February 8, 2023 • 22 mins
Dr. Lynn Varela, LMHC and John Boswell, MSW, LCSW give the skinny on common myths and misconceptions of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD). This is part 1 of a 2 part episode.
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John Boswell (00:23):
Hey, this is John Boswell, your friendly neighborhood therapist.
Here to talk to you a little day aboutnarcissist of personality disorder myths.
Dr. Varela (00:31):
And this is Dr.
Varela.
I'm here to talk about BPD myths.
All right.
All right, so let's just jump in.
Let's start with the first myth thatyou cannot treat or recover from BPD.
In my experience in over 10 yearsof treating people with BPD, very
much, you can recover from BPD.
(00:51):
Is it an easy, fast process?
No.
It, it can take years.
How long it takes?
Depends on various Things becausetreating bpds, like opening an onion,
it has a lot of layers because BPDa lot of times comes with other
diagnosises, and so the prognosisof how well you're gonna do is one.
(01:12):
Where are you in the spectrum of BPD?
So, BPD is a spectrum.
It's not that everybody presents thesame and everybody has the same symptoms
and the same degree of severity.
Also, you can have BPD withother personality disorders.
You can have BPD withbipolar, you can have BPD.
With schizophrenia, you can have BPD with.
(01:32):
A bunch of other things.
And so it depends on the severitywhere you are on the spectrum.
If you have other diagnosises,are you compliant with treatment
and are you compliant withany meds that you might need?
But ultimately using dialecticalbehavioral therapy, which are the
coping skills specifically made for BPD?
(01:52):
Yeah, you very much can recover.
I've, I've seen hundreds of people recoverand over the 10 years I've been doing.
John Boswell (02:01):
Excellent.
Well, I wish I can give you es good newsfor NPD , but unfortunately I can't.
Yeah.
So first off, I wanna let you knowthat you can't fix them personally.
A lot of times we helpers, we caregivers,we're kind of get caught up inside
relationships with narcissists orpeople with MPD and we feel like if
we love them enough or we performwell enough, they will truly change.
(02:24):
And the fact of the matter is it.
, and it doesn't matter if this is afamily relationship or romantic or
professional, really doesn't matter.
What will happen is the narcissistwill throw you, they'll throw you a
bone of appreciation here or there,and you'll kind of think, okay,
well wow, you know, they do care.
But you're gonna find that overtime, that tends to be less and
less frequent, unfortunately.
And eventually you start tokind of hold out for those good
(02:44):
moments to come back once again.
But they typically just don't.
So we started to kind of tell ourselves,well, you know, he used to be this
way, or she used to be this way, orthey weren't always mean like this.
But that's really just us doingwhat we call trauma binding.
Mm-hmm.
. And as far as treatment goes,as professed therapists, it
tends to be very hard as well.
You wanna keep in mind that narcissisticpersonality disorder, it kind of
(03:06):
works on a spectrum much like BPD.
So you can have what we call narciss.
Tendencies.
Mm-hmm.
, and those are a little bit more treatable.
But a true blue narcissist, as I callit, someone who meets the true criteria
for narcissist and personality disorder.
We don't really have any knownevidence-based interventions
to fix them, so to speak.
And a lot of that comes to the factthat narcissists tend to lack insight.
(03:30):
Mm.
So, If I don't have any insight, and Ialways say this about clients who come
into therapy, true change takes hard work.
Yeah.
And a lot of introspection.
If I'm not the issue in my mind,why would I need to fix anything?
Why do I need to work on anything at all?
Mm-hmm.
, so a lot of times what I'll see withnarcissists is that they will come into
treatment and I may come in for one ortwo sessions and it's, you know, I'm here
(03:51):
because I'm trying to get my wife back.
Mm-hmm.
She walked out on me.
Or because my job made me.
But as far as lasting change goes, itreally doesn't stick, unfortunately.
Dr. Varela (04:01):
And I wanna kind of piggyback on a couple things you
said, like the not trying to fix orrescue is such a big thing because
we can't fix or rescue anybody.
Nobody changes or does thework because you want them to.
They do it because they want to.
They're the only ones who canreally work on themselves.
And some of us, especially if wewere children of narcissists and now
(04:22):
we're dating a narcissist, we mayhave had a family role of wanting
to be the fixer of the rescuer.
So that can definitely lead to the traumabonding because it's the wanting to
rescue and fix when they try to do thewhole, oh, I love you right now, you go,
okay, I just need to keep doing this andwe'll, and he'll be fixed, he'll be okay.
So basically what I'm sayingis don't take on projects bro.
(04:43):
people should not be your project.
John Boswell (04:45):
Absolutely.
The old adage that we tend to date ourparents or marry our parents, , ah,
dear old Freud, , it tends to be true.
So like Lynn was saying, or Dr.
Valla, excuse me, was saying thatif we are in childhood and we had a
narcissistic parent, it's very normalfor us to go ahead and try to go ahead
and fix the narcissistic partner in life.
(05:06):
Take a look at yourself,check your patterns.
Are you repeating the same pattern again?
It's not gonna be any differentthan growing up, unfortunately.
Yeah.
Dr. Varela (05:14):
And the other insight I wanna give, especially if you were raised
by a narcissist, we, we tend to undernot understand why they lack insight.
