Could ADD Trigger or Cause COMORBID NARCISSISM?
Submitted by at_the_crossroa... on Sun, 06/20/2010 - 13:20
Some months ago, I started to post here, when I was coping with the failure of my relationship.
I told my experience in two threads, so I will not repeat any of it:
http://www.adhdmarriage.com/content/lowering-my-own-standards-accomodate...
http://www.adhdmarriage.com/content/add-and-selfishness
My Ex-SO has certainly some serious traits that are typical for ADD, and also some of Asperger's. But with further research, I came to the conclusion that the behavior, which destroyed the relationship, was also narcissistic. Yet when I started to post here, it was after reading, that so many of the other posters have experienced the same kind of devastation due to the apparent or real selfishness and inconsideraton.
That made me wonder, if I was busy with a wrong question, when I attempted to find out, if what destroyed the relationship was ADD or Narcissism, as if both are mutually exclusive.
ADD and Aspeger's traits are considered as hardwired into the brain, while NPD is supposed to be acquired as a reaction to childhood trauma.
- Could it be, that a child, who experiences serious failure and troubles because of having ADD reacts with developping narcissism as a strategy to cope with low self-esteem?
- Could the selfish, inconsiderate, hurting behaviors, that are so often experienced by the partners of ADD-men, are a form of acquired comorbid narcissism?
- Could there roughly be two subgroups of ADD-men, those who have the insight of having a problem, needing and accepting support, and those, who have developped a narcissistic entitlement and grandiosity delusion, so that they deny to have any problem, instead attributing the partner's devastation as her own flaw?
Comments
You bring up some very
by newfdogswife - 06/20/2010 - 14:47
You bring up some very interesting questions. I have researched NPD a little as my ADHD husband experienced a childhood trauma with the death of his father at a young age. Looking back, as he was growing up, he experienced many of the traits of NPD and OPD. All of your questions could quite possibly help someone better understand why their relationship is different. I know in my case, all of my research on all of these disorders have given us many answers on why our relationship has been awful. My husband continues to be a part of both subgroups of ADD-men, as you put it, he knows he has problems, is taking meds and gets therapy but still has narcissistic behaviors ever so often.
Some Additional Thoughts
by at_the_crossroa... - 06/20/2010 - 16:21
newfdogswife, thanks for your feedback. Maybe the subgroups are not exclusive but two extremes on a scale.
Researching the web about Narcissism, I came across a controversy between two main concepts of defining NPD. I could call it the Vaknin vs. Cooper controversy based on the main proponents.
In one of them, Narcissism is considered malignant, the narcissist enjoys hurting the victim, it is considered as incurable.
The other form is considered as pathological, but not malignant, the narcissist is not aware or does not care about the suffering of the victim, hurting the victim is collateral pain, not pain for the purpose of hurting, and it is supposed to be curable.
I have been wondering, if both really are the same, even though they are both diagnosed along the DSM. Could the malignant variety be NPD as an independent disorder, while the other form is comorbid narcissism caused by ADD and other problems that are hardwired in the brain?
Reading lots of sad stories and painful experiences on this forum, many sound similar to the experiences of the victims of narcissists, but I cannot remember to have read anything about experiencing sadistic behavior.
NPD...could be.....
by metooo - 06/20/2010 - 18:01
I've been a member of Kim Cooper's site on NPD for a couple years. I didn't consider my husband could have ADHD until he told me he has it. But yes, I've wondered if the two can be comorbid. It sure seems like it.
I usually can't write much because he's usually home.
I'll write more later.
I have to disagree
by Miss Behaven - 06/20/2010 - 18:38
The narcissist has no self so he needs other people to tell them who they are. ADD people are filled with self, we need people to tell us "where we are"
The narcissist is hollow with a "glittery, shiny outside" ADDers are often unpolished with a "glittery, shiny, inside"
The narcissist is a creature of culture. The ADD person is often on the outside of culture.
A narcissist sees other only as a reflection of themselves and care nothing for other people. ADD people often struggle with shame, guilt and self loathing for letting other people down.
There’s the obvious point that both ADD and NPD sufferers can often seem self absorbed but I think that’s probably the only similarity. ADD personality's benefit seeking is very short sighted and therefore it can be easily perceived as selfish.
It is sometimes a case that a person with ADD pursues excitement at working place - in a form of competition - is perceived as a narcissist by others.
A narcissit care nothing about the feeling of others, except that the other person loves, adores and admires them. They dismiss everything else. ADDers fail to understand people's feelings. It makes them often confused, they don't understand why people get so angry, but they do care that the other person is angry (etc).
It is a typical method by an ADDer to confront the environment with which they are always in conflict - because they don't really understand it. Narcissts understand their environment well enough to manipulate the world around them and others often without the other people realising it.
