Latest / The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten / The Narcissist-Borderline Dynamic (Extreme Preoccupied-Avoidant)

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The Narcissist-Borderline Dynamic (Extreme Preoccupied-Avoidant) · The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten

• 0:05
  Hi everybody, and welcome to the dr.
• 0:07
  Psych mom show today, I'm going to discuss the narcissistic
• 0:11
  borderline Dynamic and this is a common Dynamic that people see
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  in couples counseling where somebody with narcissistic
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  traits. And someone with borderline
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  traits are drawn to one another frequently.
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  It's the man as the narcissist in the woman has the borderline
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  symptoms, but it can be inverted as well before we get to that.
• 0:31
  Let's just as always tell y'all to subscribe, Close to 50
• 0:36
  subscription-only episodes, they're all super good and
• 0:39
  there's the oral sex on women. And the you don't care, there's
• 0:44
  the oral sex on women one, anyhow.
• 0:47
  So let's just then Dive Right In.
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  And by the way there's lots of people following me for therapy
• 0:54
  and asking not following me for therapy.
• 0:57
  There's people on the street that are following me.
• 0:59
  Begging me for therapy? No, there aren't there's people
• 1:02
  asking about therapy. I have a group practice, best
• 1:04
  life. Behavioral Health, so best life
• 1:06
  Behavioral, Health.com. We have clinicians mostly in the
• 1:10
  DC area, but some are licensed elsewhere to.
• 1:13
  So let me know if you need a therapist, by emailing through
• 1:15
  that site. Anyhow, let's move into this.
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  So a lot of people come in, like, with real like, fucking
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  crazy relationships, you know? And you know, if you're in one
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  of these, you know, because it's really volatile, it's really
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  chaotic but you kind of don't know because that's likely what
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  you grew up with and First. Let's go to borderline traits
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  because this is going to give a lot of men, an aha moment about
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  their wives now. Borderline is is not super
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  common in the population at large but it's pretty common in
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  counseling, particularly in marital counseling you know
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  where else it's coming. You know who also knows a lot
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  about it. Divorce attorneys because these
• 1:52
  are the most contentious conflictual divorces.
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  So borderline personality is like a very extreme version of
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  preoccupied. Attachment people with
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  borderline personality, we're sensitive children.
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  And raised in an invalidated and we're even abusive home and
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  that's the etiology of it. And it is a personality
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  disorder, which means it's more pervasive.
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  It used to be thought that it couldn't be cured, but it can at
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  least in as much as symptoms can remit.
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  Not not the entirety of how somebody views the world but
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  symptoms can permit and in fact, during mid over time, even just
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  with age particularly the more impulsive ones.
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  So what is borderline look like? Well, I mean I just I could just
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  read you Criteria and explain kind of what they are.
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  So, an intense fear of Abandonment, now you should be,
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  you know, counting these off on your fingers about either
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  yourself or your husband or your wife.
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  It's more commonly presents in women and men, this manifest
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  more is antisocial personality. There's some controversy over
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  whether the diagnostic criteria are just kind of gender biased
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  or not. But again, since it's more often
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  exemplification of extreme preoccupied attachment, I do see
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  more Women that I genuinely think have borderline than men,
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  but I definitely see men that do too.
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  So count these offer, you know do a tally mark an intense fear
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  of Abandonment going to Extreme Measures to avoid real or
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  imagined separation or rejection.
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  So it is this person freak out when they think you're about to
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  leave a pattern of unstable intense relationships
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  idealizing. Someone one moment and believing
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  the person doesn't care enough. The next.
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  So this splitting making somebody all good or all bad
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  somebody's on. On a pedestal and then they come
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  off the pedestal. It happens with everybody,
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  probably happened with you for, if you are the person who is a
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  partner of the person with borderline and it happens with
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  friends with their family Etc. Somebody's all good and then all
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  of a sudden, there's a break, there's strange moment, this
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  person is terrible, they never loved me.
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  They never cared about me, they're horrible.
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  I didn't know how horrible they were.
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  And there's a lot of burned Bridges there for rapid changes
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  in self identity, and self image, including shifting, goals
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  and values. So this person is not stable in
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  terms of career, possibly even religion, in terms of how they
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  dress, how they act like they kind of, they can almost be a
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  chameleon with different sorts of groups.
