What does BPD with NPD traits look like?

[Beware of Junk Psychology...]

I've been thinking my ex was just BPD (that's her diagnosis) but now I'm thinking she might have been BPD/NPD or BPD with NPD traits. For those of you with exes that had traits of them both, how did this manifest in them? And how about in your relationship?

[kc sunshine]

I've been thinking my ex was just BPD (that's her diagnosis) but now I'm thinking she might have been BPD/NPD or BPD with NPD traits. For those of you with exes that had traits of them both, how did this manifest in them? And how about in your relationship?

[bus boy]

HI KC, A year and a half ago I didn't even know what NPD or BPD was, never even heard of it. Like I've posted in the past, on the surface she is a together woman. On top of her bills, same job for 17 years, people at her job are mixed, some are her flying monkies, those she can't fool hate her. Behind closed doors she was very emotionally abusive and verbally. When she left she changed gears to the more covert emotional abuse with some verbal thrown in for good measure. The past year she met a BF and everything I predicted is coming true. She's getting worse, he's joining her. I do a lot of reading on PD's she seems to be more NPD with some BPD traits. She is not officially diagnosed but in the parental assessment the forensic physiologist strongly suggested but couldn't outright say that my ex had a PD and would probably take these traits into all her relationships. I, of course was labeled codependent in the report.

 My ex is extremely devious, rewrites history, bad to lie, manuplate, create conflict. I really did think I was going insane. I guess the only thing I missed in the NPD/BPD r/s was the intense love bombing. It was hell on earth.

[fromheeltoheal]

Hi kc-

It's common for some borderlines to exhibit narcissistic traits on top of the BPD, common for people in general, someone who is feeling inferior may act superior to compensate, although acting narcissistic is a choice, where having narcissistic personality disorder is not.

So how does digging into the clinical side help you?  For me, when I learned about BPD, how it forms in the personality, and how it manifests, it made the confusion go away immediately, the behaviors were still totally unacceptable but at least I understood why she does what she does.  Do you find that or something like it true for you too?

[chillamom]

Hi, kc sunshine,

I hit the trifecta - my ex was diagnosed with BPD, NPD and a liberal sprinkle of schizotypal PD to boot.  I believe elsewhere on this website there is a statistic that claims co-morbidity of BPD and NPD is around 74%, and as a psychologist I can tell you that is indeed quite accurate.  In my case, EXbf exhibited more narcissism on a regular basis, although the one BPD thing he never manifested was any type of self harm.  Here's some examples of NPD stuff:

Grandiosity and a sense of entitlement and "specialness" were prominent:
"I'm one of the smartest people in the world" (he was obsessed with his IQ, particularly since he had done very poorly in elementary and high school and not too well in college, largely because of a serious and poorly addressed learning disorder).  He was particularly preoccupied with the fact that my daughters might be smarter than he was (all 3 had literally perfect SATs and my older one had a perfect GRE score, no lie) and was ALWAYS comparing himself to them.  In fact, I think the things he liked most about me was my doctoral degree and academic career - it made him feel smart (although the only claim to "smart" I have is being book smart, as evidenced by my own behavior towards him, I have literally NO common sense).

"I only want to be around the best people."  "I cannot settle for any mediocrity in my life". "MY world, MY rules, MY regime!" Some of the more charming statements recently remembered.

Ex also displayed a startling lack of empathy. I'm involved in a lot of social justice initiatives at the university where I teach, and he was unable to relate at ALL to any type of oppression.  Racist, sexist, homophobic - unable to see how some people who have been downtrodden have a difficult time through no fault of their own.  To whit, people in poverty could not possibly be there unless it was their own fault; he wanted to "spit on the grave" of an individual who had taken his on life.  Individuals of other ethnicities were "intellectually inferior" and he would make sure to construct (CONSTRUCT!) a world where he didn't have to ever be near them.

One of my twin daughters is a lesbian and he enjoys flinging the "f" word around to refer to individuals who are gay or genderqueer (lesbians are apparently okay in his book, I am SO relieved!). And transgender individuals are just "sick" and someone should tell them "to grow up and stop living in a fantasy world"

He saw the world as black and white, winners and losers, and of course he was always a "WINNER" at any cost.  He treated people on the phone and in convenience stores and such like DIRT.  One day someone made a mistake on his sandwich he ordered and he literally badgered them into giving him a store gift card, then went back home and called the store's corporate office and got MORE gift cards by complaining about how unprofessional the manager was.  He bragged to me later about his "triumph" and how people in that store would look at him with "fear and respect" from now on.  He was forever bilking stores out of gift cards and special "appeasements" because he was "dissatisfied" in some way.  He was NEVER WRONG ("I'm right 99.9% of the time in everything I do".  To whit, he used to sell crap on a major website and when he screwed up but not shipping things in time and was dropped as a seller, it was all their fault and he badgered them for MONTHS about it, making up all kinds of fake accounts and trying every way he could to get around their "crooked system."

He "deserved" special treatment from everyone "After all, I'm  (ex's name).  
He believes none of the rules apply to him.  For example, there are no part time PhD programs in his field (or anywhere that I know of), but people will "bend the rules" and admit him anyway because he can make such a "significant contribution" to the research.  (In reality, with the GPA he has, there is no way ANY doctoral program would consider his admission).

He will go into politics and at least be a Governor someday.  And I can be the lucky woman by his side!

