Anyone Else Under the Impression that Change Can Be Good?

Mattmx · Oct 31, 2014, 12:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shakespeare47

There is definitely a contempt for sufferers of BPD being shown.

It's no better or worse than any other disorder. I wouldn't wish it (or any other) on anyone.

I believe my mother may have the disorder. She didn't do it to herself. She didn't choose it.

i dont feel. contempt everyone is just another person to me with a different personality. you fit into what i consider a borderline personality based off of the criteria and how it applies to people with it as an inherent personality not trait

ManOfConstantSorrow · Oct 31, 2014, 12:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shakespeare47

My last T suggested that I may be a sufferer of a NPD. It's certainly possible. If so, I'd like to effect some changes.

Anyone else interested in changing for the better? Or is the desire to change proof that I don't fit the criteria for NPD? In which case, I'm either "healed", or I never actually had the disorder in first place.

Seems like a win-win situation to me.

Never mind about all that S47, you seem a pretty OK sort of fella to me and I really enjoy your rather brilliant posts and replies, but what I really want to know is whether a change can DO you good? I rather think yes.

Open Eyes · Oct 31, 2014, 12:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Underground

Mindset is different and this we all know. I would have to have interest in finding the cure and I simply don't. It's more in the aspect of what I commit to. Sorry I wasn't more clear in my post. People who feed the cause to people we see as fakes become labeled as "weak minded" people . Like it or don't I could really care less it is what it is.
I still love you though,
Mr. Underground

People who feed the cause to people we see as "fakes" become labeled as "weak minded" people.

I actually see it that way too Underground.

"I could not care a less"

That is where we are different, I care too much, doesn't mean I am stupid or weak, just more sensitive as I can feel the textures you don't feel, it's how my brain is set up.

"I still love you though",

Thanks, it's always nice to have some kind of appreciation, even if it's not felt the same way. I am not here for a dual either I don't "care" about that, I am looking at something else right now. It was never my intention to be "in" the picture, just observing. Yeah, I might set something down, but more to move a rock to see what's under it.

It was nice to see some humor in that process though.

Yes, I am certain you have your own private "humor", I have seen this before.

shakespeare47 · Oct 31, 2014, 12:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mattmx

i dont feel. contempt everyone is just another person to me with a different personality. you fit into what i consider a borderline personality based off of the criteria and how it applies to people with it as an inherent personality not trait

Sure. you've already said as much. I'll be sure to give your comments and suggestions all the consideration they deserve.

You may want to education yourself on the fact that NPD and BPD are just 2 possible diagnoses on a continuum.

Oct 31, 2014, 12:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Open Eyes

People who feed the cause to people we see as "fakes" become labeled as "weak minded" people.

I actually see it that way too Underground.

"I could not care a less"

That is where we are different, I care too much, doesn't mean I am stupid or weak, just more sensitive as I can feel the textures you don't feel, it's how my brain is set up.

"I still love you though",

Thanks, it's always nice to have some kind of appreciation, even if it's not felt the same way. I am not here for a dual either I don't "care" about that, I am looking at something else right now. It was never my intention to be "in" the picture, just observing. Yeah, I might set something down, but more to move a rock to see what's under it.

It was nice to see some humor in that process though.

Yes, I am certain you have your own private "humor", I have seen this before.

Ok so now we can officially be friends. We have come to an understanding of one another. You see this place does help one another when it's done with alike intentions. Btw I already knew you like my humor, how could you not??

Open Eyes · Oct 31, 2014, 12:58 PM

Are you still with your non NPD husband? Please tell me more of that relationship and the struggles you have had with him. Admitting is always the best way to start. I will allow one do-over!! (Come on how can someone NOT love what I write, who thinks like this)LOL

Yes, I am still with my husband. Given the way I have seen you react with shakesphere, you don't want to know the challenges I have had with my husband. However, it is interesting that you have ADHD too.

I had a student with ADHD, she was a lot of work and I had to design a very different program to keep her occupied the right way. No one else wanted to teach her either. I did not know about ADHD at the time, I just figured her out and worked with her to keep up with the Attention Deficit along with her "hyper active".

When you actually read one of my posts, endured it, with ADHD that would be a feat. Interesting how you discribed it as a Comic though, because that is the ADHD coming out. Just living with someone that "is" ADHD, I know how you just are not going to dive like me. What has been interesting though is when it would finally dawn on my husband, sadly though only when he was stubbon and ended up stuck as I had predicted or finally recognized something "after" it had gone on too long.

shakespeare47 · Oct 31, 2014, 12:59 PM

Here's more info about Cluster B PD's....

