This article will explore both conditions, examine the potential environmental causes, discuss why they can be drawn together, and what can happen when they do. It’s important to remember each person, their condition, and their relationship is unique – this article is a broad overview.

Understanding Borderline Personality Disorder

The DSM -1V defines Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) as a ‘pervasive pattern of instability of interpersonal relationships, self-image and affects and marked impulsivity’. Some of the more common symptoms include:

• Dysfunctional interpersonal relationships
• Instability in mood
• Dysphoria
• Self-injurious behaviour
• Fear of abandonment
• Maladaptive coping behaviours^[1]
• Impaired occupational functioning^[2]

One of the easiest ways of understanding BPD is to consider people with the condition as having difficulty returning to their emotional baseline.

While people without BPD might see something that annoys them, get slightly angry about it, and move past it, this could provoke a huge, long-lasting emotional reaction in those with BPD. In the same way, if something good happens, people with BPD might feel ecstatically happy for much longer than someone else might. To friends, families, and loved ones, these huge emotional peaks and troughs can be difficult to deal with and cause relationship problems.

The precise cause of BPD is still a grey area – like many mental health conditions, it’s thought that it can arise from a combination of historical, genetic, and environmental factors, including:

• Childhood abuse (in particular, severe and sustained abuse)^[3]
• Neglect
• Genetics
• Separation from loved ones

Understanding Narcissistic Personality Disorder

According to research, narcissism usually starts to develop at around the ages of seven or eight – at the time when we start to assess ourselves based on our perception of others. The core belief of all narcissism is the belief that the person with the condition is somehow superior to others.

Narcissism is thought to be caused by a combination of genetic and environmental factors. If we’re brought up with parents that over-exaggerate our good qualities and achievements while only superficially engaging with us, it puts us at risk of developing Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD). On one level, we’re being told that we’re better than other people, while on another, we’re getting the conflicted message that we’re not worth having a meaningful relationship with.

It’s thought that narcissism occurs on a spectrum – people can have narcissistic traits or be clinically diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Common symptoms of the latter are:

• Being self-centred
• Feelings of grandiosity
• Being willing to exploit others to get what they want
• An overwhelming need to be admired
• A severe lack of empathy
• A desire for control^[4]

What Happens in a Relationship Between Someone With BPD and Someone With NPD?

Relationships between people with BPD and NPD can help each party fulfil their needs – albeit in an unhealthy manner. For the BPD sufferer, they see everything they can’t do in the narcissist – it’s someone who appears confident and self-assured. They can feel like the perfect counterbalance to their own insecurities, and this is amplified by the emotional dysregulation of BPD.

When the person with NPD meets someone with BPD, they can tend to use them to fulfil their need for validation, often at the expense of the BPD sufferer’s boundaries and feelings. This insatiable need for attention coupled with the heightened emotions of BPD to make a volatile mix. If the person with NPD’s needs aren’t met, they can often turn cold and distant, shunning the person with BPD and triggering their fear of abandonment.

However, the party with BPD isn’t always the victim. In certain instances, their extreme behaviour can push the person with NPD so far that they decide to move on and get their needs met by someone else. If the person with BPD pursues them after this, it can play into the person with NPD’s desire for attention and control.

Point To Remember

It’s important to remember that although the behaviours of both parties in this relationship have the capacity to cause pain and discomfort, it’s not done with malice. As distasteful as they may seem, they’re simply pursuing a maladaptive approach (often learned in childhood)^[5] to get their needs met.

However, in the context of a BPD/NPD relationship, these issues are not resolved by following the same patterns – they need to be addressed in trauma-informed therapy. By breaking the cycle with therapeutic intervention, it can prevent children from growing up in chaotic environments and potentially learning those maladaptive coping strategies.

If you have a client or know of someone struggling to heal from psychological trauma, reach out to us at Khiron Clinics. We believe that we can improve therapeutic outcomes and avoid misdiagnosis by providing an effective residential program and outpatient therapies addressing underlying psychological trauma. Allow us to help you find the path to realistic, long-lasting recovery. For more information, call us today. UK: 020 3811 2575 (24 hours). USA: (866) 801 6184 (24 hours).

Sources:

[1] Antai-Otong, Deborah. “Treatment considerations for the patient with borderline personality disorder.” The Nursing clinics of North America vol. 38,1 (2003): 101-9. doi:10.1016/s0029-6465(02)00063-4

[2] Zanarini, M C et al. “Axis I comorbidity of borderline personality disorder.” The American journal of psychiatry vol. 155,12 (1998): 1733-9. doi:10.1176/ajp.155.12.1733

[3] Lieb, Klaus et al. “Borderline personality disorder.” Lancet (London, England) vol. 364,9432 (2004): 453-61. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(04)16770-6

[4] Cooper, Luke D et al. “Self- and informant-reported perspectives on symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder.” Personality disorders vol. 3,2 (2012): 140-54. doi:10.1037/a0026576

[5] Lachkar, Joan. The Narcissistic/Borderline Couple. 2nd ed., Brunner-Routledge, 2004.

