Noor,

"The danger in using someone else's diagnose is that you run the risk of hiding behind it to justify anything and everything wrong that happens to you. Humans do that all the time and it makes them feel powerless. If you do that, you will live up to that expectation. It's a self-fulfilling profecy. "

actually my experience of carrying the guilt and self-doubt and believing all the things that went wrong were MY fault is what my S ghad me convinced of. It took 2 therapists more than 2 years to get me to see none of it was my fault.

Please,

look more into the impact on the loved ones of these people.

Its the other half of the picture I dont hear you talking about.

"By the way when people react violently to other's statements/ideas it is often because those words struck a cord in the reactive person. "

why else do survivors of abuse react to anothers statements?

Thank you all for your responses.

I can only speak for myself, but I understand that I have had a part in this relationship and I am going to counseling to find out what it is about me that has found this type of treatment acceptable.

To be clear, narcissistic personality disorder is far more serious than just being selfish or self-centered. All human beings have some qualities or behaviors that could tend toward narcissism, but NPD is very different than normal self esteem or selfishness. The problem with saying that the person has to be diagnosed before we can discuss their problems is that the majority of people with NPD will refuse counseling or treatment (as my husband did).

I have a degree in psychology, and I don't have any doubt that my husband has the disorder. One of the worst things about it is that other people tend to blow it off like it's nothing - no big deal, everybody is selfish sometimes, which is why I look for support on DS where there are people who have lived it.

I don't think that someone discussing their spouse's bad behaviors means that they are not accepting any responsbility for the relationship. It just means they are looking for support and want to feel like they are not alone.

Lily61

I came here because I felt ready to leave the other support forum I was on ONLy for the survivors of narcissistic abuse. They have a realistic understanding of the particular ki nd of unravelling of a person that N's and S's can do.

If youre at the beginning of your recovery it may be a much better fit for you to start there where your experiences will be better understood. I

I agree , many "normal" people exhibit narcissistic and damaging behaviour at different times in their lives, especially when their marriages are failing. So probably every member on this forum could chime in with some example of narcissistic behaviour on this thread. That is NOT the same as living with narcissistic abuse for years. Thats why finding a therapist who doesnt just understand things intellectually, but who can REALLY comprehend what happens to a person in this kind of position is so important for recovery. And I hear tons of stories from survivors about therapists who dont fully understand the impact, and the damage done, or the particular therapy needed to help unravel the Gordian knot that our insides are left with.

If you want a couple of great forums for that specific purpose, please PM me.

I just cant even verbalize any of this right now.

Im forging on and moving forward. My healing has been a great process and will continue to be. It is not for anyone to measure other than myself. All I can say is that I am not hiding behind a diagnosis, anyone or anything. Im working VERY hard on me. I dont expect anyone to understand my struggles, but I do post here at times out of my frustration and as a process in my healing. To receive others perspective and to seek support is crucial in my personal progress.

I cant even think right now Im a jumbled mess.

I to am SO upset now, crying and trembling even in my upset, and I reread what I posted and as calm as I am trying to be it just sounds like namby-pamby shit flowing from my fingertips.

It is so difficult to verbalize what our experiences were because most often they were so subtle and insidious. I still cant describe how (as an example) I asked my exS what he would like me to make him for breakfast and 8 hours later I was a near catatonic mess in a fetal position on the floor without him ever laying a hand on me or calling me any names, and me apologizing, having to make amends and seeking out emergency therapy sessions so I could fix what *I* was doing wrong. Experiences like that happened every weekend for 7 years.

I cant tell you how or why I didnt run after the first time. I cant tell you how I became trauma bonded or got PTSD. I just dont have the words for it.

I just cant. And so trying to say anything honest and open about my experiences always seems wasted on others because it NEVER sounds as bad as it was.

And I just cant bring myself to reveal the secrets I knew and did nothing about until it cascaded onto me one day in a near-suffocating realization of what I had chosen to wash my hands of during the relationship.

What I do NOW have the guts to share with people is how I was a fairly normally neurotic chick who had a great 17 yr relationship with a guy that ended naturally that, along with my childhood had NO signs of abuse. That I was educated, accomplished, stable, and lived a charmed life...but for 5 of the 7 years I was with my exS and for almost the entire last 3 years since breaking up with him, its been a constant battle to choose life rather than drive my car off the Burlington Skyway bridge. I wanted to die every single day. I'd wake up sobbing every morning because I had to face I was still alive, and still having to confront the pain.

Not the pain of a normal breakup with a normal guy. Been there, done that.

But this sick, toxic, flesh-eating black ooze that I was somehow poisoned with while with him. I dont have the words to describe it, what it feels like or how it has invaded my sense of this world.

I've been in tears since reading your posts Noor. Not because I see you at all as someone who passes judgement on someone like me. But because you seem to be one more person to whom I can try to describe just some of what happened to me, and it is somehow not understood.




And youre a person whose career will include understanding people who are hurting.

I am not a jilted lover.


I am a survivor.

Those of us who have lived it know, and yes it was diagnosed--but try to get a narcissist to go for counseling--lots of luck.