Adders loose tracks of things, especially details. Narcissts rely on the ability to tell a lie and keep it going, they tell whole bundles of lies and can keep track of them and know what they have told to whom, they can keep track of details.
ADDers may choose to "deny" that they have "done wrong" this "denial" is fairly well known as a coping mechanism, and, most importantly, the ADD person "internalizes" the conflict--"What is wrong with me? What can't I finish projects? Why am I always late?". The TRUE narcissist believes in their mind that they have done NOTHING wrong-period, end of story. There is no internal debate going on in their head.
NPDs get mad at everyone else when "it's not all about" them. ADDers get annoyed at themselves for not fitting in.
There is an extremely large difference between Narcissistic Personality Disorder, and a person who has some, and/or mild, narcissistic tendencies.
Can the two disorders be co-morbid? Probably... anything could show up as a comorbid of ADD, but that would be a rare and awfully scary beast!
I have known male and a female narcissists and I can smell them coming. They are not like people with ADD, and not anything like myself, my hubby or any ADDers in my family or circle of friends. Most people with ADD are incredibly sweet people.
This is a problem with DSM and psychology. They describe behaviours out of context.
unsuccessfull narcissists?
by at_the_crossroa... - 06/20/2010 - 19:16
MIss Behaven, you are perfectly right, that people with ADD do not have NPD, and I did not make any claim that they would.
I am only wondering, if there is a subgroup of people, whose ADD has caused them to become Narcissists with some specific differences to Narcissists, who have no ADD.
My Ex is the prototype of this. I could call him an unsuccessful narcissist. He has the entire mindset of a narcissist, entitlement and grandiosity delusion, envy, dominance, disrespect, devaluation, egocentrism, lack of empathy. But he has no skill whatsoever to manipulate people, he is much too impulsive to lie or play games. He would not have cheated me, because he had no skill in charming women. He could not control himself to stop interrupting people and listen instead.
It was an dysfunctional combination of ADD-like behavior with the motivation to get narcissistic supply. I was just wondering, if he is a unque case or if this is, what happens, when a child with ADD becomes narcissistic.
sounds more like Aspergers
by Miss Behaven - 06/20/2010 - 23:09
Honestly, that sounds more like Aspergers to me, which does show up with ADD a lot. But you know your man more than I do.
I just don't think that narcissistic behaviours and though patterns are likley to be produced in an ADD child. The very key factors you need to become a narcissits (my father in law and one of my sisters in law are) are just about impossible to achieve with ADD. A narcissisit needs to be able to control, lie and manipulate in order to be one. I'm sure its possible but there are other things that are more likley to be comorbid.
The following parenting behaviors may result in a child becoming a narcissist in adulthood:
ADD kids are not given excessive praise, they are rarely spoiled and they are never idealized. ADD children are given the very opposite type of childhood, looked down on, a dissapoinment to the family, never good enough, called a lazy bum etc.
Interrupting as an example
by at_the_crossroa... - 06/21/2010 - 13:03
Yes, my Ex also has some Asperger's trait in addition to the impulsiveness and impatience of ADD. But according to what he told me, he also has perceived some events in his childhood as traumatic, which could have been a trigger for narcissism.
Last autumn, I had reached the point, when I could not take his hurtful behavior any longer and had given him an ultimatum for drastic change by finally talking about our conflicts. Instead, he just left, it was the third time, that he has dumped me. In my attempt to find closure, I started posting here.
Since then, 4 months after leaving, he recontacted me, he wanted and probably still wants me back. I told him, that I do not even consider this, as long as he does not start therapy. To my big surprise, he started to see a therapist, and therefore I corresponded with him by email (there is an ocean between us) for about ten weeks. Then I ended all contact with him, because nothing had changed, his emails were as hurtful as his behavior had been. He had not recontacted me based on the insight, that he has to contribute his share to make the relationship less painful for me. He recontacted me under the firm belief, that my feeling hurt by his behavior was my own flaw, and that after being left to suffer 4 months of loneliness, I would finally submit to his superiority and happily crawl back to be his doormat again.
I blocked his emails and told him so, but I am not sure, if he will not try other means of communication, because he was in absolute and complete denial, that his treatment of me is beyond what I would ever again allow him to do to me. It just did not reach his brain, that he cannot have me back and continue the same domination and depreciation as there had been. No matter, how cold, short and unfriendly my mails, in his emails he treated me as if I were the one begging to be allowed back.
This is, what got me wondering about the comorbidity of ADD and Narcissism.
The following is an oversimplification: I understand the DSM, that naricssism is a disorder of thinking, of a subjectively rational justification of selfishness based on the delusion of grandiosity and entitlement, while the abilitiy to act accordingly is not impaired. I do not see the capacity to manipulate in the DSM, only the justification to manipulate as much as the skill allows.
