My sister feels that our dad was the borderline

[JNChell]

My sister is a PhD psychologist that teaches at a small college and practices. Her main focuses are children and trauma. Makes sense considering where she came from.

Anyway, on occasion, we have short conversations about our parents and our individual upbringings. We had a very in depth convo about all of that a few days ago.

Short background. We are both adopted. She was placed in a golden child role and I was placed in the scapegoat role. I’ll spare details, but we both agree on this and we’re both very aware of the implications that followed.

I started to talk about things under the umbrella of labels (BPD, NPD, PTSD). She’s very knowledgeable on these things, but expressed that she doesn’t like to do her work within the constraints of a label, but she understands the benefit of them when individuals are looking for answers and showing signs of real self awareness and are serious about recovery. She’s taken to the theory that most of these categorizations stem from trauma, and that the disorders (labels) are currently necessary for the insurance companies and the final decision makers on what goes into the DSM. She believes that Van der Kolk is on the right path to a real breakthrough in trauma recovery.

I’m making this long winded. We talked about our parents. I again shared that I thought dad was a full blown NPD and that mom had severe borderline traits and possibly PTSD from her childhood and having to live with our dad. Possible C-PTSD. At least those are labels that I’m familiar with. She believes that our dad’s emotional dysregulations and severity of abuse pointed towards borderline. She believes that there was overlap (comorbidity) with narcissism, which he was full of, but I never took a step back to consider borderline in our dad. From what I know about his upbringing, and I’ve done as much family research as I can, he didn’t experience a childhood that would lead him down a path to borderline. NPD? Yes. Not because of “abuse”, but because of being spoiled, which I understand can reach unhealthy levels and lead to toxic behaviors.

We talked about mom. Mom was the most explosive person in my experience, and Sis and I don’t share similarities there, nor was she ever attacked by our dad. Mom’s childhood was cold and emotionless from what I’ve gathered. Mostly because of her mom. Grandma was a very cold woman. She would hug and smile, but outside of that, there wasn’t much. I believe that our mom was the scapegoat and the eventual black sheep of her family. Her family didn’t like my dad. Her mom didn’t speak to her for a year after mom married him. Grandpa would sneak away to see her during this time. That story was told to me by my dad, so I question the accuracy of what really went on.

Looking back and trying to remember, dad was a switch. He could point a loaded gun, take a 2 hour nap and wake up ready to go fishing or just be cheerful and goofy. Mom was constantly upset. She’d have very short windows of being approachable. A hug against her hip while she was preparing food all day long on a Sunday. I wonder about PTSD and maybe bi-Polar. Who really knows. Trauma breeds a lot of upset in our society.

Maybe I’ve been wrong about what I grew up with. I just wonder about dad/borderline.

[zachira]

JNChell,
You are having some interesting talks with your sister and perplexed that she thinks your dad was borderline. As you know, I come from a family with many generations of people with mental illness on both sides, including lots of BPD and NPD. You think your dad could not be BPD because he did not have the traumatic childhood to support that diagnosis and you experienced him quite differently than you sister did. My experience is that each person with mental illness is different due to many factors including age, sex, inborn individual differences, different life experiences, and two people with the same mental health diagnosis can look very different, particularly if they are of the opposite sex. In my family, some of the people with BPD do not have the traumatic childhoods that I would expect, and in other cases, those that you would expect to have BPD don't. I believe it is very much an inherited emotional dysregulation disorder that is made worse by childhood trauma and living in highly dysfunctional environments. For many years, women were primarily diagnosed with BPD and men with NPD. There are now many men being diagnosed with BPD, particularly ones that commit domestic violence. You know a lot and are well informed. I think we look for explanations for why we were abused by our parents to try to understand what happened to us and move forward.

[Turkish]

Spoiling kids doesn't lead a child to develop the inflated false self of a pwNPD, but rather emotional neglect and invalidation, similar to a pwBPD which isn't necessarily the result of trauma. Inborn emotional sensitivity can certainly make one susceptible for developing traits of BPD.  BPD points to core shame: "my feelings are inherently worthless and invalid; therefore, I am worthless and unworthy of love."

My T, a PsychD, agreed with your sister. He didn't like labels either.  

[
No doubt.   The late Joanna Ashmun and the late Kathy Krajco, popular blogger/ abuse victim advocates, had some strong opinions about narcissisism.  And the blogger Sam Vaknin's material on narcissisism is frightening.  But, like the other PDs, I think NPD is best viewed as a spectrum of severity with a huge number of people being "subclinical".  In many cases we can learn to communicate in a way to reduce relationship struggles and we can learn to understand the tendencies and how to step back and not become emotionally injured.  
 
I saw this description from Jeff Ball, Ph.D. that I thought it was more straight forward.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder describes persons with an exaggerated sense of self-importance or uniqueness, and a preoccupation with receiving attention. Narcissists will often overstate their own achievements and talents, or focus upon the special nature of their problems. In essence, the narcissist's fragile self-esteem is revealed by their preoccupation with how others regard them. Features of a narcissistic personality include a preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love. There is also a need for constant attention and admiration, and either a cool indifference or feelings of rage, inferiority, shame, humiliation, or emptiness in response to criticism, indifference of others, or defeat.  ~ Jeff Ball, Ph.D..
 
