Holy fucking shit.

This is the most agonizing, horrifying thing I’ve ever felt in my life. I wish I could say I was being dramatic. The daydreaming stopped being sufficient. The make-believe me I had in my head - I finally woke up and looked at myself. That person is not me. My life is absolutely below average.

I am not uniquely gifted, intelligent, gritty, charming, quirky, or invincible. I’m just a fucked up person who deeply hurt a bunch of people because I was genuinely lost in my delusion. I favored my happy picturesque life in my head more than reality. I took everything and everyone for granted.

Now look at me. I have no friends, no family, no accomplishments. I look back to all the people I hurt, I can’t even begin to understand why I hurt them. I can’t understand it in the slightest. I used and tossed away my childhood best friend. Why did I do that? I don’t know.

My shields are gone. My skin is gone. My sand castle I’ve been building around myself since I was a kid is destroyed. I am now in a fragmented state and I don’t know how to even begin to be a human.

I don’t want to die. But I do want to die. I don’t feel anything except for anguish. Nobody did this to me. How do I begin to have opinions or anything, I’m not anybody. I’m just a failure.

Does anyone else ever see or hear about loving couples or people in relationships and just… become so envious that you could tear them apart, or better yet destroy the concept of love entirely.
Like, why should they get something I deserve? Why don’t I have it?

Honestly I am pretty much aware of all the symptoms from NPD and of the way they make me think at sometime and affect my thinking process.

The only thing that I am confused in all this is the thought if it's really something not normal to everyone? It's more like being confused how some symptoms are specifically a narcissistic trait and not something normal to everyone.

One thing that concerns me is if it's actually a narcissistic trait to mainly be interested in only talking about yourself. I mean people say that "everyone loves taking about themselves". And after all I have a lot of interests that I like talking about. It's also nice to see the person I'm talking with about be equally interested.

The issue is whenever the conversation is about something mundane or nothing related to me or my interests. Then the whole conversation feels like a chore and honestly it's nearly tiring having to focus and actually listen to someone just yap and yap. And the only way I feel like I can add something to the conversation is when I have my own personal experience about it or any strong opinion.

It gets a bit frustrating to feel actually upset with my friends for something like that. But God. Opening a groupchat just to see bunch of voice messages. It's always a frustrating sight to me becouse I already know it's something I don't care about or could find interesting even a little bit. The only thing saving me is speed up options some apps have to the point that you can barely understand some words but hey, at least I "listened" to them.

So it really confuses me. Would a non-narcissistic person actually listen to stuff like that without any issues? Like I mentioned earlier, it's a group chat with my two other friends. And while one is sending bunch of voice messages, my second friend somehow manages to actually answer on every single one with an specific answer while I on the other hand can't think of anything worth typing out.

It makes me feel sometimes like a bad friend. Becouse how can I be mad at my friend for talking about something she thought would be cool to share? While on the other hand I'm wondering how could she think that all this yapping would be interesting in any sort of way?

Does anyone else here feel similar way about conversations? And perhaps has any solution to actually be better about it instead of being so negative with it?

Not everyone heals from love. And it's not because love failed. It's because something is blocking it.

If you grew up with love that was conditional, painful, or absent- your brain encoded love as a threat. The very thing meant to heal you became something to protect yourself from.

Your nervous system learned: love = danger. Your subconscious built walls. And now, even when safe, genuine love shows up, those old patterns keep it out.

This is why some people can't receive love, no matter how much it's offered.
They push it away. They sabotage it. They don't trust it. Not because they're broken, but because their brain is doing what it was trained to do: keep them safe from what once hurt them.

The patterns show up as:

- Fear of intimacy
- Chronic self-criticism
- Inability to accept care or support
- Sabotaging good relationships
- Feeling unworthy of love

Here's the path forward:

Healing begins when you recognize these patterns for what they are- outdated survival strategies that once protected you but now limit you.

Transformation happens when you consciously choose to let love in anyway.

To practice receiving it. To rewire what love means in your nervous system.
This is the deepest work. And it's the work that changes everything.