ADD seems to be a problem of controlling the own behavior in accordance with the own thinking and motivation, and reacting in an appropriate way to the environment, while the ability to evaluate, what is correct behavior according to the own values, is not impared.
This means that the outwardly same behavior could be an unwanted lack of impulse control, or a deliberate narcissistic act, or the narcissistic delusion to be entitled not to need self-control.
My Ex had no patience to listen to me. When I could not finish a thought in one sentence, he interrupted me, he claimed, that he already knew, what I were going to say, but in reality he did not, and he then started to monologue about something else.
With only ADD, he would interrupt people, but he would be aware, that he was depriving himself of valuable information, and he would know, that interrupting is doing himself no good, and he could at least show respect and appreciation by attempts and motivation to listen, as much as he could manage. Even admitting that people deserve to be listened to is showing appreciation.
With only NPD, he would have interrupted me as a part of using power over me, of showing his depreciation, because he did not gain narcissistic supply from listening to me. Whenever he would have known that by listening to others he would gain information to be used to get more narcissistic supply later, he would have listened. But he interrupted and monologued with everybody, even when this was detrimental for him.
But assuming the comorbidity of ADD and Narcissism, I could interprete this as him feeling narcissistically entitled to be superior to everybody even by acting out driven by ADD-impulsiveness. Narcissism justified his interrupting me, from whom he anyhow did not expect any valuable thoughts. Interrupting others, whom he would have better not interrupted, was his bad luck, where his ADD impulsiveness limitted his performance as a narcissist. Therefore he was by far not as successfull as a narcissist, as he felt entitlted to be. I assume, that this was the reason, while he put so much pressure on making me a submissive, docile source of narcissistic supply against my dire resistence. He just had not so many other sources available. He tried to get it all out of me.
This means, that had I considered having him back, I would have to cope with the double and the combined problem of ADD and of Narcissism.
Has anybody experienced similar dynamics?
Dilemma
by at_the_crossroa... - 06/21/2010 - 16:51
My getting exhausted with him was enhanced by my own being torn apart in doubt, how to behave. From very early on, I was aware, that he had problems with ADD and Asperger tendencies, and I was fully aware, that by becoming his partner, I had to be supportive and understanding. Supporting someone, who appreciates support, might be difficult, but it just needs loving care.
But as a narcissist, he denied to have any problems, he did not want my support, but my agreement with his denial, that nothing was wrong with him, but that I was flawed in resisting his dominance. That caused me feel outrage, and since after he left, I learned, that it is narcissism. Until he left, I felt being treated by a jerk, but did not really allow myself to call him a jerk. With his ADD, he needed support and understanding, even though he was in denial.
Therefore there was no way to behave appropriate to his ADD and his narcissism at the same time. Supporting him as having trouble with ADD by being lenient would have been perceived as my implicit submission to be inferior, and it would have reinforced his narcissism. Struggling against his inacceptable behavior and protesting outright against him behaving like a jerk was contra-supportive to his ADD.
The combination of ADD and comorbid Narcissism made me helpless. Has anybody experienced a similar dilemma?
Narcissism and ADHD
by gp - 06/21/2010 - 21:27
My experience with my ADHD partner has definitely led me to conclude a tie betwee his ADHD and narcissism. I've been an observer on these posts for a long time, but yours is the first to elicit a response because my experience mirrors yours.
Yes, you definitely can have both! It does seem contradictory at first glance, but narcissists can have low self esteem, in spite of their grandiose delusions and exaggerations. I initially wondered how the two disorders could coexist, but over time, strongly believe they can.
You sound in need of affirmation, so that's what I'll say for now. I have every intention of explaining my experience further in the next day or two when I can put some thoughts together on the issue.
ADD, Narcissism, Relationship Paradigm
by at_the_crossroa... - 06/22/2010 - 13:52
gp, it is more than just the need of affirmation, that made me restart posting. It is the irriation of being torn apart between the outrage over my hurt pride and dignity due to jerkish treatment, and the knowledge, that the jerk at the same time also is a person with some serious personality trouble in need of my support, even though he did not ask for it but reject even the need.
How justified am I to feel outrage and to hold him responsible for the pain, that he caused me? How much do I have to accept, that I am responsible myself, because I exposed myselt to someone, who is determined by his brain and not capable to do any better?
As long as I can define someone without doubt as a malignant narcissist, who enjoys hurting or enjoys the power to be able to hurt, then those questions have the simple answer, that from the moment of feeling outrage on, if I continue to be with him, it is my doing to expose myself.
But if narcissism is a reaction, a method of coping with ADD or Asperger's traits, that gives him relief from his own pain by burdening pain upon others, then my irritation starts about whom to hold responsible.
