Narcissism Manifestion in Borderline Personality Disorder

This video answers the question: How does narcissism manifest in borderline personality disorder? Borderline personality disorder is a Cluster B personality disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, so it's in the same cluster as antisocial, histrionic, and narcissistic, personality disorders. This cluster is the dramatic, erratic, and emotional cluster. There are nine symptom criteria: frantic efforts to avoid abandonment; an unstable relationship pattern; identity disturbance; impulsivity in at least two areas that could be self-damaging; suicidal behavior, threats, ideations, and gestures; affective instability, a chronic feeling of emptiness, intense and inappropriate anger, and paranoid ideation or dissociation. Borderline personality disorder is a high rate of co-occurrence with pathological narcissism. One fairly common combination is borderline personality disorder comorbid with narcissistic personality disorder, and in clinical treatment settings this particular combination is considered particularly difficult to treat. Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) also has nine symptom criteria in the DSM: a grandiose sense of self-importance; fantasies about wealth and power, believing oneself to be special or unique, requiring excessive admiration from others, a sense of entitlement, a tendency to exploit other people interpersonally, a lack of empathy, envy, and arrogance. The construct of pathological narcissism doesn't overlap perfectly with narcissistic personality disorder. There are two factors to pathological narcissism: grandiose narcissism and vulnerable narcissism. Vulnerable narcissism seems to have a lot in common with borderline personality disorder, but the overlap is not perfect.

Euler, S., Stöbi, D., Sowislo, J., Ritzler, F., Huber, C. G., Lang, U. E., … Walter, M. (2018). Grandiose and Vulnerable Narcissism in Borderline Personality Disorder. Psychopathology, 51(2), 110–121

[taghiabiri]

One difference I noticed wich distinguished between borderline and vulnerable very clearly was the fact, that the borderline has many clear moments in wich they see what is going wrong, or that they are wrong somehow. The vulnerable narcissist is NEVER wrong, always just the others or the circumstances.

[Alex-pvft]

There's so much overlap between so many of these conditions.

[coolbreeze]

Doc, I appreciate your explanations of things I've been dealing with all my life. I'm 54 and just now learning about my mind. It's hindered me all my life. You are definitely helping put things in perspective. I'm also seeking help. Gonna try to enjoy what's left. Thanks✌️

[battydragon]

I have been diagnosed with BPD and feel a lot of the vulnerable traits relate to me . They relate most when I'm upset about something and a loved one won't validate me. I am aware of some of my triggers and don't want to blame them on the person, I'm desperately trying to change myself, but I feel they aren't trying to understand me and continuously trigger me. It makes me feel like they don't care if they hurt me, even if my triggers are my own fault .

I don't want to make others feel bad. I don't want to be an evil person. I want to be able to help myself when these traits come out. I feel like nobody knows how to communicate and I have no control over my emotions and the things I do. :(

[Anack-Su-Namun]

I'm diagnosed with Npd (covert) and Bpd. But I'm aware of my personality, I don't want to hurt people so I distance myself from society. Great video btw.

[goitomfessahaye]

Insightful videos. Having a Mother with what I believe to having Borderline Personality and understanding how that has affected me with relation to substance abuse and perhaps creating a covertbpd/vulnerable narcisim in my self has allowed me yo accept and try and change. It's hard though when nobody in your family wants to believe the trauma we have all at some point inflicted on eachother. Best thing is to change your life and find your own family .

[itswhatyoumakeit]

I always thought Borderline is created by NPD parents, or those closest. Not JUST this way, but I believe I had enough symptoms to be diagnosed borderline UNTIL I was able to remove myself from the toxic NPD people.

[Salmon_Rush_Die]

The vulnerable narcissist. I never knew it had a name. I always referred to these individuals as having a "martyr" complex. They are so tiresome to be around because "oh poor me look how I am afflicted by these horrible people that are more horrible than I."

[vestafreyja]

I had a parent who was a narcissist and a low functioning sociopath; he (1927-2017) was never diagnosed or treated. If he wasn't the center of attention he was simply not interested. If he told you something in "confidence" about a certain individual you would be certain that whatever he told you was a lie. Growing up he was physically abusive to all of his children; I have faint echoes of memories of him being physically abusive to mom (I would not want to testify in a court of law if he actually caused physical harm to mom my memory is just not strong enough for that.). After mom died in 2002 he slowly alienated all of his of children - he seemed to be most happy when he tried to set his children against each other of course growing up with this we could all see it as it was and never fell for it. The last 5 years of his life he spent alone in a hospital.

As the oldest how messed up is this? When any of my younger siblings got scared because of a nightmare they had or because of monsters under the bed instead of crawling into bed with their parents, they would crawl into bed with me; I can't remember all the times that I woke up to find one or even two of my brothers in my bed.