How to Distinguish NPD from Borderline Personality Disorder

pwNPD traits differ from pwBPD traits in that pwNPD traits have a relatively stable self-image, and lack self-destructiveness, impulsivity, and abandonment fears.

Partially quoted. Anyone can click on the quote link to read the whole thread.

[JNChell]

Hey, zachira. Sorry for the delayed response.

BPD is said, in cases, to be inherited. That it can skip a generation and show up later through genetics, as a lot of disordered behaviors do. Trauma can definitely corrupt natural development. I know your story well. Actually, how’ve you been? Feeling better I hope. It was a really weird experience to be holding my mom’s hand when she stopped breathing.

You’re spot on in that people with mental illness can look and present very differently. The behavior. The patterns and what they talk about. The nuances that give them away. Not even just disordered folks, but the gossipers and back biters that we encounter.

If I’m understanding you correctly, BPD is dormant until it is activated by trauma? That it’s genetic? Psychopathy works the same way. A child is born a psychopath, but it takes a trigger to set bad behaviors in motion. A psychopath can live a long life without ever harming a flower. Nurture from the parents. There is never any emotion, but the child knows right from wrong. The child still doesn’t care about that, but they get it. That doesn’t mean the child won’t grow to be selfish and self centered.

Males and females have been diagnosed differently while exhibiting similar behaviors. This is where it gets complex if allowed. Really, as we talk about here so often, it’s simply behavior. BPD, NPD, ASPD, Schizophrenic, it doesn’t matter. The behaviors are very similar and the affects on the people around them are the same. Many of us struggle with the trauma that was gifted to us. A lot of us unknowingly entered romantic relationships that triggered our trauma and upended our lives.

Both of my parents were monsters. Now, I’m simply curious to know why. Only God knows now. I don’t get angry anymore. Perhaps they made me tough for a reason. BTW, it’s hard to let go of figuring out why my parents did what they did. I’ve accepted a lot, but this part is hard.

[zachira]

Good to hear from you. I know you are very busy, working and raising your son. My shingles is getting better, just have one symptom which is the fading rashes. The antivirals I took seem to have cleaned up some other problems, as I actually feel better than I have in a long time.
You are wondering why your parents treated you the way they did. I think that those of us who were abused by our family members, especially our parents, will always wonder why. One thing to remember is that sometimes people have BPD and other personality disorders who have no history of trauma. Some of us who have been abused, like you and me, have the capacity to see that there was something wrong with the behaviors of our abusers. You are a good father to your son despite the bad examples you were provided with from your parents on how to raise a child. Only a small minority though significant one of people who have been abused as children become child abusers.
I recently read that people who have Aspergers, which is high functioning autism without the language delays, have no capacity for theory of mind, no capacity to understand the feelings of another person. I also believe that people with Cluster B personality disorders, like BPD,NPD, ASPD, and HPD, have no capacity to understand how their behaviors emotionally affect others. I also believe that those with BPD are unable to own their overwhelming emotions, which leads them to project onto others the emotions that overwhelm them.
I do think it can help to see that maybe our parents who abused us really did not have the capacity to do any better. It does not excuse nor justify abusing their children in any way. It just means, that under ideal circumstances, that more caring responsible adults needed to be appointed to raise the children.

[JNChell]

Thanks for the resources, Turkish. I appreciate it. Perhaps my dad was comorbid which is often the situation. From talking with my sis and you all, I can see where Borderline traits may have been at play with him. I’m still convinced that there was a high level of narcissism in him. It doesn’t really matter within the scope of it all. It’s just a curiosity at this point. This stuff has become very interesting to me, so I still tend to pick it apart at times. I guess I can chalk it up to having a real desire to know and understand where I come from. We’re adopted, so that’s another layer that we share. That is most definitely the most confusing aspect of everything. To be taken in only to eventually be terrorized by people that couldn’t have kids on their own. I wonder sometimes how deep things really go. Did Mother Nature deem my parents unfit? Is that why they couldn’t reproduce on their own? I don’t obsess, but I think about it at times.

BPD and NPD, and their traits are very similar. From what I’ve gathered, the two are the most likely to be coupled together. At the end of the day, diagnosis and labels don’t really matter. The behavior does.

For the most part, I’m not really angry with my folks anymore. There are moments, but I’m not swelled up with anger like I once was. I can even say that I feel some empathy for my folks. Something happened to them during their development. People don’t hurt their kids for no reason. Things happened to them. I don’t know what those things truly are, but my parents were innocent children at one point.

You know, it’s really easy to paint ourselves into a corner when it comes to this stuff. To hang our hat on the fact that we were abused and get stuck in feeling  that way.

Inexcusable behavior and abuse are just that. Trying to understand it and see it for what it is , is a big step forward. It’s easy to hate the people that hurt us. That gets us nowhere. My parents did the best they could. Most people do. Unfortunately, their minds were very limited.