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  And this isn't just in terms of adolescence and young adulthood,
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  and then adulthood, or what have you?
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  This is kind of, you know, more frequently than that.
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  Such that you kind of don't really know who they are in a
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  way and it's always changing. And if you are the person with
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  the borderline, sometimes you don't necessarily know who Ooh,
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  you are when you deeply introspect periods of stress
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  related. Paranoia lasting from a few
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  minutes to a few hours. This is particularly.
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  If you feel rejected, then it's like, oh my God.
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  Everybody's out to get me. And if you hear your spouse
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  saying crazy stuff, like, oh, somebody must have hacked into
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  my account. People are watching me my how
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  did my friend know this or that about me or, you know, just
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  stuff that sounds just off the wall then you'll know what this
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  is impulsive and risky Behavior. We're up to five now, impulsive
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  in Risky behaviors, such as gambling, reckless driving.
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  Unsafe sex spending sprees binge, eating or, and also
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  believe me I've been doing and purging drug abuse or sabotaging
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  success by suddenly quitting. A good job, or ending a positive
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  relationship. You'll know that if you see it,
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  especially the impulsivity interpersonally.
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  So just like, yelling at somebody, you're ruining a
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  relationship or The Burning Bridges had talked about
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  suicidal threats or behavior or self injury often in response to
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  a perceived us separation. That's going to happen.
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  So this is often with younger people with borderline traits
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  that they will either really attempt to kill themselves or
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  say they're going to not to be manipulative in a bad way, but
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  to be manipulative in the way that they are panicked, at the
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  thought of a person leaving them, the loved ones, they're
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  literally doing anything to keep them around wide.
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  Mood swings lasting from a few hours to a few days.
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  You know, what this is if you have it and if you see it on
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  doing feeling as of Dienes. So that means like you kind of
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  really do not know who you are and you feel very bored and
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  intolerant of being alone because you're empty inside.
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  Really? You feel that way?
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  You're not, but you feel that way.
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  And the last one is inappropriate intense anger,
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  such as frequently lost, losing your temper being sarcastic, or
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  bitter, or having physical fights.
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  Okay? So those were nine.
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  If you got at least five, or if your spouse does, then that
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  would meet criteria for borderline again.
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  I can't diagnose anybody, but I'm saying, if you were to Bring
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  yourself or your partner in for evaluation.
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  These are the criteria that would be looked at.
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  So now you have a sense of what borderline traits are.
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  And again, I can't diagnose or, you know, whatever, but, like,
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  just like you could look up symptoms of anything.
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  Most people aren't going to. So that's where I come in.
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  So anyhow, people like this. Are, you know, the quote crazy
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  wife in my mr. Perfect.
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  And it's crazy wife, they have many symptoms of borderline and
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  just people, Who kind of also don't really live up to their
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  potential at all frequently have these symptoms?
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  So a guys like kind of confused because his wife's really smart
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  but she does like nothing she does really nothing.
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  I mean, there are people who do nothing in the world and you
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  see, I see a lot of them in my officer gets hold of them.
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  What I mean by this is? Yeah, sure like she doesn't
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  work. Okay.
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  She's a stay-at-home mom or maybe you know, she does work
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  but she's always losing jobs or she's has problems.
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  As with authority or if she's a stay-at-home mom, she kind of
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  doesn't do anything really, you know, and she just has kind of
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  dramatic conflicts with people. There's also a lot of
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  psychosomatic symptoms. So this person often achieves
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  way less than they would give in their intelligence.
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  Now there may be other issues at play, obviously, borderlines, a
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  personality disorder could be comorbid.
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  And often is with things like depression anxiety, ADHD PTSD at
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  cetera. Another way to think about
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  borderline now. That's I thought of more and
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  more is just basically complex trauma that lasted from
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  childhood that manifest in this way.
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  Now why are people with borderline drawn to people with
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  narcissistic personality? You can read about that on my
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  site but people kind of know more about narcissism.
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  So basically when you think you're better than everybody
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  either covertly or overtly and your kind of arrogant so like
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  you know you got you got no skin in the game of lying to yourself
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  if you know that this is you And it's funny because there was a
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  study that showed that the a large narcissism, like, scale
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  was as good as literally asking somebody.
