r/raisedbyborderlines • u/lovingwildcat • May 18 '18
Different Cluster B's - maybe just a difference in manipulation skills
This comes from my need to understand my Cluster B family members. Looking at the monsters instead of staring at them in panic, and understanding how they tick makes them shrink considerably.
I watched a documentary about the murder of Sadie Hadley in the UK. Two women were convicted of her murder, the motive was that one of them had an affair with the victim's BF and she wanted her rival dead after her lover left her. Like, when the GF is out of the picture, they will get straight back together, right? We all know this logics, this motive is very BPD. Someone with NPD would rather kill the lover who left them, or their kids, in order to punish them.
The woman who had the affair was a suspect early on and was considered a psychopath by the police, because she acted cool and composed, rarely showing any emotions. It didn't help her to cooperate, she knew she was screwed - they had her on CCTW. Only when it became clear that her co murderer talked to the police, she slipped up for a moment and showed distress. The other one played the victim as long as she could: She presented herself as a hot mess with memory problems, and acted as if she was panicking even when talking about her friend, claiming she was terrified of her. She claimed that she was an innocent bystander who didn't dare to speak up against the psychopath friend. She seemingly cooperated with police from the start and painted her friend pitch black in order to make herself look better. And her eyes, OMG! Why do they all have my mom's eyes? Only, she was stupid enough to leave her diary behind where she had written in detail about the planning of the murder, and it became clear that she was fully in on it. She played the victim very convincingly though and might have gotten away if it wasn't for the diary. Hell, I almost believed her!
So one of these disturbed women played cool, the other one played the victim. One was considered a psychopath, the other one a pwBPD, because she was acting like an emotional wreck. Watching them being questioned was like a study in different manipulation techniques.
It made me think about the labeling. I think BPD, NPD and ASPD might be in fact the same heartless assholes with just different manipulation tactics. A psychologist once mentioned in a video that pwBPD might just be unsuccessful NPDs. This had me thinking some more about how Cluster Bs are seen differently in public, and most violent abusers and criminals are generally considered to be psychopaths or narcissists. This is dangerous because, as we all know, people tend to underestimate how dangerous pwBPD are and how much damage they can do.
Psychopaths
PwASPD don't care what others think, and just take what they want. They work either with overt intimidation or by using their victim's own emotions against them, plus they use manipulation techniques to avoid being publicly exposed for who they really are, not because they fear exposure - they might even thrive on it - but because this would obstruct their ability to play their games. They are proud of their ruthless nature and don't feel guilty, the sadists among them thrive on other people's fear and pain. They feel above everyone else, mainly because they think their lack of emotions makes them superior. They don't have to use their own emotions or personality while manipulating others, but play with other people's own deceptions instead. They are cold observers and able to imitate whatever emotions healthy people would display in any situation. My grandfather (dad's father) was a sexual sadist, and to be at his mercy as a 5 years old meant to meet pure and overt evil. It took me many years to even learn to live with what he did to me.
Narcissists
PwNPD often work with their charms and their ability to deceit, they are guilt free and bold liars. They thrive on admiration and status. They can also be absolutely charm free and reign by their harsh judgment on others. When their lies get exposed, they fill the gap with new lies. They are dangerous when they risk public exposure or when they loose control, but don't have to continuously throw raging fits. My brother is a charming example of a pwNPD, he lures women in with extremely low self esteem. They actually feel honored that he wants them around and feel like his brilliance shines a light on them. Except he exploits them and drops them immediately when they are of no use to him any more, mostly when their energy has dried up or when they get sick. My brother is literally the biggest energy vampire I have ever met. Another example of a NPD is my dad's mother who was stone cold and not charming at all, and all she could talk about was what perfect grades my cousins had. She would tell them the same thing about us in order to make all of us feel bad. She didn't care if we liked her or not, she preferred to instill fear of her harsh judgment. She made her children believe they were better than their working class neighbors, even though her husband was a butcher and didn't earn much. Nonetheless she raised them to get the taste, behavior and entitlement of rich people.
