Healing from Narcissistic, Borderline or AntiSocial Personality Disorder Abuse

 

By Glynis Sherwood, MEd, Psychotherapist & Therapeutic Coach

 

I Put a Spell On You, Because You’re Not Mine

 

Yes, I’m deliberately misquoting Screamin’ Jay Hawkins 1956 blues-rock classic, I Put a Spell On You, Because You’re Mine.

 

Folks with narcissistic, borderline, histrionic or antisocial parents, siblings, partners and friends have experienced ongoing attempts by the disordered person to be controlled, absorbed, idealized, exploited, devalued or discarded – IE consumed and/or rejected – by these troubled ‘spell casting’ people, who exercise control in a most hypnotic fashion.  This is particularly the case with narcissistic, histrionic or antisocial people who employ ‘charm offensives’ to get their way with others.

 

The Devastation of Personality Disorders

 

Personality Disorders are long standing, entrenched mental health problems characterized by patterns of rigid, maladaptive and disruptive beliefs, thoughts, emotions, moods, behaviors and relationships.  They exist on a continuum from mild to severe.  To varying degrees, personality disorders cause psychological distress, and undermine healthy relationship and life functioning.

 

People with Personality Disorders tend to lack insight regarding their problematic beliefs and behaviors, and attribute their difficulties to external causes, including other people.

 

Personality Disorders have their roots in early childhood.  Multiple theories exist regarding the cause of personality disorders, ranging from childhood trauma and abuse, including spoiling or ‘pedestalizing’ the child, to genetics and brain abnormalities, and cultural influences, depending on the disorder.  For example, Borderline, Narcissistic and Factor 2 Psychopathy (not technically a PD) are closely linked to childhood attachment trauma and abuse.  Disordered personality traits tend to become hard wired by late adolescence / early adulthood, with the exception of Antisocial and Borderline personality disorders, that manifests as early as age 11 or 12.  In other words, Cluster B personality disorders are childhood problems.

 

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is a standardized guidebook widely used by psychiatrists and other mental health professionals – especially in North America – in the diagnosis of mental health conditions.  Published by the American Psychiatric Association, the latest version of the DSM identifies 10 Personality Disorders, divided into 3 subsets.  Cluster A is characterized by eccentric thinking and behaviors; Cluster B disorders manifest in emotionally unstable, impulsive and dramatic behaviors; and Cluster C disorders are rooted in severe fear based beliefs and behaviors.

 

For the purposes of this article, I will be focusing on the impact of Cluster B personality disordered adults on their children and intimate partners, specifically Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), AntiSocial Personality Disorder (ASD) and Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD).  I will not be dedicating time to  Histrionic Personality Disorder (HPD) as this diagnosis is falling out of favor, as it subsumes both narcissistic and antisocial traits.

 

Readers may also be interested to know that, outside of North America, The International Classification of Diseases (ICD), developed by the World Health Organization, is typically cited more frequently than the DSM.  Like the DSM, the ICD is a standardized diagnostic classification manual of diseases and health disorders.  However, with regards to personality disorders, the ICD reflects more current thinking, leaning more towards the construct of 1 global personality disorder that can show up in different ways (eg switching from narcissistic to borderline traits, depending on internal or external stressors), and is graded from Minimum to Severe in functioning. 

 

Cluster B Parenting

 

Cluster B disorders manifest in emotionally unstable, volatile, impulsive, aggressive and dramatic behaviors.

 

Cluster B parents range from caring but needy and inconsistent Borderlines, to the conditional ‘love’ of emotionally manipulative Narcissists and Histrionics who use their children for supply, to exploitative, callous and deceitful Anti-Social types.  These parents are out of touch with the source of their own motivation – profoundly unmet childhood psychological needs – which are buried inside the vault of their unconscious minds.  As such, they view their needs as amoral ‘facts’, that supersede the needs of their children.

 

Accordingly, all children raised by Cluster B parents are emotionally abused, as their attachment and developmental needs have been, to varying degrees, thwarted, ignored, punished, neglected or subverted by needy parents.  Children of Cluster B parents are often under pressure to either caretake or act as substitutes for the disordered parent, which undermines the developmental and attachment needs of the child, leading to distress and trauma bonds, where love and abuse are entwined.  

