The difference between a narcissist, a borderline, a sociopath and a psychopath

As as starter, we need to understand that psychopatic, sociopathic, narcissistic, histrionic individuals and individuals who suffer from borderline personality disorder belong to the same category - the type B personality disorder. The reason why people are often confused how to categorize these individuals is the fact that the symptoms often overlap as they are coming from the same "family". Or better to say, all of those individuals have the same symptoms, they are just differently distributed on the spectrum of capacity to be empathetic and to be conscious (they do not differ in symptoms, they only differ in intensity of those symptoms). Lets start with looking at the middle of the spectrum on the picture of the scale below.


As you can see, the neuro-typical (normal) people are in the middle. They do not have any disorder. As you go further on the scale to the right, you will find there the empaths. The empaths are highly empathetic, but they often lack of knowledge on narcissism so they often become the target to the cluster B individuals. Once the empath is fully healed from narcissistic abuse, he or she gains the knowledge and step in something that is called "Christ consciousness". He becomes the super empath. The super empaths are people who are highly conscious, highly empathetic, but possess deeper knowledge and have healthy boundaries.

Now lets look on the left side of the scale. From the left from neuro-typical people on the scale are people with borderline personality disorder. They can create a lot of damage in people´s life. They do feel positive and negative emotions, they have a capacity to love, however, they will burn you in their process if you try to love them. They feel too much. You can rather think about them as people who have been burnt by the fire and their skin has 5 degree burn injury. They are hyper sensitive, hysterical, they have histrionic tendencies and they are over dramatic with every touch of their raw burnt skin. All cluster B type of the personalities experienced some sort of trauma in their childhood and their disorder is a direct result of that trauma. The scale represents the capability on how these individuals are capable to process the trauma. The borderlines seems to cope with the trauma by being with their emotions "all over the place". I would describe the borderlines as the most failed narcissists as they "failed" to bury their trauma deeper inside of them. They have the most expressive acting out of their trauma of all of the cluster B "family" which make them the most visibly disordered individuals of the this category.

The next on the scale is narcissism. I would like to start with a covert narcissists as they are very similar to borderlines. If you pay an attention to the traits, you will realize that the borderlines, histrionics, covert narcissists and even codependents have very similar copying mechanism and traits as they all belong to the most vulnerable types of the disorder. Although, the codependents do not belong to the cluster B, they neither belong to the group of neuro typical (normal) people as they have a disorder (the codependent personality disorder) yet their type of the disorder did not develop fully into the borderline category. The codependents seem to be a transition between the neuro-typicals and borderline. The hypersensitivity and extreme vulnerability makes these four to be grouped somehow very close to each other on the scale. Due to their anxiety hyperactive unhealthy attachment style of the disorder developed in their childhood caused by the abuse from their narcissistic parents or caregivers, they have tendencies to be re-abused again in their adulthood by their narcissistic partners. This is the reason why are people sometimes a bit confused when they are not sure where to categorize themselves or someone else - whether to codependent, histrionic, borderline or covert narcissist´s category. I refer to the covert narcissists as "the failed narcissists" as they sabotage their own grandiosity with their super ego and this sabotaging of their grandiosity prevent them to express it openly. I label the covert narcissists also as "the introverted silent version of a borderline". The covert narcissism is a transition between borderline personality disorder and a narcissistic personality disorder. They are not fully developed narcissists.

The next on the scale is the overt narcissism. The overt narcissist´s traits are more close to the sociopathy side of the scale while covert narcissist´s traits are more close to the borderline side of the scale. The "overts"express their grandiosity openly unless the "coverts". They are less hypersensitive than their "brothers" covert narcissists but their disorder is not enough psychopathic to feel completely nothing. They posses good and bad emotions, but good emotions are almost non existing and they have a large scale of the negative emotions. The overt narcissists managed to bury their trauma so deep inside of themselves that they start to have quite psychopathic non emotional copying mechanism for their disorder.

