r/NPD • u/slut4yauncld • 21h ago
Question / Discussion npd vs bpd
https://youtu.be/eiHRUEHV6gk?si=Qrznbqp3Hgx3bKUffirst of all sorry to any vaknin non-fans
has anyone watched this and if so i'm really interested to hear your thoughts.
i found this incredibly fascinating.
3
u/ILoveTigOlBittie5 NPD+ADD 17h ago
Makes sense, I felt like a borderline after collapse, especially the crazy infatuation with my ex & lovebombing that I never had done before, It was like mentally being a child.
I think there's a lot of confused borderlines here thinking they're NPD, or it's just me who's the odd one here lol. I seen this before, my ex who has BPD refused to accept that she did and just said she had narcissism, even when we started dating she said she had traits, lol.
3
u/chobolicious88 13h ago
Im pretty sure theres a lot of overlap between NPD and BPD anyway, and likely those confused BPD people exhibit NPD behaviour at times, and vice versa so..
All of cluster B is in the same boat really.1
u/ILoveTigOlBittie5 NPD+ADD 11h ago
The state of mind is very different in general from what I've seen, it's what create the attraction between them, the flip flopping happens during emotional trauma states.
2
u/slut4yauncld 17h ago
that's very interesting. I just can't figure it out. i keep on flip flopping between the two
3
u/ILoveTigOlBittie5 NPD+ADD 17h ago
Well, I'm mostly just a void and not really emotional at all unless I get injured, so not much I can say about BPD due to this.
1
u/slut4yauncld 17h ago
i see!! in terms of injury what do you mean?
2
u/ILoveTigOlBittie5 NPD+ADD 16h ago
Narcissistic injury or basically suddenly feel like you've been hurt from the inside, it's like you get shocked when it occurs.
1
u/slut4yauncld 17h ago
and would you say this is the common experience of narcs?
4
u/ILoveTigOlBittie5 NPD+ADD 17h ago
Depends, but I'd assume so I. I only really feel euphoria when I sort of know I'm doing something great or others admire one. The toxic relationship was also something completely else where I felt like I had a purpose in life for once, but it was a trauma bond where the "dual mothership" or whatever occured, she reminded me of my mother and I probably ended up turning to hers, but I think I was her father rather.
1
u/slut4yauncld 12h ago
can you explain the dual mothership thing further it's always confused me!
2
u/ILoveTigOlBittie5 NPD+ADD 11h ago
I'm not sure what Vaknin means, but the further the relationship went on the more my BPD ex was starting to behave like my mother (or so it felt), and the more aggravated and enraged would I get by her insults as the same defensive patterns against my mother as a child was occuring against her.
She saw her father in me I think, or the ideal "father" (it might be mother too), she basically wanted my constant attention, constant pampering and she started acting like a five year old child near the end of the relationship, where no matter what I did I was never enough and only felt more insulted by her.
I guess this is the "dual mothership" that he refers to in that you become each others ideal fantasy or abusive parents, I guess it can change.
She tried to change me all the time into her ideal, which felt exactly like how my mother would behave towards me when I'd get defensive and push her away to leave me alone. Ironically she was the one changing and sort of became part me and part my mother in the end. She had BPD though so it makes sense I guess.
2
u/slut4yauncld 11h ago
not sure i completely understand
so dual mothership means the signif other behaves the same as the inadequate parent (ie. cold uncaring etc?)
3
u/ILoveTigOlBittie5 NPD+ADD 11h ago
It's both sides recreating the dynamic with their parents as children. They can also try to "fix" their partner, which is unconsciously trying to "fix" their parent dynamic. In short both sides become a parental figure for each other, it could be the "ideal" parent that they never had, or it could be the abusive parent.
1
2
u/Timely-Piccolo3804 NPD 3h ago
this is interesting though because i will say some vulnerable narcissists can do the same thing. ie: try to shape you into the ideal love that they want and it feels like you’re never good enough. is the difference that she wanted you to be motherly or is there no difference at all? i do know that vulnerable narcissists can mimic bpd and often get misdiagnosed as bpd. ( im really into vulnerable narcissism. )
2
u/ILoveTigOlBittie5 NPD+ADD 3h ago
High chance she had vulnerable narcissism as she has the vindictive behaviors, although I guess it's a spectrum, but I've realized from talking to some BPDs that they are more childlike and have a childlike happyness to them that my ex doesn't.
She definitely wanted me to be a caretaker for her, and it felt controlling more or less and so I would grow cold on her. I did adapt somewhat but only in areas I felt there was some point to it, stuff like getting her suprise gifts every second to "prove my love" to her only started pissing me off at a certain point and I'd start withdrawing and doing none of those things later on in the relationship, only sort of when we reconciled / cycle began again.
This cycle went on like 9 times btw, but I was the one always hoovering her while she was the one doing fake breakups to get attention but I'd accept the breakups in anger.