 

Cluster B parents treat their relationships with their children as secondary bonds, while expecting the child to have a primary bond with them, a form of parentification due to role reversal. (1)  The Cluster B parent then expects their child to put them first, especially if there is any kind of conflict.  

 

Individuation – becoming one’s own, separate person – is actively undermined by Cluster B parents who view their children as extensions of themselves.  NPD, BPD and HPD parents depend on their children to make them look or feel good, to be emotional caregivers.  Children of NPD, BPD or HPD parents who ‘fail’ at becoming the parent of their parents may be criticized, rejected, bullied and stigmatized, which leads to chronic feelings of shame, fear, insecurity and identity confusion.

 

Narcissistic Personality Disordered parental abuse is characterized by cycles of idealization, devaluation and discard.  If the child resists or opposes this idealization dynamic, which is oriented towards making the parent feel special, he / she will be scapegoated, as the parent feels that the child deserves to be punished for this ‘betrayal’ of the grandiose fantasy they believe to be true.  In essence, the NPD is projecting this warped tenet onto their child: ‘I am great, so you should admire and worship me and love me unconditionally’.  The child, and her or his legitimate emotional needs, disappears in the face of the NPD’s need for bottomless narcissistic supply.

 

Borderline Personality Disordered parental abuse manifests as insecurity and resentment towards the child who is expected to allay the abandonment and engulfment fears of the parent.  Children of BPD parents are subjected to complaints of neglect and disloyalty if the child ‘fails’ at these inappropriate expectations, and understandably becomes distressed by lack of consistent and proper nurture.  This lack of appropriate role dynamics and nurture between BPD parent and child puts children at risk for developing insecure attachment, fear of intimacy,  emotional dysregulation, identity confusion and shame.

 

In the case of AntiSocial Personality Disordered parents, abuse may extend to exposing children to an unsafe home environment and egregious behavior, such as not providing proper food, shelter or age appropriate routines, witnessing or experiencing violence or sexual contact, or to normalizing criminal attitudes or behaviors of the parent, that the child may be drawn into.

 

All children of Cluster B parents are vulnerable to developing complex trauma, including the development of a false Shame based identity, feeling empty, and social skill deficits.  These deficiencies undermine the ability to form healthy, meaningful relationships.  Unfortunately, these personal and relationship difficulties may persist into adulthood, with the adult child being in the dark regarding the nature or treatment of this childhood based trauma.

 

Cluster B Partnerships – Healing and Recovery

 

Intimate partners of Cluster B personality disordered adults suffer from the effects of chronic relationship instability caused by their partner, such as emotional or behavioral inconsistency, blame shifting, gaslighting, rejection, destructive behavior, constant conflict, irresponsibility, unreliability, fear, anger, paranoia and, in some cases, violence.  

 

Such relationship dynamics can lead to complex trauma in the impacted partner, especially if the partner was raised by Cluster B parent(s) and are drawn to disordered partners as a form of ‘traumatic reenactment bonding’.  Codependency can also play a role in these unions.

 

Partners of NPDs must recover from fusing with the narcissist who has ensnared them in a regressed fantasy world.  Partners lose their sense of self, and then feel shattered when the NPD partner inevitably discards them.  Identity and autonomy recovery is the goal, aided by separation and individuation, and overcoming the programming the NPD partner subjected them to.

 

BPD abuse is primarily emotionally coercive, in an attempt to get their partner to stabilize their dysregulated moods, and fill up their emptiness, from the outside in.   BPDs impulsive acting out when experiencing abandonment or engulfment anxiety leads to splitting: ie idealizing then devaluing the partner.  This leads to approach-avoidance dynamics such as intermittent reinforcement – where the person runs hot and cold, paranoid accusations, rage, violence, acting out (sex, drugs, self harm), resulting in psychological distress in the partner. 

Recovery from BPD abuse involves abdicating the role of being the external emotional regulator / rescuer, leading the BPD partner to avoid you as you have become a source of anxiety.

Partners of ASPDs must recover from being exploited and used, being isolated from others by the ASPD, exposure to unethical behavior and threats, being monopolized and controlled psychologically, subjected to coercive control, being used as an asset or treated like an object by which the ASPD can achieve his ends (goods, property, $, sex, influence, power).  The goal for recovery is restorative justice (2), and inner peace.  

