Straight talk about NPD...questions.

[CAMom]

1. If you had an NPD parent, was there a lot of yelling and screaming in your house?

 

2. How was/is your NPD with pets?

 

There was a lot of yelling and screaming in my house and I know there was in dh's house, too.

 

I used to hear my mom talk to her friends and refer to me as the "little b*tch who lives across the hall."

 

Then there's the passive agressive side of my mom. She left me a note on my door one day when I was 17 or 18. It went on and on about how she was sorry she wasn't the mother I obviously wanted. She signed it, "The Management.":001_huh:

 

As far as pets, my mom idolizes her pets! Why wouldn't she? They live to please her.;) And when one of them dies, she can make you very aware that no loss you've endured could possibly be as bad as her losing her beloved pet.

[Hen]

I only realized my mom was NPD a year or two ago, realizing it helped, knowing that there was an NPD "playbook" helped immensely, I could be on the alert to expect something in the playbook and decide how to react or not.

 

being a peaceful person, and probably because of my conditioning -I see my sister and I both reacting the same in the stressful situation of my mom dying... I tend to take what is dished out in a non-reactive way and then try to soothe my mom or agree/ apologize and then change the subject. And then, as soon as I can I turn the subject to my mom, which always pleased her. Sometimes I just ignored. She did cat-butt face at thanksgiving- I figured she wasn't getting some kind of attention she thought she deserved, but I decided after kindly urging her to join us, to ignore her.

 

I never called her on any of it, because she would have just got into a rage, and she never forgets anything and holds a grudge forever. This was all doable for me, because I live over an hour away and have limited contact.

 

---sorry, I keep going back and forth from present to past tense, my mom just died in July and it's hard to remember she is dead.

[Alicia64]

Oh for goodness sakes. Millions of people either had babies, or went to college to avoid the Viet Nam war. It doesn't mean all those babies were "used".

 

 

 

If you go back and read my comment. . . I wasn't at all talking about everyone in the mid-60's having babies to avoid the Vietnam war.

 

Given what my parents were dealing with at the time, I think that they did have a baby so that my dad didn't have to go. That, and he's made it very clear through the years that he wanted to avoid going at all costs.

 

Why in the world would you think that I'm talking all babies from that era?? I was talking about my experience.

 

A.

[bobbeym]

In my own case, it only makes it worse, If I had come in that way, there would have never been a relationship in the first place, or it would have been really short lived.

 

My dad shows some NPD traits, and while he is difficult, standing up to him does generally have the normal effect of causing him to back down and reconsider. (most of the time) This is how I personally distinguish between having the traits, and full blown disorder :glare:

 

But now that I have already in the past, fallen for the charm, any standing up I do is seen as provocation and only escalates the situation. I am not able to go totally non contact for several more years. So I just do the best I can, and try not to totally panic when I HAVE to stand up, knowing that it is only going to escalate the situation.

 

 

I have a current example I am willing to share, if anyone wants to see it they can PM me....Not putting it out in its entirety for the world to see!!!

 

So far, the N in my life will back down whenever one of us stands up to him. We're not sure he would keep doing that on a long-term basis though. We're also not sure at what point he'd become reactive enough to strongly interfere in friendships; so far he's only passively reactive about them when it doesn't benefit him.

[bobbeym]

It really depends on the N.

 

My mother would take it as a threat and challenge, and seek to tear down that person. Esp if it's a potential inlaw. I've seen that one in action.

 

For her kids who took that attitude, all holy Hades broke loose. It was completely unacceptable, and the lengths she went to to tear it down is pretty astounding.

 

Ns, generally speaking, take boundaries as a personal insult, a challenge, a "Don't you DARE tell me no!" reaction. It can trigger several different (general) reactions.

 

Smear campaign: they tell everyone how horrid you are, mentally ill, abusive, neglectful, liar, thief...anything to discredit you.

 

Marytr/victim: often part of the smear campaign to others, but crying, hysterics, completely innocent of any wrong doing and can't understand why you're doing this to them, they LOVE you, you're their WORLD, they want to die b/c you're doing this to them...

 

Sheer rage: How DARE you. Vicious insults, put downs, anything and everything to break you down into a snivelling ball in the corner, to get you back into 'your place' in their world. This can include false allegations w/CPS, police, etc (can also be included in a smear campaign) esp when there are gkids involved.

 

Sometimes, depending on what 'flavour' of N they are, they'll simply ignore you and allow you to fade away...until they get bored at some point or another, or decide 'this has gone on long enough' and seek to drag you back into the fold.

 

 

Ah yes. I've aware of all of those flavors.

 

N does a very good job of keeping people in their respective and (as he feels) appropriate circles of orbit around him. As such, we most often get ignored because we are "friends" and not "family". I know my friend (the N's wife) deals with all the above on a regular basis.

 

Most recently, the N ignored/excluded my DH for about 3 weeks and the only thing we can trace it back to was DH's refusal to spend $$$ we don't have on the latest and greatest video games we can't afford and he doesn't even really want to play. Apparently though, now that N is bored with the game, all is well in the world again and the last 3 weeks never happened.

[bobbeym]

People who've never experience this firsthand, rarely understand. Even people who have, if they are still sucked into the games - they will defend the NPDer. there are different postions of family members. e.g. the golden child and the scapegoat. it's the scapegoats that are most likely to esape the cycle.

