Fuck it. Fuck it, fuck it, fuck it.

I talk around it often enough.

I'm not diagnosed with it, I managed to dodge an official diagnosis pretty much by the skin of my teeth, but I most likely have Narcissistic Personality Disorder. /And/ Borderline, so, that particularly sucks.

I might chicken out and delete this tomorrow! Because I FULLY expect to get more death threats for being outspoken about having NPD than I have for anything else, ever.

But, see, now you know a /real person/.

Some of you probably already guessed this. Some of you are shocked, horrified, revisiting interactions... You're not gonna find anything new.

And maybe the fact that I'm a "real person" isn't gonna matter in the face of me having the Big Scary Thing.

But whether you unfollow or block or stick around, now you know an actual, real person with NPD instead of it being the vague thing you throw at Donald Trump when you want to make things sound clinical and smart.

So, yeah, while we're here, let's drag out that god-awful list that everybody refers to when it comes to NPD. You know, the one that gets used almost interchangeably with "sociopath" and "psychopath" and "serial killer".

"Has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)"

Well, alright, let's break this down. the DMCA still uses white cis dudes as its basis.

What does it actually mean to have a grandiose sense of self-importance in the eyes of people who expect you not to have one? Half the damn time it means you want to be recognized at /all./ And, okay, that's normal. We're still talking about an illness.

It's not a disorder if it's healthy! But the 'grandiose self-importance', from the inside, feels a lot more like desperately wanting to matter to somebody, somewhere, to feel like it's /possible/. It does mean coming off as a jerk sometimes. Usually accidentally.

The real kicker there is the idea of "without commensurate achievements". So, like, it's totally okay to be an asshole as long as you've got the chops to back it up, apparently.

Who decides what's enough?

Fun fact, people of colour get hit with this diagnosis more often than white people, despite white people being the model. Because our achievements are never enough to consider ourselves important.

(Does that make the diagnosis /wrong?/ that's getting into wider criticisms of psychiatry as a whole. It might, it might not, but NPD is one of those ones that usually springs from trauma of some definition or another.)

Second. "Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love"

This overlaps a lot with maladaptive daydreaming, which I experience but don't have a lot of proper clinical knowledge of.

But, yknow, it's really worth asking what prompts somebody to escape to a fantasy world where they're recognized for how awesome they are. That's really not as weird or selfish as you seem to think it is.

And once again, who's asked to Not Have These?

The American Dream is this big, amazing thing that is LITERALLY built around this. But if I want to get rich, or be a household name, and work towards that dream, I'm suddenly "preoccupied" with it where a white dude would be Career-Driven.

Three! "Believes that he or she is “special” and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)"

Ignoring that ridiculous pronoun dodging, there's some more really interesting and annoying bias here.

Who... decides this status? Because I know for me, yeah, I have high standards. of treatment. like, I hold people to standards of "you have to be This Decent Of A Person"

So that's supposed to be, like, weird and disordered. And sometimes it is!

I absolutely have trouble relaxing those standards or not getting kind of angry/judgy when somebody doesn't meet them, because in /my/ head, it's not like it's hard! You just... do it. And that's something I'm actively working on.

But again, to be told that me doing this is disordered when every single white cis masc-run institution is UNBEARABLY CLIQUEY... like, hello? hello? at least mine is fair!!!

wanting to hang out with people who reach a kind of arbitrary but ultimately skill-based bar is not weirder than only wanting to hang out with people who got really good book deals from the racially biased publishing industry, sorry not sorry.

And as far as believing I'm special/unique... we are literally Taught To Believe That. Is it bad for me to be a sheep or is it bad for me to believe in myself? Make up your damn mind, society.

Four. "Requires excessive admiration"

It's called trauma! Nobody likes being invisible. this is the biggest lie of mental health of all time, okay? EVERYBODY likes being admired. It feels weird for a lot of us! We're conditioned into shrugging it off, into making ourselves small

but it is GOOD and LOVELY to receive praise and admiration and recognition for our work.