My brothers were all good hockey players so much so that during the 1970's and early 1980's they all had been actively scouted by a number of NHL scouts for the Blues, Bruins and the Maple Leaf's. You would have expected that a normal parent would have been proud of that - but of course not from the one we had. Or when one of my brothers got really sick with Crones disease and lost all of his large intestine and several feet of his small intestine and as a result he lost considerable weight and we were not certain if he was going to survive. When after almost a month in the hospital he was finally released mom wanted to stay home and look after one of her children and imagine being told by your husband that I need you to continue to work for me doing the books (mom never got paid) instead of staying home to look after one of their children. Fortunately our aunt Peggy was able to step in and we sent James to another province for 6 months to recover.

When I got a BSc in Clinical Psychology with a minor in Biochemistry, BSc & Masters in Computer Science and PhD in Computer Science & Engineering most parents would have been proud of their daughters achievement - mom was so very proud of me; from him no reaction at all. To be honest by that time in my life I never really expected one but ....

I made the conscience effort not refer to him as dad, father or any term of affection simply because he never earned it.

[lillyjacob]

Dr Grande your videos are very concise without compromising accuracy, very interesting. For most lay people I'd say the difference may be best identified with the individual's empathy levels and how hard they work at becoming well and not hurting those around them. Genuine efforts can be hard to identify as they can be superficially mimicked. BPD alone may go to great lengths at their own personal detriment to avoid causing distress in others. When narcissism is co-morbid I suspect they view themselves as the only one who's suffering matters.

[Andypandieful]

BPD mom, sister, niece. I’m the “ horrible one”, or “ looked up to one”. Push/ pull. Loved and hated/ smeared to all. 😓

[thereaIitsybitsyspider]

I feel like the core of BPD, fear of abandonment, should be looked for and paid attention to when trying to distinguish it from vulnerable narcissism.

[redfullmoon]

I already sensed that the overlap between BPD and vulnerable narcissism was mostly gender-based, especially as I've met more women with BPD who have empathy/display remorse when having episodes while some men diagnosed with BPD whom I meet tend to display more internal shame regarding their self-worth as men rather than their episodes affecting others. I've also seen men shift between extremes of shame and depression and grandiose sense of self-importance. With women, this isn't always the case, it's more of splitting on other people.

[bomcorn]

i’ve been watching hundreds of clinical psychologists covering bpd and i have to say dr. Grande’s is by far the most comprehensive and he breaks it down so well for a layman like myself, please continue spreading the knowledge and awareness of this disorder!

[Vengeance]

Thank you!! I wanted to rule out BPD for myself despite thinking I was unstable deep down, although I guess I am really it's masked by that nonchalantness. Vulnerable narcissism is a perfect fit not only from the test online, but also your description of it. Don't relate to overt npd, but still requite attention and have a bit of 'compensatory vanity' if you can call it that, although my issues are more in line with what you described. Basically no genuine self-worth at all so you 'compensate' for that with other things, makes sense after all the years of wondering why I'm so vulnerable, defensive, shame-ridden etc. I think vulnerables are like 'mild' bpd+avpd on an unconscious level.


I also don't relate to overt NPD in the sense that I don't really devalue others because of what they have or haven't done, and only do that in a temporary response to a slight or insult in some way, but don't really show it outwards.

[ninablackman]

This video explains the narcissism I have seen in my sister with BPD. I see the narcissism as having had a protective function. It has probably kept her from the self harm seen with BPD. She constantly threatens but I think that narcissism clicks in. Along with ticking all the boxes for BPD she has that entitlement and envy seen with narcissism. And if you dont enable her or rescue her you are a bad person. She is pretty high functioning but the death of our mother seemed to cause decompensation. Our mother was the only person she had not alienated in our family. You know how faithful moms can be. As mature adults some of us have tried to pull her back into the fold. It almost seems she has to punish us by rejecting us. She doesn't know when she refuses our overtures we breath a sigh of relief. It would feel like more of a punishment if she became a part of our lives.

[moodycrab]

Thank you for the unbiased info, I find psychology very interesting. Our brains are weird.

[day_dreamer_]

I've was feeling like my ex with bpd was displaying narcissistic traits, and this vulnerable narcissism appears to match up with that. I would like to learn more about it. Thank you!

[OGCUSH]

i do believe some individuals with bpd may have developed traits of npd somewhere along the line in order to cope with rejection distress and triggers of abandonment. its not hard to understand why when you think about how most people use self comparison and devaluation of others in order to cope with rejection + attachment trauma. the first thing a lot of people do after a breakup is talk shit about their ex significant other in order to make themselves feel better, saying it was "their loss, not mine"

[Holly-squv]

I appreciate the insight, Dr Grande! In my experience, the overlap between BPD and vulnerable NPD seems to go hand-in-hand. I’m no expert, but it’s my understanding that a grandiose NPD is not so emotionally volatile, “narc rage” is not as much of an issue and that they don’t expose their emotions to others with that kind of unstable meltdown. The vulnerable NPD seems so, incredibly unstable and threatened that the symptoms seem to much more strongly correlate to BPD. The insecure, unstable self is so fragile in them, as though they’re built on sand and the grandiose individual, on rock.