 

No Contact with the Cluster B partner is highly recommended where possible.  Most Cluster B disorders, with the exception of BPD and very mild NPD, do not respond well to psychological treatment, and do not go into remission on their own.

 

 

Psychological Injury Caused by Cluster B Abuse

 

Behaviors of the Disordered Individual:

 

• Blame shifting –  accusing child or partner of one’s own – usually negative – actions or motivation
• Gaslighting (making child or partner doubt reality, and their sanity)  ASPDs, and BPDs and NPDs in secondary psychopathic states, which occur during relational stress
• Lack of appropriate, child centered parenting skills attuned to developmental and attachment needs.  Not providing a consistent, secure, safe home.
• Emotional unavailability or inconsistency
• Intermittent reinforcement (approach-avoidant / hot-cold behavior) – punitive and controlling in nature. Reflects a core Disorganized Attachment style
• Boundary violations – EG parentifying the child; not respecting ‘No’ from a partner
• Self absorption and Selfishness.  Leads to neglect and dehumanizing the needs of others
• Lack of accountability – often related to blame shifting
• Emotional instability / Mood swings / Angry Outbursts   
• Chaotic behavior or lifestyle (addictions, spending, promiscuity, crime[ASPD])  
• Betrayal (broken promises, ‘felony lies’,  lack of reliability, infidelity)  
• Paranoia and unwarranted mistrust  
• Revenge Behavior for real or imagined slights   
• Exploitation and Manipulation 
• Sexual abuse
• Bullying
• Stalking
• Violence
• Reputation Destruction (Canceling; Revenge Porn)
• Dehumanizing / Objectifying children or partners

 

Harms To Recipient of Cluster B Abuse

 

• Problems with reality testing – difficulty ascertaining truth vs fiction due to cumulative self doubt.  Often the byproduct of gaslighting
• Dissociation, especially in presence of Cluster B parent or partner, undermining a self protection orientation.  As they are unable to ‘fight’ or ‘flee’, children often default into Freeze responses that follow them into adulthood, undermining the ability to know what one feels and, therefore, needs.
• Complex Trauma (relationship-developmental-attachment trauma)  PTSD symptoms plus low self worth, false shame, identity confusion, caused by childhood abuse
• Development of a persecutory Inner Critic – the internalized voice of the abusive parent – that the target trauma bonds with, just like the parent
• Insecure or Disorganized Attachment style.  Interpersonal relationships are characterized by anxiety based approach and/or avoidance behaviors
• False Guilt – leads to feelings of over responsibility to abuser
• Codependency – Self esteem derived from focusing on attempting to ‘fix’ the disordered parent or partner.  Leads to chronic resentment
• NPD instilled belief that you can’t function without your partner, that she/he is your soulmate /destiny, etc.
• Mood instability
• Chronic Anxiety and/or Depression
• Prolonged Grief – especially for lost opportunities / potential, and loving family relationships
• Identity confusion – who am I? – due to being ignored, negated and consumed by parental neediness
• Vocational problems
• Relationship difficulties – social skills; trust; choosing emotionally unavailable or abusive partners and friends (aka repetition compulsion or trauma bonding)
• Compulsive / Avoidant behavior
• Addiction to Chaos and Adrenaline; Substance abuse or process addictions (eg gambling, sex)
• Acting out (harming others) or Acting in (self harm)
• Drawn into criminal lifestyle, especially by ASPD parents

 

Self – Victimization

 

• Living in the Wounded Child’s Fantasy World of False Hope / Codependency / Relationship Addiction (EG I can love him/her into being a better person;  Need relationship to feel good about self)  Unconscious childhood programming – ‘If I can’t make the disordered parent love me, then I am bad’
• Ignoring or not trusting warning signs such as gut feelings that something isn’t right with partners, dates, friends, bosses, colleagues, service providers, etc.  Perception can be dulled by Freeze threat response / dissociation
• Tolerating / rationalizing disrespect, emotional unavailability or instability / inconsistency, anger, exploitation, manipulation and irresponsibility.  EG ‘He’s not like this all the time…”
• Enabling dysfunctional behaviors of Cluster B parent or partner – a by product of codependency or love addiction
• Choosing the ‘Devil You Know’ relationships due to deeply embedded familiarity, leading to repetition of Trauma Bonds
• Unexamined Masochistic Behaviors caused by trauma bonding
• Chasing the High of Anxiety, rather than seeking secure, calm and reliable connections