Plus - interesting thing - every NPD person I know has a specific like, thing, that is the focus of their NPD. Their skills as a carer, as an artist, as a writer.

And we 1) tend to get weird about compliments outside of that and 2) 'ur so naturally talented' is, uh. no thank you! we WORKED on this! appreciate our work!

Notably, we're all otherwise marginalized. So. Do with that what you will.

Five. "Has a very strong sense of entitlement, e.g., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations"

...

LIKE NOT GETTING SHOT BY COPS???

Please, please, take a look at the recent story about the CAH team putting a Black person in the psych ward over him speaking up about racism and then look at this bullet point and look at it again.

What gets flagged as unreasonable?

I was told I was being unreasonable over not wanting to have sex with somebody, over not putting up with somebody screaming at me, over all sorts of shit.

We get framed as wanting 'favourable treatment' all the time.

What this REALLY ends up looking like for me is a shortage of patience. I know what'll work in a situation, and I have a hard time explaining it, so I'd like it if people would just Do It. this makes me a bit of a pain of a co-mod because actually explaining the processes-

-takes SO MUCH MORE TIME than actually showing it. So that looks like "wanting unquestioning compliance". But again, would it get framed like that if I wasn't a disabled QPOC? Pro-ba-bly not.

I lost count, but, "Is exploitative of others, e.g., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends"

This one will be a little longer. But again, we really have to step back and seriously think about what we mean when we say exploitation.

Because, see, I get accused of exploitation a lot. Maybe that's true! But same as with terms like manipulation, it gets caught up in a lot of differences of meaning.

Is it exploitation to ask somebody, directly, to help you with something that you know they're good at?

This one overlaps a LOT with autism. Directness and difficulty w/ social function outside of a prescribed setting can end up being - if not actively exploitative, feeling that way. Sometimes I ask people for SR help, and don't really talk to them much outside that setting.

or I ask them for advice on a thing I know they're good with, and have a hard time with other conversation. (Working on that.) That ties into how I'm a pretty direct person; if I don't have an actual question, I'm not good at 'hi, how are you'.

But it's ALSO very easy to fall into actively seeing people as how useful they are to you and Nothing Else, especially if you struggle with empathy. (Will come up again later.) So that's one of the symptoms that does actually arise... sometimes.

It really is, more often than not, not an intentional or active thing. it's really easy to think that it's normal, or just how friendships work, or not keep track of how the social contract is working in your favour esp if NPD and autism are comorbid for you. (like for me, yay!)

But frankly, I know more people terrified of exploiting their friends who are ND than who actually do so, and more NT people who exploit their friends and never stop to think about it.

"Lacks empathy, e.g., is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others"

OHOHOHO THE EMPATHY DISCOURSE. This one is SO fun, and another word yall don't know how to use.

Let me underline part of that. "Recognize, or identify". Not 'feel bad for'. Not 'see as a problem'. Not 'consider worthy or regard'.

"Recognize, or identify".

Empathy means I have a hard time looking at or talking to a person and immediately knowing how they're feeling, or putting myself "in their shoes". It depends on the day for me - sometimes I'm hyperempathic which means I feel everything Too Much!

But low empathy just means compassion takes some extra steps. That friend you've got who's really good at being solution-oriented and picking up the friend in crisis and going "no time to stress, we gotta fix the thing"? often low empathy is helping them out.

The friend you've got who goes "i don't understand this, but logically, it makes sense, so here we go"? using the same tricks as low empathy people.

This is why I hate the pseudoscience terms psychopath and sociopath so much.

And low empathy can, yeah, sometimes mean fuck-ups that include not immediately knowing or picking up when somebody's distressed, or uncomfortable. That always sucks a lot when it happens, and I feel like crap when it does.

