NPD / Abusive partner - Recovery thread

[IseeGraceAhead]

These threads were started last year by therealme though I gather there were excellent predecessors.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) is a diagnosable condition on the continuum of Personality Disorders. Few Narcissists are diagnosed, however: a person must either present themselves for treatment or be sectioned to ensure diagnosis. Narcissists are very clever, they generally avoid compulsory referral. Narcissists believe They Are Right & Everybody Else Is Wrong; they will never seek treatment as they find themselves perfectly fine!

Common misconceptions:

[1] You can't call someone NPD if they haven't a diagnosis. Diagnosis is unlikely for the reasons above. Even Narcissists agree it's reasonable to determine a personality type as NPD (see links in first post). If you are in a relationship with a Narc, you don't need to be a clinician to know.

[2] He's got Aspergers or BPD, or is just a bit shit at dealing with people. Really? The obvious question is: why would you want to devote your life to someone like this? On a more technical note: emerging evidence, via biopsychology, suggests that Asperger and NPD brains exhibit similar differences from the average brain. And BPD is the baseline for all other Personality Disorders.

[3] S/He isn't "bad", they're just very hurt. Yes, they are very hurt. The more insight you gain into this spectrum, the more pain you feel for the sufferer. If you have a Narc parent, it's almost a given that you've gained tremendous insight - it was a necessity for your survival. The important thing is, YOU are not the same or you wouldn't be reading this. And understanding does NOT mean you can fix it.

[4] S/He just needs loving care. Yes, they do. They need it like a junkie needs heroin. You can keep on giving, they'll keep on taking and it will never be enough to satisfy them. Never. They'll suck you dry (emotional 'vampire') and then they'll rip you to shreds, just because you 'ran dry'.

[5] I get that s/he's abusive, but why say they've got a Personality Disorder? There's a spectrum of disorders: some are more 'needy'; some more 'domineering'; some are just fucking strange. At bottom, they're no more or less than deviations from the average. Nobody would choose a disordered realtionship unless they suffer from a need to be their partner's therapist. If this is you, try reading some of the links below.

Grace, the manipulation of people is sad also in tonights EE! That is how these people get away with it.

LMHF - You asked -

"I am finding it so hard to believe consistently that he really is an abuser, that he really is mad and not a good person to have in my life. Some part of my head is still apologising for him, and when I remind myself that this person is not normal, not like people are supposed to be, that apologist part is shocked and I feel mean thinking that of him.. "

That resonated with me.I found that incredibly hard when I first started posting here about my xp. It remained very difficult for at least 5 months after separating from him .

We did not live together,and I haven't seen or heard from him since Baby dd ,age almost 11 months ,was a fortnight old.(!!!!! how that time has passed,those that remember!!!!)

I now find it incredible that I kept hanging on,hoping it would all get better,and even more horrifying that I pined for him and wanted him to return.In my memory,he is two distinctly different men.I suppose it is my way of coping.I consider the early days,"lovely,ideal man" persona as someone with whom I had a short-lived,idealistic (and quite immature) romance.
I try to hold happy memories of some of those times.This helps me not to totally regret a large chunk of my - and my dc's - life.We can talk together easily,now, about experiences we all had back then.The dc will say "that was before xp became nasty" or " that was before we found out what he could be like".We realise that we "forgave" things that ,in hindsight,were not really forgiveable,just because we all hoped he was going to return to the "lovely man" person,we thought then that he "really " was.

I really can't express how deeply I now regret that I did not STOP all that.I should never have exposed my dc to his moody, controlling nonsense.I frequently apologise to them for not getting rid of him far,far sooner.

But of course - as they have pointed out many times- then we wouldn't have baby dd,who we all adore.

The violent,angry,manipulative and abusive man,is the one I see as "really him".When I read "Why Does He Do That?" ,I recognised him right away.I re-read it many times,to reinforce the "truth".

I haven't read it in a while ,I have moved on a long way.

But I still struggle with regards to my parents.The nutters who trained me.If I have learned anything from my "relationship" with xp,it is just how far I still have to go in getting my head around my conditioning.

I found xp "so familiar" when we met.I found it entirely normal to be ranted at and called names - and after all,he never hit or pushed me.He was exactly like my entire family.Who loved him,and see me as a bitch for ending it with him.

But yes,some part of my head is still apologising for them.Exactly as you describe.