 

Healing From Cluster B Personality Disorder Abuse

 

1/ Distancing – No or Low Contact

 

2/ Grieving

 

3/ Claiming Your True Narrative

 

4/ Separation & Individuation Work  

 

5/ Healthy Relationship Skills 

 

Distancing – No Or Low Contact.  ‘Gray Rocking’

As narcissistic and antisocial abuse tends to be lifelong and unresolvable by the perpetrator, where possible, targets are advised to go No Contact.  Going No Contact is a self protective measure and  involves a complete separation from the abuser physically, and the cessation of all communication, including phone, text, email, letters, social media, etc.  You will likely start to feel better soon.

At the same time, you may have to confront unreasonable or addictive expectations of yourself, such as believing that it is your job to ‘fix’ the relationship or the disordered person.  This requires setting and maintaining internal boundaries.

 

Where Low Contact is required with the disordered person, such as caring for an elderly parent, joint child custody, or kids visiting with cousins etc, keep all interactions with the disordered individual transactional. This is known as Gray Rocking. Accordingly, stick to facts and be brief and uninteresting in your communications – like a ‘gray rock’.  Do not share any personal or emotional information, as this could be weaponized by the disordered person or their minions.

 

Backlash

 

Narcissists, Borderlines and Histrionics react with derision and hostility to any attempt to undo their relational fantasy life, as they believe that this is what they require.  This is a holdover either from unmet early childhood needs for unconditional love, or ‘pedestalizing’ of the child by the parent.  Cluster Bs view well-meaning and caring adult children, intimate partners, extended family members, friends and therapists as persecutors at best and enemies at worst.  Therefore, avoid arguments or attempts at reality testing with the personality disordered person.

 

Grieving

People who are recovering from personality disorder abuse can experience different types of Grief:  Estrangement from family, and judgment or lack of understanding by others regarding No or Low Contact (socially unrecognized grief); Loss of family that you didn’t get and will never have; Loss of the disordered Partner and your dreams for the life you hoped to have together; Loss of Self that was formerly idealized by the narcissistic or borderline partner; Loss  of self identify due to childhood abuse, Loss of the good mother/child dynamic; Loss of romantic, idealized fantasy of life together, that you thought was real, etc.

 

Going No or even Low Contact, often leads to feelings of loss – possibly deep grief – over the loss of the relationship(s) you never had and will never get – ie lost potential, such as positive child-parent relationships, loss of family inclusion due to scapegoating, loss of hopes for a truly loving partnership, feeling seen and understood by friends, and overcoming the disillusionment of feeling betrayed, gullible, not seeing reality soon enough, etc..

 

Healing may also involve grieving the ‘lost’ self and opportunities that could have been more easily accessed if you weren’t consumed with constantly being in survival mode, stressed or overwhelmed emotionally.

 

Overcoming prolonged, inhibited grief involves learning to face memories of loss and processing painful beliefs, thoughts and emotions, including sadness, anger, fear and hurt.  Avoidance can be seductive, but is anxiety based, and ultimately leads to perpetuation of unresolved grief.

 

Grieving will help you release trauma bonds.  Learning the valuable ‘skills’ of grief management derived from experiencing genuine emotion, can be developed incrementally as traumatic memory anxiety is neutralized.  Equally important is overcoming being flooded with loss, which requires developing skills to contain and put away grief where it is healthy to do so.  Again, these skills can be learned in therapy or therapeutic coaching.

 

Ultimately, the goal of grief recovery is to be able to live fully in the present without anxiety, despair or numbness, neither avoiding nor drowning in past losses, and only visiting old grief voluntarily, if it serves one’s healing.

 

Claiming Your True Narrative:  Silencing the Inner Critic – Reality Testing, Self Acceptance & Reparenting / Wounded Child Work; Transcending ‘False Shame’ Identity

Adult children of narcissistic/borderline/histrionic family systems have been indoctrinated to some degree by a toxic, false narrative regarding love, family, identity, loyalty, etc.  ‘Love’ is highly conditional on being subservient to the dominant disordered parent’s ego gratification, attention seeking and/or emotional neediness.  In essence, such families demand that children merge with the emotional needs and demands of the disordered parent, in order to be viewed as loyal, loving, etc.   The motivation behind the neediness of the disordered parent is usually unconscious, making it more lethal as it is presented as a fact and priority.

