How I dealt with one Know-It-All

[kenny]

I didn't want to hijack the other thread.
I must say this is huge issue I'm dealing with right now.

I've had a very close friend for almost 40 years.
She has always introduced me to people as her "second son".
I always hated that and told her not to, but everything was all about her.
She knew best.

She'd go into museums, point and say, "THAT'S NOT VERY GOOD!".
Not, I don't like that, or I don't understand that.
She had all the answers for everything.

She is a trained psychotherapist so she "generously" offered her "insightful valuable" perspective on your most private matters, even when you told her to stay out of it.
She wouldn't recognize a boundary if it bit her on the nose.
She is completely full of herself.

Recently I had to let her go.
Now I understand she has a severe case of Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_personality_disorder

She spent years in psychoanalysis, which I've read frequently only intensifies the narcissism.
All her children have emotionally disowned her and she has no idea why.
It is really really sad.
I feel so bad for her, but I cannot survive in that "friendship".

I made the difficult decision to end the friendship.
There was no other way for me.

 

[Tuckins1]

I didn't want to hijack the other thread.
I must say this is huge issue I'm dealing with right now.

I've had a very close friend for almost 40 years.
She has always introduced me to people as her "second son".
I always hated that and told her not to, but everything was all about her.
She knew best.

She'd go into museums, point and say, "THAT'S NOT VERY GOOD!".
Not, I don't like that, or I don't understand that.
She had all the answers for everything.

She is a trained psychotherapist so she "generously" offered her "insightful valuable" perspective on your most private matters, even when you told her to stay out of it.
She wouldn't recognize a boundary if it bit her on the nose.
She is completely full of herself.

Recently I had to let her go.
Now I understand she has a severe case of Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_personality_disorder

She spent years in psychoanalysis, which I've read frequently only intensifies the narcissism.
All her children have emotionally disowned her and she has no idea why.
It is really really sad.
I feel so bad for her, but I cannot survive in that "friendship".

I made the difficult decision to end the friendship.
There was no other way for me.

This person really sounds like a member of DH's family... He always knows best and if you have a different opinion you are an idiot/stupid/*******/etc... It is very hard to deal with him at all. I just steer clear and don't really talk to him unless I really have to. I have suggested that he might have a personality disorder to DH, but he just gets really mad at me when I talk to him about this person, so I just bite my tongue now.

 

[AGBF]

Kenny,

Is the situation with this woman (whom you say you have known for 40 years) in addition to the stresses you are experiencing in your family or part of them? You mentioned that she insisted on calling herself, "a second mother' to you although you indicated to her that you preferred she would not. (I guess she actually insisted on calling you her "second son".) That made it seem (to me) that she was unlikely to be a relative and part of the family problems which you are enduring, but I have no way of knowing. Are you having two stressors at once?

I feel for you and hope that you find peace.

Hugs,
Deb/AGBF

 

[kenny]

Kenny,

Is the situation with this woman (whom you say you have known for 40 years) in addition to the stresses you are experiencing in your family or part of them? You mentioned that she insisted on calling herself, "a second mother' to you although you indicated to her that you preferred she would not. (I guess she actually insisted on calling you her "second son".) That made it seem (to me) that she was unlikely to be a relative and part of the family problems which you are enduring, but I have no way of knowing. Are you having two stressors at once?

I feel for you and hope that you find peace.

Hugs,
Deb/AGBF

Thansk Deb.
No she is not a real relative.
Actually she is the mother of a girl I dated in high school.
The daughter is still my best friend 35 years later.

I came from a deeply troubled family and at age 19 left for the Navy and never really looked back, and made my own way.
I really have almost no contact with my sister and her daughter, the only remaining family.

I do feel at peace and have a few the dear friends.
My SO's family has warmly welcomed me into their hearts.
I am very blessed.

 

[Cehrabehra]

Hi Kenny,

How did you go about ending the friendship? Do you think putting the idea in her head to explore narcissistic personality disorder would help? I don't think I could walk away without first putting the idea in my friend's head of where to look for a possible solution to her issues. Maybe therapy could start helping rather than exacerbating her behavior.

 

[kenny]

Two months ago I told her how I felt about what she was doing and she got belligerent and defensive.
I just left it at that.

The more I read about NPD the more I understand there is most likely no hope.
Therapy often makes NPD worse since therapy IS all about meeeeeeeee.

Plus it is not my job to fix others.
It was an agonizing decision but now I feel I did what I needed to do.
There were no good options here.
Ending the relationship was just one of those survival things.

Two of her grown kids pulled away from her 40 years ago and the last kid just did now that she finally got into therapy.

I'm hoping this woman will put some 2+2s together.

 

[Haven]

Kenny, what you said about psychoanalysis really hit home for me because since both of my parents have been in therapy they have become increasingly self-involved and self-righteous. I am sure that my father has NPD, although my mother does not. Therapy has really made the both of them very difficult people to be around at times, and I wish they had never started it, as I think it has been very damaging for both of them.