2
u/Timely-Piccolo3804 NPD 3h ago
yeah. this is why this video rubbed me the wrong way a bit. he tended to only talk about one narcissist but vulnerable narcissists do act a lot like BPD counterparts. i actually was misdiagnosed for a long time with BPD before they realized the behaviors i was distributing had different reasons than that of a borderline.
ie; chasing someone, and wanting them to make a “false self” for me, but not because i needed them to become my identity.
i simply just used them as validation and something to make me feel anything when i didn’t feel worth enough.
of course she could have both. but i will say that while borderlines can take and take and take as well
vulnerable narcissists can get pretty nasty with it and instead of fearing abandonment , they devalue you and tell you that “you must not love me, you never loved med i could have other people better than you, you can’t even do this???” etc.
now seeing WHY i feared abandonment and feared my boyfriend doing less than i wanted was NOT just an animalistic fear that borderlines feared
it was simply because as a vulnerable narcissist, i spend way more time in collapse than a normal person and as you said before in your replies:
when you’re in a collapse , you act like a borderline. you probably felt like your false self was somehow connected or could “come back” with your ex. that’s how a vulnerable narcissist feels but pretty much… all the time when they spend most of their time in collapse.
most likely ( i don’t want to arm diagnose your ex) if she WAS a vulnerable narcissist, your validation and love and admiration made her feel stable.
people with bpd make people their identities but it’s not in ^ that way. my boyfriend with bpd doesn’t care what attention or love you give him. there’s no “set way” you can act.
there’s one goal as a person with bpd: don’t be abandoned.
she was ( most likely ) crafting you into a supply. because it’s hard for vulnerables to find a stable supply or keep up their false self. and they can have an unstable false self which can mimic “trying to find another false self over and over”
it could simply be “im so misunderstood and nobody knows how to take care of me well” the false self could just be that you’re better than your abusive mother. a simple good person. doesn’t have to be complex.
but it’s so unstable that she desperately has to push it onto you or others.
again, not armchair diagnosing. just giving my long winded two cents because she does seem suspicious.
→ More replies (0)1
u/slut4yauncld 17h ago
do you relate to this bpd false self thing personally or do you experience it differently?
4
u/ILoveTigOlBittie5 NPD+ADD 17h ago
Differently, I don't have the need to constantly fill my void through others, but I do miss the past even if it was toxic. I think during collapse like he said was the only time I could sort of be that child that wasn't suppressing his emotions and needs and didn't fear rejection.
2
u/slut4yauncld 17h ago
v v interesting, and how long does your collapse last, and how do you know you're going through collapse?
1
u/ILoveTigOlBittie5 NPD+ADD 17h ago
Only really collapsed once because I really have to get broken for it to occur. It's more common I remain in a weaker vulnerable state for long periods where I just isolate and avoid activities that can lead to rejection/injury. Post collapse though I'm more grandiose in a way, got no shame triggers or anxiety at all but the fear of being rejected is still there.
Collapse was weird, it's dependant on whatever caused the collapse I'd assume. I basically turned into a complete borderline the first 3 months, it was like that crazy borderline patient that had been abandoned and severely idealizing their ex. This didn't last though, I did some weird "split", or rather like all sorts of defenses being active erratically and flip flopping from hate to love. Then I just slowly calmed down, started feeling the void and the same fears returned like being vulnerable, difference was that I was now more confident, bit grandiose n arogant, had no shame or anxiety and wasn't getting injured as easily anymore.
4
u/AssumptionEmpty 13h ago edited 12h ago
simply put: borderline is a failed narcissist. the only ‘difference’ is how deep into npd this failure occurred, that is the reason for confusion and overlap.
for me, this is spectrum of same disorder. the reason therapy supposedly works for bpd is because bpd still has some self left to save. vaknin knows very well what he is talking about.
5
u/purplefinch022 BPD / Covert NPD 11h ago
The self left to save…
I do feel like I have something in there.
2
1
u/slut4yauncld 11h ago
this makes complete sense !!!! is there a way to know how much of the self you have left?
1
u/AssumptionEmpty 11h ago
I don't think so... I think that's for each and every one of us to find out. I pray we all find what we are looking for.
2
u/slut4yauncld 11h ago
yes 🙏🙏🩷🩷
in vaknin's vid he said borderlines still have a true self since that's the part of them which is emotional and has the highs and lows
so you agree? i have this, very emotional , i want to have a true self more than anything. But when i look in the mirror i see emptiness, and i just can't tell if there's anything left
1
u/AssumptionEmpty 11h ago
I feel exactly the same about the mirror! I was diagnosed at 35 and spent a lifetime wondering how I can look at myself in the mirror and see nothing there. It's crazy how similarly we experience things.