Although,now I KNOW it is not NORMAL to live like that.

And I have also reflected on my own abusive behaviour in past relationships.Moody,manipulative silences,rages,hitting myself and screaming...feeling justified in all of that,and believing I was driven to it,and that it was therefore ok.

I didn't mean this post to be so long,so I will stop now.

"And I have also reflected on my own abusive behaviour in past relationships.Moody,manipulative silences,rages,hitting myself and screaming...feeling justified in all of that,and believing I was driven to it,and that it was therefore ok."

pirhanamorgana - i really think this is the key. because once you stop using those responses in a relationship you have a much more healthy take on the abuse i think. rather than punching yourself you have to think about changing the situation so you dont' feel those emotions. those ways of behaving are coping mechanisms that actually stop you from taking charge and responsibility and saying "this is not okay, i am not going to stand for this". they can be quite pervasive habits though.

I empathise, too! I'm shocked at how little I knew. I feel gutted that I was wrong throughout all of my best years; had a completely skewed idea of what was normal. I regret the relationships with healthier people that I didn't pursue. I feel sad, for myself, that I filled my life with weirdness and didn't even know it.

I had adventures that 'saner' women wouldn't have had. I have to relish those, because they're all I've got. The memories that add up to "me" seem like brightly-coloured flashes alternating with pitch dark: a lightning storm. There's very little in the way of slow, sunny days or even overcast afternoons!

When I think back to the Xs, my flatmate, my brother & sister, my mad boss and others - I feel frustrated. I just didn't know enough to say "You're out of order, goodbye." Now that time has gone ... and I still don't know how to live in what I think of as 'daylight'. I am not 'normal' yet. Of course, that makes me wonder if perhaps the Xs, the boss, etc, were correct; were all our problems my fault?

They weren't. But I did engage with them. Even that wasn't my fault, then, because it was all I knew.

The love, the work and the friendship I offered were good, though, despite my flaws and my ignorance. I'm finding it difficult to believe this fact just now! I need to separate my in-built, normal/good qualities from my learned, disordered ones. It's a long job.

Very pervasive.And I find it difficult to "stay with" the intense feelings that would have been the triggers for those responses.

For me,I know it is fear of abandonment.I know this stems from the relationship I have had with my mother.From when I was a small child - even a pre-vocal baby?

It is not appropriate to demand that a grown up partnership provides what has been missing in ones life since childhood.A partner cannot re - parent.

I know I have sought this - demanded it of partners in the past.And become furious when they have -quite understandably- been unable to provide what I needed.
I am aware I must been overwhelming.I must have suffocated partners.And my abandoned child behaviour would have been experienced as wild and screwy.

My 2 x husbands were/are mild mannered,emotionally witheld,pretty unavailable men.

My xp was "more than a match" for me.Despite the abuse,I felt totally secure with him.Always.
Because he controlled me.Just like my parents.

I am now aware of my past responses and behaviour.I don't think I could behave that way again.But as I have so often posted.I have no idea how to resolve the yawning need for love and security.

Although I know I can't look for it in a relationship with another person.
I am starting schema therapy soon.

Cross post ,Grace.

Gosh,yes.The crazy adventures.Me too.

And the total ignorance that appalling behaviour from others was wrong.

it's all resonating very strongly. i guess it's the old cliche - you need to learn to love yourself first. accept the parts of yourself you can't change and change the bits that you don't like that are within your power to do so.

i've had a massive health and fitness drive of late and it's made me feel so good and proud of myself. next step is to really make an effort with my social life. i need to learn to expect less intensity from friendships sometimes and allow them to be gentle and caring.

crazy adventures...SOooo crazy.

yes i guess we're all a bit too rollercoaster oriented.

i too am terrified of abandonment. i guess as with all phobias you have to look at "what's the worst that could happen" - and realise that if it did you would cope. realisitically it's probably a lot better than what could happen if you stay in the abusive situation.

AgeingGrace - i feel sad for you that you have so much regret. i don't think regret is very helpful. you can't change the past you can only learn from it. don't spend your remaining years regretting the way you have spent the ones that have gone - now that really would be crazy!

