Anxious Psychopath, Borderline Mask
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- čas přidán 10. 04. 2021
- Anxious Psychopath: Psychopaths are said to be fearless and sang-froid. Their pain tolerance is very high. Still, contrary to popular perceptions and psychiatric orthodoxy, some psychopaths are actually anxious and fearful. Their psychopathy is a defense against an underlying and all-pervasive anxiety, either hereditary, or brought on by early childhood abuse.
Psychopaths nurture and cultivate an image of themselves as free-spirited, daring, non-conformist geniuses who are grievously misunderstood and mistreated by Lilliputian society and its mindless cohorts.
This grandiose and romantic self-narrative legitimizes three classes of antisocial behaviors: defiance, passive-aggression (negativism), and reactance.
People with personality disorders who are high-functioning are very disconcerting: they compartmentalize their promiscuous, antisocial, addictive, sadistic, and defiant behaviors.
During the day, they are competent professionals, diligent students, pillars of the community, responsible citizens and fathers or mothers, loving husbands or wives, and thriving entrepreneurs.
Come evening, the mask drops, the drink and drugs are out, replete with dissolute reckless sex with virtual strangers, gambling, or any number of self-trashing and dysfunctional, even self-destructive behaviors.
What baffles scholars is that all these self-states are a part of the personality. There is no faking involved. The switching is abrupt but seamless. Dissociation is often involved, but never to the point of rupturing continuous autobiographical memory and core identity.
Cleckley called it the “Mask of Sanity”. It challenges everything we thought we knew about psychology.
Recklessness and fantasy are both clinical features of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). As a form of self-mutilation and self-trashing, Borderline women often place themselves in harm’s way with relative strangers and end up being defenseless and sexually assaulted.
Having been raped, they then use fantasy to defend against the trauma and resolve the cognitive dissonance (“I initiated it, I wanted the sex, he was attractive, I thought we could have a relationship”).
To prove the point, they may even meet and have sex with the attacker again.
Fantasy characterizes the Borderline’s intimate relationships as well. But her self-destructiveness, emotional dysregulation, and mood lability are such that she always sabotages what she has.
As reality intrudes on the fantasy (which the Borderline finds intolerable and anxiety inducing), she begins to devalue the partner and act out egregiously. The resulting deterioration in the quality of the bond justifies bouts of cheating on the partner and reckless self-trashing, on the way to a new man within the next fantasy.
Reactance in personality disorders often masquerades as “boundaries”. The psychopath’s defiance and contumaciousness, for example, can be easily mistaken that way.
True personal boundaries are endogenous and proactive. In other words, they are not triggered by the environment, they are immutable certainties and givens, emanating from a healthy and stable sense of self-worth. They are forms of internalized self-defense.
Fake boundaries are reactive to events and people, hair-triggered by them, are inconstant, and do not reflect any inner reality or processes. They are forms of externalized aggression.
ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE
Front. Psychol., 10 March 2016 | doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00348
Psychopaths Show Enhanced Amygdala Activation during Fear Conditioning
Douglas H. Schultz1*†, Nicholas L. Balderston1†, Arielle R. Baskin-Sommers2, Christine L. Larson1,3 and Fred J. Helmstetter1,3*
• 1Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI, USA
• 2Department of Psychology, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA
• 3Department of Neurology, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI, USA
Primary psychopaths exhibited a pattern of activity in the dorsal and ventral ACC consistent with enhanced fear expression, while secondary psychopaths exhibited a pattern of activity in these regions consistent with fear inhibition. These results contradict the low-fear model of psychopathy and suggest that the low fear observed for psychopaths in previous studies may be specific to secondary psychopaths.
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Sobering, yet bracing, to know that mental development stops at age 12. One can only get out with an accurate map. Thank you, professor.
Anxiety played such a huge part my exes life. She eventually went to a therapist for help, the therapist told her she has extreme anxiety and that it will affect all her relationships if she doesn't get proper treatment. After that my ex told me that the therapist was useless and stopped going. Thanks Sam for clearing up the anxiety part of BPD. I always suspected the anxiety played a huge part in her life.. for the worst. Also exactly like you said in your previous video... High functioning during the day then at night the transformation and out comes the alcohol and dysfunction.
I saw what I did when he left me. I don't know that person but it is me. They called me psychopath. For years I stringed things together to paint a picture of him as the psycho not I. Abandonment triggers the secondary psychopathy. Five years made clear in one sentence. Thank you Sam.
We wake from the nightmare briefly, turn our gaze from the abyss but the reality and beauty are fleeting. Like a moth to flame, We must return. The older you get the more crushing the reality of your life becomes. So when you wake from that nightmare, quickly erect a obelisk. Soon you see more truth then lie. No more terrors, just dreams, hand in hand with the one who loves you for the monster you believe you are.