But the reason that I've concluded,As in my experience, and maybe not
everybody, this experience will betheirs, but they don't look inwards
because they're core shame and they'll doanything to avoid looking at the shame.
(05:36):
They just pour it on to everybodythat goes near them, and so
that's why they'll never look in.
They.
Let me specify.
These are true narcissists.
People with features and low onthe spectrum might be able to do
this, but a true blue, deep in thespectrum, narcissists will never
apologize, will never look in.
(05:56):
They will never take accountabilitybecause that all requires insight.
That requires them looking at theinner shame that they never will.
. John Boswell: Absolutely.
Hey, I was the bad guyhere where I was wrong.
What does that say about me?
That I'm indeed flawed, right?
Mm-hmm.
and narcissists are all about image.
Mm-hmm.
very much and be goodin being per perfect.
So you won't see that, like you said, theaccountability with them, unfortunately.
(06:19):
And if you do, it'susually to kind of get.
Something out of it.
Oh yes.
They'll be like, oh yes, it was my fault,but you know, I'm the bad guy here.
Right.
This is just them playing victim.
Exactly.
That's not really an apology.
An apology without changebehaviors is manipulation.
I tell that to my clients.
All the time.
Absolutely.
An apology without changed behaviors.
(06:40):
They're just playing a game.
So watch the behaviors, not the words.
John Boswell (06:45):
Yes.
I love that.
Dr. Varela (06:46):
Yes.
Shall we go to the next myth?
Sure.
All right.
So people with BPD cannot lead theirown independent, fulfilling life.
Yes, they can.
They can definitely hold a job.
They can have relationships.
They can have friendships.
They can do life.
Of course that requires.
(07:08):
That you do a lot of work on yourself.
It also depends on whereyou are on the spectrum.
Again, if you're deep in it and youreally have severe trauma and you
have those, those PTs D symptoms,yes, it can impact your ability to
hold a job, to hold relationships,but it does not impede them.
It just means that you need to unlearnthe, the skills you use to survive
(07:31):
whatever you had to survive and replacethem with healthy ones so that you can go.
And, and socialize with otherswithout anxiety, that you can be
in a relationship without having toworry about, oh, is he leaving me?
Is he cheating on me withthat girl in the gym?
Or that you go to the job and you don'tfeel paranoid that they're all against
you and they're talking about youand they're gonna fire you tomorrow.
(07:53):
You know, again, it requires hard workinsight and willingness to change,
but none of that is impossible.
John Boswell (08:02):
Absolutely.
Now, in the contrast, if Narciss says, Ihear a lot of people say that narcissists
are devil or they're evil, or they'rethese horrible, horrible people, and it's
true that they can do horrible things.
Mm-hmm.
, but I want to be very clearthat they are not necessarily.
Evil people.
Mm-hmm.
, what it is, is thisbehavior is a maladaptive or
(08:23):
unhealthy response to trauma.
Mm-hmm.
. And so what they do is theyovercompensate to hide the shame that
they feel inside about themselves.
They really don't likethemselves very much.
Mm-hmm.
, despite the fact that theytry to pure otherwise.
Think about it, if I am reallyattractive or really smart, or really
humble, cause I've heard that one too.
Mm-hmm.
I don't need to tell you that.
, it's gonna show right.
(08:43):
I don't need to go aheadand point that out to you.
So a lot of times peoplethink that narciss.
Can't be kind.
And it's actually quite the contrast.
So to the people on the outside to theirfriends, to their coworkers, to people
who don't know them very well, they tendto appear to be very charismatic people.
Very generous.
Mm-hmm.
very loving.
It's the people that are on the inside,the people who are closest to them
(09:04):
that kind of get to see the real them.
They get to see the mask get taken off.
And what they'll do is they tend to be.
tend to hurt the oneswho they're closest to.
And this is your romantic partners.
This is your children.
This is business partners, assistants.
These are kind of ways thatthey tend to behave around them.
And in the outside world, the one thinksthey're the greatest person in the world.
They only believe thatthey behave that way.
(09:24):
Yeah.
I also wanna point out thatpeople are not their diagnosis.
Dr. Varela (09:28):
Oh, yes.
Definitely not
John Boswell (09:29):
Definitely not..
So if I have anxiety ordepression, doesn't mean that
I'm nervous or sad all the time.
. Same thing happens with narcissist.
Narcissist, a personality disorder.
It's like any personality.
It's complicated.
Mm-hmm.
. There are extremes and there are differentways that we behave and sometimes we
act even in contrast to the way thatwe actually are or what we believe in.
(09:51):
Two extreme examples would be the.
The serial killers, JohnWayne Gacy and Ted Bundy.
Yeah.
You know, both of them were describedas narcissistic psychopaths.
And he did some very horrible,horrible crimes obviously, and
killed people and things like that.
But we know one thing about JohnWayne Gacy is that he was very
active in community and he was verydressed up as a clown for kids.
Yeah.
One thing went about Ted Bundybefore he went on his killing
(10:12):
spree is that he saved a kid fromdrowning, which is ironic, right.
Dr. Varela (10:16):
That's why we're afraid of clowns,
. John Boswell: That is why we're afraid of clowns.
Exactly.
All right.
If you wanna go to the next myth.
Well, actually before we do that, please, I wanna piggyback
a little bit about that hole thatthey're the devil and everything.
Mm-hmm.
, there's a saying that says, hurt people.
Hurt people.
Absolutely.
