Trust and Narcissistic personality.

Just a little note before I start on the main topic: through the research I am doing for my book I found that in reality Narcissistic, Borderline and even Antisocial disorder have the same key core components, but the outwardly expressions of the states those components create differ in quality and in a degree of strength.

For example, after going through a lot of studies, clinical data, scientific articles, journal entries of individuals with a confirmed diagnoses and also taking into account my own personal experience, I can conclude that the basis for Narcissistic, Borderline and even Antisocial personality disorder is an overwhelming, out-of-control sense of FEAR, or better TERROR which we also can define as the absence of trust. While Borderline individual will cope with this by begging and clinging and doing everything possible to avoid a sense of separation from an individual who they count as significant (while at the same time exposing that individual to such strong bouts of rage that can only be perceived as hate by the unfortunate recipient), Narcissistic personality will cope by erecting the wall of false persona to hide behind and sometimes by emotionally manipulating and seeking excessive signs of approval in order to feel more affirmed and protected, and Antisocial personality will deal with the overwhelming sense of horror by completely disassociating from the whole spectre of emotions, by presuming everyone in the whole world is psychologically organized the same way they are therefore expecting the worse, and sometimes by ignoring or even seeking out obviously dangerous situations as in equal measure a stimuli and a relief, as they will never compare to the inner world of silent horror the individual is forced to occupy.

This, of course, brings us to the main topic of this entry. Keeping in mind the request of my brave readers who suspect they bear many traits of Narcissistic Personality Disorder and would like to remedy the situation as best they can to share my thought on what particular steps could be taken, I am happy to share that I do indeed have another concrete piece of advice (btw, I also put it on my personal agenda, and if there will be anything useful to say I will share my experience in the later entries.)

So the advice is quite simple (but only in form of a phrase, not as an action :) ): consciously train yourself to trust more. If you notice, I did put in a few particulars: I didn't simply say "trust more" or even "learn to trust more" as it would imply a simplistic, as well as a somewhat too finite quality of the process. As I said before, as an action it is not as easy as simply hearing and intellectually processing the advice. Somewhere deep inside of you there is an imprint of a certain state and/or situation or perhaps (and more likely) a whole succession of situations and connected to them emotional states, that convinced you that the world and/or the people inside the world are inherently unsafe and can not be trusted. You lived with this internal "setting" for some time, and in some cases it served you really well, so there is a very slim chance that your unconscious (or even conscious :) ) side will agree to part with that deep inner perception easily.

Here is the dreaded (yet almost unavoidable) cliche: training yourself how to trust is a process. You are almost definitely going to experience bewilderment and a feeling that you do not even know that you do not know (typical for almost any kind of real learning), then frustration at the pace of the progress, and the fact that most people have no idea what you are going through (not all that new for people with NPD) and then also setbacks, wanting to forget it and give in and just hold on to what is familiar and also that (personally dreaded by me) sense of not having clear, sensible reason for going through all that mess, as we never even experienced the feeling and states of greater integration and true intimacy that supposedly should serve as a stimuli, an end goal and a "prize."

And no one but you will ever know what exact choices you should make to ever reach that goal, as you could only see the pointers from withing, yet, of course, some of us are not accustomed to feeling what is going on inside of us so well, and so we are bound to make a few wrong turns (if not go in circles) more than a few times.

Well, I do not blame you if all of this does not sound too appealing. :)

I, personally, decided to give it a go. Here I will share some of what I concluded, though I do want to say that I suspect this type of work varies a lot from person to person and I would sincerely encourage you to look within and decided how YOU going to go about it and what goals and priorities you as an individual will bring to this process.

So, for myself I think it is worth it to start by acknowledging that part of me that withstanded all the immense trauma I had to go through and still is protecting me in a way that is somewhat effective. I admire its loyalty, its will to endure and its honesty in a face of hostile circumstances.

Then I recognize that despite my still feeling like that wounded little child inside my outer circumstances have changed dramatically and that there is no reason for me to keep feeling like that right now.

Then I personally start working on my view of the whole world, not the specific person or situation that perhaps generated that reaction in the first place. In my opinion, when we go through a seriously traumatizing situation, our inner perception of the whole world as a (formerly) secure and friendly place changes - we feel betrayed not only (and perhaps not as much) by person as by our entire means of existence, our greater environment. For me personally it seems like it is the most significant, and perhaps the most difficult bond to repair.