I agree with the comments shared. Having had relationships with multiple victims of psychosis, I can see the gold inside these people, and it’s always heartbreaking to see their self destruction. The correlation of the degrees of horror in their upbringing and their eventual mental decline within their relationships are quite evident. My most recent relationship has just ended after 15 years of a happy & loving marriage. The mother relationship appears to be the key variable. Capacity to forgive and maintain unconditional love as a parent despite the relationship destruction is critical to avoid further pain for all. Having the strength as an adult to break away from the family of origin after the realisation of what has occurred requires compassion from those left in the wake of destruction. It’s easy to blame, but in the end it’s to the detriment of all involved, particularly if you share children. My heart goes out to all diagnosed & those that love or have loved them.
Great Introduction
Brilliant work, Professor. Thank you!
Your wicked humour is more contagious than covid... Perhaps even an antidote! Muchas gracias Samito!
This is a great video broading my horizon could you please do more on this topic psychopaths and anxiety.
The best opening ever...!
Very informative gives a great new perspective on cluster B types
dear sam ,i have a question regarding the covert borderline,can a covert borderline also be a hsp and have developed narcissistic defenses,and grandiosity because they were highly sensitive to emotions and therefore needed a protection from those emotions ,therefore dissociating into a primary pshichopat as a way of dealing with overwelming emotions ?
Holy crap. I can’t believe this, you literally just helped me figure out what was wrong with my ex. She was EXACTLY like that. She developed the dissociating and became grandiose to protect her self. Very narcissistic and lacked empathy for self protection. All eyes pointed to the self to avoid feeling emotional hurt.
What you just described is very much like me. I'm a Dissociated, Detached Hyper-analytical Borderline (Detached Protector Schema) with Hypervigilant Narcissism as a constituent subcomponent of my BPD. I'm also a Cerebral Narcissist in my Ego Identification with my detached Intellect. Percieved slights to my believed competence can trigger reactive aggression in the drive to suppress the Ego threat
Love 💗 the intro joke!!!!
Another good one Sam!!
Fkn genius ! Omg
Thank you
Thank you so much for talking about the High Functioning pwBPD, this is my ex!
I look like the villain to everyone she knows and she walks away from each relationship the victim. How I would love to have coffee with her exes !!
Actually, the anti-narcississtic masochistic narcissist reminds me a lot of me. I wish it didn't.
@@d.daniels2298 Towards the end of this video, he lists seven characteristics of the anti-narcississtic n.m., of which I identify strongly with numbers 1-4, and also 7. I also identify strongly with the similarity to covert n. which is described after this (passive aggression, tendencies to self harm, self trash, self defeat are more pronounced than in the covert n. He goes on to describe my late mother (cruel and damaging) saying that the unconscious aim...is fantasied control over her. It's all fitting me like a pair of gloves that are exactly my size, but the colors are highly distressing.
You're a riot!
@@laiia27 No, I said he's a "riot!' Intensely funny. I thoroughly agree that he is highly intelligent, and one of the few people I learn something from whenever I watch him. I watch him a lot. It's quite worthwhile!
Interesting video as always Dr. Vaknin. I have just one question, i dont know if you ever talked about this in some of your vids but i am interested if somebody can develope a personality disorder lets say in their late 30s mid 40s. Is that possible?
Hey Prof Vaknin,
I keep hearing people refer to Megan Markle as a narcissist. I don't know if there's anything to this charge. I'm aware of your work enough to consider you the authority on such things.
I keep hearing this too. From what im aware, diagnosis of mental disorders are usually only made for extreme outlying behavior when it has a negative impact. Definitions probably change for royalty and actors, people who live and work publicly. People using clinical terms on people they dont like is probably inappropriate. All royals could be considered narcissists except that their expectations do align with public opinion. It does seem strange someone demanding to be treated as a princess, but she is literally a princess, and i really doubt any psychiatrist would give her a diagnosis as a literal narcissist.
Dear Sam! Could you sanctify the topic of parental alienation. As far as I know, this topic was developed by Richard Gardner. In one of the articles I read that he wrote that "parental alienation syndrome" does not exist on its own without a personality disorder.
What do you know about Gardner himself, since I found controversial information about him, as well as about the "parental alienation syndrome" put forward by him?
It would be very interesting to hear about it from you!
PAS is nonsense. However, divorced parents do sometimes act in various ways to estrange their children from their exes.
@@samvaknin Are they not going to include PAS in DSM 6?
It seems that some time ago there were many articles on this topic.
Look at the detailed material from Dr. Childress. PAS is what happens when a borderline parent is involved
@@Caparason824 Thank you very much! I will definitely look!
