PD RAW

Lisa Charlebois is a therapist who specialises in treating narcissism. Why? Well, she is open about having suffered from it herself.

Her openness and non-judging attitude mean that she has been able to help every single person with narcissism who has come to her.

That's right – not only is it a possibly treatable condition, it is a very treatable condition, if you know what you are doing and your clients trust you.

Lisa has spent over 30 years as a therapist and has working with countless people with narcissistic or borderline issues, or with their loved ones. She has written a book for dealing with narcissism and has recently launched an online course for people to work on healing their own narcissism.

Book: You MIght Be A Narcissist If...

Website: healingyournarcissism.com

In this episode, Peanut (a.k.a polyphonic_peanut on Reddit) tells us what it's like to live day-to-day with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD): all his many swings from grandiosity and vulnerablity, and much in between.

He describes what it was like to become self-aware, and how he relates his present day fragmented experience and NPD traits to the chaotic and neglectful family environment in which he was raised.

He then points to the Schema Therapy as a key resource for self-understanding and management of his disorder.

Finn talks about her recent realisation of the possiblity of qualifying for an NPD diagnosis, and looks back at her relationships with a new perspective.

Carl tells us about searching for a diagnosis, how he experiences narcissism, and about his own approach to tackling it. 

Relationships between people with Borderline Personality Disorder or traits  and people with grandiose narcissism are extremely common. What is going on in these dynamics? 

Grandiose narcissists and vulnerable narcissists are also a very common pairing. These relationships can be best viewed as occurring between someone with a dominant personality style and someone with a submissive personality style.

As someone diagnosed with both vulnerable narcissism and BPD, Nota chats to Mud, who was diagnosed with NPD and has the grandiose version, as they try to unravel some of the strands on this intriguing combination.

Some links to resources for further reading (a "dominant" personal style can also be seen as embodying a "sadistic" personal style, and a "submissive" personal style can also be seen as embodying a "masochistic" personal style: 

https://whatiscodependency.com/narcissists-are-codependents-too/

https://www.antrodichirone.com/index.php/en/2017/01/11/the-dance-between-two-personality-disorders-a-delicate-relationship-balance/

https://evolutioncounseling.com/sadism-and-masochism-are-both-about-control/

https://evolutioncounseling.com/understanding-the-masochistic-life-solution/

https://evolutioncounseling.com/sadism/

https://evolutioncounseling.com/sadists-need-their-victims-and-would-feel-like-nothing-without-them/

https://evolutioncounseling.com/abusers-need-help-too/

Casting with yet another participant from the land of british people, Few welcomes on to the cast Early Morning Barking/Richard! The two borderline (and one additionally NPD) males break the ice and delve into some common topics they both hold close to their disordered hearts. They start with the topic of therapy: how does sitting in a room and talking with someone once a week lead to you getting better? What modalities work for different people? What of the (justified) fears of disordered people of the immense destructive and creative potential that therapy poses to their life’s trajectory? * Trigger Warning * Suicide makes an early appearance in the cast, both in terms of the motivations for it, and as an impetus to change in both podcasters lives. Richard’s early life is discussed, as are the environmental factors that heightened the experience of the onset of both disorders (don’t make there be a wrong answer to the question ‘what do you want' when you parent your kids!). Coping strategies and frank honesty of some disordered impulses to aggression are discussed, and how one’s motivation changes further along in the process of self-awareness. Pro tip #37, avoid things that will occasion the walk of shame to the next place to apologize for yesterday’s behaviour. They even get around to discussing ‘multiple indictment man’ and empathizing (not sympathizing!) with the general phenomenon of narcissistic collapse with extreme exposure, and question (hypothetically) the conditions under which such a person could express remorse or how one could hold open space for someone who’d committed such wrongs who wanted to take another path. Between all of this and the witty banter in between, if this doesn’t catch your attention, find another podcaster you enti- ahem, I humbly accept each person’s perspective. Come for the deep disordered discussion, stay for the petty devaluing of one’s peers in group therapy! 

