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HI,

just wondering of the existence of narcissistic elements in your relationship with your BPD partner (but in you)

hey blackbirdsong 

you might want to explain what you mean by "narcissistic elements". every human has narcissistic elements. therefore every relationship has them. "narcissism" is not an inherently dirty word, though we often use it as one.

If you believe wiki, Narcissism is the pursuit of gratification from vanity or egotistic admiration of one's own attributes. The term originated from Greek mythology, where the young Narcissus fell in love with his own image reflected in a pool of water.

Blackbirdsong, if we exhibit Narcissistic traits so what?

I went to a therapist once who treated many disordered people BPD, NPD, Sociopaths. I was speaking about my wife's Narcissistic traits and she said, so what? narcissists are the most adaptive of all of the traits and show the best results from treatment.

The Narcissist side of my wife was actually the more tolerable. When the BPD side shut her down, the NPD side kicked in and got her moving again. I much preferred it to the BPD victim.

I think blackbirdsong is asking how many of us had either:

• narcissistic wounds going into the relationship that made a pwBPD very attractive to us (idealization) and/or

• how many of us suffered a narcissistic wound when our partner ended or sabotaged the relationship.

I know from ready the boards over the years that this is a fairly common situation. There is also a wealth of clinical work that looks as the pairing of pwBPD traits (or tendencies) and people with NPD traits (or tendencies).

I agree with Moselle, we shouldn't look at this as labeling or a "death sentence" - its a important to embrace such an observation as that is the first step to resolving it.  This is true for co-dependence, or low self esteem, addiction, depression, etc. - all conditions or behaviors that some members struggle with and would be best served by facing them head-on.

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I re-titled the thread. It was  Are narcissistic elements in your self evaluation?

I edited the poll.

Personality Trait Test

Here is the link to the test:       (https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/images/mb/take-the-test.png) (https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=128254.0)

Yes, it's a useful topic to raise.

Personally, I feel that I've made much more inner progress since admitting to myself that I have some narcissistic traits.

My narcissistic 'wound' would be from being bullied at school, feeling too scared at the time to stand up for myself and hence also feeling shame.

Later being ghosted by several childhood friends (although I can see now how I may have contributed to pushing them away).

I believe that my narcissism has caused me at least the following problems, at times:

1. Aloof behaviours - I guess an attempt to protect me from further disappointment,  but in reality preventing meaningful relationships with emotionally healthy people.

2. Inability or unwillingness to put myself in the other's shoes before opening my mouth, especially when feeling psychologically threatened.

3. Some feelings of entitlement,  but more significantly for me,  confusion between genuine entitlements (e.g my human right to leave an abusive relationship) and OVERentitlements (e.g. my 'right' to lie frequently).

4. Use of denial and fantasy as temporary escape from reality.

This includes convincing myself that, through my misery of living with an undiagnosed BPD person, I'm actually doing A MASSIVELY GOOD DEED FOR ALL HUMANITY.

So, also a victim / martyr mentality.

5. Sensitivity to rejection (I hated admitting this one).

I can see now how this led me to form a relationship with the one person who can NEVER seem to let me go.

Hence I could deny all responsibility for my OWN neediness.  Familiar, anyone?

Fortunately my narcissistic traits are (IMO) reducing as I get older, and I see that my partner's BPD traits are also.

I'm thinking that one possible route out of narcissism is to begin living more for values and less for ego. Core values are not something I really thought about in my youth.

But how much can a values system be developed (and lived for) in relative isolation? If this is something that requires meaninful interaction with other people, then it is going to be potentially threatening in some ways, both to me and to my partner. I see that as a big obstacle in the future.

You actually read THIS ... .  all about MEEEEEE !