I think as you become a survivor from your narcissist, you will instinctively know what feels right and what doesn't. However, I would worry about that when you cross that bridge and focus now on your path forward. A lot of things will fall into place naturally for you as you progress.

Good for you in your reading. Knowledge is certainly power.
Stay true to you Flowers, you will get there!

Janie

Anyone you get a gut reaction with is someone to stay away from......
people can change there way of life and there outlook on life, They can stop addictions , bad behaviour, a so called pointless life, and they can do this with awareness and wishing to learn and be diffrent....BUT they have changed tools and behaviours, they cannot change core issues, core feelings and core hurts....THEY JUST LEARN TO DEAL WITH THEM DIFFRENTLY........
However....inside they are still that person they always were and always will be.....and if [say] they have a traumatic event THEN, AND ONLY THEN WILL THEY EVEN KNOW IF THEY HAVE CHANGED OR NOT......
X

Nearly impossible to change or cure. The ONLY way to bring about change in a PD is a complete and thorough overhaul of one's self. This is a HUGE undertaking and would take years EVEN with a willing participate because the self will naturally keep gravitating back to that which is familiar; that which is a comfortable reaction and response.

Much of what a PD does is a knee jerk reaction and they run from any attempt by another to get too close to penetrating their walls of self deception and intense fear. The closer you come, the more they try to keep you at bay, to avoid you penetrating their "secret" private inner world on any level. This is why you feel so badly in a relationship with a PD. They are "abusing" you to keep you OUT. They operate from a place of intense fear and rage from any form of intimacy.

You would have to completely take down and dissect the inner workings of the personality and then rebuild it with a new one. This would take a HUGE commitment with focus and little distraction from the outside world. A desire and willingness to LET GO of all addictions, false beliefs, manipulations, and self deception. An ablility to be stripped completly of all which keep one from the pain, fear, guilt, and humiliation of the disordered self which was created as sheild and protector to keep out all that which creates discomfort. THEN one would have to TRUST and have faith in God or another (therapist) to support them through this grueling process while embarking into the unknown as the new REAL self is allowed to emerge, resurface,and eventually intergrate into that which is real from that which was false.

This would and could take years.

So therefore ALL PD's are what they are. What you SEE is what you get. If what they are is acceptable to you then fine, if it is not then, NO there are NO PD's which would be capable of giving you what you want. It's all the same thing, regardless to what the PD may be.

There has been some success with borderline's and histrionics who were willing to do the WORK AND ALLOW another to help them to reconstruct their personality with trust, faith, and a willingness to let out all of those years of repressed truth and pain.

Think Cybil, remember that movie and although she suffered from dissociative disorder, she also demonstrated-with all the charactoristics of a borderline among other issues.

She worked with a therapist for YEARS to begin to intergrate her personalities and work through her intense fears and PTSD, ect... That is an exagerated case YET, the process would be the same with any PD and the difficulty of sucessful treatement would also be the same. The keys would have to be willingness, trust, a committment to the treatment and to give up most all outside stimuli and baidaids (addictions, fillers) at the same time. Girl interrupted was alledgedly about a girl with BPD, she is not certain today that was an accurate diagnosis, regardless she was in the hospital and for the most part away from her "comfort zones" for 18 months before there was significant improvement. You get the picture.

Most people are not able or willing to do this, so they stay the same.

God bless,
Goldie

Please don't concern yourself right this moment with the other forms of PD's in the world. Right now, concern yourself with the matter at hand. Throughout your journey to healing, the answers, including the one to the question above will come to you. In other words, try your best not to put the cart before the horse.

You will discover and learn how detect the toxic people in your life. And through healing, and educating yourself, you will implement boundaries that you will than use, once recovered.

For now, work on healing from what has happened to you. Over loading your plate with "what if's" etc......will just complicate things. It will all come naturally, the pieces of the puzzle each come in the order they are suppose to while working the steps in Lisa's book.

Good luck! Stay strong!