What Is "narcissistic Abuse"?

[Deleted member 1860]

Narcissism is an identifiable disorder. I do NOT think that NORMAL self-care and putting ourselves first is considered narcissism! (This sort of sentiment ticks me off because I have known a number of narcissists.....was raised by one......and no, there is no such thing as "normal" or "acceptable" narcissism. That is, don't throw me in the same category with someone who is a true narcissist and tell me that taking care of my own personal needs is narcissism!

Yes, I do have my selfish moments, but they are NOT because I do not care about others. My mind sometimes gets wrapped around my own issues to the point that I forget that others are struggling with things, too. This doesn't make me a narcissist. I don't think I am better than anyone else, and I ALWAYS have concern for those around me, even if it isn't at the front of consciousness. Narcissists are completely different. Anyone who has ever been around a true narcissist knows the difference, and anyone who says its just a continuum from good narcissism to bad narcissism.....I'd say you've never met the bad ones as its a total mind f*ck to have them in your lives.

 

[Chava]

@Valentino My mom was likely bpd (CSA that she thought was no big deal but she was a total trainwreck). But the guilting, blaming others for her feelings, total need to submit and dissolve into her f*cked up personality....she in no way actually reminds me of a "narcissist"...she doesn't give a damn what she looks like or who admires her or even listens to her. She was simply triggered by her own family and was a raging nutcase sometimes.

So anyway, I can relate to "psychological abuse" in a general way but do we really all know when we're dealing with true "narcissists"? Maybe some of us do. I don't know how the terrorizing affects me but definitely helped me not have any useful sense of self. But I don't consider the psych abuse as trauma quite like the stuff that hurt my body. That's not to say it's not totally horrible in different ways. Anyway, whenever I hear "abuse" I imagine bodily harm because that's how it went for me, but I know the psych stuff can be subtle yet pervasive and very damaging. I also assume nobody can damage my psych because I don't let anyone that close...I'm too avoidant to even have a conflict with anyone (aside from someone I have to work with and go out of my way to not even make eye contact with). But that started somewhere too.

 

[Chava]

Narcissism is an identifiable disorder. I do NOT think that NORMAL self-care and putting ourselves first is considered narcissism!

I don't either. Did someone call you a narcissist for taking care of yourself? No, it's not true. But kind of reminds me of how the term seems overused.

 

[Valentino]

Based on the DSM criteria for BPD (borderline personality disorder) and NPD (narcissistic personality disorder), I find BPD's more dangerous and potentially abusive, compared to NPDs. NPD's are so self focused, and obviously driven towards grandiosity or attention seeking motivations, I would think that's easier to spot, and then all you have to do to avoid harm from an NPD is to just get out of their way.

BPDs seem to be more unpredictable, because they're described as more emotionally unstable, impulsive, unpredictable, reactive, etc. often leaving a path of broken and unstable relationship history.

So, often when I see people critically using the term narcissist, the behavior they are describing seems to match BPD more accurately.

Compare the differences between the DSM 5 criteria between BPD & NPD:

Borderline Personality Disorder
B. Pathological personality traits in the following domains:
1. Negative Affectivity, characterized by:
a. Emotional lability: Unstable emotional experiences and frequent mood changes; emotions that are easily aroused, intense, and/or out of proportion to events and circumstances.
b. Anxiousness: Intense feelings of nervousness, tenseness, or panic, often in reaction to interpersonal stresses; worry about the negative effects of past unpleasant experiences and future negative possibilities; feeling fearful, apprehensive, or threatened by uncertainty; fears of falling apart or losing control.
c. Separation insecurity: Fears of rejection by - and/or separation from - significant others, associated with fears of excessive dependency and complete loss of autonomy.
d. Depressivity: Frequent feelings of being down, miserable, and/or hopeless; difficulty recovering from such moods; pessimism about the future; pervasive shame; feeling of inferior self-worth; thoughts of suicide and suicidal behavior.

2. Disinhibition, characterized by:
a. Impulsivity: Acting on the spur of the moment in response to immediate stimuli; acting on a momentary basis without a plan or consideration of outcomes; difficulty establishing or following plans; a sense of urgency and self-harming behavior under emotional distress.
b. Risk taking: Engagement in dangerous, risky, and potentially self-damaging activities, unnecessarily and without regard to consequences; lack of concern for one's limitations and denial of the reality of personal danger.

3. Antagonism, characterized by:
a. Hostility: Persistent or frequent angry feelings; anger or irritability in response to minor slights and insults.
-source: Link Removed

and compare this with the DSM 5 criteria for Narcissistic Personality Disorder:

B. Pathological personality traits in the following domain:
Antagonism, characterized by:
a. Grandiosity: Feelings of entitlement, either overt or covert; self-centeredness; firmly holding to the belief that one is better than others; condescending toward others.
b. Attention seeking: Excessive attempts to attract and be the focus of the attention of others; admiration seeking.
-source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_personality_disorder

I didn't include Section A for both BPD & NPD because they're the same.. describing impairments in personality functioning, with issues in Identity, self-direction, empathy, or intimacy.