I'm sure there are exceptions--there nearly always are--but I don't know (and I know quite a few)of a single partner/survivor of one that hasn't/doesn't kick themselves around plenty. Yeah, I stayed much too long--but, damn it, I loved him.

(((Phoenix))) (((Namaste))) (((Everyone that has survived abd is needing understanding)))

My exS will likely never be diagnosed because he not only is brilliant as hell and knows which answers to give, and has been lying his entire life to everyone about virtually everything, but also because he went through therapist training with me.

The only thing that can be used to accurately diagnose him is anecdotal reporting, the crimes he has committed (but oh yeah, he was too smart to get charged with abusing and killing animals, fraud, burglary, trafficking in narcotics, assault, attempted murder, murder), and testimony from his expartner, but as you can see, thats not fully understood either.

In his own words the last time I spoke to him "its all hearsay, you dont have a leg to stand on".

no wonder I feel cut off at the knees (to borrow a friends phrase)

So many things he did, but
I had a feeling he was still texting his women again after we got back together but I could not prove it, one night I had walked in the bedroom and saw he was looking down at something and then quickly snapped it shut and put it in his pocket. I knew this was his other phone and asked him what he was doing. He said nothing I asked to see what was in his pocket and he went off on me that he is doing nothing wrong I am a psycho bitch among other things, and I just kept saying if its nothing then let me see. He just lost it and told me to get a good lawyer. He left the house and when he came back he threw a lighter at me and screamed, you wanted to see what was in my pocket it was a fucking lighter. Now I am not stupid I know he went out and called who ever he had been texting him and then left the phone in the car. He truly believed that I should believe him and that it was a lighter.

Phoenix, I undestand your emotions. My husband was recently diagnosied with Major Depressive Disorder MDD. I took plenty of emotional abuse in the 21 years we have been together and tried over and over to protect, save and heal him knowing deep down inside there was nothing I could do and most of the time when he was blaming me for his crap it wasn't my fault. I do not use his recent diganosis as a cop out for my end of the ending of our marriage but rather to accept my part and to accept it's time for me to move on with my life. Thats all anyone of us can do.

What I would find helpful, and I dont know if Namaste thinks this as well, is if you could voice those opinions in ways that leave space for those of us who WERE with dangerous and damaging partners who ARE personality disordered.

When you use a blanket statement like online websites without the use and support of a website can be counterproductive, I think you are only partly true, because people who HAVE been with a N or S can suddenly have a door swung open on their overwhelming confusion and pain.

I am not, and have not advocated for people diagnosing their ex's. What I am now , and have in the past advocated for is not jumping on and wholesale dismissing information that DOES clarify and help what a few of us have experienced.

I want there to be a space held for people like me.

And I find a number of posts in this thread actually suggest discounting, rather than tolerating it.

btw I have shared my experiences, to my recollection a number of times, but specifically in the man bashing thread....not ALL of them, but many of them. One, I have only been able to tolerate sharing with my 2 T's and my best friend.

I have suffered. Many have suffered. I WON'T own this pain because of HIS problems any longer. Being a SURVIVOR means surviving it and moving FORWARD and not live in the land of dwell.

His problem...I owned it for a while. It is over. I moved on to other areas within myself.

I'm looking at the original post and it seems it was inviting those whose ex's have NPD to post.

That a whole bunch of others who have assholes for ex's posted is not what I am addressing.

I am addressing the suggestion that talking about ex's who DO have NPD or ASPD is not appropriate for this forum, when I think its just as appropriate as talking about abusive ex's, sex addicted ex's, ex's that abandon their children.

I dont care much if people call me codependent, I know who I was when I wasnt with my exS, I've been called worse, by people who have no understanding of the impact someone like that can have on a person. They love labels like drama queen, masochist, or love addicted and none are accurate. So I'll use the correct and applicable terms like sociopath or narcissist, trauma bonding, and ComplexPostTraumaticStressDisorder because without honesty, theres no growth.

And yes I take the kind of discounting happening here personally, because its a painful journey coming to the realization of just what the hell went wrong, its a painful process to ADMIT what happened around and to me, its painful to figure out why I stayed, how to assuage my own guilt and remorse and need to make amends to others and MYSELF without driving off that bridge, and frankly its painful to take the risk to talk about what happened when I know how it sounds, and how its not believed or taken seriously by people, not even budding therapists.

But thats not just MY experience, thats the experience of MANY expartners of N's and S's, and abusers. They dont want to speak of what happened, because theyre afraid of being dismissed or judged or not believed.

I try hard to only speak for myself in just about every post I make, but really, I try to stand up for the partners who are afraid to speak, or who when they are hurt are so upset they dont know what to say, so in that way, it goes beyond the personal.

You are free to have your opinion and to post it everytime the subject comes up, just please be aware that when youre discounting the usefulness of anyone talking about it in informational or sharing of experience terms, youre squeezing out room for people like me and Namaste and who knows who else.

Thats all.. holding a space for us could be a consideration if you want it to.

I can never claim to speak for others. It is insulting.