of Personality Disordered freaks?

Who is allowed to post on this site? Can you give us a list please?

Finding out that what you thought was 'normal', (even though you have been on the brink many times in your life because of this 'normal'), is actually not normal, and is in fact a life of Hell, is the most devastating yet life giving moment.

If I can help just one person to come to that realisation by showing them NPD and other disorders, then at least my horrendous experiences have not been in vain.

I still say shame on you.

Fine gettingagrip. Say what you like about me but don't you dare say anything about my dad. Fuck you!

How dare you. Read my post of 18:53 and read it properly.

I'm not impressed either Orm. I'll put this down to you being upset over your Dad (and I'm sorry, hope he gets better).

OK.

Put it down to that.

Signing off now. Carry on slagging me off it makes you feel better. I think you are missing the point

Actually. Thanks. I am now in tears. Haven't been able to cry up till now.

The thing is with all personality disorders is that even many psychiatrists/psychologists don't believe they really exist (my boss for one).

They are really just a label for a group of personality traits, if you look at the DSM/ICD diagnostic criteria for all the personality disorders it is pretty likely that you or someone you know will fit the criteria for at least one of them!

Really though, they are EXTREMELY complicated to diagnose, even most mental health professionals aren't qualified to do so. (gettingagrip as far as I know there is no brain scan that proves the existence of NPD/psychopathy, it is just a theory.I agree with you about there being on the same 'spectrum' though).

For that reason, using the NPD label for anyone who is a selfish, aggressive pita is inappropriate.

gettingagrip and petunia, I am sorry that you have had such bad experiences but as someone put it last night, unfortunately some people really are just wankers. Medicalising behaviours is not generally helpful IMHO.

And actually, I post on very, very few threads.

There are very many threads about selfish abusive partners where the term NPD is NEVER mentioned.

Yes I am angry. How dare all you smug, ignnorant people mock us?

Putting a 'label' on this does help... because Ns all sing from the same hymn sheet, and actually the knowledge of what they will do and how they will react is a life saver for us victims....Literally.

"No one's allowed to be imperfect any more, they're all narcissistic/abusive/toxic.
"Sigh.
Someone's been reading too many cod psychology books imo, and needs to get over themselves.
No one in particular, there just seems to be a real weedy department in MN at the moment. Maybe they should have their own section, "Whining about people and sticking daft labels on them"
Then I could exclude that bit."

and for you.

Don't knock it til you've lived with one and he's ruined your life, and you worry if your children will ever recover, and you've almost gone bankrupt trying to divorce him. Or wonder for years why nothing you try to make your relationship work has any effect on your abusive, controlling spouse. Until you find out the problem is not you, it's him, and there's nothing you can do about it but save yourself and your children before it's too late.

Thank you Gettingagrip and others. Shame on you all who think this is funny, or a buzz word, or bandied about too much.

OrmIrian, I recommend you do some reading about NPD. There's so much more to it than being selfish, unfortunately. Best wishes to your dad, but try not to deal with your worries by taking out your feelings on other people whose shoes you do not walk in, and would not want your worst enemy to walk in.

Orm, I can see exactly what you are saying.

You are wrong Jacey.

These disorders are genetic. Twin studies have shown this. My own family shows this. They have been shown to be Physical brain disorders.

Just because some one does not believe in them does not mean they do not exist.

Some people are very slow to take up new research and findings.

ME, for example, has recently been shown to exist as a physical condition. People have been called all sorts for having ME in the past...even by doctors!!!

The madness of Ns is a particular torture, and unless you have been there, please have the courtesy not to judge.

Orm, you have NO idea, yes it helped enormously to understand why he treated me the way he did. That it was nothing to do with ME.... Please read this.

I couldn't understand or make sense of how somebody who'd once claimed to love me could have so little concern or interest in my welfare and wellbeing.

My deepest distress didn't even touch him. He truly expected me to just put up and shut up, not complain about the HUGE imbalances in our relationship. He had everything, I had nothing and he couldn't understand why I would complain. He was "putting a roof over my head". He saw me as a financial liabilitity, despite the fact that I had to exist on a pitifully small amount of money every month, while he swanned around going on ski holidays and wearing ted baker. He had a 30k car and two motorbikes and I ahd nothing.

He treated me like a disobedient dog, an incompetent employee, he bullied me, controlled me, tracked me, was rude about my friends and family. He never supoprted any of my ideas. He just wanted me there to serve him. And he couldn't SEE why I was miserable. He truly did not understand why it was wrong.

He also was physically agressive and yet, it meant so little to him, hitting me that he would forget the next day. He would deny it. But he rememebered kicking the bathroom door down because he had to fix it back on the hinges. But me?! I was so worthless and annoying he could hit me and genuinely forget it. He has no recollection of hitting me. NONE. it's gone out of his memeory becuase it doesn't matter. I was his. I was disobedient and annoying.

Now, he gives us nothing because I left him. How DARE I???? He is angry with my parents too, because they gave us a roof over our heads. In his distorted mindset, they shouldn't have 'made it so easy' for me to leave. He honestly believes that my parents should have turned their backs on me, and not helped us. He can't understand why my parents would turn their lives upside down, selling their house and doing everything they can to help me and the children that my X feels nothing but contempt and irritation for.

oh yeas, and his son with autism, he wants nothing to do with that embarrassing child.

Are you starting to 'get' it yet??

You can talk about fuckwits if you like, and I've been out with a few ordinary fuckwits, this is different.

Oh yes, one more hting, my x would order me what bed to sleep in, 'his' or the spare bed. ONce when I went to the spare bed and fell asleep in it, he came into the spare room at 1am with an electric drill and started to take the bed apart.

I couldn't even move a piece of furniture without his permission.

The day I left he attacked me. He had said a thousand times that if I didn't like things I could 'fcuk off', but the day I decided to leave him he tried to attack me.

He lives now in his victorian house on a tree lined road in sw london. He hates me. I don't hate him, because the narcissism is bigger than him. The narcissism, the label you mock, takes the hate out of the equation for me. I can make sense of it now.

PS if you think I must be a doormat to have allowed myself to have been treated like this then you would be mistaken. I was a strong confident woman with a good job and loads of friends when I met him. He 'mirrored' me for a while andthen when he'd reeled me in he slowly began to sap the life out of me, a gram a day, until I had no new ideas, no imagination, no energy, no motivation, no plans. NOTHING... just 'get through today'.

That was it really. I left him not having any understanding of how another human being could have 'fed' off me. Why?? Why if he hated me would he not let me leave?? Because dominating me and controlling me was his coping mechanism.

I hope you have read this Orm.

That's interesting about M.E. (apols if taking this off-topic, but...)

Where is this new evidence, do you know? I would like to read it if you have any links. I suspect a quick google will throw up far too much to sift through, so I'd appreciate a nudge in the direction of the new research please.