And so they'll hurt people that arehurting people that doesn't justify
their behaviors, but it helps us tounderstand where they're coming from.
(10:39):
They're acting out of,well, they're self hate.
They're self-doubt.
Their trauma, whatever it is that'sgoing on with them, they're acting out.
And, and that's true for anybody,not just for narcissists.
Mm-hmm.
. And so it's knowing thatabout them, that what they're
doing is not really about you.
Yes.
It's about their inner stuff.
And once you understand that and youdon't personalize it, it's, it makes
(11:01):
it a little easier to set boundaries,maybe walk away, do what you need to do
without feeling like, oh, this was all me.
Which a lot of lot of people do feel
John Boswell (11:08):
exactly.
It's them.
now for my caregivers and my empathsand all these helping people, I don't
want you to take that and run with itand say, well, I feel bad for them,
so I'm gonna stick it out with them.
Oh hell on.
This is not an excuse forthem to treat you bad.
This is for you to recognize onceagain, like that the Varela said
that this has nothing to do with you.
This is about them and theirspiritual journey where they're at,
(11:30):
but you don't deserve their abuse.
Dr. Varela (11:31):
Yeah.
And so it's knowing when to walk.
Yeah, I mean, I always tell people, look,you don't have to walk away as a first
action, but definitely set boundaries andif they don't respecting your boundaries,
then you have to walk away because they'retelling you they don't respect you.
John Boswell (11:47):
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Dr. Varela (11:48):
All right, so the next myth is that people with
BPD don't complete suicide.
It's all for show and tell.
This is not true.
10% of all borderlines willeventually complete suicide.
It's the highest rate of suicide of.
Any other mental health issue.
And the reason for the suicide andsuicide ideations in my experience
(12:12):
with clients throughout the yearsis it's really about the pain.
The pain of living is so intense.
They've gotten to the point they cannot.
See any other way to get out of it.
Now with that being said, that also meansthat 90% of people do not commit suicide.
They will have suicidalthoughts, passive or active.
(12:33):
And what I mean by that is passive is, oh,well, if I walk out on the street and a
car happens to hit me, I won't really doanything to get out of the way and make
it stop active, is that I'm actively gonnago and do something to commit suicide.
Like, Gonna take pills or use a gunor whatever method that is used.
(12:53):
And so, . A lot of people will have thosethoughts, but they won't act on him.
Some people will cut,some people will burn.
Some people will have eatingdisorders, because self-harm
comes in a lot of people.
In a lot of ways.
People think, oh, it's just cutting.
No, it could be substance abuse.
It could be reckless driving.
It could be sleeping aroundwithout protection randomly,
(13:14):
and risk in a risky environment.
You know, if you don't useprotection, you're running
the risk of getting a disease.
And, and there's things likeHIV out there that can kill you.
Although nowadays, thankfullyit is manageable, but it's still
something that can take you down.
Just like diabetes couldtake you down eventually.
(13:35):
It's manageable.
Mm-hmm.
, but it can kill you.
Absolutely.
So self-harm comes in a lot of ways,and I've found that people with b P.
The self-harm, the suicidal ideationsor actions depends on the level of
inner shame, because the shame, thedeeper the shame, the greater the
(13:55):
shame, the greater the self-hate.
Ah, because self, because shametells you you're not good enough,
you're not ready enough, you'renot thin enough, you're not.
You know, you're not worthy of beinglovable, you know, of being cared for.
And if you live with that longenough, you're going to hate yourself
because that's not self-lovingor self-affirming statements.
(14:16):
Yeah.
And if you hate yourself, why wouldyou wanna take care of yourself?
Why would you not cause yourself pain?
You don't think you're shit.
So why would you treat yourself like it?
And so, yes, many people dowhen it's not attention seeking.
Now, I tell people sometimes, yes, peoplewill say they're gonna commit suicide,
and yes, they do want you to come tothem, pay attention to them, love them
(14:41):
because they don't know how else to,to get that attention that they need.
Because again, people with personalitydisorders usually don't know how
to ask for their needs directly.
Right?
And so this is their way ofit, but it's not it's not that
they're trying to malicious.
Manipulate you.
And again, this is a minority.
The vast majority of people, you need toknow that they will probably go and do it,
(15:04):
especially if they don't get the attentionor they love, because that to them proves,
well, nobody will care if I'm dead.
And so I tell people always takeany suicidal threat as serious.
Don't ever go, well, whatevertheir attention seeking, walk
away because you'll never.
until you know that they were gonna do.
John Boswell (15:27):
this is true.
Now, sometimes narcissists willuse the suicide threat, mm-hmm.
to kind of manipulate as well.
Now, this is not to discrediteither but just compare in mind
that it's usually pretty rare thenarcissist will commit suicide.
Most of their harmful behavioris gonna be outwardly directed.
Mm.
Whether that being, being manipulative orbeing abusive physically, psychologically,
(15:50):
so on to those around them.
But usually we don'tsee the inner directed.
It usually goes towards the outside.
Dr. Varela (15:57):
Mm-hmm.
. Yeah.
They always are spraying that outside.
Shame.
Yum.
Yums, , . So the next myth is thathaving BPD or even MPD is a choice.
Mm.
And no, nobody chooses this.
Nobody, that's not if, if a logicalperson would say, Hey, this, this
(16:18):
personality disorder is gonnacause me to lose jobs, friendships,
relationship, it's going to keep me inchaos because they're normal is chaos.