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  Do you think your narcissistic because most people's narcissism
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  will be like yeah, you know what I really do and it's funny
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  because whenever I tell anybody in therapy that they have
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  narcissistic traits you could tell if it's right or not.
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  I mean you know I know them a long time.
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  So it's usually not like wrong but when I try to bring it in
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  they'll always be like really you know, because I heard that.
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  And do you like delighted almost like there's special?
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  They love being special. Now, they even have a diagnosis
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  and they really thought about it all along that they are, you
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  know, especially overt narcissists, the covert or more
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  victim type of narcissists, are different.
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  They'll be like, no, I'm not. But males especially will
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  usually be like yeah, you know what, you could be right.
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  Like I've heard that a lot. My wife always certainly says,
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  I'm self-centered. So and they're very high
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  achieving and they've heard that they're like a bulldog at the
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  Boardroom or whatever, and they kind of Pride themselves on
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  being like an arrogant asshole. So guess what?
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  Like, you know, if if it quacks, it's a duck.
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  So anyhow, the reason that border lines are drawn to
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  narcissists is that they don't have this internal sense of self
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  or the strong core of self-esteem.
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  So, they're drawn to these more arrogant flagrantly, quote
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  confident, but really arrogant people because other people
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  would find the narcissist to be unappealing.
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  Like they're so into themselves as so-called Barney almost like
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  it's like cliche but a borderline is like, wow, that
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  person knows who they are. Holy shit.
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  If I liked myself to that person and this is all subconscious and
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  unarticulated. Then I too will have some sort
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  of an identity. I'll basically ride on their
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  identity in a way because I don't feel very confident and
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  secure. I don't really know who I am,
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  but this person really does and then if we create a couple and a
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  family, then I can kind of ride on on on their deep.
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  Self-knowledge. At least they're so great and
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  then I won't have to think about how I don't really know who I
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  am. Now also people with borderline
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  do that idealization devaluation thing and who's going to believe
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  that shit a narcissist, right? A narcissist doesn't even get a
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  question it. Oh, this woman thinks, I'm
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  amazing. She just met me and she wants to
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  get into a relationship. With me were having sex six
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  times a day. Wow, this will last forever.
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  Finally, somebody realizes truly how amazing I am.
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  And then, you know, six months, 18 months later the woman's
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  done. And she's, you know, she, as he
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  has fallen off the pedestal, she's beginning to devalue him,
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  seeing him as the enemy. But he always keeps on trying to
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  get back to that early phase, which she was acting like, he
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  was God and more securely attached.
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  Non narcissistic, man, will be like, whoa, like what the fuck's
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  happening? Sex?
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  Six times a day. All right, that's nice.
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  Like, this is nice for Little while.
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  But this seems insane. Why she talking about a future
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  with me already. Like, why is she drinking all
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  the time? And why does she have?
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  I should crying all the time. And what's happening with the
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  friend groups? And what's the why she cut off
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  from her family? You know, they're going to
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  interrogate some of these more dramatic history on a treat,
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  whereas a narcissist just going to be like, wow, look somebody
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  thinks I've totally amazing lots of shape their whole life around
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  me neat, you know. So that's how they end up
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  together and then when they're fighting, Which set, of course,
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  these get into very contentious battles.
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  They are both very dramatic. They both are very
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  attention-seeking in a sense, and so the fights get insane.
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  A nuclear, which is cool, I guess for them before kids.
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  But after kids, these are the houses that people grow up in
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  and have lasting Trauma from. And in fact, their own
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  personality issues including borderline because the houses
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  are so chaotic and conflictual. So if you recognize yourself and
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  your partner, Her in this description.
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  What do you really do about it? You got to get yourself into
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  counseling. I mean, like, you know,
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  sometimes I feel like people think, oh, well, I'm just gonna,
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  you know, tell you Silver Bullet way to save and transform this
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  decades-long Dynamic that started like basically, when my
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  wife and I were both born in our individual homes, you know and
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  shape through our individual, family of origin experiences and
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  Trauma. And then like you know I'm just
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  going to tell you like here's your five point plan.