 

These are never ‘true’ tests of love, but rather attempts to force the child into service of the pathological demands of the disordered parent(s), and sometimes, sibling(s).  Scapegoating and emotional abuse are the punishments meted out to children who dare to speak up for their own needs, or expose the reality of toxic family dynamics.   

 

People who have been abused in Cluster B families since early childhood almost always develop a harsh Inner Critic.  This Inner Critic in essence is the internalized voice of the critical parent that the child has been conditioned to view as the ‘truth’.  The disordered parent projects blame for their own (disavowed) inadequacies and frustrations onto the developing child, making the child believe that they are not only bad, but if they can learn to be good enough, that they will make their disordered parent happy, thereby proving that they are loveable.  This is a vicious circle dilemma, as the wounded child will never be able to make their troubled parent fulfilled or content.  Cluster B people fruitlessly look to others to make them complete, fulfill their needs, and become frustrated and sometimes aggressive when others inevitably fail at making an empty adult feel whole and content.  No one can ever do that.  Sadly for Cluster Bs, that window of opportunity evaporated with their childhood.

 

Core healing from Cluster B childhood abuse often hinges on overcoming the false shame based identity that was foisted on you by an attacking, critical parent(s).  As noted above, the Inner Scapegoat was projected onto you by your critical Cluster B parent(s). A young child is helpless in the face of an ongoing onslaught from a willfully blind abusive parent, and comes to believe they are responsible not only for their parent’s happiness, but also the cause of their misery, and therefore ‘bad’ – i.e. shameful.

 

To transcend a false shame based identity, you must face the con job of the false narrative for what it is, a fantasy and a lie – not real, and not your fault.  Remember, indoctrination bypasses truth, agreement and informed consent, regarding the false narrative.  False shame interferes with reality testing through activation of an attacking Inner Scapegoat, undermining the ability to learn from the experience.   

 

The truth is that, whether deliberate or not, Cluster B abusers are liars, cowards, manipulators, exploiters, and confabulators with limited reality testing that only serves their false, grandiose narrative.  Unfortunately, their elaborate defenses lead to rationalizing abusive behavior as ‘just and true’ in order to protect themselves from narcissistic injury, and you pay the price of their blame shifting and absence of empathy.  Developing agency, self care, and an investment in life are antidotes to these experiences.

 

An important distinction here is that – unlike AntiSocial types – Narcissists and Borderlines are not usually trying to hurt people intentionally.  Their abusive behavior is more delusionally ‘defensive’ in nature, and rationalized as self protection or justice.  On the other hand, AntiSocial and Sadistic narcissists can be motivated by a desire to harm others, and use contempt and blame shifting to rationalize this.  EG ‘He was too stupid to see this coming and, therefore deserves this (mistreatment)’.  Another exception is when, under relationship stress, some Narcissists and Borderlines can temporarily slip into secondary psychopathic states.  These are dissociative states that the NPD or BPD person may have little or no accurate memory of.

 

Regardless of these distinctions in abuser intentionality, in order to disconnect from owning the false, ‘bad person’ projection, you must continually challenge distorted beliefs that you are bad, worthless, unlovable, etc. The main tools of silencing the inner critic are reality testing, self acceptance and developing compassion for the wounded child you were and who lives on inside you.  Insight is the result of integrating understanding and emotion, leading to positive growth and change.

 

Reality testing, a cognitive process, focuses on debunking false guilt and shame due to lack of evidence of misdeeds by the victim, and reframing the situation more realistically.  For example, “The reason I feel bad about myself is because my narcissistic parent told me since childhood that I am worthless, unlovable, etc.  I see no evidence for that.  In fact I am a kind person, and my friends and partner tell me that all the time.”

 

Self acceptance building requires the development of a tolerant, patient attitude towards oneself.  As an extension of reality testing, it may require challenging perfectionism and enumerating actual proofs of good character, such as conscientiousness, empathy, kindness, discipline, courage, loyalty, tenacity, honesty, integrity, humility, etc.

‘Reparenting’ the Wounded Child means cultivating compassion and caring for the abused or neglected child you were.  The memories, beliefs and feelings of the Wounded Child may live on in you, and become reactivated, especially when triggered.

