Narsissistic personality disorder

[therealme]

I'm English, living overseas. I'm married for 17 yrs and most of that has been pretty awful. I recently 'came clean' about my abusive relationship with dh on a parenting site where I live and I have had my eyes opened for the first time that maybe it's not all my fault anymore. I have blamed myself for everything that has 'gone wrong' in my marriage - although I have genuinly messsed up on more than one occasion.

I received a lot of support from people but didn't believe I was worthy of it. Then somebody suggested I google Narsissistic Personality Disorder and that is the moment my whole world changed. For the very fist time I began to see that maybe it wasn't ME that might have all the problems. I saw my 'perfect' dh described in black and white and the words 'personality disorder' were attached to his behaviours. To say the ground shifted from under me would be an understatement.

So now I find myself at a turning point in my life. I know I have to end my marriage. It's emotionally, verbally and mentally abusive. I now recognise that I am a shell of the person that I once was, have had the life blood drained out of me, but still have enough of a spark in me to want to fight for some peace of life at 42! I have 3 children whom I love and adore - but who also love their Daddy. I'm living financially independently from my dh who refused to support me financially after ds 2 was born 6 yrs ago. I want him out of the house and out of my life!

I've made my mind up, but I am still so weak when it comes to taking action. I have spent so long living in a confused and guilt-ridden state, does that make sense?
Is there anybody out there who has experience of living with a narsissistic partner? How do you make the break? How do you ever find the strength to stand up to them in order that you might have some quality of life left for yourself? Please advise.....

have emailed you

Phew. It's hard work. Snake pit

Thanks UA. I can't go back to ro.llercoaster for a while now. He's a poisonous man, but he's clever enough to make it look liek I am the mad one again. He said that I had "reached a new low threatening to name his children" which I never did, but nobody goes back to check that, they just think Omg that's terrible, evil woman with a vendetta against AR.nie.

I have been here before. I am the only one who stands up to him. Everybody else simpers around him (not you and thank you for intervening, I really appreciate it).

Now the end result is that despite the fact that all I did was challenge his advice, he's now convinced the entire board that I got personal first (which I didn't, he did) and two that I have a vendetta against him.

arghghghhhhhhhhhhhh

I can't do that anymore.

Well if anyone ever doubted the existence of NPD, all they have to do is go on RC; he is a prime specimen.

He is isn't he?!

HOW can they not see it. I can't believe he has so many wee fans ready to defend him. HOW>FUCKCING thick are they?!?!!?!? Sorry. He gets to me. You could say.

This is why I have my theory about 'himselfism' and the emotional development, or lack thereof, of Irish men. And the social conditioning of Irish women?

OH, I have got to go and have a look on this rollercoaster. DonT worry Maggie, there will be <span class="italic">no</span> chance of me being converted to his side. I just want to look at his postings out of peverse curiosity. Its as though you have your eyes opened when you learn about NPD and what is fascinating is how <span class="italic">predictable</span> these people are, once you know what you are looking for. My mother convinced me and my whole extended family that I was a nut job! DOnT want to go into that now but that is what Ns do. Nasty pieces of work.

Oh Maggie - you are a woman after my own heart! The first things I'd grab before running out of my burning house (after DS) are my photos and flute.

What a bastard

Hello ladies

I have been doing a little bit of thinking and research, and this is what I have come up with....

I hope it is helpful to you all. This was put into my mind by another thread in which the poster's partner is ignoring her when she is speaking. This is called 'tuning out', and is a common feature of some PDs.

All my Ns do this....and the following is the reason why they do it. My teenage son is doing this to me at the moment, due to a situation he cannot cope with...so he is blaming me.

First we have ...

cognitive dissonance

So cognitive dissonance is an attempt to preserve the worldview of the person displaying it.

Next we have....

The Just World Hypothesis

and

measure of your worldview in relation to a Just World

Then we have ....

a summery

So, what we see above are a few theories about thought and perception of the world.

Pds have 'inflexible and maladaptive patterns of behaviour and thoughts'.

These are stable and unchanging throughout their lives.

So, PDs CANNOT change their thinking, even in the face of evidence that prove they are wrong, BECAUSE they HAD to protect themselves from Idealisation or Devaluation or both, at an age when their brain patterns were developing....ie when they were toddlers.

Their brains shut out (tuned out)the harmful messages in order to construct their 'false self' which can do no wrong and therefore protects them.

The false self must be preserved at all costs, as to admit this is false is to bring the whole edifice crashing down. This is not something that PDs can do.

Which leads us to blaming the victim, which is what Ns certainly do.

Instead of accepting that they might be wrong about something...or even don't know something (!), they lie to, and manipulate their victims to ensure that the victim is to blame.

Normal people learn when they are wrong about things and even if sometimes we don't like to hear that we are in the wrong, we can learn from our mistakes and hopefully go on to be 'better people' for want of a different phrase.

PDs, of course , can never learn, because they have this cognitive dissonance which can never be overcome.