Reflection: What patterns might be blocking love from reaching you? And are you ready to let them go?

all I can think of when the question of emotional or physical intimacy is putting on a show like an actor. I will do the things I'm expected to, I will perform the way a normal human would, and nobody would bat an eye because I've done it a thousand times before.

but what irks me is this rotten feeling in my gut that I'm a heartless and soulless being. how can I be a good person, hugging and comforting my friend, when I truly couldn't care less about their pain?

I've trained myself to perform compassion with so much ease; I have acquired prompts that others want to hear and I just spit them out like an actor memorizing their lines. all while hearing about my monstrosity and how we should all just perish.

the only thing I want is to be accepted by my close friends and family, yet I can't shake this feeling of guilt and shame because all I really am is just an undercover actor forming surface relationships with people who see me as one of them - hoping my cover won't be blown one day.

My whole life I was the weird one. Never have I felt like I belong anywhere, when I was a child I already was so weird they send me to a psychologist after that I tried to change myself to fit in with people as hard as I could. I tried to meditate to change my mind how I think and how I am. Also went through every hairstyle and outfit style there is just trying to be accepted by the people I liked so much. After doing this for almost a decade my psychologist told me to be myself. I know tried this for over a year and there is no difference. The people still look at me with the same disgust and shock the way they always did. I know that I am not very good looking but often it seems like they look at a either subhuman being or an alien. I mostly now try not to be annoying anymore and just not interact with anybody to reduce the chance to annoy others. I wish I could be just a thought or an extra dimensional being that is just in the backround of life but not an actual individual. When I went to the doctor I could hear how they would laugh joke and talk with the other patient like they liked eachother but the moment they see me its like I just destroyed their whole life. They are mean and annoyed with me eventhough I try to be normal and a human. Thing is it wouldnt even be so bad if this only applied to humans. I can isolate myself and just be alone forever and only leave home for errands thats not the thing but we just recently got a dog and while I spend a ton of time with him give him food play with him and go for walks he doesnt seem to enjoy my presencw at all. He loves the rest of my family and is very excited when they get back home but it seems like he doesnt even care or notice me at all. This is just one of those cases too. I don’t even know what to do at this point. No matter how I am how I look how I talk how I dress how I feel I am always annoying and weird. Even in therapy I always felt like while being with other people that are comsidered weird I was the odd one out. No matter how I look at it all roads lead to suicide. I cant really give any benefit to anything really I often feel like Im like genetic trash that has to be excreted as a human being every hundred or thousand years. Like every bad and disgusting thing that is contained in the human genome needs to be dumped in a human form and I just happen to be this dump of genetic trash for this century.

I'm 19, and for most of my life, I've been completely apathetic and lacked empathy. I didn't even feel anything at funerals, during movies, or in dangerous situation , partially because I thought it was pathetic to do so, but also because I genuinely just didn't feel it.

Two years ago, I was truly "vulnerable" with someone for the first time. In a way, it was a controlled vulnerability, as I couldn't allow myself to completely fall down that rabbit hole (I just confessed to him and relationships used to be pathetic in my opinion). Unfortunately, it only led to me showing some parts I repressed to the wrong person and getting hurt and feeling weak. I remember that during that time, I couldn't stand having feelings for someone, so I unconsciously constructed a martyr persona in my mind to gain his trust, and as soon as he left me partially because of something I did, I was still in that state so I acted like a both a profound victim and a Femme fatale (Idk how to describe It, It sounds cringe but It wasn't conscious and I don't know how to explain It). Obviously, I couldn't stand being rejected by and inferior so instead of accepting that I was either a culprit or a pathetic victim of someone else, I idealised my whole persona and even made a character inspired to both my grandiosity and my saintlike self.

I was quite an asshole to this person, who was obsessed with being morally correct, preaching "peace and love" (even if it was obviously a facade or a fixation of his since he was very likely autistic ). I felt like he viewed me as "medieval" because I didn't justify every stupid thing people did the way he did. Not only do I lack empathy, but I am also highly cautious around others and I criticize people if they pose a threath to my self esteem. The thing is, I couldn't stand that someone so worthless who somehow hung out with "cool," artsy types looked down on me like I was some ancient monkey and I felt rejected by the whole artist society (I know It wasn't true but I tend to put people in boxes).

It made me so angry that, as I stated before, I completely inverted my personality and idealized myself into a saint-like figure. I started justifying everyone's actions and tried to develop my cognitive empathy for my own benefit and "mature" persona.

