Is idealization differeent in NPD vs BPD

[How to communicate after a contentious divorce...]

I've had this re-occurring question that keeps popping up when I ruminate

My ex would talk to friends and family how awesome I was gushing me with praise. Basically hero worshiping me even when I was present. Yet behind closed doors I rarely heard her say anything close to that to my face. During a series of complaining and arguments I would call her on it. I would tell her to stop praising me if she was so unhappy with how and when I did things for her.

Is idealizing different between the two disorders? To me it sounds like narcissism, about keeping an image and making people jealous of your relationship. This would coincide with her behavior with my replacement and plastering it all over Facebook how happy she is now and how she tries to rub the relationship in my face.

Yet she never name called, nor did she put me down to lower my self-esteem which would suggest not.

[JaxDK]

I've had this re-occurring question that keeps popping up when I ruminate

My ex would talk to friends and family how awesome I was gushing me with praise. Basically hero worshiping me even when I was present. Yet behind closed doors I rarely heard her say anything close to that to my face. During a series of complaining and arguments I would call her on it. I would tell her to stop praising me if she was so unhappy with how and when I did things for her.

Is idealizing different between the two disorders? To me it sounds like narcissism, about keeping an image and making people jealous of your relationship. This would coincide with her behavior with my replacement and plastering it all over Facebook how happy she is now and how she tries to rub the relationship in my face.

Yet she never name called, nor did she put me down to lower my self-esteem which would suggest not.

[HopinAndPrayin]

Hi Jax,

First, I'm sorry you experienced that.  It's so hard to reconcile such dramatically different experiences of the same person and we all want to feel appreciated and respected by our SOs.  I don't have an answer, but I can share my understanding from my own experience.

My stbxhBPD had comorbid BPD / NPD or narco traits.  I can talk to the BPD side of it.  Idealization for him was about finding the ideal rescuer.  I was the great benevolent and approving parent he had always wanted, until I was, you know, a human being with my own needs and an inability to enable him out of principle.  Then I was his greatest disappointment.  For him, it seemed to be an escapist hope - I might be the thing that made all the problems (not his problems because he didn't have any, just life problems that existed) go away so he could just live happily, unencumbered by the irritations of everyday living.  Imagine how difficult that must be for the BPD for a moment.  Completely oversimplified belief of savior or failure, and any flaw could be the crack that destroys the veneer and brings it all crashing down.  It helped me start to make sense of the instability I was experiencing in his world view.  Family, bosses, colleagues, friends... .they all fell victim to perfect ideal or abject failure that then had to be avoided for fear of contamination.  Imagine the roller coaster of each person you meet potentially being the hero who saves you from all of life's problems, but then they aren't that hero; they can't be.

I also have an alcoholic NPD father.  The idealization or bragging as you saw it were about my being an extension and reflection of him and he was soaking up feeling good By proxy.  It was about him having sired someone special, which could only happen because he is special, and he wanted that attention.  I just wanted my father's love.  Because he saw himself as perfect and the center of the universe, I was also bred to be the smartest, highest achieving, most talented, etc., etc.  #exhaustingperfectionism  #unfulfilling. I was only told I love you when I won an award or got all A+'s.  I remember when just an A showed up and he chided me about it all quarter.  At home, away from the praise or recognition, I wasn't allowed to exist or was verbally abused for having traits that he hated in himself.  We were always walking on eggshells.  I'll never forget when I came in from sledding and had knocked my two front teeth out - his response was that he was very busy that day and couldn't believe I was inconveniencing him or how stupid I had been to do something that would disfigure my smile for the rest of my life.  Zero empathy.  All he cared about was how it looked to other people.  Similar to your experience, nothing of praise or appreciation was ever repeated in private.  To an NPD, you are not your own person, just an extension and reflection of them.  In my experience, when they aren't performing for others, their praise of you would somehow diminish them, which is why you only ever see it during "the show."

Hope that helps!  And going forward, hope you can appreciate yourself and you find someone who appreciates you regardless of who is around.

-H&P

[Skip]

I don't know that you can differentiate NPD from BPD on this one criteria - clinicians look at life long trends and and clusters of criteria. And to make it a bit muddier, 70+ of pwBPD have some other stuff going on and that can vary from person to person...

Is idealizing different between the two disorders? To me it sounds like narcissism, about keeping an image and making people jealous of your relationship. This would coincide with her behavior with my replacement and plastering it... .

I think you have it. To her, having a good and adoring relationship partner is a sign of her accomplishment. Hitting on you behind the scenes is asking you to get closer to the image she has projected.  It is NPD-ish.