 

Reparenting the Wounded Child involves:  Self validation; Positive self mirroring and encouragement, Faith in the essential goodness of the self as a human being; Being a shoulder to oneself; and appreciation of one’s strengths, are important focuses that need to be practiced on a daily basis.  Sometimes finding a mentor, therapist or coach can be helpful.

 

Separation & Individuation Work

Counseling or therapeutic coaching for adult children of narcissistic/borderline/ histrionic parents to varying degrees focuses on completing the individuation stage of development that was thwarted by the parent, leading to poor boundaries, and internalization of the punitive parent as the Inner Critic (internalized bad object).  

 

Partners of Narcissistic Personality Disordered people must retrieve their individual adult sense of agency and personhood from their partner’s attempt to regress / infantilize them back to a childhood fantasy of unconditional love.  Partners must eradicate the internalized voice of NPD – idealizing, romanticizing, mother-child fusion, and the false Beliefs that support this:  IE ‘ We are one; We are meant to be together / soulmates; I am only happy and complete with you; Only you see me for who I am (beautiful, intelligent, good, etc); I am dead/lost/worthless without you’, etc.  This can be a demanding process, and may require therapy to complete.

 

In other words, partners of NPDs must recover from fusing emotionally with the narcissist.  Recovering self identity and autonomy is the goal, aided by separation and individuation, and overcoming the programming the NPD partner subjected them to.

 

Borderline Personality Disorder abuse is primarily fantasy based and emotionally coercive, in an attempt to get their partner to stabilize their dysregulated moods and abandonment or engulfment anxiety, and fill up their emptiness, from the outside in.  BPDs impulsive acting out or acting in when stressed leads to splitting: idealizing then devaluing their partner via blame shifting, criticism, anger, violence, reactiveness (sex, drugs, self harm), leading to psychological distress in the partner.  Recovery from BPD abuse involves abdicating the role of being the external emotional regulator of the dysregulated partner, leading the BPD to avoid you as you have become a source of anxiety.

Partners of AntiSocial Personality Disordered types must recover from being exploited and used, being isolated from others by the ASPD, recovering from exposure to unethical behavior and threats, being monopolized and controlled psychologically, subjected to coercive control, being used as an asset or treated like an object by which the ASPD can achieve his ends ($, sex, influence, power).  The goal for recovery is restorative justice, and inner peace.  No Contact is highly recommended.

 

The intimate partners of Cluster B personality disordered adults suffer from the effects of chronic relationship instability such as emotional or behavioral inconsistency, blame shifting, gaslighting, rejection, destructive behavior, constant arguments, irresponsibility, unreliability, fear, anger, paranoia and, in some cases, violence.  Such relationship dynamics can lead to complex trauma in the impacted partner, especially if the partner was raised by Cluster B parent(s) and are drawn to disordered partners as a form of ‘traumatic reenactment bonding’.  Codependency can play a role in these unions.

Overcoming the psychological damage caused by Splitting; Projection; Projective Identification; Gaslighting and other forms of betrayal ‘felony lies’ such as deliberate manipulation and exploitation is the objective for adult children or partners of Cluster B parents or partners.

As with overcoming the Inner Scapegoat / Critic, recovery from Cluster B abuse to varying degrees requires:

• Challenging and deprogramming cult like messages / mind control; 
• Reality testing and Activating critical thinking.  
• Validating one’s thoughts and emotions – especially those judged as bad or wrong by abusers.  
• Establishing consistent, healthier Boundaries.  This may be foreign at first.  Focus on gut feelings and emotions to identify boundary violations, and say ‘No’, using some version of ‘this is what I will do/tolerate; this is what I will no longer do/tolerate’, etc., and avoiding arguing or defending your position to send a message that you are serious and not open to backing down or being manipulated further.

 

Relationship Skills – Developing Healthy Motivation and Boundaries.  Saying Goodbye to disordered intimate partners and friends 

 

Healthy relationship skills will flow from a developing authentic self – your sense of personal worth, trust, autonomy, ethics, identity and boundaries.  This will guide you to know your value, what qualities you are looking for and have to offer and, your limits: where you end and others begin.  These are skills that are not supported in Cluster B childhood homes or adult relationships.  