Quote:

BPD, NPD and other Cluster B PDs

People who suffer from Cluster B personality disorders have many things in common:
•Most of them are insistent (except those suffering from the schizoid or the avoidant personality disorders). They demand treatment on a preferential and privileged basis. They complain about numerous symptoms. They never obey the physician or his treatment recommendations and instructions.
•They regard themselves as unique, display a streak of grandiosity and a diminished capacity for empathy (the ability to appreciate and respect the needs and wishes of other people). They regard the physician as inferior to them, alienate him using umpteen techniques and bore him with their never-ending self-preoccupation.
•They are manipulative and exploitative because they trust no one and usually cannot love or share. They are socially maladaptive and emotionally unstable.
•Most personality disorders start out as problems in personal development which peak during adolescence and then become personality disorders. They stay on as enduring qualities of the individual. Personality disorders are stable and all-pervasive – not episodic. They affect most of the areas of functioning of the patient: his career, his interpersonal relationships, his social functioning.
•The person suffering a PD is not happy. He is depressed, suffers from auxiliary mood, affective and anxiety disorders. He does not like himself, his character, his (deficient) functioning, or his (crippling) influence on others. But his defenses are so strong, that he is, usually, dimly aware only of the distress – and not of its reasons to it.
•The patient with a Personality Disorder is vulnerable to and prone to suffer from a host of other psychiatric disturbances. It is as though his psychological immune system has been disabled by the Personality Disorder and he is left prey to other variants of mental sickness. So much energy is consumed by the Disorder and by its corollaries (example: by obsessions-compulsions), that the patient is rendered defenseless.
•Patients with Personality Disorders are alloplastic in their defenses. In other words: they would tend to blame the external world for their mishaps. In stressful situations, they try to preempt a (real or imaginary) threat, change the rules of the game, introduce new variables, or otherwise influence the external world to conform to their needs. This is as opposed to autoplastic defenses exhibited, for instance, by neurotics (who change their internal psychological processes in stressful situations).
•The character problems, behavioral deficits and emotional deficiencies and instability encountered by the patient with a personality disorder are, mostly, ego-syntonic. This means that the patient does not find his personality traits or behavior objectionable, unacceptable, disagreeable, or alien to his self. As opposed to that, neurotics are ego-dystonic: they do not like what they are and how they behave.
•The personality-disordered are not psychotic. They have no hallucinations, delusions or thought disorders (except those who suffer from a Borderline Personality Disorder and who experience brief psychotic "micro-episodes", mostly during treatment).
They are also fully oriented, with clear senses (sensorium), good memory and general fund of knowledge and are, in all-important respects, "normal".

The Diagnostics and Statistics Manual (DSM) – IV (1994) defines "personality" as:

"...Enduring patterns of perceiving, relating to, and thinking about the environment and oneself... exhibited in a wide range of important social and personal contexts."

It defines personality disorders as:

“A. An enduring pattern of inner experience and behaviour that deviates markedly from the expectations of the individual's culture. This pattern is manifested in two (or more) of the following areas:

a. Cognition (i.e., ways of perceiving and interpreting self, other people, and events);
b. Affectivity (i.e., the range, intensity, lability, and appropriateness of emotional response);
c. Interpersonal functioning;
d. Impulse control.

B. The enduring pattern is inflexible and pervasive across a broad range of personal and social situations.

C. The enduring pattern leads to clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.

D. The pattern is stable and of long duration, and its onset can be traced back at least to adolescence or early adulthood.

E. The enduring pattern is not better accounted for as a manifestation or consequence of another mental disorder.

F. The enduring pattern is not due to the direct physiological effects of a substance (e.g., a drug abuse, a medication) or a general medical condition (e.g., head trauma).”

I think that each PD has its own form of narcissistic supply:
•HPD (Histrionic PD) – Sex, seduction, flirtation, romance, body
•NPD (Narcissistic PD) – Adulation, admiration
•BPD (Borderline PD) – Presence (they are terrified of abandonment)
•AsPD (Antisocial PD) – Money, power, control, fun

To my mind, BPDs, for instance, are NPDs who are scared of being abandoned. They know that if they hurt people, the latter might abandon them. So, they are very careful. They DO care deeply about not hurting others – but this is a selfish motivation: they don't want to lose those others, they are dependent on them. If you are a drug addict, you are not likely to pick up a fight with your pusher. BPDs also have deficient impulse control and emotional lability, as do AsPDs.

