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Post by Kathymel on Feb 6, 2016 21:13:24 GMT
It became obvious to me pretty soon after I started looking into ADHD that my father was the genetic root of the problem. Countless short-term jobs, constant house moving, 3 nationalities and 7 wives seemed to sum it up quite nicely. However, I couldn’t get the rest of him to fit into the picture. It wasn’t until a recent conversation with a cousin that I realised I might be looking at the wrong picture altogether.
I have a letter from him, received after many years estrangement, where he manages to talk about himself non-stop for 14 sides of A4. Having not seen me for 20 years, he had only one question.
‘You mention your son, but not his father. Was he a charming son-of-a-bitch like me who put a bun in your oven and then ran away?’
Actually, even that managed to be about him, now I think of it.
My cousin said she had a similar letter. She has also met him recently. Apparently his company is eccentric, though not in a good way. He turned up dressed as Doc Holliday – the full regalia. The costume was so hot in the Californian summer heat that he sweated all day, but didn’t remove it. He’s a very fit and agile 80, but he was also so crippled by the boots that he couldn’t walk without assistance after a while.
He talked about himself for two days. If a conversation wasn’t about him, he would turn it round so it was. If a topic didn’t directly relate to him, he found a way to crowbar an experience of his into it. He just couldn’t bear to be on the sidelines of anything.
I suggested it sounded like Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Apparently, after half an hour of meeting him, another friend of my cousin had said the same thing.
I haven’t done much research on this and I’m writing a dissertation at the moment so I’m not going to. I just wondered if anyone knew more about it. And don’t worry about being sensitive because he is my father. He is actually the biggest arse that ever walked the planet, so please, do be frank.
Oh, and I haven’t even got around to mentioning the fraud, the illegal weapon possession, the pipe bomb and the two prison sentences, yet.
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Post by annie on Feb 6, 2016 22:01:43 GMT
I have real difficulty with your post, given that the recognition of ADHD as an adult condition has only recently been recognised in the NICE 2008 guidance. Many, many adults will never ever have had their difficulties expressed in a way which might explain the difficulties they experience
Your suggestion that your father may well have a "Narcisstic Personality Disorder" is something which neither you nor I have the skills to comment on. However, your comment about your father as being the "genetic root" of the problem, in my opinion,is misplaced. Who knows where the root is - it will go back many more generations than you or I can count
ADHD is a highly heritable condition but focusing on a "blame culture to parents" is unlikely to help you move forward
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Post by Kathymel on Feb 6, 2016 22:08:59 GMT
I'm not blaming my father for my ADHD and I'm perfectly aware that it will go back through many generations. He is just the immediate link. The genetic link.
I am here to ask if other people know more than I do about this, not to make an unequivocal statement. It's an exploration of a situation that interests me and I'm confused as to why you find it offensive.
Edited to say: I'm also very happy with who I am and don't feel the need to blame anyone. Rather, I'm thankful for whatever combination of genes it was that made me this way. I'm not saying I have always felt this way, of course, but who I am now is exactly who I want to be. I'm very grateful for that.
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Post by annie on Feb 6, 2016 22:36:48 GMT
Sorry if you misunderstood. I wasn't offended in the slightest, just wanted to expand on your post.
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Post by contrarymary on Feb 6, 2016 22:40:35 GMT
this is really interesting @kathyme and makes me think of one of my own family members of my parents' generation who i've struggled to get on with. she's always been known as self-obssessed because she relates everything to her own experience, reads other peoples' stories as to how they will affect her etc. one of my other family members who's more closely related to her has said for a few years that she suspects my relative may have NPD. it's only as i've begun to understand more about neurodiversity and read more about both adhd and autism - inc aspergers - as they present in women (eg females less likely to collect car number plates etc) that i've begun to wonder whether she may in fact perhaps be someone with inattentive adhd or autism, or indeed traits of both. if that is the case, i can only imagine what it must have been to spend 80-odd years of your life feeling different, alien, struggling with other people without the access to the internet that we have, and without the benefit of the new knowledge and understanding which has grown up over the last 20 years or so. i'm sure someone has posted previously evidencing knowledge of NPD from a professional perspective. (was it blaze?) and i'm wondering if there has been much research on this,and overlap with adhd and/or asd / aspergers. i'd love to know more.
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Post by Kathymel on Feb 6, 2016 22:48:58 GMT
My cousin and I were trying to piece together his childhood to work out if that could have had an effect on his current personality. Apparently, his mother thought he could do no wrong and he was never controlled or criticised. He was the absolute center of her universe. He stole from her a lot, apparently, and she never complained. She ended up dying in poverty.
