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.

More of NPDrecovery materials are coming, but... I may need your help

Hello, everyone! Thank you for reading and for coming back to this blog. It means the world to me that there are people who appreciate what I am doing and make sure to let me know via comments, subscriptions, etc. You are a BIG part of this project and I just want to let you know I am sincerely grateful to each and every one of you.

I have had some technical setbacks that prevented me from sharing all the material I wanted to share this last few months, and

I am perilously close to my set "deadline" for the book - that would be reaching 2000 subscribers on my youtube channel (thank you all for your support). So I am officially FREAKING OUT! :D

The situation is compounded by the sad truth that I am totally broke at the moment and barely have enough money to pay my rent and eat - and I do mean barely... SO when I need to invest in a camera so I can produce more videos for my channel, or when I need to have my laptop's keyboard repaired, I get stuck, often for weeks or months because I simply do not have enough resources to get those things done in a fare amount of time.

So, if the materials I put forward so far have been of help to you (as many of my viewers and readers indicate) I am asking you to please consider a small donation to help the project along.

It is only fare if you can not bring yourself to contribute - each of us have our different circumstances and I would be the first one to understand, given where I am :) but if you are in a position to help, know that many more people would benefit through your good will, as I am going to be able to produce more content that would help everyone who is looking for the information on the disorder and the process of recovery.

You can find a "Donate" button on the right side of the page, right under the Google+ icon.

THANK YOU for reading and for visiting this site.

Best wishes to you!

P.S. I am furiously working on the book, using a friend's laptop for now (when he doesn't need it) - so expect the "product" of my strive to come out some time very soon! :)

Beginning of recovery - my own experience.

I've been thinking about a question that most of my viewers/readers ask me : "How did your own recovery begin?" Prior to this moment I haven't been up to discussing that because it opens up another, even more personal layer of my life. However, my desire to find and share the truth has been my saving grace so far and so I am going to continue. I will describe exactly what happened to me and in doing so, hopefully, point to a way out of seemingly never-ending cycle of pain that is Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

The biggest clue I have been able to find is the source of identity and the way it relates to their "true self." Now this must be very confusing for many people (I know it was for me) and dreadful as it is, I am going to tackle explaining this the best I can.

Many people identify with the predominant "voice" in their head  - the constant stream of thoughts, judgments, anticipations, worries and references to the past in an attempt to determine the future - as their main source of knowing who they are. Some go so far as to completely identify with that "voice" and treat it as the only source of credible information about themselves and the world. Everyone is familiar with that part of their existence, but there are people who completely equate themselves with the voice and do not let even the moment of quiet, direct experience of the world to come through unobstructed by their "analysis." In a case of Narcissist, there is a very definite reason for this guarded, inflexible, fear-based attitude, and in my view it lies at the very core of the disorder.

Now, lets examine where does this so-called "voice" come from? Omitting all of the professional jargon that does more to confuse than to explain :) I will venture out and say that it internalized rules, views and ideas of our parents and/or other significant caregivers as well as societal norms and ideas we have been raised to adsorb has much to do with the content of our inner "talk." It looks like we have first grown accustomed to and then "appropriated" the same ideas and underlying emotional tone of the people ans circumstances that had played a significant role during our childhoods. Think that is a little far-fetched? See if you catch yourself unawares when you are running a familiar "script" in your mind when you are reacting to a particular person or situation, or even to your own behavior. Then try and put the last few words you can remember on a piece of paper. Look at the words with as impartial attitude as you can manage - where do they seem to come from? Are they as loving, friendly or even truthful as you would want them to be if they came from your real self? (A little "test" that someone mentioned in a self-help Q&A and that stuck in my mind was to take your typical verbalized criticism of yourself and imagine you were talking to your best friend that way. Are you horrified? Is that kind of talk is absolutely out of the question? Than why are you treating yourself that way?) And more to the point of our earlier hypotheses: "who is talking down to you in those moments?"

For myself, epiphany struck when I finally realized I kept criticizing myself and treating myself exactly the way my abusive Narcissistic mother did, down to seething contempt of my real feelings, and persistent neglect of my physical and emotional needs - and this is decades after I have left my parental family's household. I unconsciously continued the same script to run, perpetuating the abuse and sense of profound sadness and despair that I felt growing up.