Except, I got so deeply into it that I started crying during every single sad scene in movies. Now I can't stop, and it feels pathetic because having empathy is one of my biggest fears and I wanted to include my lack of genuine empathy in my idea of a mature persona. This persona didn't even last long; I soon went back to criticizing everyone in my head for a while. But then I slipped into this state again, and now I cry over everything, I even cried for the fucking finale of a pathetic show like fucking Euphoria (a show I also hate btw) and I completely BAWLED my eyes out while I was watching "Last Night in Soho" because It reminded me of a trauma (Until now I only shed like one tear every 50 movies).

I don't know if it's due to the stress I've endured over the last three years, or if it's a result of my collapses and isolation. I just can't stop because I have a vivid imagination. Since I don't experience conventional empathy, my writer's mind turns every situation into an Oscar-worthy scene and I feel like I'm somehow gaining emotional empathy for fucking fictional characters.

Is this common during a collapse?

I mean sometimes I tell myself not to cry because the movie I'm watching Is pathetic and It works, but as soon as I get distracted I cry again like a little strangled chicken. Oh God I hate It, I was never a loser and I never react to real life situations but I react whenever I see a movie or a thing about the current state of the world? Wth...

A couple days ago, a friend of mine passed away in a tragic car accident. The thing is, what upset me wasn’t really the loss itself but the realization of how fragile life is and how suddenly death can come for anyone. That thought hit me hard and genuinely brought me to tears. The people around me assumed I was devastated over his death specifically, and they started comforting me and honestly?, I really liked the attention. I realized that people were interpreting my sadness in a way that benefited me, and instead of correcting them, I leaned into it. I started maintaining the impression that I was grieving him deeply. When I attended his prayer meeting, I consciously amplified that image. I even made myself cry by thinking about things that I knew would upset me, because I knew it would reinforce how people perceived me. The more distraught I appeared, the more comfort and attention I received. I staged an entire performance just to grab some attention. Describing this incident makes me laugh but also make me feel sorta psychotic.

I know usually we don't enjoy crticism, but i want to know how other people deal with it and experience it.

I personally, am aware that criticism is good and that i need it to improve and usually allow it but even then, it hurts me badly. I also don't want to seem immature by rejecting criticism and i often say i'm fine with it but I am not. I spiral into thought thinking about it and i just get this sick feeling in my stomach.

I have severe narcissistic traits, (high grandiosity, entitlement rage, very contingent self esteem and I'm extremely sensitive to criticism), and I also have a toxic masculinity mindset + incel mindset, base my entire self worth on dominance and sexual conquest, and have a strong need/desire to have power and control over and dominate everyone and everything in order to feel that I have worth as a man. I would prefer to not feel that I have to do that in order to have worth though.

It causes a lot of stress in my life. I can't hold down a job or maintain any friendships. What kind of therapy could help me? I've tried using Mark Etthensohn's (Heal NPD) method of telling myself I don't need to be extraordinary but it doesn't really work for me. I'm also not sure I can even treat this myself, I probably need a psychologist. I imagine that the toxic masculinity mindset is probably a big factor in many of those problems, and maybe more important to treat than my narcissistic personality?

I spent 10 months in rehab during 2024 due to a psychotic break. I had been in that same facility two years before for the same reason, but only for three months. During my time there, we would have a weekly session of “feedback” where the therapists would give you “tough love” and scold you or reward you for your behaviour. There were two main therapists in the facility, and mine was known to be brutally honest one.

At some point my therapist started throwing hints at me of narcissistic behaviour without exactly calling it that. Said that I don’t handle criticism well, want everything to go my way how and when I want it, think that I’m superior to the other patients (which I’m not sure is true), and probably other things I can’t recall. I’m well versed in psychology and it didn’t take long before I connected the dots. My father is a narcissist, and it was so painful to consider that I probably resemble him more than I previously thought. She would also tell my parents that throughout my life I was “given everything” (except emotional and financial security I guess) and basically said I’m a spoiled brat who needed to be taught some rules, one of the reasons I spent such an absurd amount of time there. The level of infantilization was insane, she explicitly told me I was not a woman yet despite being 28 at the time.

