Inside The Mind of a Narcissist | Guest Interview

[Music] Hi everyone, welcome back to what's your pattern. Today I'm speaking with someone who has been diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder. A lot of times I think we demonize or try to paint a picture of a certain disorder or issues we do not understand. So I think it is very important to hear from somebody who truly gets it, who knows what it is like living with NPD. So, hi Max. Hey, thank you. Hi, I'm Max. So before we begin, how would you like your listeners to think about you? You can just introduce yourself. You don't need to mention anything that you're not comfortable with. It's funny, that's a question I've been kind of breaking down for the last several years. I'm going to try my very best to have come in and set an intention for this interview that I want to be authentic about my experiences and of people with NPD. But I guess just know that I'm being honest. I think a lot of people would assume that they're wise. Why do you think that would be? Well, I haven't always been honest. Let's number one, including with myself. And there's also a cultural narrative around pathological narcissism is rooted in manipulation. And maybe even actually unconscious manipulation, which is not necessarily the case. In fact, larger than not the case. And I met a point now, I guess I should say from the start that I'm in remission from NPD. And so I've made. I hope a lot of progress in the front of communication. And that's kind of the attitude I bring in today. So give me the benefit of the doubt. Thank you. Of course, and congratulations that your remission means that you put a lot of hard work. And that's what this journey is. Okay, start from the beginning of it. How you said before you knew that you had NPD. How you thought about yourself, how you perceived the things you were going through. Well, I've always kind of felt like an alien. And that's something that I have. I've heard from other people with NPD or pathological narcissism as well is sense of the fundamentally really different from other people. I don't think that's unique to just narcissism, but it tends to be a really prominent feature is not quite feeling like you fit in with the rest of humanity. So I spent my entire life up until my diagnosis kind of grappling with that question and trying on different identities, I guess. So that like, why do I feel so different is it this? Is it that? And I do actually think that this personality disorder helped me make a lot of sense of my life. I think that I saw myself before. I always had a sense that I was special and destined for something. Like I had some kind of unique destiny that only I could do. And my fantasies around that back then were ones becoming internationally famous or writing a novel and it immediately being on the New York Times bestseller list. And it's a delusional sense of self-belief about that. And I also have had kind of a lifelong sci-a complex. I would call it, you know, I used to have whenever the child is really elaborate fantasies of being the person to go around the world and shake hands with international leaders and bring about world peace. And I had fantasies about being a motivational speaker and a movement later. It's funny because all of those fantasies that I had about myself reflect my real values actually they were far too big. But I think one of the hallmark features people think of MPD sometimes as a lack of empathy. That's not necessarily the case. A lot of us struggle with empathic attunement and certainly struggle to stay consistently empathetic. But I would say that the hallmark is really a couple of things one of which is a grandiose self concept. So whether that is what we call overtly expressed that was kind of more aligned with me or whether it's more covertly expressed meaning you have these secret fantasies about yourself. I think that's part of it. And then the other big thing I would say is self-esteem disarigulation. So having really, really markedly dramatic swings in how you feel about yourself. And I was like that. So I have had a lot of objectively a lot of external success in my life and have gotten a lot of praise and a lot of award. But it would boost my self-esteem quite high for a moment. And then it wouldn't last so it never really felt like enough. It felt like I had another goal post to move toward. And then when I had moments in my life where I was really struggling as many of us do. As all people do, but there's a lot of people with NPT do we tend to have fairly high prevalence of depression and anxiety. I would just feel like a complete failure and like a complete imposter and everything about me was worthless. And so that vasolation between, oh my god, I'm amazing. I'm so special on the best. And oh my god, I'm the worst. That really is for me my experience of NPT. And I think for most of us. It seems like that there was a lot of perfectionism you can even that you X-popped it from yourself that it has to be I have to be this person. And it doesn't necessarily have to be because you excel in studies. But it could be any kind of praise that you received that set you up for that kind of thought that ideal self, right. That I have to be this ideal version. And if it ever felt like that was not the case, it really felt like a failure. Perfection is still something I really struggle with. I rant all the time online about how NPT should really be called self esteem dissarigulation disorder. If we're being accurate and not it, that's what it is. But I like the name. It's based on a myth that to me makes a lot of sense in the context of what the disorder is, which is that narcissists is called out to my echo. This name for something who desires his love, he