So I started with my inner relationship with the world as a whole, and perhaps more importantly with the force, the main idea and the deepest meaning (for the lack of a better, more dynamic expression) of this existence and my life within it. I am not sure whether I am making myself clear, and perhaps I will edit this (out?) later, but those experiences are beyond words and so are often difficult to put in the inflexible frames of verbal expression.

All I can offer at the moment that I concluded that nature of our human existence is in unison with any other form of nature that we see: it is to grow and to strive and often in a very unkind if not downright brutal circumstance that we are challenged to survive or to yield to someone whose will to survive is stronger. In Eastern philosophical and spiritual traditions God is often depicted as someone who created the entire Universe to, in effect, entertain him- or herself, or, perhaps, to experience himself (or herself) in a capacity that is more controversial and polarized than his (her) usual all-encompassing, almighty and homogeneous state. :) It is a very cute theory, no? I always liked it and often came back to it in my mind. So it is if she (or he) just made a puzzle out of her (his) own existence.

What I am trying to say is that perhaps we should presume that a state where we are missing something is actually a norm within the circumstance we live in, and then a strive through a (sometimes overwhelming) difficulty is still an innate process and that by this means we are learning, growing and experiencing our ever-changing qualities. And though we do not always see meaning of this through our Ego-limited view, in a greater, infinitely more fluent, powerful scheme of things, a part of which we still embody, the strives and the challenges we are going through make a lot of sense.

All of this elaborate thought-structure was created to get around the fact that defenseless little creatures like children or kind, trusting people are often brutalized and traumatized in this strange world we all live in. If we were to learn to trust it, we must make a conscious choice to trust it despite the obvious inconvenience we have experienced before. And the more consciousness, good will and willingness to give up our little-minded Ego views we bring to the proces, the better the chances of us thriving. Of course, for some this whole assertion will not make any sense, and I have been there and thus perfectly understand them. However, this is what I personally "unearthed" when I decided to dig up my mistrust, my hurts and insecurities, and I could honestly say this brought the whole new quality to my perception of this world.

P.S. There will be a continuation of this topic. Please forgive me if this post reads a little uneven. I am going through a very painful situation and today I decided to write despite feeling more than a little upset :) (that is because if I was waiting until I feel fine I may never write a post :) ) Anyway, I will have more to share on this and a similar topic and so I am looking forward to seeing you soon!

Please share this post to raise awareness of Narcissism and its effects on relationships.
Thank you!

Healthy vs. wounded part of self

Recently I was fortunate to work with a wise and sharp-minded therapist.

Among other things, she has drawn my attention to this quality of a human mind/personality:
practically all of us had an experience when we felt perfectly comfortable with ourselves and our actions, and felt strong and competent. The context for this assertion was that most people coming to therapy expect to work on their childhood experiences, wounds and the deep-held believes that were, for the most part, results of those wounds. I, too, came to therapy with that notion, and in all honesty I still believe that a lot of our present problems do depend on our experiences as children. This therapist, however, did not share this believe and in fact she told me that she downright denies her clients' frequent requests to work with their childhood wounds.

And this is the part that picked my interest: she stated that in her view every human being has what she called a 'healthy personality' and also a 'wounded personality', and all of us at one point or another used one of those as a platform for our actions, or, as she put it 'leaned' on it.

Now, I see no need to 'split' out internal world on two separate personalities :) and I would say instead that we all have separate 'sets' of certain states, beliefs, emotional, mental and behavioral patterns that we had accumulated at different stages of our lives, and that sometimes one of those 'sets' gets activated at the 'expense' of the other.

For example: you have agreed to meet your friend, came to a place of a meeting and have waited for her for a long time. She is obviously late and haven't called. You have a couple of different ways to react:
You may get frustrated and angry, feel disrespected by her lack of communication and storm out of that place, promising yourself to ignore any of her future attempts to connect.

Or perhaps you would feel worried, or sad and alone; or may be you would just assume she had her reasons for behaving that way and wait until you have more information to react.

Of course it is not hard to notice that one of these possibilities sounds a lot healthier and more balanced than others. Human beings can react in variety of ways. My therapist asserted that all of us choose healthy behaviors at times. The trick, she said, is to 'lean' on the healthy part as much as you can and put less attention on the wounded part. I liked that idea for its optimism, though, as I said, I personally still believe in the necessity of working with our childhood hurts.