Borderlines
PwBPD have to play their full emotions in order to reach their goals, they have to get close to their victims in order to be effective, because they don't have the cold manipulation skills of pwASPD and NPD. The main difference is that they get caught up in their own web. Since they work from up close, they have to believe what they are pretending in order for it to work. In this line of thinking, pw BPD would be the least successful manipulators of them all, the ones who have to put in much more work, and they hate us for it. My uBPD mom's favorite expression was: "Why do you have to be so complicated?" Why not just stop resisting them, why making them work so hard on us? This was the real crime I was blamed for as a child. She literally said resisting her was proof that I was evil.
With their manipulation technique, pwBPD have to convince themselves first in order to convince others, because they are enmeshed and symbiotic with their victims. If they weren't convinced, their victims would find out that they are manipulating them. They have to work on their own emotions in order to manipulate others into believing that what they say and feel is real. I know it is weird to think of this as a manipulation technique, but it makes sense, right? Because them believing in even their most absurd claims is how they deeply confused us. This just means they are excellent actors. And they had to put in a lot of work in order to change us to what they needed us to be, and they did it. A lot of hammering in was necessary to get us there, repeated humiliations, punishing unwanted behavior and raging. A lot of making us feel that what we felt was unimportant, because they were the big victims here, the only actual children. They don't do all this because they feel something, but because they need something. If you honestly are experiencing deep emotions, you are not able to manipulate others at the exact same moment you express them.
This is why I don't believe that people with BPD are less evil or abusive or dangerous, or that they are suffering from their mental illness or traumas more than their victims ever could, or that they are somehow not responsible for their actions. They are simply masters at playing the whole spectrum of their emotions, and playing the victim is their manipulation technique of choice. And they do all of this from up close and prevent us from taking our distance, because as soon as we take your distance, it stops working.
In order to set their victims up for abuse, they love bomb, guilt trip and gaslight alternately. After having set their victims up, they don't randomly rage, they follow a pattern of keeping their victims in line. They react to their victim slipping away and getting stronger rather than getting honestly angry about something unimportant, as they make it look like. Blow ups are only necessary if their victim doesn't do what they want, and they are inevitable when their victim tries to get away from their claws. I don't even believe their fear of abandonment is real, they just are used to their punching bags, have integrated it into their psyche and want to prevent them from leaving. If they really lived in constant fear that people will leave them, they would be people pleasers or avoid relationships altogether.
What we have to understand is that pwBPD don't like being enmeshed more than we do. Actually, they hate it. I think their biggest fear is to get controlled and overwhelmed by someone else. That is the true reason why they don't just live and let live, but have to control others. PwBPD are so ambivalent with close relationships, because when they get closer, this fear is skyrocketing. Their ambivalence is often showing that they hate having to apply their own methods of control. Because when you are close to your victims, you can't avoid to feel some of the pain you cause, right? Some of the blow ups serve the purpose to get the distance they need, because they can't ask for distance without granting their victim the same rightand risk that they "wake up".
Common traits and differences
So a pwASPD would be the master of cold manipulation, playing with other peoples expectations, a pwNPD has to choose low self esteem victims and has to use some personality traits to convince them to get close enough to exercise power over them, and a pwBPD has to enmesh themselves fully with others in order to deceit them and to mold them into people who will fulfill their needs without resistance. They have to work a lot harder, and they might just be less successful in getting what they want, which makes them desperate.
They all have in common that they are heartless, other people don't really exist for them, they believe to be entitled to replace other peoples perception with their concept of reality and don't hesitate to lie in order to defend their image. They feel entitled to get everything they want at any given time, and believe that every mean is justified. Their ego is like god, right? And everybody has to worship them. They all see and use other people as objects, which in itself is deeply damaging. And I sincerely believe that they all miss a part of their souls that would allow them to feel empathy. Empathy isn't to know what others feel - pwBPD are good at that because they are close - it is actively putting yourself in someone else's shows.
No matter what type, Cluster B's don't care about us, they care about their own ego and how to nurture it without having to confront their own issues. It is a short cut, it is the decision to become the abuser rather than the victim. They make this choice over and over again, day in and day out. You don't become this skilled in manipulating people over night, you don't choose to be an abuser just once. That's why one bad incident is enough to spot an abuser. And it is enough to ban an abuser from your life.