is not capable of it. And instead falls in love with his own reflection, except that the reflection is not really him. The reflection is perhaps an ideal version of him that he'll never be able to reach. And in that way, it is a tragic story. It's about unrequited self love. It's not really about self love at all or too much self importance. It's about not being able to really receive yourself love yourself, unless you're this perfect standard that you expect. And that standard by the way always changes. So even if you did reach it, it would just be another. It's an exhaustive story actually. Right. So the way you just phrase it, unrequited self love, you know, that really makes me empathize. It paints a picture as to how this must feel on the inside. So thank you for explaining that so well. I want to go back just a little bit to when you mention how you used to feel before you knew that it was NPD because there's always been a question of a nature versus nurture. And of course, we cannot answer this based on this conversation we are having. It's a very vast topic. But it helps to hear from somebody who knows was this something that you felt developed through experiences you had or was it something that was perhaps always there. It's generally agreed on by most experts in the field that there's a combination. So there are some ways in which people can have temperamental traits of of narcissism, for instance, hypersensitivity is a trait that some babies have and others don't and you just are born with it or not. To some degree, empathy might be another trait capacity for effective empathy. I strongly believe in and I would argue and I can cite that most experts agree that really NPD is based in early developmental trauma. And it might not be the big tea trauma that most people think but usually the result of multiple cumulative attachment traumas lack in general of the kind of empathic attunement we needed from our parents to develop like a good sense of self. I was a gifted kid. I have had the burden my entire life of knowing my own IQ. And because of that, my parents put a lot of pressure on me from a really young age. And there were really, really high expectations for me to be always exceptional and always extraordinary. And there were ways in which I was punished as a kid and certainly as an adolescent. that really reflect the kind of conditional love that I got growing up, which is again, true of just people with NPD. But we do tend to have that experience largely that our parents, I want to say almost kind of, I don't know, almost act in narcissistic ways toward us, might exploit us for certain talents or characteristics or qualities that make them look good, but then withdraw love, affection, support, anytime that we're showing something like vulnerability or insecurity or weakness or struggling, really. So I really wasn't allowed to struggle. I felt oh, mostly I was a pretty socially isolated kid, I learned charisma a lot later. But I attended to these very hyperbolic statements that I was receiving from adults in my life about my potential and my capacity and how great I was for what I really kind of needed and craved, which was having adults who loved me as a for being a messy little kid. And I can get deep here. I want to offer a little bit of vulnerability in the center view, even though that sucks. But yeah, just I remember I was a really socially isolated kid personally. I was a nodal, I was very arrogant. I was a weird kid and I was a little overburied. I had no ways in which I masked my underlying personality or interest. And so as a little kid, I was very smart and I knew it and I would tell people that I was smart and go figure that was off-putting. And I was interested in things that other kids weren't interested in. I had these special interests. I also had an undiagnosed ADHD and I'm sure that was part of it. And I was bossy, you know, I was demanding. I wanted things to be my way. So yeah, in some ways my narcissism was already developing. But what that led to was me really not having any friends and even in my elementary school experience, people would want to be my friend when there was like a group project, right? Because they knew I could get them an A. But then I wasn't part of the group. And when I would go to my mom, for example, and tell her about this stuff and how I was feeling excluded and maybe in some ways not really bullied, but just socially isolated and exploited actually. She wouldn't just hug me and be like, oh Max, that's really hard or whatever you're supposed to do. A parent, she'd be like, oh, well that's because the other kids are so jealous of you. That's because you're so much smarter than that. Because you're so much more talented. And you know, that was a substitution for what I really needed, which was empathy. Actually, it's a funny irony, but a lot of what we really need is empathy. We as narcissists, but also we as just people, I guess. So in a way, you didn't receive empathy from your parents. And of course, parents are not perfect. They make mistakes. So I'm not going to label them in one box or the other. That's up to you. But what I mean is that empathy that was not that was replaced with the easy way out that you know what they're just jealous. There's no need to exit with your feelings. There's no need to understand you if you can just brush it off by saying, they're jealous, you're better. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's exactly it. And I'm not trying to throw my parents in the bus either. They still have their relationship with them and also recognize now, it's taking a long time to get to this point. But I recognize now that my parents also had a lot of trauma. They are also the products. My parents have both some pretty disordered rates. That's not uncommon also to kind of run in families. And so intergenerational trauma really plays a role in this too, I think. I definitely agree with that because sometimes it's just not able to break that cycle to be able to help the future generation that we might have. So if anything, the good part is that you are doing that. Thanks. I'm trying. Thank you. I also don't want to make it come across like I'm this perfect saying. I was traumatized as a kid. Like I've also traumatized other people as a result of this. And that's kind of how came to officially get diagnosed. So, you know, like I I've caused a lot of harm personally as a result of my disorder. And that's something I still got to cope with, but it's also that source of worrying, you know. So of course, we have to talk about how these things may have hurt people. Yes, some people with NPD have caused a lot of harm and that harm is real. And we are not denying it. I'm glad you're owning up to it. We will be talking about that as well. But right now, let's make sure your story gets told. No, I appreciate that. I love talking about myself still. So, you know, that's funny. But no, I agree. Actually, it's funny because the first thing I really needed to do to heal was to develop some self-action actually. Like because I I spiraled for a long time after I became self-aware and then after formally getting diagnosed about what this meant about me and what it meant about my capacity to love other people or to stick this to the world. And I really stayed stuck. There's an interesting phenomenon that happens for us where yes, people are familiar with like the self-enhancing narcissism on the greatest. But that I'm the worst. I'm fundamentally irredeemable. I'm so much more terrible than other people. That's also narcissism. It is at your self apart from the rest of humanity. And the fact is that humans hurt each other. Humans make mistakes. Humans are capable of growth, including us. We are also humans. So that's kind of been my driving philosophy on whisper groups and I'd love to talk about that. In our last conversation you had mentioned that there's a really vulnerable part in NPD that a lot of people don't talk about or they just divide it between grandiose and vulnerable. But there in we both things and there's a lot of shame. We as a group tend to have a lot of it, a lot of it from childhood, what I would think of as toxic shame. I also think there's things such as healthy shame which kind of leads to remorse, you know, like the shame of the way you acted that might be against your values. Like that's a teacher. That's a good for a shame. But we tend to have a lot of this underlying sense of not being good enough. And things like achievement and admiration, those can kind of mitigate that feeling for a bit. But because we struggle to have internally generated self-esteem, it doesn't last. You constantly need to refill. It's like you have a bucket with a hole in the bottom. And what can provoke those feelings of shame are things that maybe for other people, I don't know. But I think for other people they could just write off as, "Oh, that's someone's opinion. I don't like me for this reason." Or, "Oh, I got a bit of negative feedback at work." Okay, well, I need to work on that. And that's largely what I can do now, except I still get overwhelmed sometimes by shame about negative feedback where it can just feel like that person isn't just criticizing something you did and it helps you grow. They are telling you fundamentally as a person that you're worthless. I recognize right now I'm intellectualizing a lot of this. But I think that's the root of a lot of the defense mechanisms that are pretty classic to NPT. So it was like projection and displacement, like blame-shifting. You know, it's really a lack of shame tolerance. Like we just cannot, it is so painful to feel like our entire sense of self is bad that instead of finding a way to cope with that, we tend to sometimes externalize that and turn it on other people, which isn't fair. I'm not saying it's fair. I'm just trying to give an explanation. And so I've had to cope with a lot of shame and shame about the ways in which I used to be and the unkind ways that I would treat other people, which is really against my values. And the things that I've said to people before and done to them, I still feel really bad about. And I've tried to learn from and I've tried to forgive myself for, but yeah. But then there's a different kind of shame, which is just like the shame of not measuring up. Right? Like the shame of being a failure. I still struggle with it. I don't want to give a false impression of myself as this person who's like perfectly healed because I don't think I ever will. I think this is something I'm going to cope with the rest of my life. And this is also just how my personality structure is. So I have these narcissistic sensitivities. That's fine. Shame on how your kind of buddies now. So I work a lot. Some of it's pathological. So there are times I push myself, including recently, to like pull all nighters to get work done. And I sleep probably an average right now of maybe three or four hours a night, which is not good. Don't be be like, that's not admirable. That's not good. Right? Except I have a lot of shame about having basic human needs like the need to sleep and the need to rest. I feel like that makes me and I know this is not true. This is what's frustrating because cognitively I get it, but I still have sometimes the emotional experience of like, oh, I'm a failure because I had all these big plans to get all this work done and I couldn't do it all and thus I'm worthless. It's insane. Like, narcissism is very black and white, it's very