Due to the meds I was taking and the deeply traumatic experience of rehab, last year was really dark. I’ve also been unemployed since I left rehab which has been a huge hit to my ego, previously thinking I was gifted, above others my age, and deserved fame and whatnot. Whether or not I’m clinically diagnosed as a narcissist doesn’t matter much, what is important to me is the amount of traits I exhibit which I was somewhat aware of previously, especially vanity and grandiosity (the latter was particularly exacerbated during psychosis.)

For many reasons I deeply, deeply hate the psychologist from rehab. My current therapist says that what I experienced there was abuse. I can’t stand the thought of her and wish ill upon her. But I also think she might have been onto something. I’ve been more open to exploring these aspects of me recently and working on them.

Anybody else experience something similar? What triggered your collapse?

I’m taking therapy and healing seriously for the first time in my life and looking into the different ways to get treatment. What are your experiences with EMDR?

I feel like it would be helpful for me but I feel like I’ve seen a lot of people on here say it was not for them. I had a rough childhood in a lot of ways (duh) and I honestly have a really hard time remembering most of it. It’s like little popcorn memories. Which makes it really hard when my therapist asks me to talk about my childhood, I kind of just start dissociating because I don’t have a super clear memory or timeline, especially before like age 12. Wondering if EMDR would help with this?

Many people say these diagnoses are similar, and I'm curious, how do you feel about people with BPD?

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lazypandastudio.therevengeapp&pcampaignid=web_share

Its an app about taking revenge, thought it might be helpful for folks like us and people who wanna take their anger out without harming anyone. pls requesting the developers here to make an app/game like this or either some way to make this app work, it would be a great help.

Has learning more about your own narcissism led to seeing friends and family in a different light?
I’ve been noticing a LOT of NPD / cluster B traits in friends, and I don’t think it’s just projection . . .

Last night I hung out with a friend who’s also a “creative.” She mentioned 3-4 times that she’s “so ambitious,” which is a weird thing to say considering we know each other well. Why repeatedly characterize yourself that way to someone who has known / worked alongside you for years? It came off like an attempt to prove something. I’m also inclined towards workaholism, but now I’m questioning this as a coping mechanism designed to obtain external approval.

My friend is also approaching 50 (not gracefully) and dating and believes herself to be way, way out of the league of every man she meets. She described meeting a guy and feeling ashamed and disgusted on his behalf because he had a belly. I didn’t say it, but I was thinking, “Have you looked in the mirror in the past . . . decade?” She claims she’s unlikely to find anyone because she’s “so much smarter and more interesting than 99% of people.” I think she is definitely unlikely to find someone interested in her who meets her extreme standards.

She was also recently let go from a job, and instead of taking it as an opportunity to reflect on how she could have done better in her role, *everything* is the fault of the people she worked for. Her boss just didn’t like that she was so much smarter than she is . . .

In the past, I think this friend and I collaborated on each other’s grandiose delusions, but now that I’m a few months into therapy, have finished the HealNPD YouTube channel, and own a copy Mark Ettensohn’s book, I’m having a hard time feeling close to her, because of these traits I recognize in myself. I’m not close to many people, so I don’t want to discard this friendship as well, but it is awkward feeling like I’m trying to take another path.

And then I wonder if this is me just trying to feel superior in a new way? Do healthy people just not judge people? Is there a way to radically accept the narc tendencies in myself and others without fueling them? Not expecting answers to these questions, this is just what I’m thinking about this morning!🤔

Hello !

For the last couple of years I’ve been struggling with my constantly worsening illness, and it reached a point I simply cannot function during the day. I used to cope with that with drugs, but I’ve been completely sober for two years now so I don’t have that anymore.

Basically, everything I do is a nightmare. The slightest mistake is a crime against humanity and I should die for it. It feels like people are watching and taking notes of every mistakes I’m doing so they can humiliate me in the future. So doing anything in public feels like torture, so I’ve been trying to swim but it’s so awful I cannot go there anymore, and I would love to go to the gym but I fear the same thing is going to happen here. The fact that my body isn’t perfect already makes me impossible to just show up consistently or execute any movement properly.