We wondered if it was possible for someone to start out with something like ADHD and, through circumstances like this, for it to evolve into NPD or something similar. To be honest, I'm not even sure if NPD is a neurobiological disorder or psychological.
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Post by PeterTheGreat on Feb 6, 2016 23:06:30 GMT
Narcissism is overrated. Machiavellianism is where it's at. All jokes aside, is this anything more than a coping strategy to oppose depression through no sense of belonging? I've spoken to people who, through desperation, start using terms like narcissist to describe themselves yet they have empathy pouring from every orifice? Annie, it's not a blame culture, it's simply root cause identification for the afflicted. Every ounce of info you glean is a step closer to better understanding, better coping strategies and less drugs
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Post by cheekybuddha on Feb 7, 2016 9:15:16 GMT
I am fascinated you refer to narcisssim as a coping strategy to keep depression at bay. I think that id inspired and very true of one person i know
Sometimes i get mfed up with his delusional thinking but he is only protecting himself from the reality.
I think its a vwry male response to inner discomfort, womem tend to become emotionally unstable and men develop narcassim when their semse of self is challenged growing up. (In general!)
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Post by tessaract on Feb 7, 2016 10:17:00 GMT
I have been doing a lot of research into this lately as I was trying to figure out why my now ex friend drove me so crazy. It seems that any type of personality disorder is really hard to treat because the person afflicted is usually in denial.
I made a long descriptive post about my ex friends behaviour here but nobody commented so I guess it was too long and personal and had nothing to do with ADHD really so I deleted it and found a forum called: out of the fog and it is for people who are living with other people who may have a personality disorder, how to deal with them without going crazy. It has an A-Z of traits and behaviours that people may have.
I'm curious about how men could end up on the narcissistic side although it seems to be pretty even across the sexes. Like ADHD and ASD there are different ways the disorder is expressed.
Apparantly people with NPD (narcissistic personality disorder) will sabotage other peoples lives to get what they want and if they dont get what they want all hell breaks loose, Does that sound like your father?
I found it very helpful after describing my ex friends behaviour - passive aggressive, the victim, aggressive, violent explosions, controlling, judgemental and to others on the outside she is the do-gooder, the fun person but on the inside very angry and resentful, just in case your interested.
The people were very supportive and basically told me I had put up with years of abusive behaviour. It felt good to not feel like the bad guy any more and they confirmed my suspicions that it sounded a lot like borderline personality disorder.
Maybe you might like to check out other posts from people who are dealing with NPD and understand your father a bit better. Its not pretty though!
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Post by vagueandrandom on Feb 7, 2016 13:48:59 GMT
I saw your previous post tessaract but didn't know how to reply. I'm not sure if my sister has NPD, but I'm certain that she doesn't have ADHD or ASD or depression. She believes that the world revolves around her and her child, which makes her come across as very selfish, uncaring and rude. She also has a delusional chip on her shoulder about her 'terrible' and 'working class' childhood. . .which is just NOT TRUE - I was there! She's a university professor and has always been on a good salary and has everything money can buy, so can be really insensitive when you're struggling to be able to afford to pay your bills. She thinks that I'm lazy and should be able to get a better job and manage my money better and then suggests that I buy a *insert expensive gadget here* She also claims to remember everything that's ever happened in her life from birth, and I can't remember very much, so if she tells me that I did or said something, and I don't remember, I don't know if she's making it up, and can't argue. She disapproves of me drinking, but probably drinks more than me and posts comments about how drunk she is on FB. This is why I've had little contact with her for the past few years. Like your ex friend, she has loads of friends and is seen as fun and caring. I know she's narcissistic, but not sure it's diagnosable.
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Post by Kathymel on Feb 7, 2016 19:15:15 GMT
Apparantly people with NPD (narcissistic personality disorder) will sabotage other peoples lives to get what they want and if they dont get what they want all hell breaks loose, Does that sound like your father? I know so little about the details of his life that it's hard to know if he was deliberately sabotaging the people he left broken behind him. My mother stayed solitary from the day he left until she died, 40 years later. All she would ever say was, 'I had enough with your father.' The only deliberate act I know details of concerns the woman he was having an affair with whilst married to his sixth wife. He wanted to leave her and marry the mistress. The mistress wouldn't leave her boyfriend. He placed a small, home-made pipe bomb under the boyfriend's car. (It wasn't meant to wound, apparently, just to frighten.) Other than that, he is a peacock of the first order and thinks everything about himself is fascinating. To my lasting horror, he thought I would be interested in his sex life, so his letter described details from several of his relationships, including that with my mother. So not normal.