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Absent or unavailable is an umbrella term (not a medical term) used to describe parents who are uncaring, emotionally unavailable, narcissistic or generally display self-centred and cruel behaviours which can – and often do – tip into verbal and physical abuse.

Start typing the word toxic into any one of the big search engines, and you will find no shortage of survival guides to help you navigate and recover from what can be some very damaging treatment in your formative years. In fact, as soon as you type the letters “tox”, there is an array of choices from popular searches with options like toxic childhood stress. Can it really be that bad? Actually, it can.

What Is the Role of A Parent?

In the main clauses of the parent/child service level agreement sit obligations like food, shelter, clothing, and other basic material needs. Often, even the children of emotionally unavailable parents will have their needs in these areas met but is that enough? If you want a happy, confident, successful, and balanced child, then no.

In the next tier are the logistical clauses such as consistency and routine, which help children feel safe and in control. Included in the next tier of the unwritten parent manual comes praise, encouragement, helping to understand the importance of rules, honesty, and the concepts of caring, socialisation, and sharing. These life skills won’t prevent a child from surviving, but a lack of mastery over them will make it harder for them to forge their own healthy relationships and succeed in life.

As we reach the pinnacle, really competent parents will understand and make allowances for the concepts of gender difference, where a child sits in the family pecking order, and crucially, personality – taking these factors into account when ensuring that their mutual expectations are compatible. All of the tiers of this hierarchy should be running concurrently to ensure that the child’s basic human needs (see non-negotiables of the parent/child SLA) are met.

Nobody’s Perfect but Trying At the Very Least is Quite Important

One could argue that modern parenting requires today’s parents (and often those under the heading of non-traditional, which includes single parents) to manage more moving pieces than their earlier counterparts, especially if they are working.

Every parent will tell you that they make mistakes, but in the main, they manage to not damage their children too badly in the process of parenting, and this is where things differ with EA parents. The effects of toxic stress on the children of EA parents is extremely damaging and very real and can give rise to neurobiological and psychological damage.

The healthy development of a child “depends on adult caregivers, who are mediators of child development because infants depend on parents or other primary caregivers for physical and emotional care.”  Their mandate is to provide the full spectrum of love and care and accept that their children are individuals with their own personalities and aspirations. They should ensure their children feel safe but not over-protected and guided but not controlled.

According to educator and author Michael Grose, “Families work well when they are guided democracies or benign dictatorships. Someone should be in charge of a family, and it’s a good idea if it’s parents!” Unfortunately for some children, the dictatorship is not so benign, with the concepts of firmness and nurturance, in reality, becoming a combination of cruel and neglectful. These actions aren’t one-offs but a pattern of behaviour that has a cumulative negative effect on the child, carrying into adulthood which can then create a generational pattern of behaviour.

All parents make mistakes, but the difference is that the average parent will acknowledge this, make amends and undertake to do better. This is not so with EA parents, who are often also narcissists who are only concerned with their own needs. Research found that adult children of narcissistic parents experience problems with substance abuse, mood disorder, PTSD, anxiety disorder, reported insecurity in relationships, and difficulty with intimacy.  It’s important for parents to at least try to get parenting right, acknowledge when they’re not, and seek help.

How to Recognise if Your Childhood Was Unhealthy

You may have been controlled or manipulated or not had your boundaries respected, especially as you got older and were consistently told that everything was always your fault.

Here are some of the other signs that you were brought up in a harmful environment:

• There was a role reversal in the child/parent relationship, which meant you had to parent your parent(s) or take on responsibility not appropriate for your age.
• You were told that you deserved the physical abuse doled out to you because that was the only way you would learn or something similar.
• You were forced to lie about your mistreatment under the threat of more punishment. This includes sexual and other physical abuse.
• One or both of your parents competed with you. This is particularly common in father/son and mother/daughter relationships.
• You were emotionally neglected or abused, perhaps being told things like you’re no good, ugly, or you need to try harder.
• You often felt fearful, afraid to express yourself and challenge opinions, or were just afraid of your parents in general.
• Love or any form of attention was conditional and therefore frequently withdrawn if you fell short of often unrealistic criteria.
• You experienced a lack of understanding when you needed support and comfort the

You might not have realised that life, especially a child’s life, is not supposed to be like this because it was the only benchmark you had. This can especially be the case for over-protected children who are not allowed to go anywhere independent of their parent(s).

In other words, this is the only version of normal, you know.