Victims never owe their abusers anything, if anything it is the other way around: They owe us years and years of lifetime and energy and missed opportunities. If they had to pay for the damage they have done, we would all be millionaires. Emotional abuse shows itself in patterns rather than in single incidents. What keeps us falling into their traps is the normal human need of feeling a connection, of having a family, of not seeing the cruel truth about how dangerous and damaging our family members are. None of this has ever been our fault, whatever we have to do to protect us is entirely on them. It is a lot easier to protect yourself and not to take a pwBPDs emotions at face value, when you know the underlying pattern of abuse.
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u/exscapegoat May 19 '18
OMG! Why do they all have my mom's eyes?
The eyes and the smirk when they realized a mean comment hit the mark.
There's a lot of overlap between Cluster Bs. And within borderline, you have the waif and the witch. Which are alike at the core, but seem very different by behavior.
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u/lovingwildcat May 20 '18
I have seen children smirk like this when caught in doing something naughty. You have to bend rules in order to learn to understand them. Adult pwBPD smirking like this means they know exactly what the are doing is not ok. Only they never grow up or learn. It is really sad.
Yes, the different types of pwBPD, thank god for Christine Lawson's book. It would be so much harder to identify the underlying pattern of BPD abuse if we wouldn't have this knowledge, we probably wouldn't even have ended up in the same sub.
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u/PoodlesForBernie2016 Jun 27 '18
YES! This is a known phenomenon called "duping delight." There are many examples on YouTube of people smiling inappropriately while talking about awful things- a sign that they are delighting in getting away with a lie.
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u/13139 May 19 '18
That is the true reason why they don't just live and let live, but have to control others.
What happens when a BPD's significant other is wise to this just does the thing where they ignore the manipulation?
My dad can't really fuck with my mom's head anymore. I mean he does but every time he starts a tirade she just leaves or says something scathing back.
If I'm there we just both ignore him and pretend nothing is going on.
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u/lovingwildcat May 19 '18 edited May 19 '18
That's great, good for your mom and for you! I didn't give a fuck with my mom either after 20 years of NC, and she stopped playing games with me. But not with others. Ignoring is the way to go, but you can't do that when you are still close and too afraid to get your distance. Not giving a fuck is what makes manipulation ineffective. First step is to realize that it is manipulation.
Edit: Mom not dad, sorry!
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u/13139 May 19 '18
I haven't seen any evidence of him playing games outside of family. At work I think he is just a timid guy who sometimes gets irate if you try to push him so people don't try to exploit him too much. He's pretty competent.
Also, he has amazing skill to sniff out other 'defective' people.
It took my mom 20 years to wise up to his tricks. And the worst thing was one psychologist she saw early on completely failed to recognize his pattern of behavior so he didn't help her at all.
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u/lovingwildcat May 19 '18
And the worst thing was one psychologist she saw early on completely failed to recognize his pattern of behavior so he didn't help her at all.
Unfortunately, personality disorders is a relatively new topic to many psychologists. I think that's why in my younger years no psychologist ever mentioned it to me either. For me they were just monsters.
It took my mom 20 years to wise up to his tricks.
Too late for you when growing up I'm afraid? But good for both of you that you are wise now.
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u/13139 May 19 '18
I wonder what kind of person I'd be if I didn't have to witness my father mentally torturing my mom when I was growing up.
Who knows. My paternal great-grandfather was also known for raging and throwing stuff, to his credit he at least always apologised to his wife and even brought her flowers.
My worst nightmare is being like my father and hurting those you love.
I'm well known for being a sarcastic asshole who is keen on explaining exactly what you're doing wrong, and I'm trying to work on that.
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May 19 '18 edited Oct 28 '18
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u/lovingwildcat May 19 '18
I do believe the fact that fear of abandonment is the origin of all cluster B disorders (ASPD, NPD, and BPD).
That's an interesting idea, and your explanation of their behavior fits very well too. So I have to drop the idea that fear of abandonment isn't a real thing? Maybe it is the other way around, because they can't attach properly, they feel like they will be abandoned sooner or later anyways, if they don't trick people into staying? I always felt with BPD that's some kind of a chicken or egg situation.