He actually believes that I would be willing to "stand by him" while he had children with another woman (I'm too old for more kids) and kept me as part of his "family".  the other woman and I would be best of friends. (Guess he watched too much "Sister Wives".

The BPD parts are mostly expressed in terms of a HUGE fear of abandonment and childlike neediness (I have received 67 texts so far today with some variant of "HELP ME"!).
Also, dissociating at times of stress (which is pretty much all the time).

Schizotypy is mostly evident in frequent paranoid delusions and constant suspicion.

You opened by a nice big can of worms here, kc, !  I could go on and on... .but you get the idea.
It utterly amazes me that I put up with this crap for 8 years, and was willing to go on and on because I felt so damn sorry for him.  He is playing the pity card now and it's killing me.

[Fr4nz]

Hi, kc sunshine,

I hit the trifecta - my ex was diagnosed with BPD, NPD and a liberal sprinkle of schizotypal PD to boot.  I believe elsewhere on this website there is a statistic that claims co-morbidity of BPD and NPD is around 74%, and as a psychologist I can tell you that is indeed quite accurate.  In my case, EXbf exhibited more narcissism on a regular basis, although the one BPD thing he never manifested was any type of self harm.  Here's some examples of NPD stuff:

Here are some stats about comorbidity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borderline_personality_disorder#Differential_diagnosis_and_comorbidity

For males, the combo BPD+NPD seems to be present in the 47% of cases, while for females is 32.2%.

In general, there's a 50% chance that a BPD has another cluster B disorder (the figure you mentioned, 73.9%, is the chance -- that one specific study reports -- that a pwBPD has a comorbidity with another cluster B disorder).

So, all in all there's a pretty big chance that a BPD exibiths some kind of comorbidity throughout his/her life.

[JerryRG]

Yikes chillamom

The way you describe your ex closely resembles my exgf

She was constantly bragging about her achievements in singing at football games and having so much talent in other areas.

She believes her and her new bf (who's a wanna be rap artist) are going to travel across the country performing gospel mission stuff. He and her both think this is a reality, the facts are she cannot stay healthy enough or lacks the ambition to even get any kind of employment or get out of bed, let alone care for our son.

Maybe the both of them are BPD/npd because they support each other's delusions?

He told me she was really going to be a successful entertainer. I used to believe she was someone special, I bought into her delusions as well.

She's always told me she never listens to anyone elses opinion, she does exactly what she wants and only believes her ways are the right ways.

Kinda limits her chances of learning anything constructive and moving forward in a positive manner.

Very interesting

[UnforgivenII]

How does a BPD with npd look like? Like a BPD.
Dr Tara Palmatier think they share the core-sociopathy.

[kc sunshine]

Yes, exactly! And the more I learn about it the more it makes sense to me. The narcissistic traits are something I don't have a very clear handle on-- they seem like such different disorders that it is hard for me to make sense of them together. Also, I can understand why there is a high correlation between substance abuse and BPD but I'm less clear on the why personality disorders are so often co-morbid with one another.

In term of my ex, some things that seemed on the narcissistic end to me were:
Looking in the mirror excessively (she would tease herself about this, but it certainly was noticiable-- mostly it was under stress)
Bragging about sexual prowess
A strong sense of wanting to "win" and to be "right"

These are all pretty small in relation to BPD-- that was much more pronounced.

Hi kc-

It's common for some borderlines to exhibit narcissistic traits on top of the BPD, common for people in general, someone who is feeling inferior may act superior to compensate, although acting narcissistic is a choice, where having narcissistic personality disorder is not.

So how does digging into the clinical side help you?  For me, when I learned about BPD, how it forms in the personality, and how it manifests, it made the confusion go away immediately, the behaviors were still totally unacceptable but at least I understood why she does what she does.  Do you find that or something like it true for you too?

[earlgrey]

I use a 'home kit' for recognising the various traits of B and NPD. It is based purely on my observations supported or otherwise by this site and other reputable sources.

Traits seem to cover a lot of ground.

On the narc front, here is one of my stories below. My observations are that a pw narc traits (NPD maybe) has only concern for their own welfare and simply cannot put the needs of others before their own. Selfish yes, but to the detriment of others, even small children... .Others have no needs, or if they express them there is something wrong with them. This is a recurring theme in my r/s.

D (6 at the time) stands in the doorway or our bedroom in the middle of the night. I see her. She is scared to come in, because she knows waking mummy will get her into trouble. I call her in, and ask whats up. M. wakes and lets fly at us all, tells D to go back to bed. D actually feels sick. M has no interest in anything but her own sleep and so storms off to spare room. D is sick and I take care... .

[enlighten me]

I believe my exgf was BPD/npd a real queen type. My ex wife I think has more of a mixture. At first I thought she was hpd. After splitting with my exgf I looked into her behaviour and BPD fitted it to a t. I then realised that it fitted my ex wife. She was more waif like though. Now my ex wife is married to a real narcisistic type and she has turned into a queen. How much is co morbidity and how much is mirroring I dont know.

[JerryRG]

My exgf is like yours earlgrey

She would go crazy if our son woke up with me in the morning. I would hear him jumping in his crib and knew he wanted out to play, it wasn't that early either, 7:30am. She would scream at me and swear and threaten me if I asked her to please just let him get up.

I would change him, she wouldn't do much of anything unless it was about her, spent much of her time in front of her mirror. Always posting selfies on social media, changing profile pics almost daily.

I'm sure glad I'm not around that anymore, it would be nice if the judge knew all this, she would have lost custody a long time ago.

What a nightmare