My NM is a prime example of this....she is ALWAYS right about everything. If you tell her something that she doesn't know, even if a trivial piece of nothing, she pulls a face and tunes out, by physically turning her face away and making funny noises to block out your voice. If you repeat the sentence at least 4 times there is a chance it goes in. Only a slim chance though.

She is very elderly and lives alone. You can tell her NOTHING.

This is of course only one feature of Ns, but I believe is the feature which drives all the others.

Hope that Helps!!

All your views welcome as ever.

xxxxx

summary not at all summery !

Thanks gettingagrip,
Belief in a Just World-my Middle Sister believes in Her World...so the analogy that she is on her own planet does have some legs.

With regards to dh...I'll have to think about that (or not -my dissonance about his dissonance ).

Hi therealme-Going on three weeks tomorrow! How are you? Have you discovered anymore realities of your enmeshment with your x h? Are you making progress in untangling yourself from him? Have you made any new habits?

I need to make a new habit-exercise.
I think to change something-do somthing differently is good. I'll try to blaze a new trail myself-finish sorting the storage junk and finally get a sewing studio set up.

I received yesterday, and am now reading "The Emotionally Abused Woman" by Beverly Engel.

gettingagrip,
I think that was a very good summary. I haven`t clicked on the links you gave yet but I will look through them more thoroughly.

I want to mention something I read somewhere (maybe on the Samvak sight) and going back to me wondering whether I have a PD. My conclusion is that I definitely used to have one.

I have been reading about Borderline the past few days and amd convinced that my mother has bothyes both and that she has extreme versions of both. My father is a narcissist sociopath: no conscience, no guilt, no empathy etc.

Anyhow, with this background and the cognitive dissonance and disasociation this lead to as a child I really think I used to have a PD. But I read somewhere that an extreme event can "snap" the PD person out of it, or at least can give the PD person a brief insight into how they are. Then they can either choose to work with this insight and heal, or revert to type within a short time (which is obv what most of them do.) In SAmvaknins case, this was when he was arrested for fraud. He sat in jail and realised <span class="italic">he</span> was the one who had something wrong with him. I believe in my case it was when I was about to be married and realised that my mother was trying to sabotage the wedding. Somewhere deep inside of me I reaslied that she should be happy for me. I think I had some kind of nervous breakdown around this time: Id spend hours staring at the wall, ripping up paper into millions of pieces. Anyhow, during this breakdown I think I separated from my mother. I think Id always thought I was her, having been forced into a parental role. But during this breakdown I realised I <span class="italic">wasnt her. THat she was the one whod fucked up her life, and that I hadnt fucked up my kids lives because at the time I didn`t actually have any, and that I was about to embark on a new life. I felt like I excorcised her, so to speak, and I believe I snapped out of the PD. I was almost certainly Borderline, combined with a bit of bipolar and narcissim thrown in.

So.. not sure what my point is, but just want to add to the pot of ideas about PDs.

So I think you have to excorcize your parents before you can be rid of the PD, but this is so painful that people don`T do it.

Whilst I'm namechanged I just wanted to thank you for this thread. My MIL has NPD and it has been really helpful to read through everything on here. I often lurk. I find it hard enough with an IL with this, so hats off to those of you dealing with people you are closer to.

Arnie is from Devon or Cornwall originally mathanxiety. I'd love to post him back. Cattle crate, second class.

There has been a kangaroo court on that thread and seems to have been decided that I am mad, 'too close' to the issue (????) and that I have a vendetta against Arnie.

I feel far too depressed about it, it is JUST a thread on the interenet, it is just a thread on the internet, it is ....... no, I'm still throwing my hands up in despair.

Well Sakura...no -one would ever diagnose a PD in a child, or a young adult come to that. Children and young adults can be extremely narcissistic, and grow out of it naturally of course. My ds is going through this stage now. I hope against hope that it is a stage for him, and that he is not an N.

I believe that there is evidence for heredity in PDs, and certainly my family and my ILs' family are chock full of them.

You question yourself about this so perhaps the moment / crisis that you had was just an extreme realisation of what your mother is, which pulled you up. You may have had PTSD also, which is very common among victims of Ns.

Rejecting your parents and seeing them as half-human is a terrible thing to go through. Many victims / ACONs/ children just can't do it...so they end up as Ns themselves.

toomanystuffed......you are aware of your dissonance...there lies the crucial difference. And, yes! They are on their own planet.....planet N.

The huge irony is that while Ns think they are superior and clever beings....their very cognitive processes mean that they are very stupid indeed.

This does not render them harmless however...far from it.

As we all know!

xxx

good post gettingagrip. so much there I am going to have to look into all that a chunk at a time.

ps, Mathanxiety, in defence of Irish men by the way, my dad is lovely, my brothers are lovely and a lot of my cousins and friends all have very happy marriages. But yes, there are certainly a lot of bastards out there. Iknow that is not the technical term, but I'm feel ing so cross right now.

Maggie

can you link to that thread please? I had a look but can't find it

thanks XXX

here

it is very depressing towards the end. It is a real triumph for an NPD at the expense of sound, safe advice.. LUCKILY TRM knew the second she read it that it was actually bad advice, and she didn't get her whip out to flaggelate herself some more, although I'm sure it was extremely exasperating to be urged to examine your flaws three weeks out of an abusive relationship.