So they're not even aware of all thecast they're creating for themselves
and everybody around them, but nobody,no sane human being would sit there
and go, Hmm, I really want this life ofmisery and shit where people will leave
(16:39):
me and I'll feel like crap all the time.
No BPD MPD, any personality disorderreally, we could say, I mean, of course,
let me not blanket statement, becauseI'm sure there's exceptions, and I'm sure
that there's are personality disordersthat maybe there's more of a genetic
piece than a environmental, but in myexperience, the vast majority of the
(17:00):
ones I've treated, it's really trauma.
This was a trauma response.
I mean, you don't go and tell somebodywith PTSD that they chose to have ptsd.
It's a reaction.
To a situation, and especially if it'sbeen going on, different traumas have
happened since your early childhood.
You really had to develop copingmechanisms, defense mechanisms, and
(17:22):
all these things to be able to survive.
The problem is that after you're outof those situations, your brain doesn't
just go, oh, we don't need to surviveanymore, so we don't need to be in
survival mode, so we're good to go.
We can go back to quote unquote,whatever normal is, and.
They, they're stuck in survival mode andthey don't know how to get out of it.
(17:43):
Some of them don't even know thatthey're stuck in survival mode.
I had a client that came to me andwas like, oh, I'm always shaking,
and, and I can't, I can't stop movingand my thoughts are racing and, you
know, I'm, I'm, I'm feeling hot andI don't know what's going on with me.
I just don't understandwhy I can't move around.
And I'm like, I can't stay still.
(18:03):
And I'm like, dude, you're hyper.
You know, the lights bother me.
The sounds bother me.
I'm super sensitive to my environment.
I don't understand whyyou're hypervigilant.
And the adrenaline is what's keepingyou going all over the place.
That's why you can't stay still.
And you and I speaking about thisright now seems really obvious,
but when you're in it, it's not.
(18:24):
So these people don't obviously knowthey have personality disorders, right?
So it's not a.
John Boswell (18:31):
So I'm gonna debate you here.
Dr. Varela (18:34):
snap.
Alright,
John Boswell (18:35):
let's do this.
So, I agree that it's not a choicebut it's heavily debated amongst US
professionals, whether narcissistshave the awareness to know that
their behavior is wrong or not.
Here's why I say thatthey, that's a tricky one.
They know it's wrong.
Mm-hmm.
, they know how to turn it on and.
They don't go to their boss andinsult them you and throw
(18:56):
chairs and do bad things.
True.
But their wife or their children ortheir mom or the other people around
them who are close to them, yeah.
They know how to wear that maskinside rest of society and kind
of pure, be charismatic and
Dr. Varela (19:08):
friendly.
I agree with you all with the narcissist.
and even to some degree with borderlines, but borderlines are more
commonly, they, that's also whythere's a lot of stigma around them.
Mm-hmm.
, because they don't have the filterthat the people with narcissism have.
Ah, they, they will blow up at the boss.
They will lose a job.
Yeah, they will.
That's true.
Will blow up with anything.
(19:29):
And everybody, if they're triggered, true.
If they're triggered, they can maintainand kinda hide the, the inner turmo.
But because the borderline has thesame core as a narcissist, it's shame.
Mm-hmm.
, but instead of pouring itoutwards, they pour it inwards.
And so they, they're constantlybeating themselves up.
Absolutely.
So for them it's trickier to turn iton enough because if the shame has been
(19:55):
engaged or the abandonment has beenengaged, they will blow up on anybody.
That's true.
They really don's true.
Don't stop they the narcissists.
I agree.
up to a point, because it depends ifthey're deep in the spectrum, if you've
hit something like that, causes rage.
Mm-hmm.
, they could rage at anybody.
I mean, they're, they'reless likely to true.
They're less likely to, but if they'rereally low functioning, which really
(20:18):
means they're just high, high in thespectrum, which means their symptoms
are pretty severe, they might havetheir moments where they lose control.
True.
Okay.
But they, I, I can, I can't agree withyou, the narcissism, they can control it.
Maybe more of a choice, their behaviors.
Mm-hmm.
, but maybe not so much the diagnosis I
John Boswell (20:37):
agree with.
Yeah.
The behaviors, not the diagnosis.
Dr. Varela (20:40):
So yeah.
I mean, again, everybody with time.
Mm-hmm.
, once they've learned what they'redoing and how they hurt others and
they have coping skills that they canuse to not engage in that behavior,
but they continue at that point.
I would say yes, that's a choice.
Okay, . So I think we should end ithere and we could continue another
(21:06):
session because we're already inthe 21 minutes side All right.
Of this.
So maybe we need a part two.
Chapter two.
Yeah.
All right, cool.
Let's do it.
All right guys.
I hope you've enjoyed this and we.
Continue discussing this because there'sso many myths around mental health.
Yes.
There's so much stigma and ignoranceeven within the field itself.
(21:28):
Mm-hmm.
, unfortunately.
Mm-hmm.
that this could go on forever.
So I hope you guys checkback in to part two and.
Let us
John Boswell (21:37):
know your thoughts.
Absolutely.
Thanks for tuning in and make sure thatyou like and subscribe, and if you email
us your questions or put 'em insideof the comments, we'll try to go ahead
and address those as well inside ourmyths and facts next time we do this.
