Narcissist vs. Borderline On Autopilot: Depersonalization Derealization Disorder
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- Опубліковано 23 лис 2023
- Scroll down for symptoms of depersonalization and derealization
BPD: Intact reality testing; NPD not
BPD: Reaction to stress, substance abuse; NPD reaction to deficient supply, injury, and mortification
Disrupted integration of self-perceptions with sense of self (estrangement). BPD: situational and reactive; NPD: constant
Both: Watching oneself from a distance, as if in a movie
BPD: Out of body and mystical experiences; NPD not
Both: Auto-pilot (going through the motions, automatism, roboticism)
Both: Acting vs. observing (BPD’s bad object, NPD self-audiencing)
Both: Dream, fog (BPD trauma response; NPD fantasy defense)
Both: Body dysmorphia, detached from mirror image, organs, whole body (especially cerebral NPD)
BPD: Out of control speech or locomotion, ventriloquist’s dummy; NPD grandiosity defense
BPD: Alien or intrusive thoughts; NPD only after injury or mortification
Both: Memory retrieval issues, alien memories
Both: Numbed emotions (BPD intermittently and defensively, NPD all the time)
Both: Unfamiliarity or detachment from surroundings, people, objects, time (BPD after rejection; NPD at the devaluation-discard phase of shared fantasy).
NPD: Hypoemotionality plus unreality, unfamiliarity
From “Dissociation and the Dissociative Disorders: Past, Present, and Future”, 2023
“Depersonalization (DP) describes a disrupted integration of self- perceptions with the sense of self so that individuals experiencing depersonalization are in a subjective state of feeling estranged, detached, or disconnected from their own being.
The following are common descriptions of depersonalization experiences (Sierra & Berrios, 2000): feeling strange, as if not real or as if being cut off from the world; feeling as if parts of one’s own body do not belong to one¬self; having the feeling of being a ‘detached observer’ of oneself, including the feeling of being outside of one’s body or watching oneself from a distance; perceiving the body as very light, as if floating on air; perceiving one’s own voice as remote and unreal; feeling detached from autobiographical memories as if not having been involved in them; not feeling any affection towards family or close friends; feeling as if not in charge of movements, as if moving automatically or like a robot; perceiving one’s own image in the mirror as strange and unreal; feeling the need to touch oneself to make sure that one’s body is real and exists; feeling disconnected from one’s own thoughts and feelings.
Depersonalization is frequently accompanied by derealization (DR) - a sense of unfamiliarity, alteration or detach¬ment from one’s own surroundings, other people, and objects. The following are common descriptions of DR: seeing the surrounding as ‘flat’ or ‘lifeless’ as if looking at a picture; feeling detached from surroundings or perceiving them as unreal, as if there is a veil between the person and the outside world; impression that objects seem to look smaller or further away; experience of familiar places looking unfamiliar, as never seen before (Sierra & Berrios, 2000).
Notably, all the above experiences are “as if ” experiences, meaning that an individual with DP/ DR has intact reality testing; this point is crucial to the differentiation from psychosis.
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It just took me years to get my son diagnosed with CPTSD . 4 years of notes , recordings, pleading with psychologists , 4 evaluations . Nobody believed me until he was sent to a 45 day treatment center . It was asd,then adhd asd, then anxiety disorder , then ptsd, then mood , then cptsd he is 15..Professor Sam vaknin thank you. Without you, I wouldn’t had been able to get the help he needed
It's "Professor Vaknin", if I may notice 🙂
sorry i have adhd lol Professor Vaknin@@alexandrazarueva93
@@alexandrazarueva93Kind of petty. Are you on his channel learning about your narcissism?
@@lisabell1399 Take a nap. You’re seeing ghosts.
I went through this when I was prescribed anti-psychotics. I’ll never take those medications ever again
This is great info. My question is how do I move on from a pathological narcissistic ex spouse. After so many years with that person, I really dont know any other way. I feel kind of lost. My lifestyle and world view is forever changed in a major way now and navigating today's society is like intricate maze. Great video Sam, always a pleasure listening to your insights.
Watch the videos in the healing and recovery playlist.
See if you can find what it was you liked about him, you probably wont find much and maybe that helps you to move on, then picture what you do want and create it ❤️😊 enjoy getting to know yourself again!
I wish I could stop feeling like this I want to reboot myself
You have just described in details what I experienced after enourmous stress I went through 18 years ago as BPD. Thank you.
Your video lectures are some of the best content on UA-cam I’ve ever found. Please keep doing what you do so well. Thank you for the insightful and in depth videos.
It would be interesting if you could make a video on developmental life stages of BPD and NPD go through. At what ages they learn new coping strategies, change behaviors, etc.
Watch the From Child to Narcissist playlist.