Each PD has its own "story", a "narrative". The way to healing is replete with the ostracons of these narratives. To heal, a PD MUST break through his or her narrative and OUT into the world and to assume personal responsibility.

All PDs engage in scapegoating and bag-punching. Their parents, abusers, the world, God, or history are responsible for what they are and what we do DECADES after the original abuse. Research shows that the brain is more plastic than many thought it to be. One can CHOOSE to heal. If one doesn't – it is because there is gain in infirmity.

Scapegoating...
That's a scary thought... I do tend to blame my current behaviors on things that happened decades ago.

Perhaps it is truly time I stopped.

Angelique67 · Oct 31, 2014, 01:17 PM

That reinforces the notion that PD people are bad people if we don't "choose to heal". I don't even think it is a choice. I think that's bs.

Atypical_Disaster · Oct 31, 2014, 01:21 PM

Considering the source of this information, shakespeare47, I find it impossible to take any of it all that seriously. Lol.

Mattmx · Oct 31, 2014, 01:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shakespeare47

Sure. you've already said as much. I'll be sure to give your comments and suggestions all the consideration they deserve.

You may want to education yourself on the fact that NPD and BPD are just 2 possible diagnoses on a continuum.

still not getting it lol diagnoses arent real theyre theory

shakespeare47 · Oct 31, 2014, 01:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Atypical_Disaster

Considering the source of this information, shakespeare47, I find it impossible to take any of it all that seriously. Lol.

all right... so which information are you talking about?

And why are you so certain it's worthy of a lol?

Atypical_Disaster · Oct 31, 2014, 01:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shakespeare47

all right... so which information are you talking about?

And why are you so certain it's worthy of a lol?

I just don't like Sam Vaknin, I read his articles when I need a laugh. I read the whole article you posted a link to, and he's really spreading stigma and misinformation about personality disorders.

shakespeare47 · Oct 31, 2014, 01:34 PM

All right.. I agree. Sam Vankin may not be the most reliable source of information about NPD.

shakespeare47 · Oct 31, 2014, 01:36 PM

What did you think about the other article... then one published in the peer reviewed Journal of American Psychiatry?

Atypical_Disaster · Oct 31, 2014, 01:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shakespeare47

What did you think about the other article... then one published in the peer reviewed Journal of American Psychiatry?

Would you mind giving me the link again? I'm not sure which one you're talking about because you've posted quite a few articles. I'll happily let you know what I think though!

shakespeare47 · 03:08 PM

Here's a more reliable source of information about the Cluster B's..

Quote:

DSM-5: The Ten Personality Disorders: Cluster B
Simone Hoermann, Ph.D., Corinne E. Zupanick, Psy.D. & Mark Dombeck, Ph.D.

Cluster B is called the dramatic, emotional, and erratic cluster. It includes Borderline Personality Disorder, Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Histrionic Personality Disorder, and Antisocial Personality Disorder. Disorders in this cluster share problems with impulse control and emotional regulation.

The Antisocial Personality Disorder* is characterized by a pervasive pattern of disregard for the rights of other people that often manifests as hostility and/or aggression. Deceit and manipulation are also central features. In many cases hostile-aggressive and deceitful behaviors may first appear during childhood. These children may hurt or torment animals or people. They may engage in hostile acts such as bullying or intimidating others. They may have a reckless disregard for property such as setting fires. They often engage in deceit, theft, and other serious violations of standard rules of conduct. When this is the case, Conduct Disorder (a juvenile form of Antisocial Personality Disorder) may be an appropriate diagnosis. Conduct Disorder is often considered the precursor to an Antisocial Personality Disorder.

In addition to reckless disregard for others, they often place themselves in dangerous or risky situations. They frequently act on impulsive urges without considering the consequences. This difficulty with impulse control results in loss of employment, accidents, legal difficulties, and incarceration. Persons with Antisocial Personality Disorder typically do not experience genuine remorse for the harm they cause others. However, they can become quite adept at feigning remorse when it is in their best interest to do so (such as when standing before a judge). They take little to no responsibility for their actions. In fact, they will often blame their victims for "causing" their wrong actions, or deserving of their fate. The aggressive features of this personality disorder make it stand out among other personality disorders as individuals with this disorder take a unique toll on society.

Persons with Histrionic Personality Disorder* are characterized by a pattern of excessive emotionality and attention seeking. Their lives are full of drama (so-called "drama queens"). They are uncomfortable in situations where they are not the center of attention. People with this disorder are often quite flirtatious or seductive, and like to dress in a manner that draws attention to them. They can be flamboyant and theatrical, exhibiting an exaggerated degree of emotional expression. Yet simultaneously, their emotional expression is vague, shallow, and lacking in detail. This gives them the appearance of being disingenuous and insincere. Moreover, the drama and exaggerated emotional expression often embarrasses friends and acquaintances as they may embrace even casual acquaintances with excessive ardor, or may sob uncontrollably over some minor sentimentality.