All
Dr. Varela (21:50):
right.
Amazing.
Take care.
Take care.
Hey, this is John Boswell, your friendly neighborhood therapist.
Here to talk to you a little day aboutnarcissist of personality disorder myths.
Dr. Varela (00:31):
And this is Dr.
Varela.
I'm here to talk about BPD myths.
All right.
All right, so let's just jump in.
Let's start with the first myth thatyou cannot treat or recover from BPD.
In my experience in over 10 yearsof treating people with BPD, very
much, you can recover from BPD.
(00:51):
Is it an easy, fast process?
No.
It, it can take years.
How long it takes?
Depends on various Things becausetreating bpds, like opening an onion,
it has a lot of layers because BPDa lot of times comes with other
diagnosises, and so the prognosisof how well you're gonna do is one.
(01:12):
Where are you in the spectrum of BPD?
So, BPD is a spectrum.
It's not that everybody presents thesame and everybody has the same symptoms
and the same degree of severity.
Also, you can have BPD withother personality disorders.
You can have BPD withbipolar, you can have BPD.
With schizophrenia, you can have BPD with.
(01:32):
A bunch of other things.
And so it depends on the severitywhere you are on the spectrum.
If you have other diagnosises,are you compliant with treatment
and are you compliant withany meds that you might need?
But ultimately using dialecticalbehavioral therapy, which are the
coping skills specifically made for BPD?
(01:52):
Yeah, you very much can recover.
I've, I've seen hundreds of people recoverand over the 10 years I've been doing.
John Boswell (02:01):
Excellent.
Well, I wish I can give you es good newsfor NPD , but unfortunately I can't.
Yeah.
So first off, I wanna let you knowthat you can't fix them personally.
A lot of times we helpers, we caregivers,we're kind of get caught up inside
relationships with narcissists orpeople with MPD and we feel like if
we love them enough or we performwell enough, they will truly change.
(02:24):
And the fact of the matter is it.
, and it doesn't matter if this is afamily relationship or romantic or
professional, really doesn't matter.
What will happen is the narcissistwill throw you, they'll throw you a
bone of appreciation here or there,and you'll kind of think, okay,
well wow, you know, they do care.
But you're gonna find that overtime, that tends to be less and
less frequent, unfortunately.
And eventually you start tokind of hold out for those good
(02:44):
moments to come back once again.
But they typically just don't.
So we started to kind of tell ourselves,well, you know, he used to be this
way, or she used to be this way, orthey weren't always mean like this.
But that's really just us doingwhat we call trauma binding.
Mm-hmm.
. And as far as treatment goes,as professed therapists, it
tends to be very hard as well.
You wanna keep in mind that narcissisticpersonality disorder, it kind of
(03:06):
works on a spectrum much like BPD.
So you can have what we call narciss.
Tendencies.
Mm-hmm.
, and those are a little bit more treatable.
But a true blue narcissist, as I callit, someone who meets the true criteria
for narcissist and personality disorder.
We don't really have any knownevidence-based interventions
to fix them, so to speak.
And a lot of that comes to the factthat narcissists tend to lack insight.
(03:30):
Mm.
So, If I don't have any insight, and Ialways say this about clients who come
into therapy, true change takes hard work.
Yeah.
And a lot of introspection.
If I'm not the issue in my mind,why would I need to fix anything?
Why do I need to work on anything at all?
Mm-hmm.
, so a lot of times what I'll see withnarcissists is that they will come into
treatment and I may come in for one ortwo sessions and it's, you know, I'm here
(03:51):
because I'm trying to get my wife back.
Mm-hmm.
She walked out on me.
Or because my job made me.
But as far as lasting change goes, itreally doesn't stick, unfortunately.
Dr. Varela (04:01):
And I wanna kind of piggyback on a couple things you
said, like the not trying to fix orrescue is such a big thing because
we can't fix or rescue anybody.
Nobody changes or does thework because you want them to.
They do it because they want to.
They're the only ones who canreally work on themselves.
And some of us, especially if wewere children of narcissists and now
(04:22):
we're dating a narcissist, we mayhave had a family role of wanting
to be the fixer of the rescuer.
So that can definitely lead to the traumabonding because it's the wanting to
rescue and fix when they try to do thewhole, oh, I love you right now, you go,
okay, I just need to keep doing this andwe'll, and he'll be fixed, he'll be okay.
So basically what I'm sayingis don't take on projects bro.
(04:43):
people should not be your project.
John Boswell (04:45):
Absolutely.
The old adage that we tend to date ourparents or marry our parents, , ah,
dear old Freud, , it tends to be true.
So like Lynn was saying, or Dr.
Valla, excuse me, was saying thatif we are in childhood and we had a
narcissistic parent, it's very normalfor us to go ahead and try to go ahead
and fix the narcissistic partner in life.
(05:06):
Take a look at yourself,check your patterns.
Are you repeating the same pattern again?
It's not gonna be any differentthan growing up, unfortunately.
Yeah.
Dr. Varela (05:14):
And the other insight I wanna give, especially if you were raised
by a narcissist, we, we tend to undernot understand why they lack insight.
But the reason that I've concluded,As in my experience, and maybe not
everybody, this experience will betheirs, but they don't look inwards
because they're core shame and they'll doanything to avoid looking at the shame.