Horrifying as it was, this wasn't the main point that struck me in that discovery, although, of course, it was crucial. Even deeper point was "If the voice who is doing the abuse is against me, then WHO IS "ME?" Now, from an intellectual point of view this strange question may seem quite bizarre or even ridiculous, but if you go with the moment and try to imagine what I was going through, then perhaps you will see it - I clearly had completely relinquished a big part of myself, and so completely identified with the punishing voice in my head, taking its view of the world as a total, complete and unwavering reality, that I hadn't even been aware another part of myself existed! Talk about being deformed - I hadn't even been allowing any of my true needs or feelings to surface - so beaten down and unworthy I had been judging that part of myself to be! I was utterly shocked when it first came to me. Then I start feeling so much compassion for a little sweet child that had to go through years of emotional starvation, feeling unacknowledged and lost. No wonder I had been feeling hopelessly depressed and so awkward, ill-fitted for society and for life itself.

I had been wounded, betrayed, stifled in my growth and sacrificed on the altar of my Mother's immense ego, and worse of all I have been perpetuating the abuse by believing in what my mother told me, by still holding her standards and her ideas as basic rules of how to relate to myself and how to live my life. I had to at once acknowledge and apologize to that little trusting, vulnerable part of myself that endured so many years of maltreatment. And at that moment I felt like I had found something worth finding, something very important and real, something that held a key to a better existence.

This story can perhaps illustrate an idea I have been meaning to share: much of our suffering comes from a misidentification- a misalignment with the voice (internalized, perpetuated experience) of our abusive past that we take to be more valid and real than our neglected core self. As long as we are unaware that the other part of us is still suffering, starved for energy and care, we will continue to lash out at ourselves and others, driving hard in a never-ending strive for greater control, more ardent approval, bigger achievements and so on, wondering why does it feel like our life had lost its meaning long ago.

To begin a journey back, we need not add anything to ourselves - we have to take away,  we must tame that abusive voice within us in order to feel who we really are.

Narcissism - getting out of fantasy word...

It has been a while since I wrote any "personal experience" posts, and there is a reason for it  - some of these personal growth experiences are so hard not only to go through but also make sense of- your established mind patterns do not really want to give up so easily, and that almost always results in a kind of "mental block" or confusion and "fog" that some of my readers also describe. Good news - we are aware of it. Bad news - we have no idea how to make sense of things that just don't :)

The reason I am writing all this is that today I had kind of an interesting break through and, in a way, it has to do with getting around established mental patterns. As many of this kind  of experiences, this one happened in the morning, while I was still lounging somewhere in between dream world and "reality" but my mind was already starting to run its usual script. It had to do with what would happen if I had control and opportunity to affect the world in more direct way (if you ever looked at NPD diagnosis criteria,, then you know that preoccupation with fantasies of success, power etc. is one of those) and then something unexpected happened... Right in  the middle of the tirade about how I'd fix everything if only I, and not some bunch of idiots and thieves were in charge (heh) another line of thinking had come in and basically asserted  that I have no business wasting my morning  hours fantasizing about stuff that sure is not going to happened and that it was just a plot to divert my attention and avoid the messy task of paying attention to my real self and my real life and what really needed to be done. Immediately after realizing that "message" I felt a physical sensation of what could only be described as satisfaction deep inside my body, and I have to say that I, like many affected people, struggle mightily with ever feeling connected to my body, let alone experiencing it in such a profound way.  I guess I am trying to let you guys know that most people who "live in their head" and so associate with their "upper", cultivated persona that they downright shun and neglect the imperfect, human part of themselves - those people would do well to try and develop a better relationship with their body - the physical side of their being, which should help them to integrate their "upper" knowledge into something more "real" and workable.

Of course, theoretically I knew all about that diagnosis criteria for a long time, and I even spoke and though about and analyzed it quite a bit. But never before did I experience real integration of that knowledge to the point of self-reflecting like that. 
I am sure that other factors were involved as well, but I am particularly excited and hopeful about being able to relate to my real self, my body included, and being able to receive that "feedback" and therefore establish what is "real" and healthy, taking care of the confusion and disconnect so many affected people have to deal with and try to overcome.

Another look on therapy for Narcissism

While conducting research for my book, I came across this interesting work on the subject:

http://www.processwork.org/files/Bill%20Say%20Narcissism%20final%202%20pdf.pdf

Although the "process work" part of it was a bit long-winded for me, the "introduction" part with various takes on the origin and internal experiences of Narcissism were mostly in accordance with what I sensed during my attempts at better understanding and recovery.

I hope it will be a useful and interesting source for some people who are also searching for the deeper truth beyond the prevalent "popular" take on the disorder.