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  To like not be in this Dynamic. I don't have a five-point plan
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  or a 1 million point plan to not be in this Dynamic, you need to
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  do some deep work where you try to see if this Dynamic can be
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  shifted, including individual work for each person.
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  The Narcissist needs to stop kind of needs to get his head
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  out of his ass, really, and start to build some empathy.
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  And the person with borderline needs to basically create.
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  Sometimes a secure personality from scratch because you don't
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  feel like she has one and how can this happen?
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  Best is with deep introspective, Insight oriented work and which
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  we do go back to early experiences and see how they set
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  us on the path that they're in. Now while also building empathy
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  perspective, taking and especially for the borderline
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  building up ways to self-regulate.
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  That's why DBT is so helpful for people with borderline, that's
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  dialectical behavior therapy was pioneered by Marsha Linehan.
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  Who in later years it came out actually was Yourself for
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  borderline personality as a teen and she then came up later on
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  with DB T which is not anything new.
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  It was a combination of basically CBT Buddhist Zen,
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  mindfulness techniques, basic distress, tolerance techniques
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  from behavioral training, a whole amalgam of things that she
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  marketed and as DBT and and really a DBT framework can be
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  for Border Lines of all Stripes. So low functioning too high
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  functioning. So a low No functioning
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  borderline person is going to be in a hospital for repeated
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  suicide attempts, high-functioning ones man, I see
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  at the highest levels of business education everywhere,
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  you know they're CEOs their professors there everybody.
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  So you could be very high functioning but your internal
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  world is a complete mess from unresolved childhood trauma.
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  So there's nothing to be ashamed of you know and people can work
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  on both narcissism and borderline and they frequently
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  do. And as long as both people,
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  Committed to the relationship or really to even their own work as
• 15:13
  individuals. This can be very useful and
• 15:15
  frequently. Of course what motivates people
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  most their kids not continuing the cycle of crazy.
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  Dramatic marital conflict that they saw growing up and now
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  appear to be replicating. Now the mr.
• 15:26
  Perfect. And his crazy wife.
• 15:28
  Dynamic can also give you a very good insight into how this
• 15:31
  manifests that's one of my bonus episodes can give you a really
• 15:34
  good insight into how this manifests in terms of certain
• 15:36
  interactions the worst thing, NG for a borderline is to feel
• 15:40
  invalidated. So you know think then about
• 15:45
  your style if you're the partner, if you're the one who
• 15:47
  keeps saying calm down calm down.
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  It's fine. What do you acted so crazy for?
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  That's like the worst thing you could do and also lying even if
• 15:55
  you of course are going to be lying.
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  No shit. You're gonna be lying at times
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  because every single thing seems to activate this person, they're
• 16:03
  going to say what's wrong, you're gonna say nothing because
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  you're terrified, you know, Ed But they pick up on any sort of
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  dishonesty because that's a form of invalidation.
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  So couples counseling works on being more, genuine authentic
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  and empathic for the narcissist which is very difficult.
• 16:19
  And for the person with borderline to be more to really
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  grow their own self esteem. So sometimes you know, they are
• 16:28
  very, very high achieving and work as the only area that they
• 16:30
  feel good at many times, they don't really have an identity
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  because every time they start a job or even a volunteer position
• 16:37
  there, they get very triggered. And somebody says something mean
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  to them, they're super high rejection, sensitivity, and
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  borderline personality. And they leave, you know, they
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  throw up their hands and leave. And so, when enough of these
• 16:49
  happened, they really lose their there.
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  Any self-esteem that they had because should they can't make
• 16:55
  anything work, really. And this also happens with
• 16:59
  relationships with children. So you a kid only needs a few
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  insane freak outs by a parent before they become very scared
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  and avoidant. And That angry depending on
• 17:10
  their own innate style. So frequently parenting also
• 17:13
  feels like it's going to shit, you know?
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  And so this person feels just like things are getting worse
• 17:19
  and worse and worse and then if you throw in perimenopause you
• 17:22
  know which starts in the 40s and so and then you get real mood
• 17:25
  swings based on hormones. This can be a very volatile
• 17:29
  situation. Also pmdd all of these things
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  are worse when it's against a backdrop of Personality level
• 17:36
  issues like no shit, obviously. So if this resonates with you,
• 17:40
  this is something to think about some books that you can read
• 17:44
  our, stop walking on eggshells, that's a good one.
