The framework describes some people as having "their own Himalayas"—a lifetime of experiences that created dense, interlocking mountain ranges with a permanently raised baseline. This captures BPD well. Often rooted in childhood invalidation, trauma, or unpredictable caregiving, the person learns early that the world is unsafe. They're always near their energy limit, meaning even small fluctuations can push them over.

A missing text message. A changed tone of voice. What might be a small hill for someone else instantly becomes a cliff face.

At the center of the landscape sits a towering mountain range built around abandonment. The framework describes how our steepest paths to valleys (connection, love) often run directly through our biggest mountains. For someone with BPD, intimacy is both the deepest craving and the greatest threat.

Getting close to someone means:

• Rolling rapidly toward them (idealization—they're the valley)
• Sensing the abandonment mountain rising beneath you
• Feeling the inevitable doom before anything has gone wrong

The framework describes landscapes that shift constantly. With BPD, these shifts are seismic and sudden. A partner goes from being a valley (safety, love, perfection) to a mountain (threat, betrayal, danger) within hours or even minutes.

This isn't manipulation—it's the landscape literally reorganizing itself. When someone triggers the abandonment mountain, they become the mountain. The brain can't hold both realities simultaneously: "this person loves me" and "this person might leave." So the landscape flips entirely.

The framework describes a watchtower—a part of us always scanning for danger in relationships. With BPD, this watchtower is working overtime, permanently staffed, hypervigilant. Every micro-expression, every delayed reply, every shift in tone gets analyzed for evidence of the inevitable abandonment.

This isn't paranoia—it's a survival system built from real experiences of unpredictability. The child who never knew which version of their parent they'd get learned to watch very carefully.

Because the person hits their energy limit so frequently, emergency escape routes become well-worn paths:

Provoke: Push them away before they leave. Say something cutting. If you control the rejection, it hurts less than waiting for it.

Appease: Desperately try to fix it. Apologize for things that aren't your fault. Become whatever they need you to be.

Withdraw: Shut down completely. Dissociate. Go numb. The mountain is too much to feel.

Self-harm: The framework mentions this as an escape route—a way to regulate unbearable internal states when nothing else works. It's not about wanting to die; it's about needing the mountain to stop.

The framework describes how we build scaffolding to avoid our mountains—rules, tests, monitoring systems. With BPD, these structures become elaborate:

• Checking a partner's phone (the Monitor)
• Keeping score of every slight (the Scorekeeper)
• Testing whether they'll stay: "If you really loved me, you'd..."
• Ultimatums designed to force certainty in an uncertain world

The tragedy is that these structures, built for safety, often create the abandonment they're designed to prevent. Partners feel controlled, exhausted, pushed away. The person with BPD watches this happen and receives confirmation: "See? Everyone leaves."

The framework describes our "lens" as the filter through which we interpret everything. With BPD, the lens itself may be fractured or shifting. The person struggles to answer: Who am I when I'm alone? What do I actually want?

The framework's example of the people-pleaser resonates here—defining yourself through impact on others because you can't grasp a stable internal self. Chronic emptiness isn't just sadness; it's standing in a featureless landscape with no valleys pulling you anywhere.

The framework explains that our mountains "tenderly but violently intermingle" with others' mountains in close relationships. With BPD, this intermingling is extreme:

• The steepest slopes toward love run directly through terror
• Every fluctuation in the other person ripples through your entire landscape
• Their mountains trigger yours, yours trigger theirs, creating escalating cycles
• The oscillating closeness pattern—breaking up, reuniting, breaking up—becomes a holding pattern

The person isn't choosing drama. They're caught between unbearable options: the mountain of engulfment (losing self in the other) and the mountain of abandonment (losing them entirely).

The framework names this explicitly: the very people we need to heal us are destined to hurt us. For someone with BPD:

• Healing requires experiencing relationships where people stay
• But the protective structures push people away
• And when people do stay, the person can't fully trust it
• Any evidence of love gets filtered through "they don't know the real me yet"

The person needs counter-evidence that they're lovable. But the structures prevent anyone from getting close enough to provide it.