splity. And it's insane. That's not true. But there's a gap sometimes for us between cognitively understanding something and emotionally internally listening to it. Like these are really deep core wounds of mine that if I'm not always performing, generating, producing, creating that if I take a break, I am somehow failing and some hellless, worthy or important. What I'm understanding right now and you can correct me if I'm wrong of course is that narcissistic personality disorder plays with a very fine line of what's grandiosity and what's just running away from that feeling of shame. And I think there is obviously conversation ongoing about the fact that there is so much internal shame and narcissism, but the shame is that what causes the grandiosity is the part that I think I'm taking away from this. I think that that's an accurate assessment. I think shame is kind of an underlying or driving factor for a lot of this. I think we as children largely got the experience of being made to feel like we weren't good enough. Maybe some of us did. There's different presentations and narcissism right. I can only speak for my own. But instead of internalizing that and being like, okay, well, I'm not good enough. I'm terrible. The other response is also to be like, well, screw you, I'm actually the best. No, I'm good enough. In fact, I'm great. And yeah, I think there's some compensatory stuff there. But the underlying not good enough part is also always in the background. And so if you don't leave up to your own standards of greatness or whatever those may be, it can feel the word is annihilating. It can feel like you don't matter at all. I used to have, I'll give it an exact, this is crazy. But like I had this concept that if I didn't become internationally famous, like everyone on the planet knew my name, that my entire life would be wasted, that nothing about my life would be meaningful. And why was I even alive? That like, do you see the extremes? And I don't know. It's crazy to me now to think about that because I do have a lot of things now in my life that I've replaced with real value, I guess. And ways in which I still crave, you know, like attention, recognition, etc. So I have some philosophies around how this personality style itself is actually pretty awesome. And there's a healthy way to have some narcissistic qualities. But the personality disorder is really debilitating. Yeah, because you can have these delusions that if you are not perfect, you are worthless. Again, I use the word splitting. I mean, that people associate that with BPD, but people with NPD do that too. We split on other people, but we also split on ourselves. We are, we are either all good or all bad. Perfect or worthless. And that's just not, that's just not reality. That's not how life works. Yeah. So what it sounds like is it's just major overcompensation to avoid feeling like a failure. That's what is the essence of it. And I really wonder, you know, you mentioned this thing that you were gifted as a child and that you were doing well. So where is that sense of failure coming from? Was there something someone said was that an internal feeling and also that need to, you said you wanted to be known internationally? Was that something that was conveyed to you at some point by someone in your life? Because you did mention that, you know, there can be developmental trauma. That mean pretty constantly. I think for for myself, my narcissism really developed as the result of multiple and repeated and constant messages about what I had to be for my parents to be proud of me. And I'll give an example because I think examples work best. I had my first panic attack when I was nine because I got an A- and something. I remember being in my gifted teacher's classroom and just sobbing and sobbing and intermittent leaving. Like my parents are going to kill me. They're going to kill me. And then they called my parents, obviously, and were concerned. And then my parents came and got me and they were lovely appearing to my teacher and. Bearing. etc. And then I went home and I got scramed at and punished for it. They're making them look bad as parents. So that's, I guess, something else I should say about my own history and the history of a lot of other people within B.D. is that abuse is is really common. Like childhood abuse and neglect. Not just being patustalized. So like in my case, I had this weird mix of my parents really, particularly my mom really idolizing me, putting me up on this pedestal, adoring me, and then actually being really quite abusive in many ways, which was confusing. Very confusing. So. Unpredictable for one. I'm very unpredictable. Although I did learn to predict some patterns. Like if I did really well in school, if I got the lead in the school play, if I did well, if I did something that made them look good, which is again why I kind of think narcissism is a little bit intergenerational, they would love me and they'd be proud of me. Except that's not really exactly love, I don't think. It's not the kind of like unconditional love that I think children have a right to experience, which is that when you're struggling, when you're failing, when you make a mistake, you shouldn't be eating or screened that or locking your room or all that. I have experienced at certain points in that a lot of people in the community that that I work with have experienced too, just being really harshly punished for being human to be honest. So I don't know, I have. Again, I can feel my own intellectualization, that's one of my different specularisms nowadays, they're not feeling my feelings, but I do sometimes, and they're really painful feelings, the pain, the feelings of incredible grief for what I went through and what I didn't get