Good for you for realizing that this person isn't good to be around, and for being able to cut her out of your life. I imagine that was very difficult.

 

[AGBF]

Kenny, what you said about psychoanalysis really hit home for me because since both of my parents have been in therapy they have become increasingly self-involved and self-righteous. I am sure that my father has NPD, although my mother does not. Therapy has really made the both of them very difficult people to be around at times, and I wish they had never started it, as I think it has been very damaging for both of them.

Good for you for realizing that this person isn't good to be around, and for being able to cut her out of your life. I imagine that was very difficult.

Of course I agree with you, Haven, that it is healthy to avoid people who upset you and for whom there is no need for you to spend time. (I mean, a surgeon might have to spend time with an irritating patient in order to save his life. God willing, the surgery would involve a procedure that would restrict the patient's ability to talk, however.)

I just have to throw out here that psychoanalysis is actually supposed to make the subconscious conscious in the hopes of making the analysand more self-aware, not more self-centered! In other words, if one has some insight into how he deals with the world, he should have more perspective, not less. Didn't someone say, "The unexamined life is not worth living"?

To me it is tragic if someone emerges from psychoanalysis completely self-absorbed. I guess if I saw that I would say (perhaps to rationalize such a thing happening), that the person had never been an appropriate candidate for analysis in the first place.

AGBF

 

[Haven]

I don't know the difference, but my parents are in "therapy" and not psychoanalysis. They sound very different, but perhaps they are not.

I imagine that every profession is similar in that there are very effective therapists, and very ineffective therapists. I don't mean to belittle the profession at all, but I am quite certain that my parents have found two very ill prepared therapists.

Self awareness sounds wonderful. My husband and I often say that the more my parents are involved with this therapy, the less self aware they become, actually. It's pretty bad, and it has damaged more than a few relationships for the both of them.

 

[kenny]

I don't think the point of therapy is to make it nicer for others to be around us.
It is to make us nicer to be around ourselves, and be IN ourselves.

Therapy/analysis is the ultimate self-thing, which is why therapy and NPD is such a paradox.
I've only read a little about it, but I can see how NPD is a hard nut for a professional to crack.
People with NPD don't enter therapy for their NPD.

 

[AGBF]

I don't think the point of therapy is to make it nicer for others to be around us.
It is to make us nicer to be around ourselves, and be IN ourselves.

Therapy/analysis is the ultimate self-thing, which is why therapy and NPD is such a paradox.
I've only read a little about it, but I can see how NPD is a hard nut for a professional to crack.
People with NPD don't enter therapy for their NPD.

I had a client, when I worked with the deinstitutionalized mentally ill, who saw some of the most famous psychiatrists who treated borderlines and people with narcissistic personality disorders. He was just a classic with a borderline diagnosis. (I believe that he had been given a diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder with a Narcissistic Defense.) And he was a hopeless case. No matter what the method of treatment. In classic psychoanalysis he would never have been a candidate for treatment a all. To be considered for that, one must be well held together with an intact ego!

AGBF

 

[risingsun]

Haven~I don't know why your parents are in therapy and what type of treatment they are receiving. I'm not asking that you disclose this information, either. Patients can become worse before becoming better, when they start treatment. When you start exploring the underlying issues, there are a lot of emotions that are brought to the surface. Material is triggered and needs to be processed. In addition, the patient must be committed to doing the work. The therapist cannot change the patient. That is not our role. The patient is ultimately responsible for choosing to go through the process of change. I have had patients credit me with saving their lives. In reality, they learned to save their own lives through the therapeutic process and relationship.

 

[Haven]

I apologize for mentioning my parents' experience. I shouldn't have done so, and I don't want to discuss it any further. It really wasn't my place to talk about them here on PS. I ache for them and the decline I've seen, and Kenny's comment really hit home, which is why I brought it up at all.

ETA: I didn't mean to sound harsh. I'm extremely uncomfortable that I brought up my parents at all, and I regret doing so after having some time to think on it, that's all. I know we're anonymous and all, but I feel rather guilty about it.

 

[AGBF]

I want to address the idea that psychotherapy or psychoanalysis is not practiced on an inanimate object. I am not even going to go near the question of the modality of treatment; the credentials of the practitioner; or the practioner's personality (some enormous variables in how well a therapy/treatment/anaylysis will work).

I don't think that it is possible to generalize about how "a person" will react to "psychotherapy", since there are so very many people out there in the world. (And, as I said, I am not even taking into consideration who or what they will meet in the treatment room!) A paranoid schizophrenic hearing voices who is very withdrawn and shuns contact with others except to shout curses at his voices is not going to react to psychotherapy the same way a mildly neurotic housewife who had adapted well so far to all life's challenges, but has started to feel overwhelmed after the birth of her first child.

Deb/AGBF