The framework warns about sophisticated bypasses disguised as healing. This is relevant to BPD recovery:

• "I'm just setting boundaries" (while controlling others' behavior)
• "I'm being vulnerable" (while using vulnerability to keep partners close)
• "I'm asking for what I need" (while the needs are limitless)

This isn't to say boundaries are bad—but the framework reminds us that new language can become new scaffolding rather than genuine change.

True healing, the framework suggests, comes from:

• Accepting that you will hit the mountains, again and again
• Stopping the shame spiral when you do
• Allowing people to stay through the ruptures—and noticing when they do
• Slowly gathering counter-evidence that contradicts the core belief
• Learning to tolerate the uncertainty without demanding guarantees

The framework ends with compassion: we're all doing our best to survive the landscape we found ourselves in. The structures that look "disordered" from outside were the best solutions available at the time. Healing isn't about dismantling them through force—it's slow erosion, through friction, through risk, through the messy business of being human.

The framework describes core beliefs as mountain ranges we spend our lives navigating around—often without even knowing they're there. With narcissism, the central mountain is profound but buried: "I am worthless" or "I am nothing."

But here's the crucial difference from other patterns: this mountain has been so thoroughly bypassed that the person may never consciously touch it. The entire landscape has been restructured so every path curves away from it. The mountain still shapes everything—but from beneath layers of elaborate scaffolding.

The framework describes protective structures as scaffolding built over mountains to avoid them. With narcissism, this structure isn't just functional—it's grandiose. It's designed not merely to protect but to dazzle.

The structure proclaims: I am exceptional. I am superior. I am special. The rules don't apply to me.

This isn't confidence. Confidence comes from standing on solid ground. This is architecture suspended over an abyss—intricate, impressive, and desperately dependent on external support to remain standing.

The framework offers a character study that maps closely onto narcissistic development:

"As a child you learnt: 'I'm inconsequential.' You were neglected. Your parents never had time for you. You only got attention when you were causing trouble... It was your little glimpse of what love feels like. What it means to feel important."

The child learned that their authentic self wasn't enough to be seen. So they built something that would be seen. Something undeniable. The wound isn't "I might be abandoned" (as with BPD)—it's "I might not exist at all."

The framework describes valleys as experiences that feel good—connection, love, peace. For someone with narcissism, the valleys look different:

• Admiration
• Winning
• Being envied
• Having power over others
• Being recognized as exceptional

These feel like valleys—there's genuine relief, even pleasure, when rolling into them. But they're not the deep valleys of genuine connection. They're more like temporary dips in the scaffolding. The relief never lasts. The person needs to keep seeking it, again and again, because it never actually reaches the wound underneath.

This is what's meant by "narcissistic supply." It's not nourishment—it's a painkiller that keeps wearing off.

The framework describes a watchtower scanning for threats. With narcissism, this watchtower isn't watching for abandonment—it's watching for exposure. For any crack in the performance. For anyone who might see through the structure to the nothing underneath.

The watchtower monitors:

• Who's giving sufficient admiration?
• Who might be a threat to my status?
• Who's seen too much?
• Who might expose me?

This creates constant ranking. Everyone becomes either useful (a source of supply), a threat (competition or critic), or irrelevant (not worth attention).

The framework describes our lens as the filter coloring all experience. The narcissistic lens interprets everything through hierarchy:

• Someone else's success → threat, or evidence they cheated, or actually my success
• Someone else's criticism → attack, envy, proof they're inferior
• Someone else's boundaries → rejection, insult, insubordination
• Someone else's needs → burden, manipulation, weakness

The framework notes that projection is "assuming their landscape has the same colour as ours." The person with narcissism assumes everyone is playing the same status game. When someone sets a boundary, it must be a power move—because that's what it would be if they did it.

When something threatens to expose the core wound—when someone criticizes, leaves, or fails to provide adequate admiration—the mountain rises fast. The framework describes how we take the fastest path down when at our limit.