🤣 necrophilia lol Sam you’re hilarious
My reactants were to push him harder to be as gradios as he claimed or think he was wanting me to cheat not find another to replace him.
Ah yes the repetition of dodgy sexual situations. My ex started to tell me stories (around the point of devaluation) of previous sexual encounters that sounded dangerous and grim. Always when drunk so details were either sketchy or she was put in danger and became victim. and always away from the parents home. Funny how her mother never trusted with guys staying over 😂
The double life she played the perfect public persona with the dubious impulsive sexual lifestyle. All self destructive behaviours.
Oof tbh she did to me... Which really hurts, but than I realized I sort of did the same with my ex gf 😂
Guess it's fucked huh? My urges to lash out in response to this are intense... Out of nowhere...
She must have thought I was a narc... She kept riding my abandonment fears, and I tried so hard not to go bezerk.
I'm trying to still go the talking route. Because I might go fully crazy
What causes neuroticism ? I’ve been dealing with anxiety since as a child
We don't know. Probably genetic.
Like that one future song ?
Prof Vaknin what do you think about a Polyvagal approach to working with narcissim?
Pseudscientific nonsense.
@@samvaknin uhm. So you think the work of Porges is bs, or is it because it is new? I am curious as to how possible new perspectives that are more according to the times can enlighten the work with people with personality disorders.
@@samvaknin and how about any form of trauma informed work. what do you think?
Curious on your thoughts and or reason on mental illness not only on the rise but that it has become an epidemic as research and studies suggest. I know our society has decade in the past few decades and my personal stand is that there is a correlation between mental illness becoming ab epidemic and progressive ideologies/liberalism, I'm almost want to suggest a causation.
Before I got into politics over 2 years ago I studied and researched neuroscience, behavioral therapy, personality disorders, psychology and a few other fields and I came to the conclusion of BPD/physcopathy becoming ranpid in our societies then I started to get into politics and we're thrown into the cancel culture, me too movement, emotional dysregulation that liberals are suffering and it started to paint a picture or put the puzzle together that for me would explain the rise in mental illness.
May I add to your wonderful post, that the depletion of dopamine levels are correlated to severe depression/anxiety as well. Due to technology and instant gratification, humans aren’t having quality relationships with people anymore and are becoming chaotic mentally/emotionally because of this. The youth that’s growing up are expected to lead the way in the future, it ain’t looking too hot..
@@369moksha7 I'm sitting here trying to figure out what to repond to this comment as I type. To bring this epidemic down to almost non relevance or simply a prospective due to technology. Honestly what does one say to that, apply the hermetic principle, one doesn't need to do that because of how prevalent it is. Look all around you, any emotionally intelligent and mature individual can see that without having to read an article or study. As the previous comment even mentions, technology plays a significant part in its increase along side of been able to properly track it in different age groups, genders, societal structures. It goes to show us how critical thinking and EQ skills have dropped significantly in society.
I hope to find a video that describes the kind of personality disordered person who, though he has bipolar disorder as well, seems to be into deliberate self-sabotage. Filed for SSI at around age 22 and now by age 33, he is practically homeless, living in a hotel room and then he told me he only had a year and a half to live. I've found him to lie effortlessly about things that didn't need a lie, so I don't believe this either - and judging by his social media over the past year, his "stages" of cancer and type of cancer are all over the place. It's either active or he's beat it. Also, he has substance abuse issues and just doesn't seem to want to do much to help himself and feels really entitled to everyone doing it all for him in terms of finding him housing. I became a sucker for the mystery of what his deal actually is. I did get psychopath vibe, though. And he says he suffers with mostly anxiety overall, but he never seems anxious.
It's difficult to diagnose a person in addiction, they must be free of all substances before doctors can find out.
Sounds like ASPD
Sam. Is the shame they run from connected to the general social stigma of narcissim or is it a more personal shame? Would it be eliminated if suddenly the world saw narcissim as being a virtue in other words?
We are already living in a time where “pride” is becoming normal and healthy. And that being humble is saying someone can’t be confident. But that confidence they self proclaim is just a high ego/pride. Things are getting twisted, so I do believe narcissism will become the new norm. Studies say around 30% are already narcissist. And it will keep growing.
If a 16 year old has no empathy and hurts animals does that make them a sociopath cause I a friend like that
Watch my video on conduct disorder.
That makes them a retarded, and immature who probably jokes about his life to his mom then gets slapped because he said something he shouldn't have because it was rude
Maybe he's a sociopath maybe an immature guy who hasnt developed empathy yet, maybe sadistic, maybe just an asshole. Who knows..
What would a heterosexual intimate relationship look like when both of the partners are borderline?
Absolute carnage, will burn 🔥 each other to ashes, if untreated. I know from experience