Stop Walking on Eggshells

When someone in your life has borderline or narcissistic personality disorder.

by Randi Kreger

Lack of Empathy: The Most Telling Narcissistic Trait

By Randi Kreger on January 24, 2012 in Stop Walking on Eggshells

Narcissists don't consider the pain they inflict on others; nor do they give any credence to others' perceptions.They simply do not care about thoughts and feelings that conflict with their own. Read More

Scary!

Submitted by Kelly Cash on January 24, 2012 - 8:53am.

You might as well call the actors and actresses in Hollywood The Devil's Brood. I sure wish you would stop demonizing and scapegoating the people whom you profess to help. That's bullying, abuse and also known as betrayal trauma.

reply
quote

Kelly

Submitted by Randi Kreger on January 24, 2012 - 12:46pm.

I am unsure why you are reading a blog about personality disorders if you don't believe they exist, or should be mentioned..or should not be described as having a diagnosis (I'm not sure what position you are in). Having a personality disorder is no more shameful than having depression, bipolar, or diabetes. The traits are determined by psychiatrists, psychologists, and other clinicians. Rather than take issue with me, who writes about them, I would suggest you contact the American Psychiatric Association and express your feelings to the group that is putting together the DSM-5 and urge them to put in your perspective. I just write about it.

reply
quote

Note the presence of psychopathy

Submitted by Annie on January 25, 2012 - 1:38pm.

Just my opinion, but the individual posting as "Kelly" is deliberately messing with you, Randi, just to get a reaction out of you. Psychopaths get bored easily, and to amuse themselves they like to make troll posts at discussion sites and support sites for the victims of psychopaths and other mentally ill abusive people, just in order to foment argument and ill feelings. The best thing to do is ignore them. Narcissists and psychopaths can't stand to be ignored.

Which brings me to the point I wanted to make originally: I think that narcissistic pd is just "psychopathy lite." I personally believe that the underlying dysfunction of all the Cluster B disorders and psychopathy is a profound self-absorption: total, absolute, complete, utter narcissism.

The completely self-absorbed who lack empathy and lack a sense of right and wrong, or a "conscience", are the psychopaths (or antisocial pds)

The completely self-absorbed who possess a rudimentary sense of right and wrong, but still have no empathy, are the narcissistic pds.

The completely self-absorbed who also have emotional dysregulation are the bpds.

The completely self-absorbed who act out sexually are the histrionic pds.

And I think that those with autism are narcissistic by default; in their case, their complete and utter self-absorption is due to their brains not recognizing that there ARE other people.

It will be interesting to see whether future neuro-biological research will turn up an underlying organic brain dysfunction that links the complete self-absorption and lack of empathy in Cluster B pds with the lack of ability to perceive other-ness (and absence of empathy) in the case of profound autism.

My money is on such a link being discovered; I personally think that most mental illnesses are due to physical, organic brain dysfunction (brain damage) in some degree or form.

To me, if there is a physical, organic answer to the questions RE what causes mental illnesses, there is greater hope for discovering more effective treatments and even cures for mental illnesses.

reply
quote

those with autism are narcissistic by default;

Submitted by Barbara on April 5, 2012 - 7:01am.

"I think that those with autism are narcissistic by default; in their case, their complete and utter self-absorption..."
You confuse the case, Annie. People on the Autism spectrum will be absorbed by the line of pens they've made, or the perfect repetition of the oscillation of a piece of string, or the correct details in a plan. They are unlikely to be absorbed by themselves because the world batters at them with so much stimulus that they are often hardly even aware of themselves.

There can be no narcissism involved if self-love is not part of the picture.

It's always interesting to me to see how little theory of mind neurotypical people have. "If someone is distant in manner, they must not be aware of me, or must be ignoring me. If they don't act in a way that I recognize as empathetic, they must not empathize with me". Some people on the spectrum are excruciatingly sensitive to the emotions of those around them. However, if they can't react in a natural and timely manner socially but are restricted to formal responses produced explicitly rather than natural responses produced implicitly, they will look stilted and false regardless of how deep their understanding might be. Then they will be excluded and judged to be uncaring. They don't need to cause harm of any sort beyond causing discomfort in their companions. Compare this with the very real harm caused willfully by NPDs and psycopaths.
Autism isn't related in any way to Narcissism. No person on the spectrum will try to manipulate you or lie to you as a psychopath or NPD would. Any similarity is superficial and any connection drawn is a potentially dangerous libel.

See how difficult it is to have empathy with those different from yourself?

reply
quote

OMG, this sounds like my

Submitted by Anonymous on January 24, 2012 - 11:24am.

OMG, this sounds like my exhusband, we've been divorce for 10 months and he's been with his girlfriend going on 2 years and he prances her all around town family gatherings,friends, co-workers ex. Does't care about the damage he has done to me and his children just trying to put on that he's happy and he did nothing wrong. Everything was my fault and I was the one who filed and I try to save it and filed and divorced me. Crazy I know, I got out for my sanity