I don’t have any hobbies, because each time I want to try some stuff my brain is immediately thinking a 10 years plan to becoming a master of the thing I’m doing and that I’m going to be the best in the world and everyone will admire me (world champion of mandala lmao), and then I make a simple mistake (normal thing that happen in a normal human setting) and I’m the worse person in the world and I should die.

I can’t cook, because each time I want to cook stuff I would like I have the voice of someone who once said she didn’t like what I’ve cooked so I’m constantly reminded I shouldn’t ever cook anything because I’m trash and I should die (yes, it’s a reoccurring thought).

Trauma therapy isn’t going as planned, because basically to do any sort of therapy you need to be reminded that you exist and apparently my brain took that personally and existing is already a crime by itself because I’m not a goddess and if I’m not a goddess I’m not supposed to exist 🙃 and even if I were to be a goddess it wouldn’t be enough because the son of our neighbour god have more people worshipping them so I would still be a piece of shit. So my therapist stopped and is asking for advice to her colleagues because I get unstable really fast.

How do you even start to do something, anything, in those conditions ? I know I have a problem, I know a lot about a lot of my problems. I know a lot of things, but don’t feel any of those things, and there is a fucking ocean between what I think and what I feel.

I tried to listen to those feelings, but those feelings basically say "if you move it’s already a crime so don’t move". It’s like there is constant pressure to forbid me to do anything, like every movement, every thought is held back my someone, and I need to fight for my life just to have the right to exist…

Do any of you relate ? What’s going on here ? How the fuck am I supposed to get better if I can, well, be ? I deeply want to do stuff and get better, I want to learn, I’m ordering Pete Walker’s and Goldwasser’s books really soon to learn more about all of this stuff, but it would really mean a lot to me if someone had some tips to share, or at least don’t feel like I’m alone in this mess

I'm curious to know how many people here have NPD or NPD traits, or other disorders running in their families.

Mental illness and instability definitely runs in mine. I am riddled with pathologies, my dad would have definitely met the criteria for OCD and NPD, and my paternal grandmother had NPD and OCPD traits. I'm not trying to diagnose them, it's more of a sloppy way of condensing their difficult traits without making this post a wall of text.

I really wish to have a stable sense of self-worth, instead of basing it on the result of competition or comparison with anyone. I want to have peace. But I live in such a ferocious environment that requires me to be hyper vigilant, make instant reactions to hostility and competition, and fight my enemies until fully defeated. If I don’t it’ll be elimination and death waiting for me. God I don’t know what to do. I cannot rest. I cannot experience stable inner self-esteem and safety. I’m trapped in war eternal. I wanna be free of it. I WANNA BE FREE OF IT

I'm curious about things like:

• Your relationship with your parents/family
• Whether you felt accepted or rejected by peers
• Your self-esteem growing up
• How you handled criticism
• Whether you felt different from other kids
• Any experiences you think may have contributed to developing narcissistic traits

Feel free to share as much or as little as you're comfortable with. I'm interested in hearing personal experiences rather than stereotypes.

I recently found out about the term “supply” and honestly I don’t really like it

It’s used a lot in NPD spaces, and I understand what people are trying to describe.

But the word “supply” honestly feels objectifying to me. It makes other people sound like resources, fuel, or objects instead of actual human beings.

It reinforces the stigma that people with NPD only “use” others.

I think the underlying concept can be real, but the wording matters.

What’s your opinion on the term? And how do you feel when you use the word yourself?

At the risk of sounding like the average person who stigmatises this disorder, is it even really that common for people with NPD to harm others emotionally or otherwise? I just don’t really see how it’s something that anyone who goes on about “narcissistic abuse” actively anticipates/imagines. I don’t know for sure if I myself have NPD without a diagnosis, but I feel like I have enough reason to at least question the possibility and I still wouldn’t really see myself abusing anyone despite how extreme any of my fantasies regarding any form of power get lmao. Even if the fear of being seen as a bad person is strong enough to be a significant restraint, I don’t like the idea of just needlessly bullying people and I don’t like people who do that, so I really don’t see how NPD is so associated with harming others. Then again I haven’t been in any deep enough relationships for anything concerning to show up and a lot of how I feel about others is just mainly in my head, so if anything I can at most understand how it would negatively affect others in ways are that aren’t consciously intentional and just a byproduct of how we think about others.

Body text is optional.