Yeah I have a history of disassociation as well (yay cptsd), but I’ve noticed a particular way it looks in cluster b folks, and it’s more clear the less healthy they are. (A friend who underwent enough dbt to have it be hard to tell she has bpd didn’t have the look at all.) I think it’s partly that they’re disassociating anticipatorally and in situations where they’re going in and out.
And yeah BPD and NPD are really similar in a lot of ways. My father is a narcissist and he had a violent childhood that drove him to seek status and control. Very similarly the BPD folks I’ve got scars from had rough childhoods as well, even the one who lied about every aspect of her past. They struggle with identity and self care and struggle to deal with distress without disassociating or attacking.
I’m sympathetic to cluster b folks, I’m incredibly grateful I managed to leave my childhood without being one of them. I wish them all great treatment and can be friends with many once they’ve gotten control of themselves and their emotions and are mostly asymptomatic. And I feel awful for the burdens their diagnoses and conditions leave on them throughout life. But also I can’t be the damage left behind in their wakes anymore.
If anyone with a cluster b personality disorder is reading this or anyone reading this feels like they might have one, DBT works when you commit to it and do all the work. It’ll be slow and it’ll hurt, but it saves lives especially for people with bpd. It can give you the tools to stop hurting yourself and others. Those of us who’ve been hurt by folks with cluster b disorders want the people with them to heal and learn to stop hurting people.
You’re last statement there is why I speak up about it. They can get help. They need to get help. For all the victims it can save. If these things are just discussed as blanket “sociopaths can’t be cured” then we just enable the abuse of more victims.
Yeah I have a history of disassociation as well (yay cptsd), but I’ve noticed a particular way it looks in cluster b folks, and it’s more clear the less healthy they are. (A friend who underwent enough dbt to have it be hard to tell she has bpd didn’t have the look at all.) I think it’s partly that they’re disassociating anticipatorally and in situations where they’re going in and out.
And yeah BPD and NPD are really similar in a lot of ways. My father is a narcissist and he had a violent childhood that drove him to seek status and control. Very similarly the BPD folks I’ve got scars from had rough childhoods as well, even the one who lied about every aspect of her past. They struggle with identity and self care and struggle to deal with distress without disassociating or attacking.
I’m sympathetic to cluster b folks, I’m incredibly grateful I managed to leave my childhood without being one of them. I wish them all great treatment and can be friends with many once they’ve gotten control of themselves and their emotions and are mostly asymptomatic. And I feel awful for the burdens their diagnoses and conditions leave on them throughout life. But also I can’t be the damage left behind in their wakes anymore.
If anyone with a cluster b personality disorder is reading this or anyone reading this feels like they might have one, DBT works when you commit to it and do all the work. It’ll be slow and it’ll hurt, but it saves lives especially for people with bpd. It can give you the tools to stop hurting yourself and others. Those of us who’ve been hurt by folks with cluster b disorders want the people with them to heal and learn to stop hurting people.
You’re last statement there is why I speak up about it. They can get help. They need to get help. For all the victims it can save. If these things are just discussed as blanket “sociopaths can’t be cured” then we just enable the abuse of more victims.