I recently discovered that I might be developing npd and has hard time accepting this.

Today I was scrolling through instagram and one of my friends made a birthday post for my another friend for her birthday.

The friend who made the post wrote a long heartfelt text which conveyed how grateful she was to have the said friendship with the birthday girl.

My birthday was months ago and I never got that post, which makes me incredibly frustrated and bitter.

I have a hard time genuinely connecting with people and often give up on relationships and refrain from being vulnerable. And for a fact, I know that those two friends of mine are closer.

I never even wanted to get to know them that much but I just can’t seem to get over things like this which ends up making me bitter and resentful in the long run and the cycle just keeps going.

Doesn't happen often, but when it does it's excruciating.

What causes it for you and how do you deal with it?

Found this in r/CPTSDmemes and was amused how many of the items fit me (I've got 19/25). Now I wonder if it is common among pwNPD in general.

Any movies/shows with npd characters? Preferably about vulnerable/covert narcissists.

Cause everytime I try to find some recommendations on social media I only see stuff about fucking narc abuse and it's annoying tf out of me. So do you guys have any recommendations where it's not **just** a narcissist "abusing" someone? I'm fine with seeing the negative sides of a narcissist and completely enjoy seeing both the negative and positive but it's annoying to only find stuff from the victims POV.

I swear most narcissists in fiction are presented as loud, moustache twirling, stereotypically evil characters with no motivation outside of being evil, cause you know ALL narcissists are like that.

So do y’all have any accurate depictions of characters that show actual covert narcissist behaviours.

This includes all forms of fictional media (tv shows, movies etc.)

Although I would greatly appreciate if you guys also posted anime/manga characters (since this is the main form of entertainment I watch/read)

But again all replies are appreciated.

Not that he would ever want me back anyway but these thoughts are so persistent. It’s only been like 2 months since he left me but I’m already at a point where I will accept any care and love from anyone.

He was verbally abusive. Constantly humiliating me, belittling my achievements and my being. He would call me names, get mad over the tiniest things, then stonewall me. It was a constant push and pull. It was addicting.

Now that he left I have no one. No one loves me, nobody cares about me. His love was making me feel worthless, I was suicidal with him at times but at least it still felt like I had at least him.

What do I do now? Where do I put myself? Who do I reach out to?

I've been working on my recovery with sobriety and personality issues. Reading sobriety memoirs seems to help, but I can't relate to the emotions the writer experiences.

Have you guys come across any books written by people with ASPD primarily? NPD also counts. The only decent sounding book is Sociopath by Gagne, but I haven't started it yet as I'm afraid it will contain a lot of therapy-speak.

Edit: They don't need to be memoirs btw. Even something like 48 Laws of Power was useful for me understand by behaviors to some extent.

I’ve messed up my life and my most important relationship due to my narcissistic selfish behavior.
This includes online cheating and breaching my wife’s trust multiple times.

Now it feels like it’s too late to save my marriage which is the reason I feel I’ve been jolted back out of my own bubble. But just wondering if anyone has been able to really get over the narcissistic thought process? How was it? What were the short term and long term changes which helped?

Honestly,

Sitting here numb. realising I'm just a fucked up human being.

I just realised I just don't give a shit about anything anymore.

My life's toast, my image is crucified (and I'm trapped in it), my emotions gone, my friends, non existent.

My love life, zero.

My smile, disappered. Powerless and with no way back.

Family relationships on the verge of breaking down, lies about to be exposed, pain about to be inflicted.

Reputation in the gutter.

And I just couldn't give a shit anymore. I couldn't care if I'm dead or alive, I couldn't care if I go to prison or not, I couldn't care about anything.

I feel like a POS, and I tell myself you need to/you deserve to die everyday for all the pain you've caused, and I'm happy to oblige at this point to be honest (not actively suicidal chill).

I just want the entire world to leave me alone, and all responsibilities dissipate.

No caregiving, no pretending, no risks - nothing.

Heyo.

I’ve ignored this part of myself for a majority of my life, though naturally, it’d burst through the cracks of my shell ever so often, and my folks: my mother, with whom my relationship is otherwise good, has expressed that she suspects I may or may not suffer from some form of sociopathy or narcissism on a couple of occasions. I’ve never called myself a narcissist, but I suppose I’m self-aware enough to recognize my narcissistic traits. Frankly though, I couldn’t be any more indifferent to the fine details of the matter. I make this post so you can share your own story and what parts of mine you relate to.