as a little kid. You know, I was a good kid actually, and yes, and I wish that things had been different and I think in some ways people just did not respond to me, my parents didn't know what to do, my intelligence, I get. it hurt me a lot, you know, obviously, and then that hurt produced hurt for other people, which is my responsibility, too, really, it's hard, I don't know, it's all freaking confusing, but that's how I kind of conceptualize it, yes. You know, when you mention this, of course, there is going to be a group about this because you learned that you were loved for what you did, not who you were. That is exactly it, so if I had to summarize, how does NPT develop in one sentence? You just got that, like that's it, yeah. Yeah, what you do, what you can be for your parents, but not really who you are, right, which is flawed, and emotional sometimes, dysregulated, you're a little kid, you know, so, and again, I worry that people hearing this was fun, I am clocking my own self-consciousness, I think that how people will interpret this, but I don't want that to come off as me dodging the responsibility that I had as an adult to treat other people well, I say this a lot, but it's not our fault, it's on my fault that I have had NPT, whatever, I didn't want it, none of us want it, so it's not my fault, but now it is my responsibility, right, and it can cause a lot of harm not only to other people, but honestly to yourself, then you do have to stop, I think. So I do understand what you're saying, because everybody just goes to the point that, oh, you have to be accountable, but what about the, you know, let's just call it origin story of how this started, what you went through, and of course, there needs to be self-compassion before anybody can actually change, because there's a lot of internal experiences that we tend to discount. because we just notice, wait, this person has caused harm. Which, okay, of course. - What? - What about the internal harm that has been going on? Because that's the under the iceberg bit that a lot of people are not looking at. - I really appreciate, honestly, how compassionate it is. - It wants, you've been, but I guess I can understand too, how like somebody who's been actually abused by somebody with MPD, and let's make this clear. There's a cultural narrative now that being a narcissist means being an abuser, which is not necessarily true. Let's also look at reality. Yeah, a lot of personality disorders, including MPD. Make us act in ways that are really harmful to other people, and I acted like that for sure. And I can understand why somebody who has been on the other side, like somebody who has been victimized, may not be able to empathize, might not be able to extend that compassion because they need to protect themselves, like they need to. But what's happened is a more like a cultural phenomenon. What has happened is that MPD has become the scapegoat or an abuser. - Yeah. - The reality is that it is an incredibly painful disorder, actually, even if people themselves aren't necessarily aware of their own pain. That was something for me too. It's like, again, a story. I'll throw up my 20s. I open my 30s now, but I'll throw up my 20s. I was like, okay, I know I have childhood trauma, but I am psychologically so strong that I emerged from childhood unscathed, okay? I'm built to be. So, and also therapists aren't smart enough for me. You know, I have that kind of attitude. Like really, really arrogant, but really also just like protective. I wasn't ready to face, I wasn't ready to face the memories and the feelings underneath them, like healing from this is worth it. I say that a lot, but also it's miserable. There's a lot of pain to face in trying to overcome something like narcissism and it's unfair. Actually, I wish that things had been different for me in some ways. And then in some ways, I love it admire myself now, which is really cool. And so in some ways, I'm glad that I have the story that I do because I can help people now, hopefully, who are struggling with the same issues. So it's weird. I don't really know what to make of that, but yeah. - It's always going to be a discussion about a group that has been heard in the group that is also hurting because if you really look at it, people who are diagnosed with NPD most likely had a parent or both parents or guardians who also had similar issues. - Yeah, that's my experience. That's also, again, the experience is dozens and dozens of people I've talked to in this support group. I don't know. There's an ironic level of splitting that happens on us as a group. And I think that is a big problem in the world, like our lack of empathy for one another or ability sometimes to see things from another perspective. You can see that model across the political realm. You see this also with the cultural dialogue around narcissism that there's really a black and white dichotomy that having NPD means you're evil, you're manipulative, you're terrible, you have no ability, you love, you have no empathy, no concern for other people. And that's just not true. A lot of us really do actually number one have fluctuating empathy. A lot of us also have a lot of shame about not being able to have those experiences like to love other people for who they are. That was something I never used to really experience until I'd started healing, like appreciating people for who they were. But you know what that came down to was like, I couldn't do that for myself. You know, like I could only love myself conditionally. So of course I couldn't extend that to other people. And I guess that's what I really want people to know. It's not a moral failing in my eyes. It's a developmental deficit that things like therapy and support and a lot of