 

For many people, this will be a process of learning the truth of healthy relationship skills for the first time, and throwing out the fiction they have lived with for too long.  The good news is that you will likely not be starting from scratch.  There has probably always been a part of you that knows what instinctively or intuitively feels good – or bad – in relationships.  And many of you will have experienced mentors, friendships or even partners who embodied those positive experiences.  

 

This is your jumping off point.  To develop the healthy relationships you want and deserve, start with the belief that, regardless of your conditioning or experience, healthy relationships don’t hurt.  Hold onto this belief at all times, as you will be tested from either conditioning (the inside out) or Cluster B bullies and / or their minions (outside in).

 

Essential healthy relationship skills that you may need to adopt or learn more about:

 

• Clarifying Your Motivation:  What Are You Looking For In A Friend or Partner?
  
  This may seem obvious, but a lot of people fall into relationships without giving this enough thought.
  
  Ask yourself these Questions:
  
  a/ What do I want from ‘friendship’?  From a partner?  IE Activities, Emotional Support, Children, Community, etc.
  
  b/ What do I need to have in common with a friend?  With a partner?  IE Values, Character, Goals

• Laddering
  
  Laddering is a process of incrementally evaluating relationship potential, in friendships or partnerships.  It involves taking your time while getting to know someone.  When you first meet someone you observe their behavior.  You are looking for evidence of:
  
  a/ Consistency – Do their actions consistently align with their words?  This is an essential trait that informs you as to whether or not someone is trustworthy. As noted above, Intermittent Reinforcement is a sign of abuse.
  
  b/ Character – Do they seem sincere, thoughtful, interested in you, kind?
  
  c/ Mental Health – Do they appear stable emotionally?  Sober?  Do they work, have interests, friends, etc.
  
  d/ For Potential Partners – Do you share complementary relationship goals and values?  Is their relationship history responsible?  IE, Do they have a track record of demonstrating caring, commitment and emotional maturity?
  
  The Laddering process involves starting by revealing something of low risk to a new person.  For example: Age, Part of town you live in, Work, etc.  You observe how they react.  If they don’t respond favorably, there’s little to no harm to the self, and you can end it there. 
  
  However, If they respond with interest, respect and more openness on their part, then it green lights you to reveal something of higher risk, EG what you are looking for in general, from a friendship or intimate partner, and so on.
  
  So you can see that laddering is a progressive way of assessing someone’s relationship potential / suitability in a way that minimizes emotional risk to either party.

• Identifying & Attending to Early Warning Signs That Something Isn’t Right.  Overcoming ‘Undue Influence’
  
  Early Warning Signs (EWS) – Attend to your gut feelings.  If something feels ‘off’, don’t veer off into false hope.  Observe.  Do you feel like you are being manipulated or ‘Data Mined’ – ie scanned for vulnerabilities and strengths to be exploited for personal gain.  Note any signs of escalating boundary violations.  For example, being pressured to have sex on a first date / coercion; Being asked overly personal questions; Feeling pushed to reveal personal vulnerabilities without establishing trust first.   Be on the lookout for  ‘Charm Offensives’ aka Love Bombing, that are employed by Cluster Bs to manipulate you into lowering your defenses by pretending to be enamored of you.  As a general rule of thumb, if anything feels exploitative, scary or repulsive, it’s likely your cue to run.
  
  Additional exploitation tactics by Cluster Bs include Deception, Censorship, Hypnotic Spells (often part of Charm Offensives).  Gaslighting – making you doubt reality – is a common tactic employed by ASPDs.  Also be on the lookout for Cold Confidence or Seductiveness.  It’s evidence that the Cluster B only sees you as their target, not the human being with legitimate needs that you are.  Remember, cunning or charm is not equivalent to good character or healthy confidence.
  
  Another warning sign is Cold Empathy – appearing to be empathic as a vehicle for personal gain:  ASPDs employ this to gain goal oriented control and dominance; NPDs are motivated to lure you into a shared romantic/mothering fantasy; BPDs want to absorb you to provide soothing and a sense of self.
  
  If you recognize Signs of Disordered Character, and ask yourself ‘Why’ you would choose someone like this as a friend or partner.  If you are the Adult Child of Cluster B’s, you may be trauma bonding, ie repeating abusive relationship dynamics as they are familiar.  This can be a serious consequence that may require therapy in order to break free of this conditioned relationship dynamic where abuse and love are fused.