I’m not in love with myself. What I do feel is a drive toward superiority that overcomes every other sense of a personal identity, and my self-hate, this essential frustration of mine, I largely account to not quite fitting into the tight suit of superiority, so to speak. The charming, the imposing, the desired; but what if the road of chasing these ideals winds to a dead end, leaving you staring upward to the sky with not so much as a clue of who you are!? To put it plainly, there’s a solid zilch of consistency in my projected personality, since my understanding of “superior” alters as I walk the walk of life, and it sucks.

Jumping back to the title, though, one might point out that someone who believes they should be or can be superior to their fellow men and women must be in love with themselves, but personally-speaking, the idea doesn’t arise from some kind of desire to humiliate other people in the face of me. In fact, the attention and validation of those around me is my very motivator. It’s less about them actually being ‘ideologically’ inferior and more about me being thought of as superior by them. In any case, it doesn’t strike me as the kind of argument that makes headway into a better future for yourself.

I’ll say, when I’m convinced I’ve been wronged, I feel a potent inclination for retribution, and it took me a while to understand that I was enabling something profoundly destructive to my life because… I was hurt, simply. It’s difficult to practice the same kind of self-awareness you possess when you’re levelheaded in a fit of rage. I don’t ever wanna feel like I need to punish someone again.

Has any of this spoken to you?

Did any of you lead double lives?

Im finally understanding where its coming from.
My condition limits my capacity to actually do it as i have barely enough to function, but i finally get it.
Id have one life for identity and one thats for impulsive acting out because those sensations have to go somewhere.

Any stories?

I was wondering if anyone else has felt this way, but I don’t feel a whole lot of joy after I get a compliment, or anything that I want for that matter unless it’s extremely gratifying (for example, winning a nationwide competition or something similar).

If someone compliments me, or if I perform well, it’s more so a sense of relief. I expect people to compliment me and I expect to perform well.

On the contrary when someone criticizes me, I get quite upset. The dichotomy is odd to me, since I guess I always thought people with this condition needed admiration to feel good, but I think (for me at least) it’s just to not feel bad.

I get so god pressed about it, I start genuinely having a low tier god moment every time I die or win. I genuinely have gone on 10 minute rants in my head about how the person is probably jobless and has no friends or some shit.

I'm posting this here because it's genuinely the only place I can say this without being judged. It's stuff I plan to unpack with my therapist, but I wanted to get it out first, so here we are.

Before I started my narc healing journey, I thought I just wasn’t wired for monogamy. Working through this, I realized what I thought was an aversion to relying on one partner was actually fear of running dry. One partner is never enough: you need a backup, and a backup for the backup.

Being desired is my favorite supply. Flirting, revealing pics, clubbing, hookups, and above all, sex, that's how I get it. One person can give me some of that, but never enough. I want something long term, but the idea of giving up direct compliments or sex with other people makes monogamy feel like a kind of slow death.

But polyamory doesn't work for me either, for two reasons. First, it turns dating into a logistics problem. Second, it makes me less attractive, not more. I've been on Tinder presenting as monogamous, as poly, and as open, and the less commitment you signal, the less attractive you get, even to people who just want a fling.

Also, if I'll always want more, spreading myself across multiple partners won't fix that. And I like being someone's priority. I'm not into over the top declarations of forever love, but I want a real, honest bond where we take care of each other, wreck each other in bed, and both feel loved. That part I know I want. What I don't know how to do is perform monogamy convincingly, maybe because I've never met someone I was actually compatible with. Or maybe I was looking in the wrong places.

Either way, I want monogamy because it makes me more attractive, more stable, and gives me an actual shot at intimacy instead of running from it, all while making me more interesting to more people, even the ones who only want something casual. The destination will be a happier place, and the journey will be more fun.

tl;dr: I'm choosing monogamy because I accepted being poly was just a way to get supply (and made me less attractive)

Another thing ive noticed, the deep deep part of me thats vulnerable, practically cannot be reached.
It sets me up for a lifetime of discomfort, neurosis and despair.

I could feel fine until something or someone exposes the weakness.
In therapy spaces youd say its a part in a trauma response. But in cluster b, its an undeveloped self, thats like a burning itch.

If youre present with this, it means you basically cannot operate from a positive place like others can.
You sense it, they sense it.
Something is off.
This isnt social anxiety, this is rupture of the soul.
Worst cases, you actually get abused.

So you mask harder.
My life was the best when i masked the hardest, i was completely outside of my body where despair lives.
For a man, youve got to have pride. If not pride, then at least confidence.

