What are the differences between narcissistic personality disorder and borderline personality disorder?

Answer 1

Opinion

The following is general information only. Briefly:

Borderline personality disorder is an emotional disorder that causes emotional instability and a chronic feeling of emptiness. The image you have of yourself is distorted and you feel worthless and flawed. You generally have anger management issues, impulsivity, mood swings and tend to push people away by your behavior even though you want to have close relationships. You feel anxious and stressed and may want to harm yourself. You can improve your life with therapy and treatment.

Narcissistic personality disorder is less common and a serious personality disorder involving an inflated sense of your own importance. The person with NPD needs an extraordinary amount of admiration from others and sets up a life where they use others as their supply source for that admiration. They exploit others as a way of life. They think they're superior to others even though their life history shows no evidence of special talents or accomplishments. They care nothing for the feeling's of others and hate being challenged. They think they deserve special treatment. They are demanding, insulting, manipulative, and need an audience. They do not make good partners in an intimate relationship.

Narcissists are pathological liars and create a false self that they display to others. They can be funny, engaging, helpful and seemingly generous, but no gifts or assistance comes with more strings attached. They require your absolute obedience to their "rules". They can drop a friend, relative or mate over the smallest slight, real or imagined. Estimates are that 75% are male. Due to the very nature of the disorder therapy is not often successful since they rarely are willing to admit they have any problem. Many think this disorder masks a deep seated lack of self esteem.

Common traits:

• Having an exaggerated sense of self-importance
• Believing self to be special and can associate only with equally special people
• Requiring constant admiration
• Having a sense of entitlement
• Taking advantage of others
• Having an inability to recognize needs and feelings of others
• Being envious of others
• Behaving in an arrogant or haughty manner
• An obvious self-focus in interpersonal exchanges
• Problems in sustaining satisfying relationships
• A lack of psychological awareness
• Difficulty with empathy
• Hypersensitivity to any slights or imagined insults
• Vulnerability to shame rather than guilt
• Flatters people who admire and affirm him
• Detests those who do not admire him
• Uses other people without considering the cost of that for them
• Pretends to be more important than he is
• Brags and exaggerates his achievements
• Claims to be an 'expert' about most things
• Cannot view the world from the perspective of another person
• No remorse or gratitude

Opinion

Think of a continuum, with Sensitivity at one extreme end and Insensitivity at the other. A narcissist is close to the Insensitivity end, but a Borderline is close to the Sensitivity end. A Narcissist is halfway psychopathic. The difference is that they do have normal emotions. But they have no empathy.

A Borderline can often be empathic to a fault, taxing his or her strength and putting others before him or herself until it becomes health-threatening. Borderlines have an extremely alert cerebral cortex and are easily excited. And they are most often excruciatingly sensitive. Often, they also have an overbearing and self-punishing conscience.

Opinion

There are many similarities. Actually the Borderline and Narcissist both are wrapped up in their own universe with little or no concern for others and how their behavior affects others. However the N is wrapped up in his own self image and buries his emotions while the BPD is wrappd up in their imediate needs and have no control over their own emotions.

The BPD is capable of empathy however because they have feelings for themselves as far as pain rejection etc. She only seems to empathize with you for a while only and only if it pertains to her universe.

NPD expects others to revolve around his universe as if to be a satellite dependent on worshipping him as a god. While the BPD wraps her universe around you as if to fuse your very existense to themselves, you are her universe. Both NPD and BPD are extremely fearfull of abandonment but handle it in two different ways. BPD will cling to you while the NPD ever concious of his self image will abandon you before you have a chance to abandon him.

Both of them have excessive Rage emotions built up. The BPD will dump on you while the NPD dumps you altogether. (I use male for NPD and female for BPD because that is how the genders are likey to be diagnosed - however either gender can suffer from either disorder)

BPD has an arrested emotional development set at age three while NPD is set at age six. Some authorities suggest it's all all along the same continuim as Narcissistic Personality Disorder. With NPD at one end and BPD at the other. They are both in the same "B" cluster of personality disorders also with histrionic and antisocial personality disorders. In fact many BPDS have been co-morbidly diagnosed as also having NPD. The degree of functionality among three of them is something like this Histrionics are more able to function in society than narcisssists who in turn fare better than Borderlines.

Those close to Borderline or Narcissist will find ways to deal with them are very much the same. Also the effect they have on others close to them are stikingly similar. Manipulating, lies, deception, self centeredness. and most of all a complete lack of concern for anyone but themselves. They just chose to cover it up in different ways.

Opinion

Both disorders tend to over-emphasize the centrality of the person who has the disorder in the wider scope. The differences tend to be in terms of motivation and the payoff.

BPD tend to be heavily driven by a bipolar fear - fear of being hurt through intimate exposure of themselves to others, and fear of being isolated and abandoned. One may argue that these are two sides of the same fear, but with regards to the social expression of this fear, it results in rapid and unpredictable flip-flopping between adoration and repulsion.

NPD tend to be heavily driven by autoerotic interest - pleasing themselves takes on a higher priority than fearing retribution, although high profile NPDs also tend to share paranoia - they seek to defend their perfect image of themselves and are easily frustrated by confrontations or challenges to their self-image.

Both disorders can result in the individual losing all sense of boundaries of self due to lack of emotional discipline. The difference is often that BPD will recognize and admit that they have feelings of inadequacy and will even use expression of those feelings to prevent isolation. NPD will never recognize such feelings - the external world serves either to support their grandiosity or it cowers in secretive jealousy.

Both disorders also include the attitude that they are special cases and therefore have special entitlements or are above the law. In the case of BPD, this can result in erratic stalking behavior or pre-emptive defense tactics that come off to stable individuals as excessive and/or overtly aggressive. In the case of NPD, this results in exploitative behavior towards any who are perceived as weak, poor, naive, etc. Many sexual abuse cases involve NPD - often with children who were also raised by NPD parents and are thereby groomed to respond to the emotional needs of adults. NPD patients often struggle with pornography and narcotics addictions.

Both disorders utilize deceit. BPD will unconsciously rescript historical events in order to justify their behavior and avoid shame and ostracism. Deceit for a BPD is closer to an involuntary trauma response. NPD will consciously fabricate historical events to portray a reflection of their ideal self-image. Deceit for an NPD is a form of willful self-delusion.

BPD has slightly better treatment odds than NPD - though both disorders are very challenging for any therapist to treat. In most cases treatment stops either because of the client's grandiosity or paranoia. At times treatment stops when clients become too much of a drain on the therapist's psyche or time schedule.