 

[Chava]

@Valentino , this makes sense. The few people I know who I think of as narcissists need everyone to love and admire them. They just think they are very special. Those who did real damage had what I thought were closer to bpd traits (creating lots of divisiveness, attacking people who inadvertently insulted their "all good" sense of themselves).

I relate to some of the emotional aspects of bpd but never had it on diagnostic testing. I asked my therapist again about it, or possibly avoidant personality, and she said my stuff just fits very well within perspective of complex trauma. That's not in the DSM obviously, but I wish they'd sort it out. I relate not-at-all to the antagonistic traits. And people can criticize or even insult me. I don't like it, but I don't seek revenge and I actually forget about it within less than an hour because I don't have energy to maintain that (the seemingly bpd coworker brings up serious grudges she has over things someone said to her a decade ago, like little things she perceived as lies when really consequences just changed the outcomes...and she's still attacking these people).

There is overlap between trauma and the various personality disorders, but while I suffered some very early trauma on top of some adult trauma, I do not have a diagnosable personality disorder Just an older diagnosis of PTSD, but that does not explain the symptoms I had for years before assault, or the range of trauma and symptoms (like some dissociation and lots of somatic issues). I even wish they'd sort out differences between cptsd that would be like hostage or sex slave scenario vs pervasive developmental trauma (with or without personality disorder...separate things). But I'm getting side-tracked...

I still don't totally understand the concept of "narcissistic abuse" but that's okay. Self-aggrandizement and attention-seeking were really looked down on in my family but I think we've certainly had psych abuse (likely related to long line of csa and borderline-type issues), but I never consider it part of my trauma...though a side challenge to my issues with sense of self and relationships.

 

[Neverthesame]

I knew a person once with a strong narcissistic streak. I made the mistake one day of casually observing that when she is driving, traffic lights turn yellow just as she approaches intersections. Ooh, she got mad. I then spent the next 10 minutes explaining how that was not a criticism of her driving ability. That I did not somehow believe that she had some sort of control over when the sodding lights change. All the while, trying to wipe the "are you f*cking serious?" look off my face.

Good times. Ha.

 

[Deleted member 27340]

where they have a pattern of gutting other people's sense of self. ?? Is this "trauma" or just psychologically damaging in other ways, like obviously messing with one's sense of self (which is common in trauma but in purely psych abuse maybe doesn't include the physical symptoms??).

Distorting other people's sense of self is common, frequently where the caregiver is rhe narcissist and the child the victim. Do a google search for "narcissistic mother", what you find might help you understand narcissistic abuse.

Narcissistic abuse can definitely be traumatic. When I'm triggered to remember things about my mother, I completely lose it. I once watched Orange is the new Black and a character called Crazy Eyes screamed EXACTLY like my mother used to do when she was losing her shit. When I heard it, I immediately screamed and kept screaming and sobbing while shaking and having delusions that my mother would come to my house and get me. I walked around the entire house and checked every window, closed every curtain and locked every door and for each window I approached or corner I walked around I could see my mother standing in front of me. I ended up calling a friend, after two hours of talking to him I finally fell asleep, and it took me two hours from it started to make that call. I screamed so much my voice was all messed up when I woke.

 

[Chava]

Crazy Eyes screamed EXACTLY like my mother used to do when she was losing her shit.

Yes, I relate to Crazy Eyes well. My mom was this in my waking hours and nightmares. She foamed at the mouth when screaming. Once when I ran away from her and hid on the other side of my bedroom door, wedged in against a wall, she busted the door behind my back (had she gotten in there would have been welts). In those moods I just wanted to avoid bodily threat. But the terrorizing itself was freaky. I don't relate it to my trauma, though don't doubt a connection to my feeling 'invisible" because that's how I was when she was like that...I was not visible to her and he was not even visible to herself (dissociated and horrid rage, I believe). But she was not a narcissist. Her emotions trumped all others, and they were intense, but she did not care to have any admirers. She was quite independent and didn't need extra attention or think of herself as anything special. We simply triggered her old shit and I was especially scapegoated for it (I did look up narcissistic mother...like 50 separate sub labels, wth??....I relate to concepts of lost child and scapegoated child).

So my mom had screaming, terrorizing, breaking things, hitting, other forms of bodily harm. But she was not a narcissist. But I never expected her to meet many of my needs so really didn't have enough of a connection to notice. I can say she did not take herself seriously at all (or any of us). Any of my trauma from her involved bodily harm (ptsd). But like I said, the raging and terrorizing parts likely led to my invisible self, which was there early on (not ptsd but developmental trauma, or complex trauma when mixed with the bodily threats and medical trauma, part of that coming from medical neglect).