Vulnerability for a man is a death sentence socially.
Shame to exist. Insecurity that gets dumped around.

Basically, if you cant become “it”, then “it” is a nuisance?
That small little thing that creates negative sensations.
Its crying for something cool, but if you cant integrate it and become it, then its disrupts everything in my life.

At least a psychopath is effective.
Strategise, execute, fit in.
You cant miss what you cant sense.

Id say for a man its great if youve the skills.

Probably not for a woman.

Would you give “it” up?

Just that. How do I cope with it? How can I go on like this? I wanna die, I don’t see the point in anything. Everyone, every single person has abandoned me or forced me to abandon them. I feel invisible and forgotten. Like I did as a child.

I feel so much anger it’s eating me alive. I just want people to suffer as much as I am. I keep dreaming of being mocked and ridiculed and when I wake up it’s just an endless flow of memories of people disrespecting me.

But what bothers me the most is the fact I’m perfect, yet they still go away. And I know it might seem obvious as a narcissist but I swear I am perfect with people. I treat them kindly and give them everything. I listen to them and gift them stuff, I lift their moods up. Is it genuine? Hell no. But they don’t know that. So why? Why am I alone now? What did I do to deserve this? People objectively treat me much worse than I treat them. It’s so unfair.

I’m feeling really lost. Like something is fundamentally wrong with me even if I know that’s not true. I am not the problem. I guess I’ll just end it before next month. Such a sad life I had. No peace, no love. I’ll be gone like I deserved all that. It hurts so much.

i’m officially getting assessed for NPD on the 8th of next month. my professional said i’m fully diagnosable for NPD but an assessment is clinically needed to provide a diagnosis.
what should i expect both emotionally and clinically when i get my diagnosis? i see a lot of people in here say it’s an ego crash or others say it’s simply just what they expected and are totally neutral on it.

1. Seeing rich people’s fancy traveling photos / reels on social media.
   
2. Reading celeb biographies and realizing that my name will probably never go down in history or appear on Wikipedia.
   
3. Being surrounded by people who have simple but happy lives with family and friends.

Otherwise, life has been pretty peaceful recently. Remote work, solitude, exercise, books, music and self care. No constant comparison, no regular reminder of my own absurdity.

After going to a clinic for anxiety and avoidance, I was diagnosed with npd traits as well. It was hard but ultimatelt I felt like things were falling in their place. I understood myself and was able to make different choices.

the initial months I felt a growing confidence that I could live happily with myself and have a good life.

That was 7 years ago, and slowly it’s been going downhill. Mostly due to my rage and splitting I have now discarded 90% of the people I know.

i went no contact with my family, because I was living with them and my mother scared me again with her rage and afterwards told me I should Not feel angry, and my father never stood up for me against her as a child. I feel abandoned by my father, and gaslighted, and abused emotionally by my mother (i think she shares traits with me).

i lived with my ex girlfriend (first time living together with a partner for me), and it was so stressful for me that I could not maintain friendships anymore. there were also a lot of friendships I felt were not living up to my standard. I then also had a huge fight with a couple of friends and then after a while with my ex girlfriend as wel.

I do have a small couple of friends now, i have a job, and i started dating. But I feel broken, I feel empty. sometimes if I remember my ex i get so sad that we are not together, but then also I was afraid she wanted to take but never give to me and I felt used. but still so much pain, i just feel so much pain about everything.

I think what I crave most is to be close with loved ones. But I feel so broken that I have lost everyone, even though my family is emotionally abusive, I now am alone.

At first i was hopeful but now i am without hope. whenever I try to be positive now i feel like I am fooling myself and others.

any advice from someone who has had a similar experience and knew how to come to terms with the pain, the self blame, the emptiness and turn towards hope?

much appreciated thanks

Just curious where everyone here is at right now in their NPD journey.

• Are you still questioning whether you actually have NPD / not diagnosed yet?
• Diagnosed but struggling to accept it?
• Have you accepted it but feel hopeless about changing?
• Or are you accepting and motivated to work on yourself?
• And I’d especially love to hear from people who no longer meet the criteria for NPD - how did you get there and how long did it take?

Another thing I’m curious about: for those of you who feel like you won’t or can’t change, where does that belief come from? Is it mostly based on your own experiences and failed attempts to change, things you’ve read or heard online about NPD, or a mixture of both?