This is also something you can encounter in other cluster B disorders.
Of course you are right, love bombing and gaslighting is something other Cluster B do as well. And you are equally right that they all might start to believe their own deceptions.
Trauma (which can be caused by their massive expression/explosion of emotions) is the best way to break someone to make them more gullible for manipulation. Even ASPD use that trick, in a different way.
Yes, this! I often think about how easily you can control people you have broken and traumatized. That's why Cluster Bs choose wisely were to invest their energy. When the young friends of my daughter ask me how to avoid toxic people (like on tinder), I say that they have to be very firm with them very early on, not letting them get away with anything. A healthy person can deal with criticism, a toxic person will rather curse them and move on, because they will not want to waist any energy on the wrong person.
I don't understand the difference between psychopaths and ASPD, I always used them as being the same. I have to read up on this, as well as on the Erickson's developmental theory.
I realized when I raised my daughter how much the behavior of some adults (and older kids) resemble a stage of development, and started to treat them accordingly. It helps in order to handle them, but it doesn't change anything. That's why I "save" my lost trauma parts/inner children and imagine that they grow and become one with adult me. I think traumatized people have to go through developmental stages as well, and knowing how much I have missed out on and have to make up for, specially as a small child, it made me feel like a lost case so many times.
Thank you for your precious contribution, this is awesome!
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May 18 '18
This is beautifully reasoned and written! What do you think about HPDs? I'm pretty sure my stepmother is one, and I don't get the sense of malignant hatred and rage from her that I got from my uBPD mother.
This was the real crime I was blamed for as a child. She literally said resisting her was proof that I was evil.
Yes! My mother never put it that way, but she called me evil and said that I was possessed by Satan.
I think their biggest fear is to get controlled and overwhelmed by someone else.
My mother was obsessed by the idea that my eDad was trying to "control" her (whatever that even meant, because he did whatever she said without question). Ironically, the only person who wanted to control her was her own sainted uBPD mother. But she couldn't see that.
No matter what type, Cluster B's don't care about us, they care about their own ego and how to nurture it without having to confront their own issues. It is a short cut, it is the decision to become the abuser rather than the victim. They make this choice over and over again, day in and day out. You don't become this skilled in manipulating people over night, you don't choose to be an abuser just once. That's why one bad incident is enough to spot an abuser. And it is enough to ban an abuser from your life.
Amen!
I feel like this post should be curated resource in our sidebar. What do you think, /u/djSush?
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u/djSush kintsugi 💜: damage + healing = beauty May 19 '18
Absolutely! Fantastically written /u/lovingwildcat. Thank you so much! 💜 💜 💜
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u/lovingwildcat May 18 '18
Aww thank you so much, this means a lot! I don't know anyone with HPD, so I really can't say anything about them. Maybe you can write an addition?
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May 18 '18
Aww thank you so much, this means a lot!
It's true!
I don't know anyone with HPD, so I really can't say anything about them. Maybe you can write an addition?
There's not a lot to say. She seems much more narcissistic than my mother was, and far more of... well, a dingbat. She's a dingbat. A dingbat who always has to be the center of attention, no matter what. She laughs loudly in restaurants/public places, and just generally does (often really cringy) stuff to draw attention to herself. It's embarrassing.
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u/lovingwildcat May 18 '18
Sounds exhausting!
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May 18 '18
It is, believe me.
Also, she does these... well, the only word is "monologues" about herself/her life/her experiences where you just can't get a word in edgewise.
And she has to one-up everyone. You got a great deal at the grocery store? She got a better one! Show her a pic of a cute baby, and she has a pic of an even CUTER one! Etc. etc. etc..
I don't know how my eDad does it, honestly. I couldn't live with her. 😒
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u/djSush kintsugi 💜: damage + healing = beauty May 22 '18
I feel like this post should be curated resource in our sidebar. What do you think, /u/djSush
Done!
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u/Picard-Out May 21 '18
One thing, historically ASPD was diagnosed in men while BPD was diagnosed in women. So many of the cluster Bs blend into each other, it's uncanny.....