• 17:46
  I hate you don't leave me. I'll just link you to my reading
• 17:50
  list and then you can go into the borderline section and also
• 17:55
  on the narcissistic side, you know, you individual therapy,
• 18:00
  people say does it, work are narcissistic some kind of
• 18:03
  monsters. What the hell do?
• 18:04
  These people never work with high-achieving people.
• 18:07
  All y'all have narcissist. Symptoms mostly you know.
• 18:11
  So of course it does. Like this is some crazy pop
• 18:14
  psych shit. Is that narcissists are
• 18:16
  monsters. It can't work out stuff, we're
• 18:17
  working on making people less self-absorbed.
• 18:20
  Wow that's therapy in general having a wider world view.
• 18:23
  So of course, it's going to be very helpful for those with
• 18:25
  narcissism who can definitely change.
• 18:29
  So it's funny to like a lot of the there's a lot of overlap
• 18:33
  between narcissism and sex, addiction addiction of all
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  Stripes, really. And And yet people say that
• 18:39
  addicts can be helped, there's so much overlap between
• 18:43
  narcissism and particularly sex addiction, from what I see in my
• 18:46
  practice. So how could it be that
• 18:48
  narcissist? Can't change, of course, they
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  can change. So, don't let any of those memes
• 18:53
  and stuff about narc abuse. Like, make you think that a
• 18:56
  narcissist can't change. Of course, they could change.
• 18:58
  They change daily incrementally in my practice.
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  You know, somebody doesn't have to be diagnosed with narcissism
• 19:05
  for them to be working on narcissism you know, like the
• 19:07
  majority of People that come in, that are avoidant, attachment
• 19:10
  are working on a bit of narcissism quite honestly.
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  So also the other way to think about this narcissus borderline
• 19:17
  Dynamic is extreme version of preoccupied avoided or pursuer
• 19:21
  distance sir. So and those you're more
• 19:24
  comfortable with but when she goes really derailed, then it is
• 19:27
  this, right? An amplified version of one of
• 19:29
  those. So I hope that this was useful
• 19:32
  to you and it can be an extremely validating honestly
• 19:36
  for somebody who thinks that their partner.
• 19:38
  Has been acting dispatching, crazy and or they must be
• 19:42
  driving their partner. Batshit crazy to think oh my
• 19:45
  partner actually suffering from symptoms of borderline
• 19:47
  personality probably and more maybe and I'll do some more
• 19:52
  reading and some more thinking and encourage them to be in
• 19:54
  treatment because that is its own constellation of symptoms
• 20:00
  that I may be exacerbating but I didn't create them.
• 20:04
  And so of course that can be very validating the on the other
• 20:07
  end to to Understand more about as the borderline that you were
• 20:11
  drawn to somebody narcissistic for various adaptive reasons at
• 20:15
  the time that I explained. But now they are just making
• 20:18
  everything worse by being so invalidating so arrogant.
• 20:22
  So their their confidence and stuff is making you feel even
• 20:26
  worse about your lack their inability to empathize.
• 20:29
  It's really the worst possible thing for you in many regards
• 20:32
  Etc. So of course it's a million more
• 20:35
  things you could read and think about these topics.
• 20:37
  And I will if there is sufficient Interest on specific
• 20:40
  issues within this Dynamic. But for now, I will go and I
• 20:44
  will link you in my description to all of the various reading
• 20:47
  that you could do. Because I know there's going to
• 20:49
  be at least a few probably, a few dozen of you listening.
• 20:52
  There could be like whoa. That's like exactly myself /, my
• 20:56
  partner and that could be very transformative to know that.
• 21:00
  What exactly is the problem? This is in and of itself can be
• 21:03
  very healing can set you on the path to finally know what you're
• 21:07
  dealing with which is The best sort of thing when you feel
• 21:10
  struggling and like, wow, I'm in crazy town and I don't know
• 21:14
  which way out. All right, I'll talk to
• 21:16
  everybody soon. I hope that you got a lot out of
• 21:19
  this and that you subscribe. Bye bye.