People with Histrionic Personality Disorder can appear flighty and fickle. Their behavioral style often gets in the way of truly intimate relationships, but it is also the case that they are uncomfortable being alone. They tend to feel depressed when they are not the center of attention. When they are in relationships, they often imagine relationships to be more intimate in nature than they actually are. People with Histrionic Personality Disorder tend to be suggestible; that is, they are easily influenced by other people's suggestions and opinions. A literary character that exemplifies the Histrionic Personality Disorder is the character of Blanche DuBois in Tennessee William's classic play, "Streetcar Named Desire."

People with Narcissistic Personality Disorder* have significant problems with their sense of self-worth stemming from a powerful sense of entitlement. This leads them to believe they deserve special treatment, and to assume they have special powers, are uniquely talented, or that they are especially brilliant or attractive. Their sense of entitlement can lead them to act in ways that fundamentally disregard and disrespect the worth of those around them.

People with Narcissistic Personality Disorder are preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success and power, so much so that they might end up getting lost in their daydreams while they fantasize about their superior intelligence or stunning beauty. These people can get so caught up in their fantasies that they don't put any effort into their daily life and don't direct their energies toward accomplishing their goals. They may believe that they are special and deserve special treatment, and may display an attitude that is arrogant and haughty. This can create a lot of conflict with other people who feel exploited and who dislike being treated in a condescending fashion. People with Narcissistic Personality Disorder often feel devastated when they realize that they have normal, average human limitations; that they are not as special as they think, or that others don't admire them as much as they would like. These realizations are often accompanied by feelings of intense anger or shame that they sometimes take out on other people. Their need to be powerful, and admired, coupled with a lack of empathy for others, makes for conflictual relationships that are often superficial and devoid of real intimacy and caring.

Status is very important to people with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Associating with famous and special people provides them a sense of importance. These individuals can quickly shift from over-idealizing others to devaluing them. However, the same is true of their self-judgments. They tend to vacillate between feeling like they have unlimited abilities, and then feeling deflated, worthless, and devastated when they encounter their normal, average human limitations. Despite their bravado, people with Narcissistic Personality Disorder require a lot of admiration from other people in order to bolster their own fragile self-esteem. They can be quite manipulative in extracting the necessary attention from those people around them.
Borderline Personality Disorder* is one of the most widely studied personality disorders. People with Borderline Personality Disorder tend to experience intense and unstable emotions and moods that can shift fairly quickly. They generally have a hard time calming down once they have become upset. As a result, they frequently have angry outbursts and engage in impulsive behaviors such as substance abuse, risky sexual liaisons, self-injury, overspending, or binge eating. These behaviors often function to sooth them in the short-term, but harm them in the longer term.

People with Borderline Personality Disorder tend to see the world in polarized, over-simplified, all-or-nothing terms. They apply their harsh either/or judgments to others and to themselves and their perceptions of themselves and others may quickly vacillate back and forth between "all good" and "all bad." This tendency leads to an unstable sense of self, so that persons with this disorder tend to have a hard time being consistent. They can frequently change careers, relationships, life goals, or residences. Quite often these radical changes occur without any warning or advance preparation.

People with Borderline Personality Disorder tend to view the world in terms of black-and-white, or all-or-nothing thinking. Their tendency to see the world in black-or-white (polarized) terms makes it easy for them to misinterpret the actions and motivations of others. These polarized thoughts about their relationships with others lead them to experience intense emotional reactions, which in turn interacts with their difficulties in regulating these intense emotions. The result is that they will characteristically experience great distress which they cannot easily control and may subsequently engage in self-destructive behaviors as they do their best to cope. The intensity of their emotions, coupled with their difficulty regulating these emotions, leads them to act impulsively.

To illustrate the way black-and-white thinking, emotional dys-regulation, and poor impulse regulation all merge and culminate to create interpersonal conflict and distress, let's use an example. Suppose the partner of a woman with Borderline Personality Disorder fails to remember their anniversary. Black-and-white thinking causes her to conclude, "He doesn't love me anymore" and all-or-nothing thinking leads her to (falsely) conclude, "If he does not love me, then he must hate me." Such thoughts would easily lead to some pretty intense emotions, such as feeling rejected, abandoned, sad, and angry. She has a hard time tolerating and dealing with these intense feelings and consequently becomes highly upset and overwhelmed. The intensity of her negative feelings seems unbearable. Next she has a powerful impulse to "do something" just so that these feelings will go away. She might angrily accuse her partner of having an affair and she might plead with her partner not to leave her.