Thank you so much for this video! This is seriously the most insightful view on this issue ive seen in a long time, and ive been around the DPDR community for many years.
The way you described the inability to integrate the world with oneself/ones narrative really struck me.
I only have derealization, not depersonalization( although i can trigger it intentionally/ split myself in the way you described. But thats not my normal state, nor is it really happening under stress. My Self is pretty much fine.)
When i was six years old, my parents split up and thats really where it all began and the outside world stopped making sense to me. Gradually i noticed everything turning into a strange dreamland and its been like this, 24/7 ever since. Not one second of reality.
It becomes much worse under stress, just like you described it happening in the narcissist(although it seems to serve more as a simple trauma/stress response like it does in the borderline) But the fundamental strangeness is always present.
Hence why there must be some error in the code that is the narrative of my life. New outside information just doesnt connect, doesnt integrate.
Now, the thing is that i really dont have a diagnosable personality disorder and neither do many with permanent DPDR. In theory, maybe i need to "process" what happened, viscerally understand what happened to me in order to fix the error in my code. Ive gone down that road for years and it doesnt lead anywhere at all.
Perhaps you can sometime share your thoughts on whats happening with people like me / those that dont have personality disorders.
Is there any hope?
There are cases who got out after decades, even when they got it very early but they are very rare.
The way you precisely described the differences in how DPDR functions in Narcissism vs. BPD is exactly the right direction towards a deeper understanding of DPDR and consequently how to treat individuals who have it.
This is truly the only discussion I've heard regarding this topic that makes sense of it. A very big thank you, Professor Sam.
Thank you, Sam! Thank you for the rescue!
Oh my! The most clarified information I’ve ever watched and listened to🤗 Thank You for all of your incremental efforts to share the information you have spent so many years to discern so succinctly throughout, especially with this video🤓😍
Yeah i feel like i’m in autopilot , i’m living but is like i’m watching my life and my self out of body . I don’t feel like my old self and i feel so empty no memoy and no human feeling🤷🏻♀️
Es ist so genial erklärt, so einzigartig, wie nur sie es erklären können, Professor Vaknin. Es macht Sinn.
Thank u, Sam ❤️
this is all so much great info, my father is definetely a narccissist unfortunately, and i am 100% borderline personality disorder. im 28 and still struggling with dissociation, ive been tryng self EMDR and all sorts of stuff, grounding meditations seem to be the most effective for me. naltrexone was extremely effective for about a month but now the dpdr is starting to return with even stronger more uncomfortable emotions and the restlessness and intrusive thoughts are returning. i dont know what to do. I feel like ive been trying to fix my self my whole life
Firstly, I would like to say how interesting and infomative your videos are. Thank you!
I am in a predicament which I need to get to grips with and I am unsure how to .
I was suffering extreme anxiety, with many physically debilitating symptoms . I felt that there was something wrong within my body and went to the Doctors over and over. Unfortunately, It resulted in being labelled as PTSD, given antidepressants and nothing more. I ended up having to leave my career because of the severity of the illness.
After 8 years, I finally found a Doctor who listened. I had a scan and a necrotised Phaeochromocytoma was discovered on my adrenal gland. The Endochrinologist said that it was the cause of the most horrific symptoms, I am lucky to be here . They had to act quickly from that point on.
At last, the cause found and I was finally believed.
I had major surgery to remove the 'little shit,' as I called it, during which I almost lost my life. I think I was so elated thinking it was all done and dusted that it did not filter in at that point.
Months later I started really struggling with the whole scenario, all the what ifs, why could I not get one Doctor to believe me over the 8 years, and a huge sense of loss in many aspects of mine and my familys lives because of a tumour.
Are you able to suggest a way forward out of what is possibly now a real PTSD, please? I feel very lost and I am terrified of not being believed all over again I now have real panic attacks ( which I can get under control with breathing ). I just need to find a way forward.
Regards
Val
PS I meant to put this comment/question under another of your videos regarding OCD and Anxiety. Sorry it was misplaced.
Can a healthy person suffers from depersonalisation and derealisation after a traumatic event?
Yes.
Thank you for another very insightful invaluable lecture, Professor Vaknin! I have a specific question about my situation.
I am a highly self aware narcissist and I have indeed been in this perpetual dissociative state since I was a teenager. Motivated by my feelings of emptiness inside, I have been journaling since I was a teenager, and I would play two roles: a mother role and a daughter role, to self regulate my behaviors, and my guidelines are learned values and acceptable social norms. Now I have two young daughters. Cognitively I was terrified of them growing up as narcissists with this painful gaping hole, I was determined to “play” a good mother. I read lots of books and internalized how to raise empathic children with secure attachment style. I basically wrote a script of how to be a good mother and followed each rule in the book. Now they seem to be very healthy, they connect with people, and I can see they have full range of emotions (while mine is flat, to put it mildly). I have always been present, “show” emotions when appropriate, and give them enough space, encourage them to explore the world. Their teachers have reported that they are very stable, healthy and well rounded children.