I'm sorry that the thread turned in to such a cesspit,if i were a better arguer I could have somehow put the points across. although the problem is that idiots loyal to Arnie (sara and bobo) perpetuate his notion of himself as a counsellor.

Gettingagrip; thank you for the great links. Here are some examples of how twisted upside down and inside out the world of an N can get: my exNH always refers to the day he hit me as "the day you wanted the police to arrest me". When we went to a marriage retreat, where we were supposed to learn better methods of communication (yeah, like this was the problem... he was communicating very well, actually) he wrote me little love notes in Greek.

Maggie; I even wondered if Arnie had several online personae and basically conducted mutual adoration society-type conversations with himself, posing as different people?

I have accused him of that in the past, but he was so outraged. I don't know if he even needs to do that tbh. There are enough fools fans to agreee with him. He is quite revered on that board. (boak). He is seen as this elder lemon kind of twice-married, three times round the block friend of all man. ONLY A VERY few people have their eyes open and see his nastiness for what it is when it comes out.

I'm being accused on the thread of having a vendetta against him. Jesus! it's not even that personal. I just recognise that he's a woman-hating manipulative bully with a distorted World view and hugely inflated confidence in his own beliefs. I nick name him the messiah, but I think he took it as a compliment and agreed so I stopped doing that.

mathanxiety, I think you may have been right about my MIL and not allowing her to babysit at all. Well, we asked her to come one sat in a few weeks and apparently she was delighted according to DH. So me and DH start looking forward to the lovely 2 or 3 hours were going to get alone. Last night we went out to dinner and MIL was at the same place, alone. We invited her to join our table. She was perfectly okay towards me and I start second guessing myself, whether it had all been in my mind all along etc. <span class="italic">THen</span> The sushi-maker was a bit late with the order,or hed forgotten a few of our orders (it was very busy). So we told him. But then she calls him over, looks him directly in the eye and says in a snidey, nasty way designed to make him feel as small as possible:
"I think youVe made a couple of mistakes, havent you. We are waiting here for our food. "
THe poor guy. I told her I thought he was new because we go there a lot and hadnt seen him before. With this new "knowledge" she got worse!! The guy profusely apologized to us as we were about to leave. I tried to make it better by going "OH, donT worry about it" etc.
DH thinks this kind of thing can be put down to her age!
I lost sleep over this last night. PTSD. I realised she used to treat me like that and that she would again, given half the chance. And who knows, she may even treat the DC like that when the mask slips.

Sorry, just to clarify, last night DH and I were with the kids.

Hi everyone. Have spent the afternoon/evening with my dc trying to give them some attention and fun. We went to the zoo but their Dad invited himself along to the start of it when he got wind of the trip. One of the dc made a comment that I had bought 'new' clothes in a charity shop (needs must) and ex got very indignant that I shouldn't have to do this and he would take me out cothes shopping tomorrow blah blah... Needless to say, I declined his offer, but what made me laugh was the fact that he has watched me scrimping and saving for years now on benefits while he spends vast amounts of money on designer clobber! I have always dressed myself in cheap crap which has never bothered him before!

Anyway, he had to go to an exhibiton opening or something (he was all dolled up in expensive suit) but returned to the house later on carrying an M & S bag of new purchases...for me. I did he same thing that I did with the flowers - ignored it. They remain in the bag as I type, untouched.

Then I read Gettingagrip's post and had a long think, like you do. G-a-g, do you think that my ex is denying that we have 'separated' in order to preserve the notion that nothing has changed dramatically in his false world?
By that I mean; yes he knows I no longer want to live with him - he has said that he 'knows the marriage is over' and that 'he feels relieved' not to have to live with me. However, he has felt a strong need to visit the dc as often as possible, and often calls in for a couple of hours to the house. When he is here he doesn't go out of his way to interact with the dc, he says he justs wants to show his face and 'be around' the kids. He makes himself at home - makes tea, food, uses the pc and generally relaxes. He is not particularly bothered whether the kids notice him or not. This evening he sat in the lounge with dd while she watched a dvd and he used the lap top to burn some music. The boys were upstairs and he made no attempt to see them till he decided to leave.
So....my take on it is this;

• He is ignoring the fact that I went to the Guards/courts and there is a protection order against him
• He is playing Mr Nice to perfection as though all those years of Mr Nasty didn't exist When he turns up at the house under the premise of seeing the kids he is really* trying to recreate the 'me relaxing at home - nothing's changed here' role
• Consequently he is in denial of the truth that his cushy number with his all so tolerent wife is at an end
• As a result he is preserving his false view of himself as a married man at home with his family - nothing has changed.

Phew.

Any comments on the above most welcome...

THey say that narcissists behave like this because they need to be noticed at any cost! Failing positive attention (MIL used to be very beautiful) they crave any attention, even negative. Her behaviour got a reaction out of the sushi-maker and voila- narcissist supply.