Rage: The framework describes provocation as pushing someone up their own mountain so they "become incapable of triggering you." Narcissistic rage does this explosively. It's not proportional because it's not really about the triggering event—it's about the hidden mountain that almost got exposed.

Devaluation: If someone's admiration wavers, they must be worthless. The person who was idealized yesterday becomes contemptible today. This isn't confusion—it's protective restructuring. If they're worthless, their opinion can't touch your mountain.

Projection: The framework describes diversions that channel incoming threats back outward. "I'm not cruel—you're too sensitive." "I'm not lying—you're paranoid." The mountain gets relocated onto someone else's landscape.

Discarding: When someone has seen too much, or stopped providing supply, or become too expensive to maintain—they get removed. The framework describes this as the "last resort" when other tactics fail.

The framework's relationship patterns illuminate why narcissistic relationships follow predictable phases:

Idealization: A new person appears. They're a fresh valley—unspoiled supply, full of potential admiration. The narcissistic structure turns its full charm toward them. This feels intoxicating for both parties. The new person feels special, chosen, seen.

But they're not being seen. They're being used as a mirror.

Devaluation: Eventually the new person fails. They have needs. They see flaws. They don't reflect back the perfect image. The framework describes how "their deficit has gone from teetering to critical." The scorekeeper has been tallying every failure to admire adequately.

Now the person transforms from valley to mountain. Their very presence becomes a threat—a reminder that the supply isn't working, that the structure might be fragile.

Discard: The framework describes pushing people away as a "last resort." Once someone's seen behind the mask, they become dangerous. Better to preemptively destroy the relationship than risk exposure.

Then the cycle restarts with someone new.

"We all have a deep desire for our core belief to be seen, understood and healed. But the same is not true for our scaffolding... So, we hide it in plain sight."

The framework describes several masking strategies. Narcissism often uses: "make it bold and colourful. The envy of the street. So that everyone thinks it's the main event. Everyone loves you. But no one knows you."

This is the performed self—charismatic, confident, successful. The structure becomes the identity. Ask the person who they are and they'll describe the structure: their achievements, their status, their superiority. The self underneath has been abandoned so long ago it may feel like there's nothing there.

The framework describes how we can only see others through our own lens. For someone whose landscape is organized around status and supply, other people's inner worlds become genuinely incomprehensible.

It's not that the person chooses not to empathize. Their lens doesn't have that color. When they see someone crying, they might see:

• A manipulation tactic
• Weakness to exploit
• An inconvenience
• A threat (this person is making demands)

The framework's line resonates: "We assume they would feel the same as us... the only possible conclusion is that they don't care enough."

When someone with narcissism hurts others, they often genuinely don't understand the injury—because they can't imagine the other person's landscape being real in the way their own is.

The framework names the painful catch-22: "The very structures we need to keep us safe are the ones stopping us from finding the real safety of being accepted for being ourselves."

For narcissism, this is especially devastating:

• The wound is "I am nothing without the performance"
• Healing would require being seen and accepted without the performance
• But the structure prevents anyone from seeing past it
• And even if they did, the person couldn't receive it—acceptance of the "real self" doesn't compute when you've abandoned that self entirely

The framework describes how validation through structures "is never real. It never soothes the wound that still wants to heal." This is why no amount of success, admiration, or winning is ever enough. The valleys aren't real valleys. The wound stays untouched.

The framework warns extensively about sophisticated bypasses disguised as healing. This is particularly relevant:

"As we start to do the hard work of improving ourselves... we learn the correct labels. Toxic. Abusive. Maladaptive. And suddenly, our old structures become too shameful to defend... So of course, we build the bypass. And this one has higher, more sturdy walls. Built confidently with bricks labelled healthy and healing."

Someone with narcissism can learn the language of psychology and weaponize it:

• "I'm just setting boundaries" (while stonewalling)
• "You're being codependent" (while demanding constant attention)
• "I've done the work on myself" (while using self-awareness as another performance)
• "You triggered my trauma" (while avoiding accountability)

The structure just gets a renovation. The mountain stays untouched.

