Are You The BPD or NPD? Ever questioned yourself after attacks?

[CaliGirl25]

Just wondering if anyone else has let the NPD/BPD abuse get to them?

 Especially where it gets to the point where you can't really differentiate if it's the NPD/BPD person's behavior or your own behavior creating the hectic environment.

Sometimes I wonder if it's just so unbelievable that we are dealing with all this emotional and mental stress that we just blame ourselves... .like an easy way out, or to disassociate.

Also, do you come across the NPD/BPD in your life blame you for wanting to isolate your self, or pull back from their behavior? When in reality it is their behavior that actually causes you to withdraw for your own health. 

[Turkish]

You're living in a house with one,  likely two.  That's a tremendous amount of stress,  especially being tasked to be a House Mother.

Taking care of ourselves is legitimate for anybody. A pwBPD won't likely see it that way because they don't respect boundaries between people,  focused on their own needs, emotional and physical.  

I had no choice when sent to family therapy by my mother when I was 12. I had a choice,  but still went to couple's counseling by my uBPDx as an adult.

Even given the disordered person's behavior, there are things we can do to help reduce conflict on our side.  This isn't "blaming the victim" but rather coming to terms with the fact that the other party may be "limited" as my T said.  Have you seen this discussion? What can you take out of it?

Support Empathy Truth

[I_Am_The_Fire]

Towards the end of my marriage with my uexBPDh/uexNPDx the abuse got worse. It was hard to not let it get to me at times. When an argument started, I would dissociate. It was the coping mechanism I had learned as a small child. I didn't realize I was doing this until the marriage counselor pointed it out to me. I wouldn't necessarily call it the easy way out. It's really easy to blame ourselves. It's extremely stressful.

My trauma therapist and my friends helped me a lot with reality checks and that it wasn't all me. Part of his behavior was in reaction to me, in a way. When I chose to not emotionally react to his drama, he escalated trying to get some sort of reaction out of me. Once I saw what he was doing, I refused to give in. Because he wasn't getting the reaction from me that he wanted or expected, he would accuse me of being incapable of feeling emotions or empathizing. He didn't seem to understand that I chose to not react. I felt he was trying to maniuplate me which I absolutely hated. When I stopped managing his emotions, his behavior got much worse. It seemed he wasn't able to control his emotions or the words that came out of his mouth. He would spew whatever hateful things came to mind and never apologized for it. In fact, he blamed me for his behavior and the horrible things he would say to me.

It was not a healthy relationship. He blamed me for pretty much everything. I stopped engaging in arguments and his accusations. I would just simply state that I disagreed and left it at that. It wasn't easy because it seems he thrives on chaos and arguments whereas I hated chaos and arguments. I had to withdraw for my own sanity. I had tried to calmly discuss things with him many times but he nearly always managed to turn it around to blaming me for whatever it was and justifying his own behavior. I got tired of it.