A few days later I had an opportunity to test my therapist's idea in action. A friend of mine who I came to rely on had suddenly proved less trustworthy a few times on the row. The 'offenses' were relatively minor, but I, with my tendency to blow everything that has to do with my persona :) out of proportion, was cycling in my usual "she has betrayed me therefore she must be cut off from my life" mental rut, and then I suddenly 'heard' another part of me say: "Well, she trusted you enough to invite you to her house and let you sleep in her place, and she cared enough to be there when you were sick and lonely, so clearly she loves you and cares about you and deserves your trust and good will as well."

May be it is the usual thing for most people, but let me tell you, nothing of the sort has EVER happened in my mind. Nearly all of my interactions are organized around immediate benefits that I can get out of people, and I manage my connections very tightly exactly from the perspective of the most precise and beneficial gain. It is awful, but this is honestly how my mind operates and my life goes... The time that I do not spend persuading, managing and/or manipulating someone directly, I spend pretending that I care and showing off my good thoughts and deeds in hopes of giving the people enough reasons to give what I need in return. :/

Getting back to the main thought: I guess the idea that there is another, healthier part of my mind, of which I simply haven't made much use, had somehow stayed with me and later got 'highlighted' in such an unusual way. :) I am very pleased with the result and so I share it with you guys on hopes it can be of help.

 I was able to honestly more deeply relate to my friend that night, be genuinely grateful, connect and forgive her meager slip ups.

If I didn't have that little 'breakthrough' I would probably have to talk myself into not cutting off yet another connection because I still might need that person's help in the future or simply going with my darker feelings and ignoring her... :/

Yes, this is how sad and barren NPD-affected individual's interpersonal relationships really are... BUT there is hope, and I invite everyone who is looking for solution and reading this right now to try and imagine, or better yet, connect with a healthier part of their Self. Perhaps it would help to remember times when you felt more real and connected to yourself and others as a result of a different choice of pattern in thought and/or behavior.

From my experience I can tell you that being in your 'healthy' state feels like you are in touch with your body, energized, stronger, more connected to the present moment and your surroundings.
The physical sensation is unmistakable in a sense that you know you are right where you supposed to be.

I hope this can point you to the place where you too can find an authentic and empowering connection with yourself and others.

One new (somewhat unexpected) skill to learn while getting over Narcissistic Personality DIsorder

I was going over some material related to NPD and found one interesting thought (I am hesitant to quote because this particular excerpt is in Russian, and it is rather long and academical which makes it difficult to translate...) Anyway - the main idea is that a person with Narcissistic Personality disorder possesses a false sense of their own importance and entitlement, as well as a tendency to mistrust and (here is the interesting part) therefore finds it difficult to ask for what they need directly. I am assuming that is because they feel like people around them should realize what is it that they need and put that agenda front and center. In addition to that, some of their deeper emotional needs, are intimidating, as they make an NPD sufferer feel extremely vulnerable and confused. It's a, small wonder than that a Narcissist avoids discussing their needs directly, hoping and fantasising about a special time and persons who would be able to figure it all out.

Of course, in real life such "ideal" state of things is hardly possible, yet Narcissists find it extremely challenging, even humiliating to come out and say out loud what is it that they are requesting. NPD-affected people routinely resort to manipulation, lies, all sorts of tricks in order to bring about fulfilment of their supposed needs and goals without having to ask and therefore expose themselves (and their fragile pseudo-egos) to the risk of being denied (read humiliated.)

I found this view both fresh and helpful. It certainly rings true for me. I immediately concluded that I should challenge myself more to talk about my needs and feelings in the open and therefore expose myself to a natural outcome, rather than trying to plan, scheme and control my way into a guaranteed result regardless of the needs and wishes of the other person.

On my channel's discussion boards and in private messages, I often get questions from people who recognise certain Narcissistic traits in themselves. The most common one is - how can I deal with it and make it less hard on myself and others? I feel like this is a rare chance for me to give a clear "prescription" - do challenge yourself to express more of your real needs, feelings and thoughts even if that means to expose yourself to less-than-desirable (immediate) outcomes. Because in the long run you clear out your own inner "backed up" mental and emotional debris - the ones prevent you from healthy relating to your own self and that of others.