The framework describes healing as slow erosion through counter-evidence—experiencing relationships differently than our core beliefs predict. For narcissism, several factors make this especially hard:

The mountain is buried too deep. You can't erode what you can't access. The person may genuinely not know the wound exists.

The structure feels like self. Dismantling it feels like annihilation. The framework describes the fragile self hidden underneath as "the one that needs looking after the most." But for narcissism, that self may feel like a void.

Supply works (temporarily). The protective structure does provide relief. It's not satisfying, but it's something. Why risk the structure when it keeps working?

Relationships don't provide counter-evidence. The framework describes healing through others seeing and accepting us. But the narcissistic structure pushes people away, uses them, or discards them before they can get close enough to offer anything real.

The framework ends with compassion: everyone is doing their best to survive their landscape. The child who built the grandiose structure wasn't being vain—they were surviving. When the authentic self couldn't get love, they built something that could.

The framework suggests that healing happens in moments of safety, when we can "lean over the walls" and "try placing one foot onto the mountains while holding onto the safety rails."

For someone with narcissism, this might look like:

• A moment of genuine shame that doesn't get converted to rage
• A flicker of recognizing someone else's pain as real
• A relationship that survives a rupture without devaluation
• Tolerating being ordinary, just for a moment, without the structure collapsing

The framework reminds us that healing isn't about perfection. It's about "accepting that we'll keep making mistakes, hurting people, and getting hurt—and that this messy friction is itself how mountains erode."

The tragedy is that for many people with narcissism, the structure holds until the end. The mountain stays buried. The wound stays untouched. Not because they're evil—but because the architecture they built to survive became a prison they couldn't escape.

The framework describes protective structures as scaffolding built over mountains—rules and systems designed to keep us safe. Most structures are obviously defensive: anger, withdrawal, control of others. But some structures are admired. They look like success. Like discipline. Like having your life together.

Ice baths. Gratitude journaling. 5am gym sessions. Macro tracking. Cold exposure. Meditation streaks. Sleep optimization. No alcohol. No sugar. No gluten. Supplements. Biohacking. Routine. Routine. Routine.

From the outside, this person seems aspirational. They've figured something out. They have control.

That's the tell.

The framework describes a character who learned "I'm unstable":

"They felt an anxiety about their own existence. Their natural way of being. They created a rule. 'Life is only safe when you remain calm.' Their only hope was to become better at controlling themselves."

For someone with an extreme wellness routine, the mountain might be:

• "Without constant effort, I will fall apart"
• "My natural state is dangerous"
• "I cannot trust myself"
• "I am one slip away from disaster"

The routine isn't about health. It's about containment. The person is building walls around something they believe is fundamentally broken or threatening inside them.

The framework describes bypasses—paths that curve away from the mountain so smoothly we don't notice:

"The path curves and takes us in a different direction. And it happens so smoothly we don't even really notice. Things like striving for perfection when we start to feel insecure."

The wellness routine is a bypass. But it's a perfect bypass because:

• Society rewards it
• There's measurable "progress"
• It produces real results (fitness, energy, appearance)
• It can be explained with science
• Criticism sounds like jealousy or weakness

When someone questions the 5am alarm, the meal prep, the rigid schedule—the person can say: "I'm just taking care of myself." And they believe it. The structure has become invisible even to them.

The framework explains that structures disperse anxious energy through familiar pathways:

"When we feel that restless anxious energy building within us... it's these structures that allow us to take that sneaky sidestep."

The extreme routine serves several functions:

Predictability: The framework describes how fluctuations in the landscape create anxiety. A rigid routine eliminates fluctuation. Every day is mapped. Every meal is planned. The body is regulated. There are no surprises. The chaos inside gets externalized into order outside.