(05:36):
They just pour it on to everybodythat goes near them, and so
that's why they'll never look in.
They.
Let me specify.
These are true narcissists.
People with features and low onthe spectrum might be able to do
this, but a true blue, deep in thespectrum, narcissists will never
apologize, will never look in.
(05:56):
They will never take accountabilitybecause that all requires insight.
That requires them looking at theinner shame that they never will.
. John Boswell: Absolutely.
Hey, I was the bad guyhere where I was wrong.
What does that say about me?
That I'm indeed flawed, right?
Mm-hmm.
and narcissists are all about image.
Mm-hmm.
very much and be goodin being per perfect.
So you won't see that, like you said, theaccountability with them, unfortunately.
(06:19):
And if you do, it'susually to kind of get.
Something out of it.
Oh yes.
They'll be like, oh yes, it was my fault,but you know, I'm the bad guy here.
Right.
This is just them playing victim.
Exactly.
That's not really an apology.
An apology without changebehaviors is manipulation.
I tell that to my clients.
All the time.
Absolutely.
An apology without changed behaviors.
(06:40):
They're just playing a game.
So watch the behaviors, not the words.
John Boswell (06:45):
Yes.
I love that.
Dr. Varela (06:46):
Yes.
Shall we go to the next myth?
Sure.
All right.
So people with BPD cannot lead theirown independent, fulfilling life.
Yes, they can.
They can definitely hold a job.
They can have relationships.
They can have friendships.
They can do life.
Of course that requires.
(07:08):
That you do a lot of work on yourself.
It also depends on whereyou are on the spectrum.
Again, if you're deep in it and youreally have severe trauma and you
have those, those PTs D symptoms,yes, it can impact your ability to
hold a job, to hold relationships,but it does not impede them.
It just means that you need to unlearnthe, the skills you use to survive
(07:31):
whatever you had to survive and replacethem with healthy ones so that you can go.
And, and socialize with otherswithout anxiety, that you can be
in a relationship without having toworry about, oh, is he leaving me?
Is he cheating on me withthat girl in the gym?
Or that you go to the job and you don'tfeel paranoid that they're all against
you and they're talking about youand they're gonna fire you tomorrow.
(07:53):
You know, again, it requires hard workinsight and willingness to change,
but none of that is impossible.
John Boswell (08:02):
Absolutely.
Now, in the contrast, if Narciss says, Ihear a lot of people say that narcissists
are devil or they're evil, or they'rethese horrible, horrible people, and it's
true that they can do horrible things.
Mm-hmm.
, but I want to be very clearthat they are not necessarily.
Evil people.
Mm-hmm.
, what it is, is thisbehavior is a maladaptive or
(08:23):
unhealthy response to trauma.
Mm-hmm.
. And so what they do is theyovercompensate to hide the shame that
they feel inside about themselves.
They really don't likethemselves very much.
Mm-hmm.
, despite the fact that theytry to pure otherwise.
Think about it, if I am reallyattractive or really smart, or really
humble, cause I've heard that one too.
Mm-hmm.
I don't need to tell you that.
, it's gonna show right.
(08:43):
I don't need to go aheadand point that out to you.
So a lot of times peoplethink that narciss.
Can't be kind.
And it's actually quite the contrast.
So to the people on the outside to theirfriends, to their coworkers, to people
who don't know them very well, they tendto appear to be very charismatic people.
Very generous.
Mm-hmm.
very loving.
It's the people that are on the inside,the people who are closest to them
(09:04):
that kind of get to see the real them.
They get to see the mask get taken off.
And what they'll do is they tend to be.
tend to hurt the oneswho they're closest to.
And this is your romantic partners.
This is your children.
This is business partners, assistants.
These are kind of ways thatthey tend to behave around them.
And in the outside world, the one thinksthey're the greatest person in the world.
They only believe thatthey behave that way.
(09:24):
Yeah.
I also wanna point out thatpeople are not their diagnosis.
Dr. Varela (09:28):
Oh, yes.
Definitely not
John Boswell (09:29):
Definitely not..
So if I have anxiety ordepression, doesn't mean that
I'm nervous or sad all the time.
. Same thing happens with narcissist.
Narcissist, a personality disorder.
It's like any personality.
It's complicated.
Mm-hmm.
. There are extremes and there are differentways that we behave and sometimes we
act even in contrast to the way thatwe actually are or what we believe in.
(09:51):
Two extreme examples would be the.
The serial killers, JohnWayne Gacy and Ted Bundy.
Yeah.
You know, both of them were describedas narcissistic psychopaths.
And he did some very horrible,horrible crimes obviously, and
killed people and things like that.
But we know one thing about JohnWayne Gacy is that he was very
active in community and he was verydressed up as a clown for kids.
Yeah.
One thing went about Ted Bundybefore he went on his killing
(10:12):
spree is that he saved a kid fromdrowning, which is ironic, right.
Dr. Varela (10:16):
That's why we're afraid of clowns,
. John Boswell: That is why we're afraid of clowns.
Exactly.
All right.
If you wanna go to the next myth.
Well, actually before we do that, please, I wanna piggyback
a little bit about that hole thatthey're the devil and everything.
Mm-hmm.
, there's a saying that says, hurt people.
Hurt people.
Absolutely.
And so they'll hurt people that arehurting people that doesn't justify
their behaviors, but it helps us tounderstand where they're coming from.