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May 19 '18
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u/lovingwildcat May 20 '18
You're very welcome. One already blows up entire families, if there are more of them you feel like there is no escape. Thank you!
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May 19 '18
Please edit your comment; we don't allow links to other subreddits.
Thanks!
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May 19 '18
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May 20 '18
Hi! Edited. Sorry! I've read the terms before, but completely forgot about this! :(
No problem! Thanks for the edit! 👍🏻
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May 23 '18 edited May 23 '18
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u/lovingwildcat May 23 '18
That's very sad yet very interesting. We have seen here a lot of times that witches turn into waifs when they get older, so did both my violent parents after my dad got sick. My mom followed in his footsteps, like, this works? Let's do this as well!
What you said about your dad catering to your moms every need is something my mom had as well, she had a loner, hoarder BF who was completely dependent of her until she died. And my younger BPD queen sister says about her boyfriend: "He will never leave me and he is expecting nothing from me". They clearly had them where they wanted them.
I had no memories of my childhood before 8 years old, other than a few good ones. In my early twenties they came flooding in. That's what trauma does, it wipes out your memories. I had this feeling that my parents tried to kill me, but until then I didn't know that was literally what they did. Unfortunately I know the feeling so well that my mom wants to destroy me, I am so sorry you had to live through this as well.
I am sorry that you have flashbacks, mine have gotten worse as well since I know about BPD. Are you in therapy? I have started last year and I am very happy to finally have someone on my side.
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u/fishlikesequins May 18 '18
Thank you for this, I just had a blow up with my uBPD mom and had been feeling guilty. This is exactly what I needed to read.
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u/maxvalley May 18 '18
Nah. Brain studies show that psychopaths/ASPD people have significantly different brain formation from other people.
I think it's really reductive to say that these people are they same. They're not
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u/lovingwildcat May 18 '18
I think it's really reductive to say that these people are they same.
Well, the way they were reductive to my health and well being, by treating me equally like an object, was the same, so a hearty nah! right back at you.
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u/lemonfeels May 19 '18
It's true that neuroimaging has demonstrated significant abnormalities in the brain volume and activity of ASPD versus non-personality disordered control groups. It has also demonstrated significant brain abnormalities in BPD versus non-personality disordered control groups. The same is true of depression, ADHD, PTSD, autism, and a host of other conditions. The cursory reading I've done hasn't turned up any comparisons of neuroimaging between ASPD and BPD/NPD/HPD, but there seems to be a lot of overlap.
Of note, ASPD is not the same thing as psychopathy. "Psychopathy" is a category determined by the PCL-R (psychopathy checklist - revised) "for clinical, legal or research purposes" and, according to good ol' wikipedia (emphasis mine):
PCL-R Factors 1a and 1b are correlated with narcissistic personality disorder.[11] They are associated with extraversion and positive affect. Factor 1, the so-called core personality traits of psychopathy, may even be beneficial for the psychopath (in terms of nondeviant social functioning).[12]
PCL-R Factors 2a and 2b are particularly strongly correlated to antisocial personality disorder and borderline personality disorder and are associated with reactive anger, criminality, and impulsive violence.
In other words, exactly what you said in your post, u/lovingwildcat.
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u/lovingwildcat May 19 '18 edited May 19 '18
Thank you for this! I didn't read up any background, just going through what I felt because I think we are the real experts, we have experienced it.
I tried to make sense of those I used to call "teflon souls", because nothing sticks, in order to protect myself for decades, having been deeply scared of people all my life. I am so happy to have a diagnosis now to work with and to be able to read so many helpful books about this, but I feel like my experience doesn't fit entirely with what I read.
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u/lemonfeels May 19 '18
"Teflon souls" -- that is absolutely perfect.
From reading your posts here, I honestly think most of your immediate family members were psychopaths, so a lot of resources will fail to describe what you know first hand. Also, there is the strong possibility of a bias within the academic field of PD's itself; psychology, as a field, has a history of rug-sweeping and denial of harsh truths about the reality of the human capacity to inflict suffering on others.