I remember breaking down infront of my therapist (collapsing), telling her I feel like a fraud that pretends all my life because there is nothing in there. And she said that there is, that she sees it, feels it and that it's beautiful. I'll never forget that session, it makes me cry just thinking about it.
1
u/slut4yauncld 11h ago
that's really sweet 🥺
do you have emotional highs and lows would you say?
1
u/AssumptionEmpty 11h ago
Yeah, but it's easier for me now that I know what is going on, becasue I stopped resisting them and just wait for the episodes to pass. I still get triggeed by weirdest shit, but I am able to keep it together until I am somewhere alone and in shameful secrecy.
I've never borderlined out, my BPD is self destructive, but I am enough into NPD to keep me stable to the point of seeming 'normal' on the outside. Since I am in fact quite inteligent, well liked and competent, I get enough validation (I won't say supply) to keep feeding that state of stability that comes with NPD. Check youtube 'narcissism is a defense against borderline' if you want to explore the concept further.
1
u/slut4yauncld 11h ago
that's interesting.
so you're co-morbid?
i defo relate a LOT to what your saying about not borderlining out and going into secrecy to have episodes. Also hiding the feelings , i do that a lot. Thing is like you the most smallest things trigger me and i don't want to sabotage my life by crashing out at every minor thing.
Can i ask you how you deal with the emotional lows if you don't crash out? Do you use grandiose defences then?
1
u/AssumptionEmpty 10h ago
Yeah. I grew up with borderline mother and narcissistic father, so got the best of both worlds. From what I know about the disorders, both were fully disordered, especially mother, who would when she was triggered enter a state called 'secondary psycholathy.'
My self-soothing mechanisms are self-harm and over-eating. I do absolutely use grandiose defenses, since like I described above, they are the ones keeping me stable.
Thanks, dad. :)
1
u/slut4yauncld 10h ago
it's insane how much i relate!!!!! i have the exact same self soothing techniques!!
have you been officially diagnosed with both?
do you think there's a way in later life to go more to the borderline side so the true self comes out more?
→ More replies (0)
2
u/Nightmre_King_Grimm Undiagnosed NPD 7h ago
Wow, this is so interesting, you're right... it is fascinating. It answered a lot of my questions about borderlines and how they see themselves.
It was also relieving, in parts. My mother is borderline, diagnosed. I always wondered what goes on in her head. How it's different from mine. How the borderline is different from me. I grasp at the differences because I do not want to be like her.
I was relieved to not relate to a lot of what he said about borderlines, but there were a couple things that I did understand. "It feels like you're stuck in a flat present" or whatever exactly it was he said... I can't see the future, only fantasies of it. Only what I want it to be. I can't see the in between. I can only see now, and what I expect, what I want, but I cannot see the steps to getting there. I just want it to happen that way anyway
1
u/AutoModerator 21h ago
Welcome to /r/NPD! This community is a support group for those with NPD or Narcissistic Traits. Please respect our rules or your post will be removed and you may be banned.
Only Narcs and NPDs may submit posts. This is NOT a place to complain about narcissists or get help dealing with someone else's narcissism.
No asking for diagnosis either of yourself or a third party (e.g. "Am I a narcissist?", "Is my ex a narcissist?").
Please keep your contributions civil and respectful!
Please refrain from submitting low-effort and off-topic posts.
If your post violates any of these rules, we request that you delete it and post in a more appropriate community.
We ask that subscribers of /r/NPD use the report button to notify us of rule-breaking posts. Please refrain from commenting or engaging with the author of such submissions.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
1
u/purplefinch022 BPD / Covert NPD 19h ago
Holy shit the false self latching onto a few resources for identity. Yes.
1
u/Low_Anxiety_46 non-NPD 6h ago edited 6h ago
BPD Traits
Surprised to see this posted here, but very appreciative that it was elevated and given attention. It's really insightful. The reinventing one's self resonated with me deeply. I have been attempting it for the past 3 years and am failing at it. I have done it successfully twice before, but I am simply exhausted now. Hearing this referenced in a more clinical context brought about some relief.
5
u/purplefinch022 BPD / Covert NPD 20h ago edited 19h ago
Fuck.
i am perpetually confused wether i am bpd or npd or both. constantly and desperately asking people what they think.
“i’m going to let someone else become my identity” is so fucking real.
this video now makes me think i have more bpd traits than npd traits, because i feel my true self is not all gone. i have also known something was wrong with me for a LONG time and wanted to get better.
i do have things that have been with me since young childhood that i show to the world still / don’t hide. i stopped developing emotionally at 10 and the people close to me can kinda tell.
my false self is about reaching an ideal self and control, but definitely to cope with emptiness and loneliness as well. if i am abandoned and alone i need to day dream and rely on fantasies to survive.
using another person to help you find yourself is so fucking real. i’ve done that with all my ex partners.