(10:39):
They're acting out of,well, they're self hate.
They're self-doubt.
Their trauma, whatever it is that'sgoing on with them, they're acting out.
And, and that's true for anybody,not just for narcissists.
Mm-hmm.
. And so it's knowing thatabout them, that what they're
doing is not really about you.
Yes.
It's about their inner stuff.
And once you understand that and youdon't personalize it, it's, it makes
(11:01):
it a little easier to set boundaries,maybe walk away, do what you need to do
without feeling like, oh, this was all me.
Which a lot of lot of people do feel
John Boswell (11:08):
exactly.
It's them.
now for my caregivers and my empathsand all these helping people, I don't
want you to take that and run with itand say, well, I feel bad for them,
so I'm gonna stick it out with them.
Oh hell on.
This is not an excuse forthem to treat you bad.
This is for you to recognize onceagain, like that the Varela said
that this has nothing to do with you.
This is about them and theirspiritual journey where they're at,
(11:30):
but you don't deserve their abuse.
Dr. Varela (11:31):
Yeah.
And so it's knowing when to walk.
Yeah, I mean, I always tell people, look,you don't have to walk away as a first
action, but definitely set boundaries andif they don't respecting your boundaries,
then you have to walk away because they'retelling you they don't respect you.
John Boswell (11:47):
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Dr. Varela (11:48):
All right, so the next myth is that people with
BPD don't complete suicide.
It's all for show and tell.
This is not true.
10% of all borderlines willeventually complete suicide.
It's the highest rate of suicide of.
Any other mental health issue.
And the reason for the suicide andsuicide ideations in my experience
(12:12):
with clients throughout the yearsis it's really about the pain.
The pain of living is so intense.
They've gotten to the point they cannot.
See any other way to get out of it.
Now with that being said, that also meansthat 90% of people do not commit suicide.
They will have suicidalthoughts, passive or active.
(12:33):
And what I mean by that is passive is, oh,well, if I walk out on the street and a
car happens to hit me, I won't really doanything to get out of the way and make
it stop active, is that I'm actively gonnago and do something to commit suicide.
Like, Gonna take pills or use a gunor whatever method that is used.
(12:53):
And so, . A lot of people will have thosethoughts, but they won't act on him.
Some people will cut,some people will burn.
Some people will have eatingdisorders, because self-harm
comes in a lot of people.
In a lot of ways.
People think, oh, it's just cutting.
No, it could be substance abuse.
It could be reckless driving.
It could be sleeping aroundwithout protection randomly,
(13:14):
and risk in a risky environment.
You know, if you don't useprotection, you're running
the risk of getting a disease.
And, and there's things likeHIV out there that can kill you.
Although nowadays, thankfullyit is manageable, but it's still
something that can take you down.
Just like diabetes couldtake you down eventually.
(13:35):
It's manageable.
Mm-hmm.
, but it can kill you.
Absolutely.
So self-harm comes in a lot of ways,and I've found that people with b P.
The self-harm, the suicidal ideationsor actions depends on the level of
inner shame, because the shame, thedeeper the shame, the greater the
(13:55):
shame, the greater the self-hate.
Ah, because self, because shametells you you're not good enough,
you're not ready enough, you'renot thin enough, you're not.
You know, you're not worthy of beinglovable, you know, of being cared for.
And if you live with that longenough, you're going to hate yourself
because that's not self-lovingor self-affirming statements.
(14:16):
Yeah.
And if you hate yourself, why wouldyou wanna take care of yourself?
Why would you not cause yourself pain?
You don't think you're shit.
So why would you treat yourself like it?
And so, yes, many people dowhen it's not attention seeking.
Now, I tell people sometimes, yes, peoplewill say they're gonna commit suicide,
and yes, they do want you to come tothem, pay attention to them, love them
(14:41):
because they don't know how else to,to get that attention that they need.
Because again, people with personalitydisorders usually don't know how
to ask for their needs directly.
Right?
And so this is their way ofit, but it's not it's not that
they're trying to malicious.
Manipulate you.
And again, this is a minority.
The vast majority of people, you need toknow that they will probably go and do it,
(15:04):
especially if they don't get the attentionor they love, because that to them proves,
well, nobody will care if I'm dead.
And so I tell people always takeany suicidal threat as serious.
Don't ever go, well, whatevertheir attention seeking, walk
away because you'll never.
until you know that they were gonna do.
John Boswell (15:27):
this is true.
Now, sometimes narcissists willuse the suicide threat, mm-hmm.
to kind of manipulate as well.
Now, this is not to discrediteither but just compare in mind
that it's usually pretty rare thenarcissist will commit suicide.
Most of their harmful behavioris gonna be outwardly directed.
Mm.
Whether that being, being manipulative orbeing abusive physically, psychologically,
(15:50):
so on to those around them.
But usually we don'tsee the inner directed.
It usually goes towards the outside.
Dr. Varela (15:57):
Mm-hmm.
. Yeah.
They always are spraying that outside.
Shame.
Yum.
Yums, , . So the next myth is thathaving BPD or even MPD is a choice.
Mm.
And no, nobody chooses this.
Nobody, that's not if, if a logicalperson would say, Hey, this, this
(16:18):
personality disorder is gonnacause me to lose jobs, friendships,
relationship, it's going to keep me inchaos because they're normal is chaos.