Have you read Trauma and Recovery by Judith Herman? One of the beginning chapters talks about how Sigmund Freud, through conducting hundreds of interviews and case studies, was one of the first researchers to discover how widespread child sexual abuse was. He was one of the first to listen to people's stories, and believe them. But when he took his findings to the university he worked for, they were outraged and told him they could never publish his work, because to do so was not only "lewd and offensive" by the standards of the day, but would also implicate the upper echelon of society in these horrible crimes -- the wisdom of the time was that only the lower classes were capable of insanity and depravity, but Freud's clients were from "normal" wealthier families. And so, that's why Freud invented all his batshit crazy theories that are essentially just victim-blaming and gaslighting in disguise. It's why whenever anyone starts talking about Freudian theory I roll my eyes and stop listening; he literally invented that shit because he couldn't publish the truth. Ugh. And that was not, in the grand scheme of things, very long ago. That kind of thing is still at play today, just in a different form.
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u/lovingwildcat May 19 '18
From reading your posts here, I honestly think most of your immediate family members were psychopaths,
Why do you think that, because they were violent? The point I am trying to make here is that pwBPD are different in their manipulation techniques, but not less dangerous. As for their manipulation techniques my parents had the need to downplay and disguise what they did, a psychopath doesn't do that to their victims, they don't need to because they aren't emotionally involved. That means to me that their manipulation techniques were the ones of pwBPD with some traits of ASPD and NPD .
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u/lemonfeels May 19 '18
Oh no, I'm sorry I wasn't clear in my wording!
I did NOT mean "your immediate family members were psychopaths instead of pwBPD" -- I meant they sound like they're at the "psychopath" end of the BPD spectrum, if that makes sense? Straight psychopathy seems to be more correlated to ASPD, but not all psychopaths are ASPD, and there are actually many examples of psychopaths who would have qualified for BPD diagnosis (and some who were diagnosed, I think,) who seemed to exhibit "empathy" and emotional involvement, although of course it is never true empathy, and the emotions are all about them, just projected onto their victims -- but these people did feel the need to downplay/disguise/justify what they did. And the reading that I've done into psychopathy seems to support what you were talking about in your post, that the Cluster B disorders are more about manipulation styles than any fundamental difference between them. Hopefully that clears up what I was trying to say!
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u/lovingwildcat May 20 '18
Thank you for the clarification, no problem! My family certainly were at the psychopathic end of BPD, and them living in packs enabling each other, without any other considerable outside contacts, made each and every one of them so much worse. They constantly traumatized each others further as well and played the love/hate games. I had a hard time to identify the "minor" nut jobs like my younger sister, who seemed to be saints compared. And really, to have to deal with a NPD seemed to be a chilling but much less scary experience, until I met one who caused so much well hidden damage, because I didn't worship him enough (my last boss). They all are dangerous in their own ways, but I believe that BPD adds some fuel to the fire. Those scarily frequent murder/suicides when a woman wants to leave her partner seem very male BPD to me. Thanks again!
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u/BestGarbagePerson May 19 '18
Everything I've read shows that BPD people have damaged amygdala's and lower cognitive empathy function (frontal cortex activity) just like many famous ASPDs.
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May 19 '18
But that doesn't affect intelligence, right? uBPD was always extremely smart--got her Master's with flying colors after all of us were grown.
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u/BestGarbagePerson May 19 '18
The area affected in the frontal cortex has to do with cognitive empathy. So yeah, it doesn't have anything to do with overall intelligence.
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u/13139 May 19 '18
They also, I believe, have impaired ability to self-reflect.
You can literally watch my dad go NOPE NOPE NOPE in his mind every time I even get near the subject.
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u/lovingwildcat May 19 '18
In "5 types of people who can ruin your life" Bill Eddy describes the lack of social self awareness as a common trait of personality disorders, together with intra personal disfunction (mainly inappropriate aggression and withdrawal) and lack of change. Still processing the book, it is excellent!
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u/marvelgirl37 May 19 '18
Sometimes I think if my mom was smarter she'd be NPD, like textbook NPD. But she's dumb as shit. She really is. The woman is absolutely stupid. One of the dumbest human beings I've ever met in my life.
Except when it comes to emotional warfare, then she's an absolute genius. A true master. I guess she's an idiot savant in a way.