The narcissists cope with their disorder in a form of suppressing their negative emotions to avoid pain and pathological shame that have been developed in their childhood due to the traumatic experience. The price they have to pay for suppressing all negative emotions is that they are not capable to feel the positive emotions either (such as genuine happiness, joy or genuine love) as when you are suppressing the emotions, you automatically suppressing all of them. They emotionally "froze" in the childhood times when the trauma happened to them and the direct impact of this freezing is being emotionally undeveloped. They lack of emotional intelligence that is necessary to act and feel like the proper adults. They are hurt children stuck in their adult bodies incapable to "unfreeze" and deal with their emotions in a more adult way. Due to lack of emotions the narcissists often complain about the "void inside of them" or "feeling of emptiness". They love taking risks, they are easily bored, they love to rush and they need constants excitement and thrill in order to feel at least something. The more they have suppressed the emotions, the more intense excitement they need to come up with to fill the void.

The next on the scale are sociopaths. The sociopathy is a transition between narcissism and psychopathy thus the sociopaths posses traits of both. They feel less range of emotions than the narcissists but yet they still feel something in a comparison with the psychopaths.

The last on the scale on the left are psychopaths. Part of the psychopaths have been born with this condition and part of the psychopaths developed their psychopathy due to trauma, stress, violence, brain damage they experienced in their childhood. The environment plays an important role in development of psychopathy in the psychopaths. In most cases, the psychopaths who experienced the childhood trauma, with the combination of the predisposition of the genes make them the most dangerous personality of all disorders. They do not feel fear neither anxiety which makes them unique from the other subcategories of the cluster B. Its almost impossible to trigger them as they do not feel the emotions.

The main difference between the narcissist and the psychopath is that psychopaths have no addiction to people. They can function without people and they are often loners as they do not need anybody to validate them and regulate their emotions (as they have non). The ultimate goal of the psychopath is to kill you as fast as possible and as much without the obstructions as possible, take what he or she needs from you and walk away from your dead body while you will not cross his or her mind for the rest of his or her life. On the other side, the narcissist has an unhealthy attachment style and addiction to people as he needs people to regulate his emotions and he needs a constant validation from the external source. He will play with you like a cat plays with the mouse for weeks, months, years and sometimes even decades corroding you slowly like a rust, driving you mentally unstable till he will push you to commit a suicide. The narcissist will kill you without even putting the hand on you and while killing you, he feeds from your pain in order to regulate his emotions. After your death he will pretend that he grieves your death just to gain the positive narcissistic supply (the sympathy) from other people. Then he takes from you what he wanted to con out you of. Another difference between the psychopath and the narcissist is that the psychopath does not feel anxiety and fear while the narcissist feels a great range of negative emotions which is "crippling" for him because he can´t be that "effective" as a psychopath. The narcissist is crippled by lot of fears, depression episodes and pile of anxieties.

Often people are feeling confused when are trying to categorize the disordered individuals. They are like: "But ... I have read an article about the narcissists and then I have read the article on sociopaths, but my uncle seems to have all symptoms from both of the disorders, I feel confused, is my uncle narcissist or sociopath"? Its because the disorders often co-morbid and the symptoms overlap. In most cases people with personality disorder do not have only one diagnosis. Very often the sociopaths are also the narcissists (known as "narcopaths"), the psychopaths are also the narcissists (known as "malignant narcissists") and individuals with borderline personality disorder can be also the narcissists too. Honestly, it does not matter who from cluster B type of the personality disorder is your abuser, they all have "psychopatic" tendencies from the point of view of a regular neuro-typical person. Just because they did not kill you, it does not mean they are not capable of killing. The only difference is where on the scale of consciousness and empathy they are but any other than that, they are basically the same, any of them can destroy your life with the same results - you will either end up being killed or you kill yourself, any of them can be as much effective to ruin your social circle or life, cone you out of all your money or possessions or destroy your prospering business.

The psychopaths are being born. Their brain and nervous system are being wired differently.
Other cluster B type of the personality disorder have been made by environment.

The psychopaths do not feel stress.

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