So Many Of My NPD Traits Come From Being Told The Exact Opposite Of What The Disorder Is All About. I

NPD + BPD culture is needing to be useful and extraordinary or else no one will need nor want me

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questioning npd culture is always blaming mistakes you do on trauma or neurodivergencey because it’s not my fault im like this

-🎒🌲

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NPD is never being good enough.

NPD is being isolated from everybody else.

NPD is knowing you will never form connections to people like egotypicals do.

NPD is never being authentic.

NPD is feeling empty inside.

NPD is constant paranoia and the sickening feeling of thinking everyone is going to sabotage you.

NPD is constant distrust.

NPD is self hatred.

NPD is feeling sick when others succeed.

NPD is knowing love will never be enough for you, you need obsession, devotion, to be the most important person, to be the air they breathe, to be worshipped but knowing they will probably never be that to you.

NPD is needing control.

NPD is constantly feeling underestimated and belittled.

NPD is having to be admired by everyone.

NPD is the want to be feared and respected.

NPD is never feeling satisfied.

NPD is competing with socially assertive people and getting unbearably angry at them for purposefully stealing your spotlight.

NPD is nobody understanding your struggles irl.

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)

i think my most narcissistic trait is the fact that i would be uncomfortable being friend with another person with NPD because i have to be The One And Only Narcissist™️

"narc abuse has nothing to do with npd!!" "narcissism isnt npd" then please explain that to the other people in your community like this.

be real. its about npd. the other people in your community fucking argue so. narc abuse = npd and its fucking harming us stop pulling "nArc iS aN aDjEcTiVe!!" out of your fucking ass and grow up.

The thing about NPD is nothing is ever enough.

Yeah I’m intelligent but I’m not intelligent enough.

Yeah I’m beautiful but I’m not beautiful enough.

Yeah I’m important to them but I’m not important enough.

There’s a chronic feeling of emptiness because I think so highly of myself but I was never enough for my abuser and now I will never be enough for myself.

how the world feels about cluster b

bpd: need me a bpd girl ahah mood swings hahaha crazy girls with daddy issues

npd: a narcissist is anyone who is mean to me ever and i sense them with my Empath Eyes

aspd: exclusively serial killers and psychopaths, they are so evil and terrible

hpd: what the fuck is that

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???

Most common responses I get when I post any sort of cluster B positivity:

An extensive trauma dump in an attempt to validate their hatred towards us.

"You sound like a narcissist"

"You're just trying to manipulate us but we won't fall for it"

"This is really invalidating to actual trauma survivors"

"This is why people don't like cluster B's"

"Part of supporting someone with a cluster B disorder is by not enabling their abusive behaviour"

"I'll only support cluster B's if they get help"

Assuming that my opinions are based on a lack of research.

A looooong response about how trauma survivors need to stick together that promptly gets deleted when they realise I myself have a cluster B disorder.

*Posts to r/fakedisordercringe*

Tries to justify the exclusion of an entire group of trauma survivors because "we need to keep ourselves safe from people like you"