Meanwhile her partner is baffled by this extreme reaction, particularly since he is not having an affair, and he readily recalls all his other recent loving gestures. Her partner might also become angry at these wild accusations of infidelity and so the conflict escalates and things get more intense. Alone after the fight, the woman feels overwhelming self-loathing or numbness and goes on to intentionally injure herself (by cutting or burning herself) as a way to cope with her numbness. When her partner learns about this self-harm behavior he can't understand it and concludes he is being manipulated. He expresses his strong concern for her well-being but also his anger. In turn, she feels misunderstood. Clearly, the Borderline Personality Disorder with its combination of distorted thought patterns, intense and under-regulated emotions, and poor impulse control is practically designed to wreak havoc on any interpersonal relationship.

*It is important to remember that everyone can exhibit some of these personality traits from time to time. To meet the diagnostic requirement of a personality disorder, these traits must be inflexible; i.e., they can be regularly observed without regard to time, place, or circumstance. Furthermore, these traits must cause functional impairment and/or subjective distress. Functional impairment means these traits interfere with a person's ability to functional well in society. The symptoms cause problems in interpersonal relationships; or at work, school, or home. Subjective distress means the person with a personality disorder may experience their symptoms as unwanted, harmful, painful, embarrassing, or otherwise cause them distress. The above list only briefly summarizes these individual Cluster B personality disorders. Richer, more detailed descriptions of these disorders are found in the section describing the four core features of personality disorders

shakespeare47 · Oct 31, 2014, 01:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Atypical_Disaster

Would you mind giving me the link again? I'm not sure which one you're talking about because you've posted quite a few articles. I'll happily let you know what I think though!

this one..

it's just the abstract.. but it mentions the BPD NPD continuum.

Open Eyes · 04:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Underground

Ok so now we can officially be friends. We have come to an understanding of one another. You see this place does help one another when it's done with alike intentions. Btw I already knew you like my humor, how could you not??

LOL, yes I do delight, I always like good humor when it is not being destructive. There is always going to be that part of me that witnessed the horrors of how making fun mean did a great deal of harm to a little boy with ADHD that was punished for something he could not help. I was his "only" friend, and he was not a bad little boy either. He had no where else to go in his mind but rage at times, but I saw "why" in a way that no one else did and it always amazed me how long he could take it until the rage would have to come out. Well, then it was time for OE to run and I never blamed him for that, not after what I saw that made that happen.

Hmm, he ended up making more money than all those who made him hurt too (including the teacher that hit him with rulers all the time and told him he was so stupid that school was a waste of time for him). So, you see I understand more than you realize, even a certain humor that can take place in that kind of mind too.

Atypical_Disaster · Oct 31, 2014, 01:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shakespeare47

this one..

it's just the abstract.. but it mentions the BPD NPD continuum.

Ah yeah, I've heard about that theory about BPD and NPD being on a continuum. I think there may be something to that in a way, but there's still a lot more research that needs to go into that before that theory can be finalized in any way.

shakespeare47 · Oct 31, 2014, 02:01 PM

I can definitely relate to this... "vacillate between feeling like they have unlimited abilities, and then feeling deflated, worthless, and devastated when they encounter their normal, average human limitations"

Open Eyes · Oct 31, 2014, 04:40 PM

That is also present in ADHD too, shakesphere, I know it oh so well.

What you need to recognize is that the list that you refer to is a list a lot of people can relate to on some level. It becomes a "disorder" when there is "too much" of these different charectoristics that take place. Or several of them that are on an extreme to where NP"disorder" takes shape or is present. When a professional says to a patient that he/she has some "Narcissist Traits" perhaps "one or two" of these might be present, but that doesn't always mean something is bad or that an individual meets the "disordered" criteria.

Also, if someone has a learning disability, that person can develop some "Narcissistic Traits" to compensate for being challenged in some way, however, it doesn't always mean NPD, it is a coping mechanism and there have been individuals that learned to achieve a great deal because of how they developed certain "Narcissistic Traits". It is also that same individual that will say, "change can be good" too.

FooZe · Oct 31, 2014, 04:49 PM

We're going to close this thread. Please refrain from diagnosing each other or debating what diagnoses each other does or doesn't qualify for.

Also, our Community Guidelines don't allow personal attacks, whether intended ironically or otherwise.

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