My question is: If I act like a good mother and regulate my behaviors and emotions strictly, is it possible for a narcissistic mother to raise healthy children, or am I kidding myself?
You will definitely be a, “good enough” mother! In fact sounds like you are becoming a great mother!
I stayed up for two days before and triggered depersonalization. It ruined my life for a good 7 years. I would go to therapy and they had no idea what I was talking about and would just say that they think I’m depressed. I gave up after trying like 6-7 different people.
Eventually I sat down and tried to understand what was perpetuating it and realized that it was just waking up and having hyper awareness of my unreality, which would trigger anxiety and panic, which would continue the cycle. It was like a giant snowball of thought patterns and feelings that would feed into themselves and continue to build momentum.
I literally realized that I have to find a way to distract myself with something captivating enough to make me think like a normal human being, which if I could do enough, would build momentum with that normal thought process and the giant snowball of depersonalization thought process would wind down, so the normal thought process could run over the depersonalization process when it tried to take back over.
It’s hard to explain but in simple terms, when I tried to live and act normal, the depersonalization thought process would run me over because it built up enough momentum to be the size of a mountain, so I had to find a way to build up a normal thought process until it was the size of a mountain with momentum, so when the depersonalization thought process would try to take back over, it was now winded down to a little metaphorical snow ball on the ground with no momentum and I could kick it away in a moments notice, because the normal thought process was now the size of a mountain and the depersonalization process no longer had the power it once had.
I achieved this with listening to podcasts while playing video games in combination, that way my mind would get caught up in either the conversation that was being had in the podcast, or wrapped up in the video game, and this would create moments of no depersonalization and normalcy, and I would just continue to build on this over time, until I became normal again.
Nowadays, usually once or twice a year, usually due to lack of sleep, when depersonalization pops up in my life, I kick it super fast, as I feel like my mental process now has such a good defense against it.
Thank you for this video, i've always had constant derealization which made me not feel present in the moment which i think maybe the reason behind my huge memory gap... I wanna ask you, if i only feel empathy for my small family and animals does that disqualify my lack of empathy in general?
The narcissist is always watching himself in 3rd person, as though he were living in a movie? It seems so lonely.
Is it possible to be a hybrid of both, or is the variation in somatic vs psychopathy what makes N "seem" more BL? Can BL be in layers of disassociation where one of the delusional layers is the base reality for the BL, but is still not quite dialed into reality? Have you seen these disorders in tandem with narcelepsy? Could the dissociatiative state trigger an actual sleep or dream state of the brain?
Dissociation. Search the channel for "self state" and for IPAM.
Can Depersonalization Derealization Disorder progress into a psychotic disorder over time if not treated?
Yes. Psychotic microepisodes are common in dissociative disorders and in BPD.
Hi Sam
In Depersonalization Derealization Disorder, how does the patient perceive the disorder within themselves? Do they recognise they have the disorder intuitively or only intellectually?
Also are some patients reluctant to recover as they are so identified with their illness it becomes their identity?
They are aware and they all want to get rid of dissociation.
It's been exactly a 1 year these days, since I went no contact with my bpd ex, yet she's trying to follow me on instagram every 8 weeks an an attempt, I don't have feelings for her, I don't miss her, but I didn't stop thinking about her as in not forgetting, is this normal
I think you need to dive further into the borderline playlist and recognize that without treatment or recognizing the inherent issues with BPD that there is no hope of a relationship that will last beyond limerence. That has helped me to let go to realize there will be no future but yes, I get odd texts asking if I know about some odd features on her apple device or I get asked if I have some paper at my house. I had to send her mail back to sender to get her to stop using my address. These people may never stop, you have to just realize they may never be able to let go. I say to myself still, if this person ever got help, I'd at least entertain a future but other than that, I just moved on with my life. It's been like 6 months and 3 attempts to hook back up for me to realize that this person makes me physically ill with anxiety. Based on some things that I've read, I'm lucky to have moved her out of my life without violence and without a scene in front of my son. I listened to Sam's advance on how to individuate peacefully from a BPD.
My search history revolves around you your videos, and google dictionary, my son first complain at age of 18 was derealization and depersonalization psychiatrists labelled him schizopherania since than he is on medecines at age of 32 no more option as he has been labelled by the psychiatrist I will look for your videos if available on schizopherenia and its management and therapy inshallah.
Do you have videos about explaining differentiation?
Differentiation of what?
Hi, what would you recommend to help treat depersonalisation? Thanks
Therapy and medications (psychiatrist, not psychologist).
Ahh we "Cornflake girls": bet your life this IS really happening....