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Post by clubby on Feb 7, 2016 21:55:30 GMT
Hi @ kathymel
My mother has NPD and I recently underwent 12 weeks of counselling to help me escape from her clutches.
It is not that she doesn't have a good heart. There are two personalities pulling her strings. One of them is quite evil.
I can't decide whether she has ADHD or not, but she definitely has Executive Processing difficulties so there is a link.
It is all a bit of a puzzle and we have tried to dig into her past to see how it got so out of control. Things happened in her past.
She is starting to recognise the nasty personality and controls "him". "He" is like a pressure cooker and builds up, exploding with wickedly cutting remarks.
Your father sounds to me like he has NPD.
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Post by Kathymel on Feb 7, 2016 22:49:29 GMT
Thanks for your response, Clubby.
I've always said I think I would have been a very damaged individual had my father not left when I was young. Impossible to know, of course, but my childhood was very simple and quiet without him and I'm glad my mother found the strength to kick him out.
Sorry to hear you have been put through the mill and I hope the counselling has helped. Did you manage to piece anything together to begin to explain it? Interesting that she perceives the negative personality as male.
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Post by clubby on Feb 7, 2016 23:13:30 GMT
It is easier to talk about the narcissist character as male because it differentiates the personality away from the lovely part of her. I don' think there is any other meaning in it. ?
A narcissist focuses on one person and attempts to assimilate them. They use another person as a tool for their own purpose. I can understand why your mother had had enough.
When I was a child my mother focussed on my father, and my brother and I were largely abandoned. I spent most of my childhood in a fog.
When my father died 10 years ago she turned her focus on me. It is particularly difficult to resist a narcissist when they have raised you.
There is a big mix of symptoms that come into play - OCD, Dyspraxia, Pathological Demand Avoidance, Dyslexia, Hyperactive Thoughts, Sensory overload, Borderline Personality, Inability to follow, practice or accept, ......... all part of executive function disorder.
I think both my parents have/had executive problems and my adhd stems from the combination.
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Post by Kathymel on Feb 8, 2016 0:00:29 GMT
Your words, "A narcissist focuses on one person and attempts to assimilate them" made me think of another person I met recently who made me uncomfortable. She was constantly trying to impress me with the severity of her problems, whilst making out they were also a joke. But she also used to tag me in FB memes that she'd made for me about how great a friend I was. I wasn't, really, I was just listening and trying to be supportive, but I actually found it all a bit creepy and manipulative.
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Post by tessaract on Feb 8, 2016 2:04:18 GMT
My own experience of having a best friend of 15 years with this type of behaviour, a possible personality disorder is: control, obsessiveness and emotional blackmail. Trying to mold me into her ideal version of me. Humiliating me in front of friends with explosive anger. Resentment. When her boyfriend broke up with her years ago was when the red flags popped up. I was her sole focus then. That was when it became very uncomfortable and feeling the full responsibility to be everything to this person. I wonder clubby if that is how you felt when all the focus was suddenly all on you. I wonder do all personality disorders have control and obsessive behaviour in common.
Invited to a wedding soon, not gonna go because she is invited too and I am genuinely afraid of her, especially with a day of alcohol consumption at a wedding!
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Post by clubby on Feb 8, 2016 9:59:59 GMT
There is an interplay between all the disorders because the brain is one organism and if one part has a weakness, all the other parts have to adjust.
Its a bit like if you break a leg. You end up with lots of other physical problems just trying to cope.
My mum has borderline personality disorder and and it is hard to separate it from the narcissistic personality disorder.
I think the difference is in the level of intent.
A BPD in witch mode is driven by emotion - usually caused by fear.
An NPD witch is much more calculating and manipulative.
Both are part of a smaller underlying problem. In my mum's case the swings between randomness, obsessiveness, hyperactive thoughts and demand avoidance seem to stem from a brain wired in a way which cannot cope with the standard packages the present society expects us to follow.
There is no one to blame. It is simply our path to follow. To find a way to break the cycle of destroyed relationships, to learn to understand how the brain functions and how to accommodate those who simply cannot do what we wish or need.
I had counselling for my experience of being NPD fodder and the message was, stay away and control the relationship from a distance. Keep hold of your anchor.
I am glad to say that my relationship with my mum is much improved and she is slowly starting to see the NPD for herself.
Must go hyperfocussing.
