If somebody you knew like a family member, partner or friend told you they had NPD would you still talk to them? Would it change how you feel about that person?
As someone with NPD I’m always worried about how having NPD would affect me socially. It’s so stigmatised and people are always talking about how dangerous people with cluster B personality disorders are. I’m dating this guy at the minute. I really love him but I’m worried about how he would feel if he found out about my NPD. Would he still want to see me after what you see online about NPD? Should I ever tell him? Should I just keep it secret?
As of now I’ve told nobody about my diagnosis other than a few people at job interviews. What I’m basically asking here is ‘How will NPD affect your social life?’.
What I see online? I spent the first twenty years of my life as a target of cluster-B abuse, trust me I know firsthand.
My advice to all people in range is drop everything and fucking run. Things are replaceable. Jobs and friends are replaceable. Your wellbeing isn’t.
It sucks, you didn’t choose it, it’s not fair - I totally get that, believe me. I have ADHD, it’s a removed, and it can suck for the people around me.
But the thing is, the fact that it’s not your fault doesn’t make you safe to be around. People can be a danger to others completely involuntarily, despite their greatest wish not to be. And yes, that’s completely fucking unfair.
NPD and BPD are both driven by a great sucking vortex of need-for-validation that can never be filled, and that tortures people if left unfed. NPD is when the vortex demands power or status, BPD is when it demands extravagant emotional connection, but they’re the same basic model underneath. It’s as vicious and relentless as any drug addiction, it doesn’t go away, and it will eventually overpower any amount of good intent. When the monkey’s on their back, all bets are off and the nearest available victim will be preyed upon.
I don’t think there’s a safe way to be in a relationship with that - though I suppose with extremely open communication and amazingly well-defined and enforced boundaries, it could be doable. But this is very much a case of informed consent - it would be supremely shitty not to let your partner know the deal.
So what would be your advice for someone with a cluster B personality disorder? Are we just supposed to be alone forever? Also, why do you even know what you experienced was “cluster-B abuse”? People just think that anyone they don’t like has ASPD, NPD or BPD or something. “Phil who was kind of rude to me the other day, he totally has a covert psychopathic narcissistic cluster B personality disorder. I should know I watched 5 hours of Psych2Go videos”
Like I said, people deserve to know what they’re signing up for, and there need to be well-established boundaries agreed to in advance. I wouldn’t recommend it personally, but different people may choose differently.
And yeah - if someone just isn’t safe to be around, even for reasons they didn’t choose, don’t want and can’t change, then that’s correct, they shouldn’t be around people. Yes, that’s horribly unfair, but existence just sucks. If you have no moral qualms concealing that danger so you can keep exposing people to it in secret… then you’ve just proved my point.
As for the absusers in my life, kindly go fuck yourself.