I was never one for crazy adventures, I did a few daft things/took risks when drunk, when I was in my late teens as most people seem to do. When I got to be an adult I was more focused on wanting a stable life, which I had mainly, the narc did his rollercoaster/crazy stuff once a week without me, as I was home with the kids! He tried to include me from time to time, for example he tried to encourage me to go to a top london casino, I went it was not exciting to me at all, I looked around at all the sad loosers there and it did nothing for me at all!

I disagree, SNM; I think regret can be very helpful indeed :) Not particualarly pleasant. But helpful.

that's interesting. how do you find it helpful?

I've said before that XH is not N himself but a damaged individual who was brought up by one. He didn't half learn a lot of handy techniques from it though.

I'm so "sane" (well I was until recently) that it was totally incomprehensible to me when XH accused me of living the wild life. Wild, to me, was a couple of glasses of wine and a pizza with a group of female ex-colleagues, and getting home by half past ten. Racy dressing included a skirt that was no lower than the knee and a T-shirt that showed a bit of chest (oh not cleavage, shocking idea, just collar bone, and in summer, naked arms!). I was repressed to a massive degree, actually, in hindsight. I have a horror of the mere idea of non-prescription drugs, I've never smoked even tobacco, and although I like a tipple of alcohol once in a blue moon I have never planned to get drunk and always stop before my head gets uncomfortably fuzzy. Did it stop the accusations of getting blotto and sleeping around? No. So frankly, I might just as well have got on with it. Who knows, it might have been fun.

Even now, whenever I do go out, I feel him at the back of my head, watching. I don't have to account to him for what I might be "getting up to" in my own time. I could drink a barrel of stout and shag the Brigade of Guards and who's to give a monkey's? I'm not sure, though, whether I simply can't be arsed (not to mention that now I'm fat and 50 the opportunities may be thinner on the ground!), or whether I've told myself so much and so often that I'm not that kind of person that I couldn't kick over the traces even if I wanted to. To those who did: don't sweat it. You did it, you survived it, no big deal. It does not make you a bad person. Those people in your life who abused and exploited you, they may never have taken an illegal substance in their lives but they hurt you and that is the crime. Not desperately searching for fun and then finding it wasn't so much fun as you hoped. That's just life experience.

What a spectacular bit of projection that was, Annie!

Funny that you wrote about your X being NPD-by-contagion, as it were: just as you were writing your post, I was writing the same thing about my brother in my diary!

No, my adventures don't make me a bad person. It's just a shame I had them instead of a 'real' life, iyswim.

We should go out together and paint the town a special shade of 50+ red! I'll show you how

I've been lurking on EA threads for a while, and feel it's now time to actually post something. As many posters say, I've been reading this thread with a sense of horrified recognition.

I had just come out of a relationship with a man who was emotionally available, and was craving emotional intensity and love. Which is why, when, my EA started talking about marriage on the first date, and introduced me to his mother the next day, shortly followed by introducing me to his kids, alarm bells didn't really ring- I just thought he was impulsive, and enjoyed the waves of emotion.

I felt uneasy from the get-go, however; he seemed really inconsistent- passionately into me one moment, then not calling/texting for days, inviting me to a party where he knew his ex was going to be, then ignoring me throughout- parading me in front of her- as I realised later...The way he'd talk and talk and talk about himself, but if I tried to interject something about myself into the conversation, he'd just interrupt me, and go back to talking about...himself.

Luckily (or unluckily, as I thought at the time), he dumped me when he found out I was pregnant, several weeks later. "I feel I'm close to falling in love with you, but something stops me" he said. After 6 weeks!

I refused to speak to him for months, but he wormed his way back in, saying he cared for me and wanted to be there for our baby. He begged me to move in with him- it was winter, I had nowhere secure to live, I was heavily pregnant, so I did....Then I was trapped.

We would have sex- he was heavily insistent- but he would immediately go and sleep in another room, leaving me feeling rejected. There was a lot of silent treatment- unless he wanted to have me listen to him while he droned on about his work problems for hours.I remember strongly not wanting to be there, and just keeping my head down until the baby was born...

After DS was born, I spent a week there, before going to my parents. He started disappearing without saying where he was going. I remember crying and crying and reaching my arms out to him for a hug, but he literally reached over me to get something, and walked away. Expressionless face.