 

[shimmerz]

Fear, Obligation & Guilt to expose psychological weaknesses of the target

This is absolutely what my kids father has groomed them to be. This so hits it. Thanks for the reminder Valentino. I had forgotten the other posting, but completely related to it when you posted it.

 

[Whitebird]

I would think that's easier to spot, and then all you have to do to avoid harm from an NPD is to just get out of their way.

@Valentino thanks for your information.
I don't know if you have ever dealt with a pathologic narcissist or not, but this is my experience:

They are not easy to spot AT ALL. Even for professional psychologists. They seem very normal, smart and friendly. And as I said before they lie in a way that EVERYONE can believe them even you as a victim!
Also it is not easy to avoid them as their children because they think you are in their possession! They think of you as a furniture in their house not human beings!
I think BPDs don't think like this. They often have abandonment issues and their behavior are understandable. Also it is believed that BPD is treatable. If BPDs know about their problem can work on it and somehow solve it, but there is NO hope for NPD because NPDs can't understand they have a problem.

 

[Valentino]

It's challenging to totally separate physical abuse from psychological abuse. If you were to take away all psychological aspects from physical abuse, you'd simply be left with a physical injury, and with time and care, most general wounds and injuries heal. Of course there are wounds that don't heal (like amputations), but with those the mind can have an amazing capacity to adapt from physical limitations.

If there were no psychological abuse underlying the physical abuse, then there would be very limited or no lingering PTSD issues after the wounds heal and mind adapts.

The difficulties with adapting and recovering are because of psychological abuses, which directly or indirectly contributed to: difficulties with coping, problems with relationships, issues with traumatic unprocessed memories, fractured sense of self, lingering feelings of fear/obligation/guilt, dissociation, flashbacks, etc.

As for the labels of abuse from narcissist, sociopath, borderline, schizophrenic, crazy, etc. Does it really matter that much, for everyone to agree what specific diagnosis a particular abuser has?

But on the flip side, I have found it useful to understand common abusive tactics and the motivations underlying them. But the actual DSM labels aren't that useful when dealing with them directly, while they are somewhat useful when talking about baskets of behavior or personalities with other people.

---
As for how easy or hard to spot someone with a personality disorder, I agree that initially they can be very difficult to spot. But with education and exposure, they can become easier to spot, and eventually their lack of creativity with using the same tactics of FEAR, OBLIGATION and GUILT can make them very easy to spot. But this does take time and effort, and ideally lots of self-work.

Here's some more of my observations I shared from an earlier thread titled "Therapist clueless about sociopaths":
https://www.myptsd.com/threads/therapist-clueless-about-sociopaths.48455/page-8#post-773757

 

[Hope4Now]

Wow...somehow I missed all the posts after the beginning on this thread.

They are extremely self-absorbed. I mean they CAN'T see other people's needs, emotion, existence etc. But they THINK they can!
They NEVER feel shame.

YES!

possibly involving personality disorder where they have a pattern of gutting other people's sense of self. ??

YES!

Aggressive personalities and people on the personality disordered spectrum have an amazing ability to distort reality. The more abusive types actively use reality distortion fogs upon vulnerable victims for personal benefit.

YES!

anyone who says its just a continuum from good narcissism to bad narcissism.....I'd say you've never met the bad ones as its a total mind f*ck to have them in your lives.

I have. I think this comment is partly directed at my post. Both parents were narcissists. But the term "narcissism" is like the term "dissociation." It has a huge array of denotative and connotative meanings outside of the DSM and when not linked to the word "disorder."

NPD's are so self focused, and obviously driven towards grandiosity or attention seeking motivations, I would think that's easier to spot, and then all you have to do to avoid harm from an NPD is to just get out of their way.

Unless you are their only child with zero resources outside of them. Then their reality becomes your own. Total mind f-k.

I still don't totally understand the concept of "narcissistic abuse" but that's okay.

I can't speak to the abusiveness of adult situations particularly. I extracted myself from a few people. But, when it comes to parents and children, the "abuse" of narcissistic personality disorder is that they completely warp the child's sense of self and reality. Child grows up distrusting their own experience of reality...like they don't exist except as a sort of shadow puppet for the narcissist(s). It is sick, so sick. Worst form of abuse, I think, to hijack someone's implicit sense of self and reality. Victim becomes a ghost.

Fear, Obligation & Guilt to expose psychological weaknesses of the target

Yup. That about says it all. I've described my mother as "relentless." She still is, although, thankfully, dementia has taken away some of her power over me. I never related the word "narcissist" to my parents until some website pointed me toward another site called daughters of narcissistic mothers. That completely blew me away. Was, perhaps, the first time I began to accept that maybe I actually was a victim of trauma.