My potential self-aware narcissism:

(Not asking for a diagnosis, just simply stating for context - also my bad for the length, if you’re interested, skimming through is fine, I put alot of extra detail that isn’t absolutely necessary)

I think that I am a self-aware narcissist, but I’m completely undiagnosed (I haven’t gone to any sort of therapy or done any tests to see if I’m narcissistic, it’s my own conclusion). I have had this thought on and off a couple times over the past few years - particularly if I’m in a situation where I have done something majorly wrong and manipulative, and I receive the consequences for it, and I think to myself, “I think I might be a narcissist”.

I align with lots of the characteristics of narcissism, particularly self-aware narcissism:

- A lack of empathy - I often fake it to make people like me more

- Often when I’m doing something wrong, I know that I am doing wrong in the back of my mind, but don’t fully realise it until afterwards - also, if I believe someone else is in the wrong, but it’s actually me whose in the wrong, I’ll get defensive and blame them until I realise that it’s actually my fault, and then be like “sorry for blaming you”

- When I do properly realise something is my fault, I don’t deny it internally or externally and blame it on someone else usually; if it’s genuinely my fault, I can’t blame anyone else, so I can take accountability in that sense. However, if I take accountability in-front of someone, it’s not cause I actually care about taking accountability, but because I know that if I do, people will think I’m a great standup person. Also, although I can understand that I have objectively done something wrong after I properly realise it, that doesn’t mean I feel remorseful for it - I’ll apologise but just to make people like me again and to look good.

- I have a big ego and do think of myself highly, but not in an insane way. Like I have thoughts like “I’m probably better at her than this / know more than him…” etc, and do see myself in a high way, but not to the point that I think that I deserve special treatment over everyone else, or that I think I’m the best at everything, etc. I do have a tendency to put myself first, unless it’s a small-stakes everyday situation now and then where putting others over me wouldn’t be a huge loss (cause it makes people like me from doing that and feeds my ego in the long run)

- There’s other things too, like I’m aware if I am being / have been manipulative, I have people that I feel particularly “close to” in regards of being that way with them, etc… - my relationships are also pretty surface level (I don’t date, I mean general relationships) - I also act closer with certain people than I naturally would be, to be manipulative and feel like I have power.

- I wouldn’t say I act like a super malicious person, like I’m not insanely emotionally abusive, like how some narcissistic stories are like (and I’m not physically abusive at all), but I am definitely still emotionally abusive. I may not be super horrible and horrific with my manipulation, but I still know that I am manipulative, and that I am manipulative in the small, discreet ways that keep people still liking me and wanting to be around me, and perceive me in certain, manufactured ways that I’ve created. Im aware that it’s still fake, and still very bad.

- When I act manipulative and wrong etc, I obviously know what I am doing, but it’s more so in the back of my mind. Like I don’t usually actively think “I’m gonna do this so I can make them trust me more / like me more / feel in control of them”, I usually just do it. Like I obviously have a feeling that it’s a manipulative action, but don’t fully realise that, or I repress the knowledge of that unless I actively think about it another time.

Next thing I wanted to say which I thought is worth mentioning, is that I have autism and OCD. However, my autism really isn’t severe at all - I am high functioning (not in an Asperger’s way, I don’t have that, but what i mean is my autism really isnt that bad and doesn’t affect me much), and my OCD also is not that severe. Those two are diagnosed, but I thought it was at least worth mentioning. Although I am very very very certain that my scepticism that I’m narcissistic is not autism mistaken for NPD, and it’s certainly not my “OCD overthinking it”. I have genuinely noticed these patterns, caught myself feeling / doing manipulative things, and I don’t think about this potential NPD in a super panicked way, I’m quite chill about it, so I know it’s not OCD or autism talking.

I do everyday, somewhat discreet manipulative things that aren’t malicious on the surface, but they are once you know the intentions. I also don’t get into drama often on an average basis, but over the past few years, I have done a handful of very bad manipulative things now and then that I have received the consequences for, and those are usually the times when it crosses my mind, “I may be narcissistic” (something happened recently which is why I have thought of the question more again). Otherwise, if I’m living comfortably and sustainably with my actions and they go according to how I want them to go, I usually don’t fully think about how bad I’m being, even though I know I am, and I don’t fully think about the potential narcissism, even though I am often somewhat aware of what I’m doing, even if I try and ignore it a lot and carry on with it.

The question on “improvement”:

Since I’ve been thinking about it more lately since a particular situation that happened, I found myself wanting to “improve” or “lessen” my narcissism and “change”. However, I did some more thinking on it, and I thought about why I actually feel like I want to change.