 

• Learning to Trust & ‘Tolerate’ Relationships Going Well
  
  Survivors of childhood Cluster B abuse may have never experienced healthy relationships, or had home life go smoothly in any consistent or reliable way.  This means that the thing they long for the most – good relationships – are foreign, and may require some getting used to.  It can be hard to trust the good intentions of well meaning people if you have had the repeated experience of being betrayed the minute you let your guard down by the people you should be able to trust the most – your family of origin, or intimate partner.
  
  In this sense, we are all creatures of habit.  Bad relationships may hurt, but they’re the ‘devil you know’, and therefore, at least to some extent, predictable.  Healthy relations are the unknown, may feel ‘strange’, provoke fear of loss, or success, if you lack experience knowing how to maintain them, or believe you don’t deserve them.  You may feel naive or ignorant in a healthy relationship, and worry your partner may reject you.  Regardless, it’s essential to begin to question habitual mistrust as an unhelpful bias that is interfering with your ability to find and connect with the good folks who, fortunately, still occupy a majority in society.

You may have to overcome bad learned habits of equating anxiety with excitement, feeling attracted to the ‘bad’ boys or girls, and feeling bored around stable, secure people.  In other words, you may have to learn to equate feeling calm and at peace with feeling alive.  This will take practice and repetition, as you free yourself from unhealthy brainwashing and adrenaline. 

At first you may have to force yourself to pull back from suspect, overly intense, high chemistry charmers.  They are not your tribe.  They are the enemy of themselves and others.

 

Keep reality testing.  Commit to healthy beliefs regarding your relationship needs and responsibilities. Take care of the Wounded Child within who can get triggered by old relationship hurts and new Cluster B folks.  Over time healthy beliefs will start to feel normal and rewarding.  You will learn to organically experience feeling repulsed and pull back from disordered people, as you recall the reality of the chaos and hurt these folks inflicted on your life.  You will realize that you have broken free of trauma bonding and actually crave healthy relationships.  You will experience freedom.

Continue to build trust in yourself and the world by remembering that Cluster B personality disordered folks are an extreme minority, so the odds are in your favor.  As noted above, there’s much you can do to alter the trajectory of your future in a favorable fashion. 

Some important guideposts along the way:

• Take it slow.  Be patient with yourself and others
• Keep your guard up, but your faith higher
• Challenge cognitive dissonance, internal gaslighting, projection/blame shifting, fear of leaving. 
• For adult kids of Cluster B parents – Care for the Wounded Child within: cultivate a supportive, compassionate, respectful, guiding reparenting approach to yourself. 
• Stand up to your Codependent / Rescuer identity.  See if for the depleting, false front it is.
• Commit to avoiding Trauma Bonds/ Repetition Compulsion. Create an ‘attraction map’ based on safety and security. 
• Build your Authentic Self, based on self trust and personal autonomy
• In early recovery, be prepared for ongoing assaults from the Inner Critic, especially when you start to live and feel better, as you are breaking the toxic rules inflicted on you by Cluster Bs
• Do not get into an intimate relationship until you are feeling confident and emotionally strong enough to be there.
• Realize you will have some good and bad days.  The good days are signs of progress.
• View any ‘slip ups’ as a learning experience
• Keep a ‘Success’ journal to document your progress.  This is not only proof that you are getting somewhere, but can be a critical reality check on the bad days.
• Appreciate yourself – you have the intelligence and courage to create a better life for yourself.  The fact that you read this long article to the end is proof that you are out of the starting gate and heading towards the life you deserve.
  

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Photo by Elizabeth Fossu

 

NOTES

 

Impact of Personality Disordered Parenting:  https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00787-022-01965-0

 

Impact of Borderline Personality Disordered Parenting:   https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/understanding-ptsd/202212/the-legacy-of-being-raised-by-a-borderline-parent

 

(1) Vaknin, Sam PhD.  http://samvak.tripod.com/ 
I would like to thank Sam Vaknin for his erudite contributions in illuminating the Psychodynamics* of Cluster B personality disordered individuals.  (*Psychodynamics refers to the interrelation of the unconscious and conscious mental and emotional forces that determine personality and motivation.)

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Glynis Sherwood – MEd Counseling Psychology, specializes in recovery from Family Scapegoating, Narcissistic Abuse, False Shame and Guilt, Traumatic Stress, Estrangement Grief and Relationship Challenges.