Because of this, your blueprint for acceptable behaviours and forming bonds with people may also be compromised.

The Ongoing Effects of Emotionally Absent Parenting and Moving Forward

Coming to the realisation that what you viewed as normal was actually very unhealthy is the first step to getting help and support and finding liberation toward a new and healthier way of being. It will probably be imperative to you that you don’t carry on the legacy of this behaviour passed to you like a badly smoking torch. As is often the case, the abused can themselves become abusers as it’s all they’ve ever known. It can also explain why children of abusive and unavailable parents cling to them despite their mistreatment. It is crucial for a child’s self-worth and self-esteem to have their deepest emotional needs met and to be able to relate to parents on an emotional level. When they are instead met with detachment and constant criticism, it creates an atmosphere of stress and anticipation of punishment, which can have long-term effects on both physical and mental health due to the relentless environment of stress it creates. The good news is that with the appropriate care and support, you can move past this. You can put down that baggage and change the course of history, or even her story.

If you have a client or know of someone struggling to heal from psychological trauma, reach out to us at Khiron Clinics. We believe that we can improve therapeutic outcomes and avoid misdiagnosis by providing an effective residential program and outpatient therapies addressing underlying psychological trauma. Allow us to help you find the path to realistic, long-lasting recovery. For more information, call us today. UK: 020 3811 2575 (24 hours). USA: (866) 801 6184 (24 hours).

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However, if a child is bought up by parents who over-exaggerate the child’s qualities – praising them for everything superficial that they do, the child will deduce that in some ways they are superior to others – a core belief of all narcissists. If, at the same time, the parents don’t connect properly, or engage only superficially with the child they will also be dealing with a major attachment dysfunction which can result in a traumatic rupturing of the child’s psyche. As well as believing themselves to be better than others, they will receive the conflicting message that their innermost selves and feelings are not worth attention. This article wants to further explore the idea that lack of parental engagement in a child’s life, Childhood Emotional Neglect (CEN), can result in narcissistic traits developing within an individual.

Childhood Emotional Neglect (CEN)

A child who is raised by parents who fail to respond adequately to their emotions and emotional needs for whatever reason, may experience Childhood Emotional Neglect. As a child who doesn’t get their emotional needs met, they receive a subliminal message, basically telling them that their needs are not important enough to be taken care of. When this happens, as a protective tool, often children will grow up learning to push down any emotion, or block them out altogether.

Although hiding from emotions may have worked as a protective measure in childhood, as an adult it can have serious negative affects on your ability to function normally. Numbing yourself from your feelings will keep you disconnected and isolated from other people, stopping you from being able to form healthy relationships. It will also make you feel less valued and less worthy than other people.

Narcissism

Narcissism is a spectrum. People can vary between having slight narcissistic personality traits to clinically diagnosed narcissistic personality disorder. Individuals with traits of narcissism may be self centred and grandiose. They may also be willing to walk over others in order to get where they want to in life.

When someone has clinically diagnosed narcissistic personality disorder, it is much more extreme. They will have a desperate need to be admired, believe themselves to be better in every way than others, have no ability to feel empathy and as such will fully exploit other people to fulfil their own status and achieve ultimate control and power.

The Link Between the Two

There are many reasons children may not have had their emotional needs met, one of which could be that they were raised by a narcissistic parent. Because narcissistic parents will be focussed on getting their own needs met, the needs of their children go unattended. It can then often become a perpetuating cycle as many narcissistic people will themselves have grown up with extreme narcissists for parents and experienced an acute variety of emotional neglect. Narcissism may in part be down to genes, but often a narcissist will also have grown up in a household where their emotional needs were not only completely ignored, but also where they would have been superficially praised for things that are meaningless or indeed inaccurate. Emotional neglect along with a misplaced sense of superiority is at the core of every narcissist.

At the centre of both individuals suffering with narcissism and those with CEN is often the same feelings of being alone, empty and insignificant. They just have two very different ways of expressing these feelings. Although these two disorders are very different externally, in a strange, contradictory way ,they actually serve to cause and perpetuate each other, especially as many CEN sufferers are attracted to narcissists in adult life.

If you have a client, or know of someone who is struggling to find the right help for either Childhood Emotional Neglect or Narcissism, reach out to us at Khiron Clinics. We believe that we can improve therapeutic outcomes and avoid misdiagnosis by providing an effective residential program and out-patient therapies addressing underlying psychological trauma. Allow us to help you find the path to realistic, long lasting recovery. For information, call us today. UK: 020 3811 2575 (24 hours). USA: (866) 801 6184 (24 hours).

Sources:

1. Brummelman, Eddie, Gurel, Cisem, Thomaes, Sander and Sedikides, Constantine (2017) What separates narcissism from self-esteem? A social-cognitive analysis.

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