Learning body language as a person with low empathy (and not even particularly low! mine is pretty close to normal!) is like trying to learn sign language. You start memorizing things, basically.

"Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her"

...lemme just hide my PFP for a hot second

Jokes aside, this one is actually true. But it has a lot to do with being scared that people are gonna take things away. A lot of gifted or smart kids end up with NPD, and so do people with parents who switch rapidly between praise and punishment.

Believing that somebody is envious of me isn't really about building myself up as like, some Super Amazing Godlike Person (lovely if it was). It's this instinctive fear that when somebody attacks me they're trying to *take away* what I have, because I'm used to that!

And as far as being envious of others, it's... well, again, marginalization plays a big role. White cis men are the basis for this diagnosis while rarely actually receiving it; is it actually disordered of me to be jealous that white cis men get opportunities I never will?

(proper answer, it is when it interferes with my life)

But the point is, leaving this diagnosis in the hands of others is very, very dangerous. And ultimately SO MUCH of this is built on fear! If we're not the best, what happens to us?

"Regularly shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes" Finally, the last official one.

I touched on protection in the last point. But genuinely, most of these are about protection. Of course I'm arrogant. Somebody has to believe in me!

I'm not somebody who's received a lot of support from others. So of course I have a personality disorder that relies heavily on an external shell that props myself up, radiates self-confidence, and makes myself out as cool, chill, never in need of help.

My god, where has looking pathetic ever gotten me? It hasn't! Fake it til you make it and nobody will see the gaping hole of self-loathing underneath!

If this sounds like Katsuki Bakugo you are definitely getting the drift.

NPD is so deeply rooted in this idea that if you're not number one, if you are not the highest in your class, the best writer, the most unique artist, the most-followed platform, then you are Insignificant and Worthless.

And yeah, a lot of you are going to start recognizing this now. Asuka Soryu Langley. Katsuki Bakugo. Dirk Strider. Envy. Your friends, your exes, your parents. And not even the bad ones, half the time. The "Asian F". The gifted classes.

If we're the best, then we're safe, we aren't in danger, and we can feel alright. Equals are safe enough. Inferiors are boring but alright. Superiors are BEEP BEEP BEEP ALARM. "We want to be you & surpass you but also avoid you forever but also impress you???"

The panic response to being threatened isn't sheer pettiness! It's mental illness literally tricking us into thinking there's actual danger. (It doesn't make some of the worse responses, like, More Okay, but context is everything.)

And something that there's actually a number of examples of in media is the narcissistic collapse; when the narcissistic worldview is punctured, and we start having to actually deal with it in a way that isn't "just be better". Asuka and Bakugo both do this!

The difference is that media shows it as a one time and then either you get better or Die/Are Broken Forever thing; for real people, it's an ongoing process. Getting from having NPD to being somebody with NPD traits is - annoying, and long

and the amount of people INCLUDING HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONALS who think that we're evil instead of heavily traumatized and trying to reach impossible standards does... not help.

Does this mean there aren't abusers with NPD? of course not. There's also abusers with anxiety. And abusers with autism. And abuser who don't have a damn thing wrong with them other than the fact that they're dickwads.

But next time you wanna diagnose somebody with NPD, especially a rich, extremely powerful, old white dude who could exploit people until the world ends without anybody who could actually do so claiming there's anything Wrong With That, maybe stop a sec and think it through.

We're at high risk for /being/ abused. The "raisedbynarcissists" subreddit doesn't even let us post even though our parents may very well be where we got it from. We're at even higher risk for suicide, self-harm, drug abuse...

I'm not going to stand here and beg for you to stop calling us monsters. I've done that enough without bringing myself into it.

But now you know a *real* narcissist. That should give you a little pause.

And quite frankly the only thing you should be calling me a narcissist over is how long this goddamn thread is. (Oops.)

Anyway, special shoutout to @vio_vayo who was one of the two MAJOR people in my life who helped me feel comfortable with this <3 (Psst, go look at his art)