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My understanding is that most people with (traits of) one PD also have (traits of) another PD. A lot of what I see being attributed to pwBPD or pwNPD seems more like Antisocial Personality Disorder to me.

Since questions of antisocial motive come up so often in our postmortems (i.e. ex acted with intent to hurt), it seems like it would be useful to review the criteria for APD.

https://bpdfamily.com/content/antisocial-personality-disorder


Antisocial Personality Disorder Diagnostic Criteria 301.7 (F60.2)

A. A pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others, occurring since age 15 years, as indicated by three (or more) of the following:

1. Failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors, as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest.

2. Deceitfulness, as indicated by repeated lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure.

3. Impulsivity or failure to plan ahead.

4. Irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults.

5. Reckless disregard for safety of self or others.

6. Consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behavior or honor financial obligations.

7. Lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another.

B. The individual is at least age 18 years.

C. There is evidence of conduct disorder with onset before age 15 years.

D. The occurrence of antisocial behavior is not exclusively during the course of schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.

I don't think my ex has APD.

He for sure fits points 3 & 6. But I don't know about 2 & 7.

Yes, he has hurt me. As a response to something he thought I did or said. What he thought I did or said hurt him. So he retaliated. Did he get pleasure out of hurting me? Yes, I think he did. Does he know he hurt me? Yes, I think he does. Does he feel any remorse about it underneath this pleasure? I don't know because I can't look inside his head.

I don't think he got up one morning and thought: "right, what shall I do today? Let's hurt Bibi today. I feel like it and it would make me feel good."

I think he felt hurt because I confronted him with his bad behaviour and that triggered his shame underneath. The 'if I've done something bad I am bad, I can't handle that, so I have done nothing wrong, you have and you will pay for it' kind of reacting.

He hasn't set out to hurt me just for the fun of it even though he enjoyed it when he did. I think that is the difference.

This is some really good introspection, I think.

I think my ex was so filled with shame. He really started to see me as the enemy, as an aggressor, almost--someone he had to lash out at for self-preservation. So I don't ascribe evil intent to him. I think he felt (and probably still feels) like he had to hurt me to protect himself.

I don't feel like I have to hurt him, though. That's one difference between us.

Sorry--I keep editing this.

I think he tried to provoke me to anger so that he could use that as an excuse to freeze me out. I didn't get that at the time, but it's clear in hindsight.

He loved me for being slow to anger, but then that became a source of frustration to him.

That's exactly what I think went on with my ex too.

He wasn't hurting me for the sole purpose of hurting and out of nowhere. In his mind I had done something hurtful. I was the aggressor. And by presenting me like the aggressor to his fan club he could remain his false image of soft vulnerable ever so sweet misunderstood wouldn'thurtafly lookathowgorgeousheis man. The difference is the intent and the motive (I really feel like a detective now  :)).

I don't need to hurt him either.

Bar the occasional moment when I notice I've lost another colleague to his fan club and I get angry and mutter to myself "you absolute fxcker!" and fantasize about hiring a hit man to kill of all his minions but leave him alive so he suffers from having lost all his supply. Which (no, no need to be alarmed... ) I would never do 

we also have a thread here about comorbid disorders from our BPD questions and resources board: https://bpdfamily.com/message_board/index.php?topic=58157.0

i think this discussion illustrates how difficult it is for even a trained professional to diagnose a person.

I think it is not pure or calculate evilness. pwBPD has fear that others will hurt him/her, including people close to them.  pwBPD sees the partner as his extention of protection.  But "something" may trigger them and we become the evil other, and they need to protect themselves,,by destroying us, since we betrayed them and they feel alone and unprotected.

It seems that they are on constant investigation of the intentions of other and on the other side protection of self as defense mode.  It is that protection which include rage, hurting, disrespecting, fill in the blanks... .So for them it is "protection" and for us is abuse.

There is always some logic to them hurting us, and I could see in the healing process that it is diminishing, so I don't think it is inherent and unchanganle calculate sadistic behavior.