Where Is The Love For People Who Are Manipulative By Nature And Are Trying Their Best To Fight It? We

reblog if it's okay for your mutuals to message you and create an actual friendship, not just interactions

npd culture is getting annoyed because someone assumes something incorrect about you so you're like "please ask next time" and then getting annoyed when they actually ask next time because they should just know

any other narcs get uncomfortable when you're the center of attention without trying. like if you want to be the center of attention its great but if it happens on accident you feel weird and bad and uncomfortable like you somehow manipulated the situation without trying

Questioning NPD culture is getting annoyed when people don’t understand that NPD is a spectrum like any other disorder. Yes, sometimes the traits can make someone an asshole, that can happen with any disorder or any mentally stable person. But sometimes the traits can also make you one of the kindest people on earth because NPD is literally viewing yourself as the best and wanting everyone else to agree.

— 🕸🕷 (Is this one taken?)

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not to sound mentally ill, but if I have to face the reality of my existence one more time, I might light myself on fire in hopes to be born anew like a phoenix.

if u use the term "narcissist abuse" and believe all narcissists are abusers then I genuinely hope you can learn to be better because I guarantee you have hurt so many people with your rhetoric and bigotry. also explode

24/7 fighting the urge to not make everything about me

How my brain would probably look if you took off the lid to my head

I couldn’t decide which version was better so I added them both to ensure perfection

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)

Part of my NPD is built on the "toughen up" unhealthy trauma coping mechanism - where the grandiosity is an attempt at convincing myself I'm over it and trauma hasn't affected me that much. I believe this contributes to the low empathy. Since I've basically told myself "suck it up" about severe childhood trauma, hearing someone else feeling distress about something elicit an automatic response of "Why are they so weak? I got over it, why can't they?"

(Disclaimer: The idea that I somehow "got over it" is in fact a fucking lie I tell myself and have repeatedly fallen for)