Compensatory Narcissistic Personality Disorder

[SallyingForth]

Excerpts from http://www.ptypes.com/

Pervasive pattern of unstable, "overtly narcissistic behaviors [that] derive from an underlying sense of insecurity and weakness rather than from genuine feelings of self-confidence and high self-esteem."

Has ten or more of the following:

– seeks to create an illusion of superiority and to build up an image of high self-worth (Millon);
– has disturbances in the capacity for empathy (Forman);
– strives for recognition and prestige to compensate for the lack of a feeling of self-worth;
– may acquire a deprecatory attitude in which the achievements of others are ridiculed and degraded (Millon);
– has persistent aspirations for glory and status (Millon);
– has a tendency to exaggerate and boast (Millon);
– is sensitive to how others react to him or her, watches and listens carefully for critical judgment, and feels slighted by disapproval (Millon);
– is prone to feel shamed and humiliated and especially hyper-anxious and vulnerable to the judgments of others (Millon);
– covers up a sense of inadequacy and deficiency with pseudo-arrogance and pseudo-grandiosity (Millon);
– has a tendency to periodic hypochondria (Forman);
– alternates between feelings of emptiness and deadness and states of excitement and excess energy (Forman);
– entertains fantasies of greatness, constantly striving for perfection, genius, or stardom (Forman);
– has a history of searching for an idealized partner and has an intense need for affirmation and confirmation in relationships (Forman);
– frequently entertains a wishful, exaggerated, and unrealistic concept of himself or herself which he or she can't possibly measure up to (Reich);
– produces (too quickly) work not up to the level of his or her abilities because of an overwhelmingly strong need for the immediate gratification of success (Reich);
– is touchy, quick to take offense at the slightest provocation, continually anticipating attack and danger, reacting with anger and fantasies of revenge when he or she feels frustrated in his or her need for constant admiration (Reich);
– is self-conscious, due to a dependence on approval from others (Reich);
– suffers regularly from repetitive oscillations of self-esteem (Reich);
– seeks to undo feelings of inadequacy by forcing everyone's attention and admiration upon himself or herself (Reich);
– may react with self-contempt and depression to the lack of fulfillment of his or her grandiose expectations (Riso).


And something I found interesting:
Associated Disorders

Hypochondria (Reich, pg. 47; Mellow, pp. 14-15, 22, 280, 344, 432, 437, 441-42).

Psychosis, addictions, depression; paranoia, obsessions, compulsions, impulsivity; conversion disorder, phobia, psychosomatic symptoms, inhibition; creative inhibition, inertia; delinquent behavior, gender identity disorders, psychotic episodes; schizoid personality disorder, distantiation, racism; mid-life crisis, premature invalidism; extreme alienation, despair (Newton & Newton, pg. 482).

I underlined my mother's behaviors.

Interestingly, my mother's childhood background doesn't fit the picture for N in that her father was a success and strong. Her mother was overprotective and insecure though. However, her emotional reality was denied so maybe that contributed to it. Her mother was most likely a N herself due to her odd behavior [which my mother described in full detail] and had a gender identity disorder.

[Certain Hope]

Dear Sally,

Thank you for all of this information... and the link.
Yes, it's an excellent site!

Also, the book mentioned there... Sin, Pride & Self-Acceptance, by Terry D. Cooper - well worth reading.

Happy New Year to you!

Carolyn

[Gaining Strength]

Sallying Forth - You write

Interestingly, my mother's childhood background doesn't fit the picture for N in that her father was a success and strong.

and I react:

Both of my parents came from extremely successful families.  My mother's father was a name partner of the largest firm in the state.  He was known by US Senators and Presidents.  My fathers family were also extremely successful.  His father and uncles and later my father's cousin and my father ran an international manufacturing corporation.  But my father who is NPD was raised by extremely harsh and formal (read - legalistic) parents who were more about rules than about love.  My mother (who has been diagnosed with N trait) came from a loving family but her extremely successful father (editor in chief of Yale law review) was loving but he was so committed to his work that he basically left all family life decisions up to his wife and though she could be quite loving she had some very strange twisted thing in which she pampered and shielded her middle daughter who had a sever personality defect - she did this to the complete detriment of her other two daughters.  It was a benign neglect - benign in that both of them were kind and loving but the damaging (severely damaging) factor was the neglect none-the-less.  My mother's youngest sister who is a gentle, beautiful, kind and accomplished woman finally snapped late this summer.  She has been suffering from sever depression and psychosis and has been hospitalized for the third time since August.  Before then she never demonstrated even the slightest hint of depression.  But no wonder - she really suffered the greatest of the three.  And all of this from NO harshness nor unkindness but rather a truly benign - neglect.  It reinforces to me how extremely powerful neglect can be.  No one who ever knew either of my grandparents could possibly imagine that they could be anything other than the best of parents and yet they produced severly damaged daughters.  Isn't that amazing.

[Certain Hope]

Dear GS,

I am amazed.
I'm so sorry about your aunt...
and your mother too, of course.

Their family situation sounds very, very similar to that of my mother and her brother - with the other sister receiving the special treatment and a very harsh, legalistic tone always in place.

If you have or run across any other good info re: the effects of neglect, please do share... thank you.

With love,
Carolyn