I would like to hear, how others are coping with such a conflict.
When my Ex left, at first I felt relief from the daily hurting, and I expected to heal, as soon as I would find someone else's appreciation. But all my efforts to find someone else until now were in vain. When he recontacted me, I had started to feel very lonely, and the fact, that the only difference between heaven and hell was something like one fundemental switch in his brain, started to cause me a lot of emotional turmoil.
That switch in his brain is his perception of himself in relation with me or more precisely with any woman. To me commitment means to feel as a part of a unit, sharing decisions, acting upon consent, solving problems by rational communication until reaching agreement and being bound by mutual obligations.
But he was in a relationship with me as a mentally single man, he would have married me and still continued to experience himself as being single. I was a utility, I was a kind of a pet, I was a friend with benefits, but I just was not a partner. He decided alone, what he wanted for himself, and after that, what by projection would be good for his pet. I was to be available for him, when he wanted me, but had to allow him to be kept in storage, when he did not. He expected me to be happy, compliant and submissive to and with his decisions, and if I resisted, he forced his decisions upon me, fully convinced to be justified.
Those two concepts are incompatible. I could never be a pet-utility-with-benefits without suffering excruciating emotional pain. When he started therapy, I was wondering, if it could make him to become a partner, and how long it would take to turn that switch.
Before we met, by email, he had theoretically agreed on the concept of sharing, consent, equality. From the day of meeting on, all of a sudden I became that pet-utility-with-benefits.
From a malignant narcissist, I would have no doubt, that his theoretical agreement with my concept of commitment were a lie to manipulate me to accept him. But his ADD-impulsitivity impedes him of consistently lieing, he omitted telling me things, but nearly never told me outright lies.
So theoretically he knows, what kind of commitment I had expected him to enter, but in real life he made me his pet-utility-with-benefits instead, and by entitlement and grandiosity delusion, he perceives himself as justified.
So I am puzzled, if therapy could make him accpet himself as having some ADD and Asperger's traits, and still have enough self-esteem and trust, to give up the obsolete coping methods of having an entitlement and grandiosity delusion and learn to be able to become a sharing partner, or if those delusions are so deeply rooted in his brain, that he can never become a partner.
Has anybody any experience, if and how a single man allowing someone into his life only as a pet-utility-with-benefits could change his relationship paradigm drastically and become a committed partner?
My hubby's bio-father is a
by Miss Behaven - 06/22/2010 - 16:28
My hubby's bio-father is a narcissist as far as we can tell. When hubby's sister was diagnosed with it everyone went Oooooo that explains him too!
Hubby's father is no longer part of our lives, he is a classic bad for you narcissist who uses and abuses everyone around him, often without you relaising it. Gaslighting is a special talent of his.
Hubby's sister has been getting help for NPD over the last three years, ever since her marriage broke up. She has improved a fair bit. She is less controlling and manipulative, she tells less lies and admits it when she is caught. She still struggles with it a lot as well, especialy not seeing everyone as a relfection on herself. We did not get along for many years because my showing up in a wrinkled blouse made her look bad! *rolll eyes* We are still in contact with her, but somewhat distant. I do not allow her around the children unless I have to, only for important family functions when there is no choice in the matter. It hard on hubby being around her as she reminds him of the father who abused him so badly.
Hubby was the big dissapointment aand his sister was the idealized child. Both were terribly traumatized for it, hubby developing OCD in an attempt to deal with his ADD and his sister getting NPD. Hubby's mother suffered a great deal at the hands of her husband and still struggles with depression and anger from the marriage and guilt over how her children were raised.
If your hubby is truly a narcissist I suggest the best thing you can do for yourself is to stay well away from him. *hug*
my experience w/ ADD individual diagnosed with Narcissism
by moominmama - 08/05/2011 - 14:24
My adult son was diagnosed with and was medicated for ADD when he was 16. But because his condition did not receive correct recognition and treatment when we first became aware of it (when he was 12 -- we lived in a backwater with insufficient professional personnel), he was often punished and teased for his inabilities over the intervening years, both in school and at home. I believe he constructed a protective fantasy version of his world in which other people's rules did not apply to him. Lying became habitual to hide his shame over losing things, missing deadlines, scrambling instructions, forgetfulness.
With medication he found a focus which permitted a fairly high level of academic success, however he still was humiliated by his failures to succeed in areas of practical living. Today he is stalled in pursuit of a grad degree, hobbled by the failure of another romantic relationship, and has been diagnosed with Narcissistic personality traits. A delusion that he can somehow command the life of his ex has resulted in a terrible period (a year and a half) of hell for him and us, his parents.
That someone with a history of ADD-inspired failures can develop such a disorder as a defensive mechanism makes sense to me.