When we came back from my parents, I asked him if I could stay at his for a couple of days while I got my own place cleaned up..."You can stay as long as you like", he said.That night he tried to force me to have sex with him. I think after that he didn't speak to me again. 48 hours later he'd disappeared without a word, leaving me and DS (4 weeks old) without electricity, and with dwindling firewood, on a freezing cold March night (it was actually my birthday, too). The temperature got down to about 6C (inside) that night.When I texted him, he just said he couldn't afford electricity, and had gone to his mum's. In the angry texts that flew back and forth, he accused me of being all about "take, take, take", and not doing anything for myself. Well, I guess that was fairly correct- after all, with a newborn baby, I guess I wasn't as useful as I normally am!

A couple of months later, he ran off with a friend and employer's wife, and since then has made no effort to have any contact with the baby he said he'd be there for. I've talked (shouted!) to him a couple of times, and the lies have got more and more bizarre- he's trying to justify his actions by trying to imply that DS is not his, and that I was sleeping with my exP- the lies he's producing to back this up have got weirder and weirder.

Of course, this makes me SO ANGRY that, when I saw him at a local gathering, I just screamed at him-really, because I know he'll do anything to avoid confrontation, and it made him go away. So now he can play the "oh, she's being so aggressive and unreasonable" card, for the benefit of the (many) people who think he's really a good bloke, just with bad judgement around women, a bit of a puppy really.....

He then insisted on meeting up with my mum (who was there);- I thought, maybe, to ask after DS? But I think he was just trying to get her onside and twist her against me, as I hear many EAs try to do; luckily my parents were around when DS was born, and have got his measure. He just trotted out nasty lie after nasty lie about me, until she ended up calling him a bastard and walking out!

It's been a year now, and I'm still struggling with the anger- I find myself thinking about him obsessively; I feel he's wormed his way inside my head.

I keep feeling I have to justify myself, and try and refute all the lies he's told about me- futile, because, when I have ever managed to confront him and try and get him to admit something he's said has been a lie, ten other lies will spring up in its place!

Will I ever get this horrible man out of my head, and get over what he has done to me- and to DS? I've even got to the point that I don't want him to have contact with DS, because I think having somebody like this as a father could be actively damaging....

Emotionally UNavailable. Bah.

Maledetta, that is a very familiar type of behaviour, the crap they make up and others believe, they look to everyone like they are wonderuful and leave you raging with anger and looking like a loon, you soon learn to stop that behaviour and be glad that you have him out of your life. Pity his next victim who falls for his rubbish that the child is not his and that you slept with an ex etc, and all the anger he will provoke in her towards you and have her feeling sorry for him, with his lies, it is all part of his abuse of her, to have her angry at you for no reason, when the blame is with him that he is a feckless father an emotional abuser and a liar! who is probably getting off on her anger towards you, it also is a way of manipulating you to not communicate and for her to not learn what he and you are truely like!!!!

maledetta - i spent a long time trying to get my abusive ex out of my head. too long. i would drift into these imaginary conversations where i tried to explain myself and get them to see reality.

the problem is you can never get the conversation to end satifactorily because even though you are imagining it there is no way to make their response or behaviour acceptable.

i now realise a more effective strategy is to have the conversation with yourself. stop trying to get them to see (even if it is just in your head) and listen to what you want and need.

it does take a long time to get over an abuser. longer than it takes to get over a healthy relationship i think.

There's an argument that it's harder to forget an abusive ex than a nice one, because your energies were all revolved around him and your habits of thought were all about how to please him, how he will react to something... you've twisted your whole self to fit him into your life and now he's moved out of it you've got to wrench yourself back into your proper shape again. It's not easy and it can't be done quickly. The thing is, you will never be able to prove anything to him, never win an argument with him, because he is not up for rational debate. He will distort reality to suit himself, tell any number of lies about you and to you, and never ever admit to the truth, if he even recognises what that is. You can turn yourself mad trying to make sense of what is, in the end, without sense.

Lovely offer, Grace, and quite tempting, if a little scary. Anywhere near London perchance?

I feel calmer having just got that incredibly long post off my chest, and having read everybody's supportive posts- ah, people who understand! (when I feel that even the last counsellor I saw didn't!).

I think part of the problem is that deep down I feel that stopping being angry somehow lets him off the hook- that I'm letting DS down by not giving his loser daddy the hardest time I possibly can..even though this causes me incredible amounts of emotional exhaustion. And I am really fucking exhausted now...having to carry this burden as well as having to raise a child on my own.

