Earlier in the year, Lovefraud submitted a comment giving our views on the draft of the new Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association, DSM 5. We commented on the proposed new term for antisocial personality disorder, “antisocial/psychopathic type,” and the diagnostic criteria.
One of the changes that the DSM 5 committee proposed was eliminating the diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder. According to an article in the New York Times, not everyone is happy about it.
Read A fate that narcissists will hate: being ignored on NYTimes.com.
Ox Drover
Dear verity,
My X BF-P kept saying to me from the FIRST of dating “if we broke up we’d still be FRIENDS” (actually what he was saying was “WHEN we break up we will still be friends WITH BENEFITS.”
He claimed to be “friends” (with benefits of course) with all his X GFs and actually I think even his X wife who had kicked him out for being caught (literally) in bed with another woman was an X wife “with benefits” (at least until she was informed he had an STD)
My definition of a “friend” is someone that I can TRUST, who will not lie to me or use me. It is someone that I would risk my life to save from drowning, someone I would take into my home if theirs burned or got repossessed, and whose home I could count on giving me shelter if I were homeless. It is NOT someone I have ever had sex with or would have sex with in the future.
verity
Hi one_step. I hope you’re doing okay.
I got a pang of sadness for him when I read what you wrote … not that it lasted long!! It soon turned to another ‘spot the pathology’ moment. You’re dead right. His best impression of the right thing, which is actually the exact opposite. I said to him, “WHY DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND???” I still don’t know whether he did and didn’t care, or honestly thought in his narcissism that he was a good chap. The therapist said that abusers *cannot* allow themselves to know that they are abusers. It’s ego dystonic … doesn’t fit in with their self-image so they chuck it out.
The last thing I read from him (I didn’t even read the last letter he sent) was, ‘I am not a liar. I am not a bad person.’ Considering the first sentence was a total lie, that didn’t leave me with much faith in the second one. Heartbreaking to think he doesn’t know what he does wrong. Sickening if he DOES.
He said to me, about his ex, “She was so ANGRY,” with such an aggrieved look on his face. But … he had made her very sick. He lied to us both to hook us and hold us in his net, and he admitted it at the end. It’s NPD. It’s all he can do: catch as many little fish as he can. It’s not pretty.
Thanks one-step, that gave me a chance to have a small rant. I obviously still have things I need to get off my chest.
verity
Oxy, yeah, he’s FWB with his exes. Makes a point of going back to collect them as soon as he can get away with it. To be honest, I think a lot of it is because of his sexual addiction. Intimacy causes him to have ED, so he has to keep it on his terms. Think there’s a big old ‘madonna/whore’ complex going on when it gets too close.
I agree with your definition of a friend. Funny, one of the first things he ever said to me was, “Trust is more important than love. Lose trust and you’ve lost everything.” Well, it works both ways! Apparently I’m not allowed to betray his trust by talking about what he’s done, but he’s allowed to use the sh*t out of me and I mustn’t complain or I’m the spath.
I have to tell you, I was very, very dysfunctional when I met him. I had a skewed relationship with sex myself, because of my childhood. If I’d not, he wouldn’t have got past the front door. He was not the only sick one in our relationship. The difference is that my problem was not a personality disorder, it was complex ptsd from childhood. I owned my part. He could not. If I am completely honest with you, I always knew he was not friend material and it was only trauma bonding that kept me in there.
I don’t read very often now but am always grateful to people who respond when I do show up. Thanks lf people for being there.
Ox Drover
Dear Verity,
I think many of us were “functional in our DYS-function” and learning that and coming out of our own dys-function and working on healing ourselves allows us to move past the psychopathic relationship into something much better.
The difference is that we have the capacity to learn and grow, and the person high in psychopathic traits either doesn’t have the capacity or doesn’t exercise the capacity they do have to learn and grow.
Accepting that I have not exercised my capacity in the past hurts to admit, but if I lie to myself or others I am acting just like the psychopath so it is important to me that I am HONEST WITH MYSELF.
Whether you are here or where ever, keep on learning verity! I think that only through learning and growth can we reach a satisfying and P-free life! It is nice to know that LF is here isn’t it!
verity
Hugs Oxy. It shames me to think of how I behaved with him, but like you I know honesty is the only way to grow and grow I have. My therapist said today that she hardly recognised me. Addicts not in recovery and the personality disordered will do whatever it takes because of their feelings of entitlement, which he described as his ‘needs’. Even in my dysfunction there were lines I would never cross with another person’s rights. He had no such lines. I would never deliberately mess with another person’s thoughts and reality. At every moment I believed what I was saying (although I found out later my love was only trauma bonding), whereas he knew he was deceiving in order to get what he wanted.
Yes, this site is a lifesaver, I know it. Winding my neck in again for a while now. 🙂
Ox Drover
Dear Verity,
Throw that shame in the trash pile! The shame should be HIS not yours. Forgive yourself (that was the hardest part for me! LOL) and then get on with your life! We can’t change the past and I’m not going to feel “shame” about it for the rest of my life. I’ve done the best I can to make amends to those I had any amends to make to, and I’ve changed the way I respond now, so no more shame for anything unless I’ve done something “bad” recently. LOL
I may go on to do something bad again, but it won’t be the SAME mistakes I made before! LOL At least I can make NEW ONES! LOL (((hugs))))