Exhaustion as regulation: The framework mentions exercise as a way to "suppress the feelings directly." Hard workouts burn off the anxious energy before it can build into something unmanageable. The person isn't running toward health—they're running away from what happens when they stop.

Control as identity: The framework describes people who "define yourself by your actions. That's solid. Tangible." When you don't trust your inner self, you build an outer self from behaviors. "I am the person who does ice baths. Who tracks macros. Who doesn't miss workouts." The routine becomes the self.

Penance: Sometimes the mountain is guilt or shame—something the person believes they need to constantly atone for. The suffering of cold plunges, strict diets, and grueling workouts becomes a form of payment. "If I suffer enough, I'll be okay."

The framework warns about false erosion—sophisticated bypasses disguised as healing:

"We learn the correct labels... And suddenly, our old structures become too shameful to defend... So of course, we build the bypass. And this one has higher, more sturdy walls. Built confidently with bricks labelled healthy and healing."

The gratitude list is interesting. Gratitude can be genuine—a way of noticing valleys, feeling present, allowing good experiences to land.

But it can also be a barricade against feeling bad.

The person wakes up anxious. The familiar dread is there. But instead of feeling it, they write three things they're grateful for. The anxiety gets overwritten. They've "reframed" it. The mountain never gets approached—it gets papered over with positive affirmations.

This is the wellness version of "good vibes only." The rule becomes: negative feelings are failures of mindset. If you feel bad, you didn't do the practice right. Try harder. Meditate longer. The mountain isn't the problem—you are, for not optimizing correctly.

The framework is clear that behaviors themselves aren't the issue—it's the energy behind them:

"The more we try to prevent people from hurting us. The less room we allow them to prove our insecurities wrong."

Someone who enjoys the gym, eats well, and practices gratitude can be genuinely healthy. The difference is what happens when the routine breaks.

Signs that wellness has become protective scaffolding:

• Intense anxiety when a workout is missed
• Inability to eat "off plan" without guilt spiral
• Vacations that feel threatening rather than restful
• Relationships that must accommodate the routine, not the other way around
• Genuine distress when the schedule is disrupted
• An inability to "just relax"
• The quiet dread on rest days
• Getting worse, not better, when circumstances force flexibility

The framework describes the person trapped in bed, where "every task feels beyond your capabilities." For the extreme wellness person, the opposite is true: rest feels beyond their capabilities. Stillness is the mountain they can't climb.

The framework talks about living at high altitude:

"They live their whole life at a high altitude. Always vigilant, always anxious, because every potential fluctuation is dangerous."

The extreme wellness routine is exhausting. Not just physically—though it is that too—but mentally. The constant monitoring. The decision fatigue eliminated through rigid rules. The energy spent maintaining the structure.

The framework describes how our "greatest strengths" get assigned to protecting our mountains. For this person, their discipline, their willpower, their capacity for delayed gratification—all of it is in service of the structure. There's nothing left over. No slack in the system.

This is why the person might seem irritable, inflexible, or "no fun." They're not being difficult. They're spent. All their energy is going toward containment.

The framework describes how our structures affect others:

"Over time your landscape has become manageable. Your life is just that little bit easier. She knows you can't cope with certain things. So she's learnt to prioritise you better. Not trigger you so much."

Partners of extreme wellness people often learn:

• Don't suggest spontaneous dinners
• Don't expect them to skip the gym
• Don't bring "bad" food into the house
• Don't expect them to stay up late
• Don't ask them to be flexible

The framework describes this as the other person's landscape filling with new rules: "I can't suggest plans that disrupt the routine"; "I can't expect them to prioritize me over the schedule."

The person with the routine might genuinely believe they're being healthy, taking care of themselves, modeling good behavior. But their partner feels like they come second to an alarm clock.

The framework describes projection—assuming others' landscapes look like ours:

"We assume they would feel the same as us... the only possible conclusion is that they don't care enough."

The extreme wellness person often becomes evangelical. They see others' "chaos" and feel genuine distress. "You should really try cold showers." "Have you considered cutting out dairy?" "I could help you with a routine."