On today’s episode Nota and Few sum up a conversation initially taking place on the forum and now brought to life on the pod, thanks to the largesse of our newest and first patron, temporaryfeeling. The unpaid janitors analyze and reflect on the themes of children’s aggression, the relation between isolation, insecurity, and stunted development to grandiosity, superiority, and devaluing/cultlike attitudes, and how different solutions in different families to the topic of aggression can yield varying capacities for self defence later in life. Significantly, what happens in the child’s development when you hold them responsible or blame them for their feelings as they are trying to work these issues out for themselves, leading to compensating behaviours and attitudes as they attempt to flee the vulnerable position of being the one who is shamed. 

To anyone who’s listening who’d like to be on the pod but think the exposure is a bit too much/don’t like the sound of their own voice, please take this episode as indicative of formats Nota and myself are willing to embrace to help people get their stories out there, and a thanks to temporaryfeeling yet again for suggesting it.

Howdy there all and sundry, thanks for stopping by today’s episode of Few incarcerated-in-the-UK-in-some-manner edition! From a super soon-not-to-be-so secret location BurningLila and Few take a bit of a pause and reflect on what they’ve been up to for the past six months. Few explains his (therapeutic? Counselling? Paid friendship?) approach to working with Lila on her nominal diagnoses, and more importantly, feelings and inner environment. After that Lila shares some of what has been working, what is still challenging, newfound problems, and reflecting on the nature of her and Few’s multi-modal relationship. Some of the topics discussed include; how openness and willingness to discuss ‘deviant’, painful, shameful, or dark thoughts and emotions helped make the process go faster than it otherwise would have; how accruing new experiences and perspectives can allow one to challenge their cognitions in ways that they couldn’t do with simple reflection alone; how do you cope with your environment and feelings when you let go of behaviours, mechanisms, or patterns of thought that served crucial ego functions previously; the difficulty of changing when you are still emotionally invested in your prior selves and their identities; how experiences with one’s parents can stay close to the surface of one’s emotional inner environment; and how to achieve what might be called ‘realistic optimism’, whatever in the fuck that might actually be, amongst many other things. Stay tuned for the thrilling conclusion of this epic clash of titans, the empath overlord v ‘just a bin person’ event of the day that you’re reading this. Hopefully they will both continue to remain not dead until at least the end of the follow up episode. 

Addendum

This podcast does not offer legitimate therapeutic advice beyond whatever bullshit Few is fumbling around with, and as such, this podcast is not legally actionable should you decide to take the advice of a self-professed sociopath to have sex with your therapist. Don’t try this at home. 

There were indeed a number of things that were left out of this episode, including a promissory note of ‘is it love or is it a heart attack’ and other funny moments along the journey. They will be hopefully included in the next one, because there’s no way that we could manage to fuck it up twice consecutively.

Ruthless talks to Nota about the difficulties of being the Golden Child, and what can happen when a parent undergoes extreme stress.

The also discuss cultiural difference, and how the environment you live in can have a major impact on recovery. 

Welcome to today’s episode of Few being on the run from the British constabulary! Today BurningLila swings back by the pod for the last time before she and Few meet in person and Few remains unincarcerated. We finish up with her introduction today by trying to talk about her childhood and run headfirst into her confabulation imagination; what do you do when you try to look back at the past and realize you don’t actually remember how it felt? What causes a child to disinvest themselves from emotionally engaging with the world? How does talking about prior trauma as an adult help you reframe/gain new perspective on narratives that don’t capture the whole story of what happened then? We then move on to being spokespeople for Big Oil to disambiguate ‘gaslighting’ (a term that Vaknin also has distaste for); when is it done when the disordered person is confabulating/gaslighting themselves, when is it done sadistically, and when is it done as a desperate defence to avoid vulnerable moments and spaces? Finally, we move on to insecurity, the fear of feeling good, and the grandiosity of trying to take on long term tasks and projects like cathedral building. For example, the emptiness that comes in one’s life as a result of being so afraid of failure that one emotionally invests into their own failings and depravity as the easier thing to accomplish and how they can’t be blindsided when they are feeling ‘good’.Hopefully everyone enjoys hearing me rant about my hobby horses like community and are all suitably impressed bythe result of Lila’s long term efforts, a Burning hovel. 

Also, if any of you were the teleport revive karthus’ in my league games circa 2015, then from the very depths my heart, a hearty ‘fuck you’ well and truly. I hope your first born never learns how to read. 

Also also, forgive the distortions in my voice, sounds like Alitu’s recording software wanted to auto-tune my voice or something.