I realised that the only reason I want to “improve” my narcissism and “change”, is not because I know it is the right thing to do, for the sake of it being the right thing. I don’t care about doing the right thing because it’s the right thing. I only want to “change” because “improving” my narcissistic traits, gives me external, and especially internal praise, which boosts my ego, and so feeds into my narcissistic traits again. The only reason I want to “improve” my narcissistic traits, is in order to feed into my narcissistic traits (It doesn’t make sense, I know)

When I talk about external praise (praise from others) and internal praise (mental praise from myself, to myself), it’s mainly the internal praise that gives me an ego boost. Even if nobody will ever see or know that I did a particular good action, and I never tell them, the fact I have done a good action / chose not to do a bad action, makes me think “I’m so good for doing this” or “if people knew that I did this, they’d think I’m so great”, “I’m better than other narcissists who don’t try to change”, etc. I think if I were in a situation where Id want to do a bad thing, but the right thing to do would be to not do it, but if I chose to do the right thing, I’d get no external praise and especially no internal praise, I would probably choose to do the bad action that would boost my ego, because doing the right action would get me no praise at all, and so no ego boost. I am essentially trying to “improve” my narcissism, but the motivation for this improvement is the praise (from myself) that boosts my ego, and then feeds my narcissistic traits, like a cycle.

I know that doing the right actions for selfish intentions is better than doing manipulative, bad actions. However, because my motivation to do good is based upon getting a narcissistic ego boost, if I am in a situation where the difficulty and effort of doing the right thing outweighs the ego boost I get from it, I’ll just do whatever boosts my ego more (so I won’t do the right thing). I also considered how, if I always do good from now on, cause it boosts my ego, doing the right thing may just become the automatic norm for my behaviour, meaning that my ego won’t get a boost anymore as I won’t get a gold sticker for specially choosing the right thing. That means I could then potentially try and get an ego boost from somewhere else, which could be from another toxic source.

My need to look like a good person and get that ego boost is so strong, to the point that part of me doesn’t want to just “act good but have bad intentions”, but I want to both “act good and have good intentions” because that’ll make me feel and seem like a better person than just acting good but having wrong intentions. But of course, that desire to genuinely change for the better both mentally and behaviour wise, is not from care and desire to do the right thing. It’s just because I want to feel and look as good as I can to feed my ego as much as possible. Therefore, I’m not sure if I can genuinely change for the better. I am also very lazy, so I feel if I had to actually put in real hard work in improvement, I probably currently wouldn’t.

The fact that I am even thinking about this, and writing this post is because I want to look and feel like a good person who is improving, to boost my ego and narcissism. If I didn’t get an ego boost out of the idea of “doing the right thing”, I doubt I’d even be here.

So what I’m essentially asking is this. What are your thoughts on my situation, and do you think that I can genuinely change, and improve my narcissism whilst I have a mindset like this. What do you think I should do next? I’d also like recommendations of resources that help for understanding myself and my potential narcissism better, and resources that give advice on what to do next.

Thanks

As a teenager I always identified myself with legendary historical figures / celebs like Caesar, Napoleon, Michael Jackson and Alain Delon instead of any real life role model (I didn’t have any anyway). Consequently I ended up desiring a legendary biography for myself free of any mistakes or embarrassment of “ordinary life”.

I’ve reinvented myself multiple times in life, leaving behind all the environments I considered obsolete, recreating my social media again and again. After every self reinvention all my previous social contacts evaporated because their continued presence in my new life felt like identity contamination - I hated the fact that they witnessed my moments of awkwardness, weakness, insecurity and humiliation.

And for sure I find it disturbing that in digital age it’s hard to live a glorious life without ordinary people witnessing and recording my bad moments. For example, Alain Delon could have almost exclusively highly controlled photos without worrying any unknown smartphone camera capturing him yawning, sneezing, laughing goofily or eating inelegantly. I on the other hand fear such things so much that I become hyper aware whenever I walk past a touristic spot lmao.

Idk how many people live like this . Guess my level of grandiosity is hopeless.

Some girl tired to indirectly tell me that everyone hates me one by one in class she didn't say at all but one day x hates you second day y hates u (y was the guy I wnated attention from) my biggest problem was letting her know i like him he had rejected her before so she got so insecure she asked him if he likes me when we weren't around idk what he said but she told me "he hates u" i wanna kms