So they're not even aware of all thecast they're creating for themselves
and everybody around them, but nobody,no sane human being would sit there
and go, Hmm, I really want this life ofmisery and shit where people will leave
(16:39):
me and I'll feel like crap all the time.
No BPD MPD, any personality disorderreally, we could say, I mean, of course,
let me not blanket statement, becauseI'm sure there's exceptions, and I'm sure
that there's are personality disordersthat maybe there's more of a genetic
piece than a environmental, but in myexperience, the vast majority of the
(17:00):
ones I've treated, it's really trauma.
This was a trauma response.
I mean, you don't go and tell somebodywith PTSD that they chose to have ptsd.
It's a reaction.
To a situation, and especially if it'sbeen going on, different traumas have
happened since your early childhood.
You really had to develop copingmechanisms, defense mechanisms, and
(17:22):
all these things to be able to survive.
The problem is that after you're outof those situations, your brain doesn't
just go, oh, we don't need to surviveanymore, so we don't need to be in
survival mode, so we're good to go.
We can go back to quote unquote,whatever normal is, and.
They, they're stuck in survival mode andthey don't know how to get out of it.
(17:43):
Some of them don't even know thatthey're stuck in survival mode.
I had a client that came to me andwas like, oh, I'm always shaking,
and, and I can't, I can't stop movingand my thoughts are racing and, you
know, I'm, I'm, I'm feeling hot andI don't know what's going on with me.
I just don't understandwhy I can't move around.
And I'm like, I can't stay still.
(18:03):
And I'm like, dude, you're hyper.
You know, the lights bother me.
The sounds bother me.
I'm super sensitive to my environment.
I don't understand whyyou're hypervigilant.
And the adrenaline is what's keepingyou going all over the place.
That's why you can't stay still.
And you and I speaking about thisright now seems really obvious,
but when you're in it, it's not.
(18:24):
So these people don't obviously knowthey have personality disorders, right?
So it's not a.
John Boswell (18:31):
So I'm gonna debate you here.
Dr. Varela (18:34):
snap.
Alright,
John Boswell (18:35):
let's do this.
So, I agree that it's not a choicebut it's heavily debated amongst US
professionals, whether narcissistshave the awareness to know that
their behavior is wrong or not.
Here's why I say thatthey, that's a tricky one.
They know it's wrong.
Mm-hmm.
, they know how to turn it on and.
They don't go to their boss andinsult them you and throw
(18:56):
chairs and do bad things.
True.
But their wife or their children ortheir mom or the other people around
them who are close to them, yeah.
They know how to wear that maskinside rest of society and kind
of pure, be charismatic and
Dr. Varela (19:08):
friendly.
I agree with you all with the narcissist.
and even to some degree with borderlines, but borderlines are more
commonly, they, that's also whythere's a lot of stigma around them.
Mm-hmm.
, because they don't have the filterthat the people with narcissism have.
Ah, they, they will blow up at the boss.
They will lose a job.
Yeah, they will.
That's true.
Will blow up with anything.
(19:29):
And everybody, if they're triggered, true.
If they're triggered, they can maintainand kinda hide the, the inner turmo.
But because the borderline has thesame core as a narcissist, it's shame.
Mm-hmm.
, but instead of pouring itoutwards, they pour it inwards.
And so they, they're constantlybeating themselves up.
Absolutely.
So for them it's trickier to turn iton enough because if the shame has been
(19:55):
engaged or the abandonment has beenengaged, they will blow up on anybody.
That's true.
They really don's true.
Don't stop they the narcissists.
I agree.
up to a point, because it depends ifthey're deep in the spectrum, if you've
hit something like that, causes rage.
Mm-hmm.
, they could rage at anybody.
I mean, they're, they'reless likely to true.
They're less likely to, but if they'rereally low functioning, which really
(20:18):
means they're just high, high in thespectrum, which means their symptoms
are pretty severe, they might havetheir moments where they lose control.
True.
Okay.
But they, I, I can, I can't agree withyou, the narcissism, they can control it.
Maybe more of a choice, their behaviors.
Mm-hmm.
, but maybe not so much the diagnosis I
John Boswell (20:37):
agree with.
Yeah.
The behaviors, not the diagnosis.
Dr. Varela (20:40):
So yeah.
I mean, again, everybody with time.
Mm-hmm.
, once they've learned what they'redoing and how they hurt others and
they have coping skills that they canuse to not engage in that behavior,
but they continue at that point.
I would say yes, that's a choice.
Okay, . So I think we should end ithere and we could continue another
(21:06):
session because we're already inthe 21 minutes side All right.
Of this.
So maybe we need a part two.
Chapter two.
Yeah.
All right, cool.
Let's do it.
All right guys.
I hope you've enjoyed this and we.
Continue discussing this because there'sso many myths around mental health.
Yes.
There's so much stigma and ignoranceeven within the field itself.
(21:28):
Mm-hmm.
, unfortunately.
Mm-hmm.
that this could go on forever.
So I hope you guys checkback in to part two and.
Let us
John Boswell (21:37):
know your thoughts.
Absolutely.
Thanks for tuning in and make sure thatyou like and subscribe, and if you email
us your questions or put 'em insideof the comments, we'll try to go ahead
and address those as well inside ourmyths and facts next time we do this.
All
Dr. Varela (21:50):
right.
Amazing.
Take care.
Take care.
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