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Post by PeterTheGreat on Feb 8, 2016 11:06:49 GMT
You seem to be describing a mach but using the word narc? Has the word narcissist become a catch-all for any undesirable behaviour?
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Post by vagueandrandom on Feb 8, 2016 12:03:37 GMT
I don't understand your latest post PeterTheGreat
Previously, you seemed to be in favour of greater understanding of what may, or may not be NPD.
This discussion is exploring people's experiences and thoughts on the subject, it's relationship (or not) to ADHD and also personality disorders.
I can't see anyone here using it as a 'catch-all for any undesirable behaviour'
We all have ADHD and it would be easier for us to use that to blame ourselves for 'undesirable behaviour' and we know that this is not right.
No condition should be used to blame for 'undesirable behaviour' we need to try to understand, not judge.
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Post by PeterTheGreat on Feb 8, 2016 13:17:06 GMT
You're right, sorry. I sometimes worry that the devil is in the detail and it scares me that people might pin explanations or associations to the wrong root and then make life altering decisions based on that. Rightly or wrongly, I see narcissism as self-obsession and preening and machiavellianisn as self-interest I'm probably a bit too tired and emotional. I didn't mean to stifle the discussion
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Post by Catherine1 on Feb 8, 2016 13:50:12 GMT
Frankly, I am not a fan of the PD diagnoses. However, I think that labels can be helpful to the extent that they help people understand their own condition, or the condition of others with whom we are related. Out of the Fog is a great resource, isn't it clubby? Though of course, PTG, it is not intended as a means for people to make psychiatric diagnoses of each other. Despite having said that I don't like labels though, the term "narcissistic rage" is worth looking up, if anyone has ever been on the receiving end of the wrath of a fragile person who uses attack as their primary means of defence!
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Post by clubby on Feb 8, 2016 17:05:17 GMT
I agree that labels are very dangerous, but we have to start somewhere when we are trying to get to the bottom of a problem.
If I told people that my mum is different and she forms poor relationships, that would probably be more accurate than all the labels I have dumped on her.
However, I was raised by her, and forbidden to label anything. It is very difficult for a child to find anchorage under such a regime.
As such, I understand the importance of labels as much as I understand the damage they can do.
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Post by Kathymel on Feb 8, 2016 23:45:03 GMT
Someone I was going out with once told me that labels were unimportant and that he didn't like them. He was referring to the fact that I couldn't for the life of me remember the name of a species of bird or something and I was getting annoyed with my brain.
I thought, how would we talk to each other without labels? Ornithologists would have to say, "I saw one of those ... um ... flying things the other day, the ones with the curved things on the front of their ... um ... oh, you know the part that goes at the front with the two thingys on it that they use to see with."
I know that's taking it to ridiculous extremes, but we need labels in order to be able to know what each other is talking about. We just need the label not to become the only thing that defines something, if that makes sense.
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Post by blaze on Feb 9, 2016 10:09:03 GMT
I got bored after a couple of posts....sorry..... tired, ill & off my medsbr] cm - i don't have professional experience of npd, but personal. My mother in particular is v classic npd, my father heavily narsassitic but less disordered & less obviously abusive & my inlaws in line with my father (i guess being brought up by these people is something oh & i recognised in each other, & try v hard not to replocate)
You would be v hard pushed to find people who specialise in working woth npd as most people with npd never come forward for treatment as they believe they are right & everyone else wrong.
Narsassism as a trait itself is present in most people to varrying degrees, and many psychs etc will tell you that having no narsassism is not healthy either. Alice millers descriptions of grandiousity as a defense against feelings is a helpful way to look at it if you are looking at a general level of narssasim, but it's important to be warry of the more extreems-narsassitic abusers are normally considered the most capable at not getting caight & the most difficult for victims to recover from.
I have alot of expreruence of worling with people woth other pds- bpd, avoidant & dependant most commonly.
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Post by blaze on Feb 9, 2016 10:29:32 GMT
With regards to adhd & pd cross over- i think it's small, nuerodevelppmental disorders are comorbid with other dds, then traditionally thought of nuerotic mh illnesses, then bipolar, then pds down on the list. Physical problems are in their too, like cfs & hypermobility, & atachment disorders, but the pd is lower. It's rare anyone have one condition in isolation though.
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Post by contrarymary on Feb 9, 2016 11:08:42 GMT
hope you feel better soon blaze
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Post by blaze on Feb 9, 2016 11:55:13 GMT
hope you feel better soon blaze Thanks, me & kids have had flu for the first times ever- never seen my kids sick before!!- i have coughed & puked so much i tore a muscle in my side : ( which is horrid.
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