Is it pathological?  That depends on how destructive her actions were? This can pathological  like the psyco-cheerleader mom, Micahel Jackson's dad, or Tiger Parent's. Is not really pathological in the adoring wife, dedicated soccer mom, or good high school coach, etc.  In all cases, the outside image doesn't look like the inside image.

[JaxDK]

Thanks for your replies they gave me something to think on. She's got both BPD and NPD going on but as I've read that's not unusual. We all have a little narcissist inside us. BPD just have more of it. Specially the waif.

Trying to elicit a response from me after the breakup by trying to make me jealous would suggest looking for supply. Every time I showed an emotion of finding it difficult with her moving on with a replacement, she would amp it up. Punitive and Supply seeking. I recently apologized for leaving the way I did, which caused a change in her. She got to tell me she was glad it ended. Now she's nicer, and no longer seems interested in trying to make me jealous which is good.

[once removed]

We all have a little narcissist inside us. BPD just have more of it. Specially the waif.

we all have narcissism, as part of the makeup of our psyche. "narcissism" is really a neutral term, in that there is healthy and unhealthy narcissism. someone with say, NPD, takes unhealthy narcissism to pathological levels in all or most facets of their life. i would not take any of this to mean that people with BPD have more or less narcissism than your average person. a narcissist sees others as an extension of themselves. generally, someone with BPD views themselves as subservient, and looks to merge with others. there are particular exceptions and comorbid levels, of course.

Trying to elicit a response from me after the breakup by trying to make me jealous would suggest looking for supply. Every time I showed an emotion of finding it difficult with her moving on with a replacement, she would amp it up. Punitive and Supply seeking. I recently apologized for leaving the way I did, which caused a change in her. She got to tell me she was glad it ended. Now she's nicer, and no longer seems interested in trying to make me jealous which is good.

this is probably more common than you might think. its a response to perceived hurt, it is a form of self righteousness, it is attention seeking, and you can also call it plain immature. recall your times in middle school, and you probably saw tons of it. some people simply dont grow out of it.

[JaxDK]

I don't know that you can differentiate NPD from BPD on this one criteria - clinicians look at life long trends and and clusters of criteria. And to make it a bit muddier, 70+ of pwBPD have some other stuff going on and that can vary from person to person...

I think you have it. To her, having a good and adoring relationship partner is a sign of her accomplishment. Hitting on you behind the scenes is asking you to get closer to the image she has projected.  It is NPD-ish.

Is it pathological?  That depends on how destructive her actions were? This can pathological  like the psyco-cheerleader mom, Micahel Jackson's dad, or Tiger Parent's. Is not really pathological in the adoring wife, dedicated soccer mom, or good high school coach, etc.  In all cases, the outside image doesn't look like the inside image.

Destructive? if you mean abusive behavior as part of destructive then I have a hard time deciphering what's considered abuse. I was guilted/shamed for sometimes playing games on my phone, because I wasn't paying attention to her if she talked to me. It would become a problem. It got to the point, where I had to tell her, I couldn't just sit and stare at the wall and wait for her to engage me in conversation. She is a talker and would constantly engage me in conversation randomly. She would refuse to talk to me if I had my phone in my hand. She would be visibly upset she couldn't talk to me

The same with my computer. It got to the point where I just packed it away for good to accomodate her/avoiding arguments and upset feelings. Mind you I wasn't sitting infront of it for hours on end.

I started playing minecraft with her 3 kids. She got upset because she felt left out so that stopped too.

The whole relationship from start to finish was about her constantly asking me to do things for her. Be it backrubs, foot rubs, head massage to aliviate her headaches, getting her something from the kitchen it just escalated. her mood shifted to being more silent and withdrawn If I had an excuse not to do some of the stuff she wanted me to do.

My workload at the house kept increasing. Doing my share was not enough. She would get tired of doing laundry so I helped with that too, on top of everything else I did. She could not see my contribution at all. When pointed out she would diminish it and guilt me into doing more. At the very end of the relationship there was no ME anymore and I had an oncomming depression. All of this to avoid fighting.

Is any of that abuse? She never name called, nor did she outright tell me I was a bad boyfriend, lazy or any other putdowns. When I think of abuse I think of the more direct kind.

Also if the entire relationship was about her needs and getting her needs met through me taking care/helping with her kids/workloads/giving her attention, where my needs was either a problem, or a threat. Is that a possible trait of NPD?

There's no doubt in my mind she has BPD I could post a whole list of things that could support it all the way down to childhood. Not from the above examples however. I just wonder how much of NPD is a part of it.