It's as if I won't be satisfied until he is tarred and feathered and put in the stocks on the village green...WHY won't our community see what a wanker this man is and run him out of town on a rail?

(Yes, I have identified that anger is a mechanism I use to protect myself, but sometimes I don't seem able to control it).

SNM: you are bang on about the imaginary conversations. I will try to remember your suggestion tonight when I'm tossing and turning..

Sadly, Annie, I'm 4-5 hours from London now. I'll let you know if I ever make it back there! Hope I'm not that scary

maldetta,well done for getting rid.It must be very difficult to see your ex at local gatherings.How dare he tell lies about you to your parents,I am so glad they are on your side.I wouldn't be surprised to find that others have also got his measure.

I truly understand you feeling that he must be seen for what he is - in the stocks - before you can let go of your anger.

Getting angry is hurting you now,though.."incredible amounts of emotional exhaustion".

You are still "giving" to him by carrying your anger,even if it does feel protective.The fact that you sometimes feel unable to control is maybe evidence that it is his anger ,as well as anger at him?....I remember "taking on" anger from my xp - more than the healthy empathy I feel when a friend tells me about something that has upset them,this would be feeling and expressing his burning rage.And he felt and also expressed burning rage at most things.
I think I became a much angrier person during the time I was with him.And I think being post-natal when he left,and having a tiny baby as well as 4 dc to focus on,has helped me to move on through the anger and look ahead.

Would you not be proving something much more powerful to him - and his "allies" - by living a positive life despite what he has done,and what he is still doing?

It is exhausting bringing up a child alone.But you have the privileges that go with having your child with you.The so called father does not.

I will be ensuring that my baby has no - or as little as possible - contact with her sperm donor.He has made no attempt to see her ,or to contact us anyway.But if he does,I will be ready with my old memory card which has texts and voicemails from him in which he rants,shouts and swears in his worst way.The times and dates are there.He was invited to arrange contact via my solicitor,but never responded.

I will not feel guilt about my intentions.My dd is better off avoiding the poison and trauma that he would bring.

I try to let go of that pure rage.I see it as his infection.I don't want any of his toxins.

Not scared of you, Grace, scared of that big red paintbrush.

I have had to develop a STOP IT NOW voice in my head to end the imaginary conversations, because the adrenaline was getting to be too much for me. I have had to devote attention to dealing with exH's drama more than usual recently because of the court thing, and have had to go through the nauseating exercise of reading the disordered thoughts and accusations from his court filings in order to write my own responses ("'deny', 'deny', 'deny', wherefore respondent blah blah..'") and have had to actually have real conversations in front of a judge. I feel drained every time. A grim reminder of what my life was like before we separated -- without the benefit of a bailiff present and the orderly and safe environment guaranteed by the judge.

Maledetta, if you can disengage you will find your sense of sanity slowly returning. I think I have got to the point where I understand there is no way I can get the last word in wrt exH and I now just trust that karma will take care of the vengeance I so want to exact, and that other adults will see through him eventually, because the more he opens his mouth the more rope he gets to hang himself with in the end. I purposefully destroyed some items related to our relationship (sheets, other flammable things) as a sort of exorcism and felt quite good afterwards. Though it may seem crazy to say, you are a lot better off not trying to raise a child with someone like your ex. That is definitely a glass half full for you; it's sad for your child and a lot of work for you but in the long run so much healthier for you both not to have him in your lives.

I have seen in the recent thing with DS and exH and me that exH's relationship with DS does not matter one bit to exH. He is prepared to throw that under the bus in order to catch me in some lie and show me up to the judge. That is the sort of parent a N is capable of being. And he lies abut his concern for DS, tells the court how a boy needs his father. Meanwhile he is driving DS nuts and into behaviour and attitudes DS has never shown before; hostility, deceit, hard-heartedness, coldness -- he refuses to let DS go to friends' houses overnight (he believes DS is lying about sleepovers and sneaking home to me instead) and has warned the parents of the friends that DS is some sort of troubled delinquent. DS feels he is being stalked. All because of exH's obsession with my alleged alienation of the DCs and desire to prove it, and see me punished (and him and his behaviour exonerated by contrast).

Bloody hell, math, you're really going through it, aren't you?! Never seems to stop ... though I'm sure it will eventually.

Instead of a "STOP IT" voice I have you and others with me during those imaginary conversations! Up against Mumsnet's finest, he stands no chance