This isn't purely altruistic. The framework would suggest: your chaos threatens my control. If you can be okay without the structure, what does that mean about my structure? Either I need to convert you—proving the structure is necessary—or I need to dismiss you as undisciplined, less evolved, not yet "doing the work."

The framework describes the scorekeeper tallying others' failures. The wellness person might keep a mental list of everyone else's "bad" choices—not out of malice, but because it reassures them their own exhausting vigilance is worth it.

The framework describes what happens when protective structures fail:

"We examine the point of failure. Trying to piece together what went wrong... So we resolve never to let that happen again... We add new features, new walkways."

For the extreme wellness person, a disruption—injury, illness, life crisis—can be catastrophic. Not just because the routine stops, but because the routine was the only thing holding everything together.

The person might:

• Spiral into the chaos they always feared
• Double down with even stricter rules once recovered
• Fall completely apart and abandon all structure (revealing it was never about health)
• Experience the emotions they'd been outrunning finally catching up

The framework describes the "fog" that descends when we're at our limit: "Planning our way out can become impossible." When the wellness structure breaks, the person may find they have no idea who they are without it. No idea how to exist without the rules. The self they were containing turns out to be... a void.

What might be underneath all this optimization?

The framework offers several possibilities:

Trauma that lives in the body: Something happened that made the body feel unsafe. The routine is an attempt to reclaim it. Every workout, every cold plunge, every perfect meal is proving: "I am in control of this body now."

Chaos in childhood: The framework describes children who learned "I'm unstable" from inconsistent caregiving. If the world was unpredictable, the child might conclude that they were the problem. Adult hyper-control is the solution to a childhood where nothing felt safe.

Anxiety without a story: Sometimes the mountain is pure, free-floating dread with no narrative attached. The routine gives it somewhere to go. Each behavior becomes a container for anxiety that would otherwise be unbearable.

The unlived life: The framework describes how protective structures can block the valleys we actually want. Sometimes extreme optimization is a way of being so busy with self-improvement that there's no time to notice the actual life isn't being lived. The routine fills the void where meaning should be.

The framework names this:

"The saddest truth is that these structures always fail us. Even when they work perfectly. And we get that validation. It's never real. It never soothes the wound that still wants to heal."

The extreme wellness person is seeking peace. Seeking to feel okay in their body, their mind, their life. But the structure prevents the peace it's seeking.

Peace would mean: trusting that you're okay without the routine. That you won't fall apart if you miss a workout. That your worth isn't contingent on discipline. That your body can be trusted. That you can rest.

But the structure says the opposite. Every ice bath reinforces: "You need this to be okay." Every strict meal reinforces: "Your natural appetites can't be trusted." Every 5am alarm reinforces: "Without vigilance, you'll collapse."

The harder they work, the more they prove to themselves they need to keep working. The mountain never erodes—it gets confirmed, daily, in the very rituals meant to manage it.

The framework suggests that healing isn't about more discipline—it's about loosening the grip:

"It's a fight for the courage and safety to finally relax your structure. Maybe put some of its parts away for good."

For the extreme wellness person, erosion might look like:

• Missing a workout and noticing nothing terrible happens
• Eating something "off plan" and surviving
• Sleeping in and the world continuing
• A day without optimization, where the chaos they feared... doesn't arrive
• Sitting in stillness and tolerating the discomfort
• Letting the feelings the routine was outrunning finally catch up

The framework warns this won't be comfortable:

"We are all just doing our best. Trying to survive the landscape we found ourselves in."

The routine isn't the enemy. It was a solution. A creative, effortful, admirable solution to something that felt unsurvivable. The person isn't vain or obsessive or orthorexic—they're coping. They're doing their best with the landscape they inherited.

Healing isn't about tearing down the structure. It's about slowly discovering it isn't needed as much as they thought. That the chaos underneath might just be... a person. A regular, messy, imperfect person who was always okay. Who didn't need to earn their existence through discipline. Who could have rested all along.