You Can Still Want Positivity For Your Disability Even If You Genuinely Struggle With The Symptoms And

Unpopular opinion: It doesn’t matter how much study you do. You will never know more about the experiences of a disorder than the person living with it does.

The "anti-NPD" tag is so funny to me because imagine being against a literal disorder that someone can't help. Do you expect them to like??? get rid of a lifelong condition??? just for you???

Remember when someone was like “haha the funniest thing tumblr could do right now is make it so you get a badge for looking at 600 posts instead of what twitters doing lol” and then they did it. That was pretty awesome. I think the funniest thing tumblr could do right now is stop flagging trans women’s post as sexual right fucking now lol and fix prev tags and get rid of the fucking bigots and racists and nazis for once haha and also apologize for this shit. Wouldn’t that be pretty funny lol haha it would be so funny if they did this

Just a reminder that ableism against personality disorders, especially cluster b personality disorder, is alive and well.

Not having empathy doesn’t make someone evil. It doesn’t make them an abuser. In fact, people without empathy are better in certain vital positions. We’re better at being first responders, 911 operators, and other tasks that would overwhelm empaths. We work better in critical situations than empaths do.

Thinking that any disorder makes someone evil is ableist. And when you take into account the sexist bias in diagnosing women with BPD and the racist and classist bias in diagnosing POC and prison inmates with ASPD and NPD? It’s not only ableist, it’s all kinds of -ists. Plus, it’s really rich for someone who claims that empathy is what makes someone good to have so little empathy for people with disorders that are literally trauma-based.

So yeah if you see someone being a dick to people with PDs? Say something. Because they’re definitely not going to listen to us.

hahaha. im so normal. Npd?? literally stands for "normal person disorder" idk what u mean. NORMAL person. normal. ive never even thought anything bad. i have normal relationships with people. i view reality in a normal way... nothing bad has happened to me. i have been treated well by everyone. Which is exactly why theres nothing wrong with me

npd culture is seeing someone mass reblog/like my posts and getting a narc high because yesss they love me they liked all of my posts and then followed me they see how important and special I really am

-feral (if not taken)

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Please, if you can, take a moment to read and share this because I feel like I'm screaming underwater.

NPD (Narcissistic Personality Disorder) stigma is rampant right now, and seems to be getting progressively worse. Everyone is using it as a buzzword in the worst ways possible, spreading misinformation and hatred against a real disorder.

I could go on a long time about how this happened, why it's factually incorrect (and what the disorder actually IS), why it's harmful, and the changes I'd like to see. But to keep this concise, I'll simply link to a few posts under the cut for further reading.

The point of this post is a plea. Please help stop the spread of stigma. Even in mental health communities, even around others with personality disorders, in neurodivergent "safe" spaces, other communities I thought people would be supportive in (e.g. trans support groups, progressive spaces in general), it keeps coming up. So I'm willing to bet that a lot of people on this site need to see this.

Because it's so hard to exist in this world.

My disorder already makes me feel as if I'm worthless and unlovable, like there's something inherently wrong and damaged about me. And it's so much harder to fight that and heal when my daily life consists of:

Laughing and spending time with my friends, doing my utmost best to connect and stay present and focused on them, trying to let my guards down and be real and believe I'm lovable- when suddenly they throw out the word "narcissist" to describe horrible people or someone they hate, or the conversation turns to how evil "people with narcissistic personality disorder" are. (Seriously, you don't know which of your friends might have NPD and feels like shit when you say those things & now knows that you'd hate them if you knew.)

Trying to look up "mental health positivity for people with npd", "mental health positivity cluster bs", only to find a) none of that, and b) more of the same old vile shit that makes me feel terrible about myself.

Having a hard time (which is constant at this point) and trying to look up resources for myself, only to again, find the same stigma. And no resources.

Not having any clue how to help myself, because even the mental health field is spitting so much vitriol at people with DISORDERS (who they're supposed to be helping!) that there's no solid research or therapy programs for people like me.

Losing close friends when they find out, despite us having had a good relationship before, and them KNOWING me and knowing that I'm not like the trending image of pwNPD. Because now they only see me through the lens of stigma and misinformation.

Hearing the same stigma come up literally wherever I go. Clubs. Meetings. Any online space. At the bus stop. At the mall. At a restaurant. At work. Buzzword of the year that everyone loooves loudly throwing around with their friends or over the phone. Feels awesome for me, makes my day so much better/s

I could go on for a long time, but I'm scared no one will read/rb this if it gets too much longer.

So please. Stop using the word "narcissist" as a synonym for "abusive".

Stop bringing up people you hate who you believe to have NPD because of a stigmatizing article full of misinformation whenever someone with actual NPD opens their mouth. (Imagine if people did that with any other disorder! "Hey, I'm autistic." "Oh... my old roommate screamed at me whenever I made noise around him, and didn't understand my needs, which seems like sensory overload and difficulty with social cues. He was definitely autistic. But as long as you're self-aware and always restraining your innate desire to be an abusive asshole, you're okay I guess, maybe." ...See how offensive and ignorant that is?)

Stop preventing healthcare for people with a disorder just because it's trendy to use us as a scapegoat.

If you got this far, thank you for reading, and please share this if you can. Further reading is under the cut.

NPD Criteria, re-written by someone who actually has NPD

Stigma in the DSM

Common perception of the DSM criteria vs how someone may actually experience them (Keep in mind that this is the way I personally experience these symptoms, and that presentation can vary a lot between individuals)

"Idk, the stigma is right though, because I've known a lot of people with NPD who are jerks, so I'm going to continue to support the blockage of treatment for this condition."

(All of these were written by me, because I didn't want to link to other folks' posts without permission, but if you want to add your own links in reblogs or replies please feel free <3)

What I'm actually saying when I defend people with stigmatised disorders: “Please don’t spread harmful stereotypes, not everyone is like that, it’s really hurtful to people who struggle with it.”

What people seem to think I'm saying: “Abusive behaviour is absolutely okay if someone’s mentally ill, it’s discrimination not to ignore red flags, please walk up to the nearest person on the street screaming at nothing and offer them your couch to sleep on.” 

society makes it hard to tell you're aroace because you think "hmmm i value this person deeply and want to be close to them and have them consider me as closely as i consider them. i must be romantically or sexually attracted to them" like no buddy you've just got separation anxiety

this is exactly why it's so important to educate. this is why we "police" language and tell you what words to use instead. because this is how you actively perpetuate stigmas and demonise a whole group of people. and this is how it keeps spreading because within three days this first comment has received 25 likes, which may not seem like much now, but those 25 people spread this "knowledge" to 25 other people and so on and so forth.

again: narcissists are people with narcissistic personality disorder. a cluster B PD that is usually developed through abuse trauma (and genetic predispositon). gaslighting is a term used for the act of knowingly making somebody doubt themselves and their sanity (how they perceive events, their memories, etc.). being self-absorbed and not taking responsibility for certain behaviours is something every person is capable of. it's not "narcissistic abuse". it's emotional abuse. every person is capable of it.

stop calling everybody a narcissist because they've done something like this. it's not right. it's just another term y'all picked up on the internet without ever doing research about what it means or where it really comes from. and of course it's just another way for y'all to demonise people and stigmatise mental disorders you think make somebody abusive and unworthy of being part of disability and mental health activism...