When I was 20 I was diagnosed by a psychologist with having Narcissistic Personality Disorder. At first I was in denial about but over time I come to terms with my narcissism and the diagnosis started to make sense to me. A lot of my problems can be traced back to my unrealistic self image and lack of ability to relate with others.
There’s a lot of stigma towards NPD. I hope by making this thread I can help others understand that having NPD doesn’t inherently make you a bad person and NPD hurts the person with it as well.
Funny you noticed that since autism was considered schizophrenia at the beginning.
That’s quite the coincidence. I didn’t know that at the time. I was just talking about how mental illness in our society is either absolutely glorified or absolutely demonized. If you have autism your good at maths and super quirky and random but if you have ASPD then your a demon from hell. Who knows maybe autism and schizophrenia are long lost brothers.
I believe that all “mental illnesses” come from some trauma and are all just spectrum of human experience abd deaking with that trauma.
I had really bad depression and anxiety for what I have survived, but based on stories from schizophrenics I think that I wasn’t too far from them. I abuse was just a bit stronger, or exisyance less secure I could have been given that stamp.
If that abuse was a bit different, maybe I wiuld end up with NPD thou I know BPD (borderline personality disorder) people have very similar to my experience, just stronger.
I am also certain, by looking at kids around me that they often use word autism for kids that are under serius trauma since mother’s womb. And that’s forbidden to talk about.
That is because two greatest fears people have are to die and to become crazy. So they can not even think about mental illnesses. They tag autism as state of mind and somehow they are less afraid from them.
Not one of the people I know with any of mentioned “tags” had safe and happy life.
Thank you for your comment. NPD is such a stigmatized thing to live with I wasn’t expecting anyone to be as understanding. I haven’t told anyone before so it feels so nice to have this off my chest.
I have family and friends and I’m always worried about how they would react if they found out. I wonder if anyone would date someone who has NPD? If you look on online all you see are articles and videos about the dangers of NPD and how people with it are future serial killers and manipulators. I’ll admit I’m not the perfect person. My narcissism is a awful thing I live with but it doesn’t define me. We all have our problems and mine is a mental disorder I didn’t choose to have.
People use names of mental illnesses as insults, for the last few years it is NPD, before it was Borderline, idiot was clinical word long time ago.
It just means “I hate this person”. But, sadly, makes your life more difficult.
I think that as long as you are aware of your problems, you will be better than before. People might be bothered by it, but there are different people too. For example emotional communication is very important for most relationships, and you claim that you feel it a bit differently. We get scared if someone doesn’t react emotionally the same way ww expect.
Also, I don’t go and tell my date all medical history, so you don’t have neither. Just give them time to get to know you and when there is trust between you two, you can share it if you think that is important.