 

This is what my friend worries about the most.

 

Her N has already pushed her older child out of the house by making him the scapegoat. The younger one is the golden child and she lives in fear of what will happen the day when the younger one decides he doesn't want to be just like dad anymore.

 

I've told her the best I can think of to do is to well educate the kids on NPD and to teach them what to expect. It will be especially helpful for the oldest one, who struggles with the guilt of the N's behavior towards him.

[bobbeym]

It does make it that much worse. I'm the one who didn't want to put up with things, and I bore the brunt of my mother. My sister is passive and doesn't care about anything, and she's co-dependent with my mother. She is totally under my mom's thumb and that's how my mom likes things.

 

I finally moved out of her house and in with my dad when I was 15-16, and do you know, she held a grudge against me until we cut off contact last December over that? She even held a grudge against me because SHE bought me a cup of gas station coffee once when I had brought the girls 8 hours away to visit her. Because she couldn't be bothered to come.

 

Oh yes, we get lots of grudges held against us because we don't live up to the same materialistic standards as the N does. I think he's somewhat tolerant of it though b/c we've *always* been the way we are since we met him. We haven't changed ourselves or our life to specifically accomodate him, and it's been made known from the start that we're not going to do so either.

[bobbeym]

Escalate the behavior in some way(s). Direct confrontation will trigger the N to create a whole new level of misery for their victims.

 

This is what I worry about the most. The times when my friend has stood up to the N he's backed down, and become the calm, quiet, caring person. She knows it's just a matter of time though before something sets him off again.

[bobbeym]

The problem with this assumption is that an intelligent, abusive NPD is patient in an evil way. They will insidiously build the web of abuse, *just barely* going over the line each time, and waiting until that episode is normalized.

 

15 years down the road, your *life* is abusive, by a long shot, and you don't know how you got there.

 

It's not about strength or dominant personalities. Although my abusive NPD did eventually try to get the strong people out of my life (my sister, several specific friends). By then, I had LOST who I was, but I wasn't vulnerable or weak when we met.

 

Looking back on what I know of my friend's history with the N, she was at a vulnerable point in her life and I think he preyed on that and used it to his advantage.

 

The disadvantage we're dealing with is that he completely masked the NPD for years. They dated for a couple years before living together, and while there were some OCD tendancies, those are annoying but more easy to live and cope with. It wasn't until after they were actually married that he suddenly seemed to turn into this entirely different person. It's thrown all of us for a loop since he didn't act like this or do things like this a year ago. His family doesn't see it, or if they do, they're choosing to deal with it by not commenting on it.

 

Our N wasn't abused, comes from a good family with younger siblings and parents that love him. Could he have developed NPD simply from living with someone else that shows those tendancies? After a recent gathering with his extended family, I definiately noticed that his step-mom could very easily be an N.

[cave canem]

I have difficult people in my life, but no experience with anything like this in close quarters. Wow. I admire you survivors.

 

For those of you with npd siblings, at what stage of life did it manifest?

[Mommy22alyns]

There was a lot of yelling and screaming in my house and I know there was in dh's house, too.

 

I used to hear my mom talk to her friends and refer to me as the "little b*tch who lives across the hall."

 

Then there's the passive agressive side of my mom. She left me a note on my door one day when I was 17 or 18. It went on and on about how she was sorry she wasn't the mother I obviously wanted. She signed it, "The Management.":001_huh:

 

As far as pets, my mom idolizes her pets! Why wouldn't she? They live to please her.;) And when one of them dies, she can make you very aware that no loss you've endured could possibly be as bad as her losing her beloved pet.

 

 

This was my mom's favorite thing to do. Nothing ever matched up to her experiences. When I was about Rebecca's age, give or take a little, I had terrible ear wax problems. They had to suction out the wax in the doctor's office and it HURT! I was a kid! But my mom just said, "Well that's nothing compared to being in labor with you!" :confused:

[8circles]

I have difficult people in my life, but no experience with anything like this in close quarters. Wow. I admire you survivors.

 

For those of you with npd siblings, at what stage of life did it manifest?

 

I can't say with any certainty. I remember being quite young & feeling tortured by her but its hard to know whether or not it was in the range of normal. By middle school she was a real disruption to the family & in college she had "the look" of pleasure in her eyes at other's pain. That's when it was unmistakeable to me. My parents have always had this strange acceptance & denial at the same time of her issues. They will acknowledge her awful behavior but then in the next breath say how it wasn't that bad & she means no harm. I say she's a psychopath & my other sister (psychiatrist) agrees.

 

I do think there is a significant portion of cause of NPD being nurture. I don't believe that she was created to be this way at birth. My parents did a lot of things wrong with all of us. I think for her personality her upbringing was more harmful than it was to the rest of us. I do pity her, but only from afar. I pray that she is able to overcome NPD but I'm honestly not hopeful. & it would be difficult for me to ever trust that she was "cured" enough to ever be close enough for her to hurt me again.

[CAMom]

This was my mom's favorite thing to do. Nothing ever matched up to her experiences. When I was about Rebecca's age, give or take a little, I had terrible ear wax problems. They had to suction out the wax in the doctor's office and it HURT! I was a kid! But my mom just said, "Well that's nothing compared to being in labor with you!" :confused:

 

Oh brother! It's always got to be worse for them, doesn't it?;)