self-reflection, but really relational healing can help you overcome. So that's why I'm primarily doing this kind of advocacy work now. Don't get me wrong, let's list yourself where you're here. I like a little bit of attention still. So I'm still narcissistically wired. But mostly it's 'cause I want people to have hope. You know, 'cause when I was diagnosed, I went online and everything that I read was like, these people, number one, these people can never be self-aware. And not only that, but even if they wanted to change, they can't. Like, and I can say that with 100% confidence, that that's not true. I think everyone is capable of changing if they grab the right motivation and they grab the right resources and support. - You know, that's a little joke that goes like this, like how many therapists does it take to change a light bulb? And the answer is just one, but the light bulb has to want to change. - There you go, there you go. That's another thing about healing, I guess I wanted to say. One of the things I've, that's been really healing for me is like healing. - I guess humor, laughing at it. Like my grandiosity is of which I still have some, is ridiculous, you know? Like sometimes I'll still catch myself being having a lot of ego or a lot of defensiveness. And instead of shaming myself for it and being like, well, I am I like this, which is how I would have been before. I just, I could kind of laugh at it now. And that's really, that's really, that feels really healthy for me. So I tend to like self-roast about within my group and in life in general. - So, I hope you coping mechanism. - Yeah. - Yeah. I'd like to ask you about something you just mentioned, just a little while ago, you mentioned fluctuating empathy. - Sure. - So could you maybe tell me a little bit about how that works? - Yeah, yeah. I'll surface it by saying this. I've taken a bunch of tests around this. I actually tend to have quite high levels of empathy and compassion and I, and always have, which is one of the reasons I denied having this mental illness for a long time. So in terms of my story, I joked throughout my teens and all throughout my 20s about being a narcissist. Like, and it was a known, it was a known kind of joke among my partners and my friends. Like, oh my god, Max is so vain, Max is so, you know, boisterous and grandiose and whatever. But I didn't read, I didn't get it, right? So because I myself had some biases against people with NPD or what NPD meant, that I thought, well, I can't have NPD 'cause number one, those people love themselves and they're so confident. They are, their pathology is that they are so freaking confident all the time. And I look confident that I know deep down, and I'm like really insecure. So I guess it's not that. That was number one, which is hilarious to think back on because that's the whole over-compensation pathology perk. And then number two was that I knew ahead empathy. I knew that I actually really did care about other people and care about making a difference and being good in the world. Like, my grandiose fantasies were, like I said, they were never about like being a big CEO and bossing people around and whatever. They were like things like being at, you know, political movement leader or bringing about world peace. Like, they were very pro-social grandiose fantasies. And I even actually, I even used to conceptualize myself as an empath, which is a whole mother story. I don't know quite how I feel about that, but for me, there was a real grandiosity to assuming that you had this like compassion and intuition super power. I really thought, you know, oh, I'm so much more loving and empathetic than other people. - Right. - In my experience, that symptom I only really tend to struggle with and I do struggle with it. But only really in the context of close attachment relationships, like romantic relationships, especially. And even then, usually only when I'm triggered, like being called out about something, being criticized, being rejected in some way, you know, 'cause again, it brings over these overwhelming feelings of like, oh, you don't think I'm good enough. You're trying to tell me that I'm bad. You're trying to put shame on me, right? A lot of us will assume that the feelings that are actually generated internally, feeling like shame, are coming from other people, right? To have a personality disorder in general means you have a really shaky sense of self, really shaky boundaries between what is myself and what is others. And so when people would criticize me, like when my ex-wife would criticize me, I would be like, well, you're trying to make me feel ashamed. It wasn't right. Oh, I'm experiencing shame. She's just telling you to not talk to her in that way and stop being so condescending. But what I interpreted as was like, she's trying to tell me on the worst person ever, like, so ridiculous. So-- Oh, you did the source to some external party, like, let's say, you. Yeah, yeah, exactly. This is supported in the literature, too. But NPT and ASP or anti-social personality disorder, those are not the only two disorders that have deficits in empathy. So really, any mental illness could involve deficits in empathy. If you think about it when people are incredibly, incredibly depressed, or maybe they're undergoing a lot of stress, even good things, even good stresses. They're moving, and they just bought a new house. They have to get that right. You're not going to have the capacity to really extend much empathy to other people because you need to focus those resources on yourself. Yeah. Yeah, like, for example, when you're wounded, you do not focus on anybody else. You can only focus on how bad that hurts. That's it. Exactly. That's what happens with, like, for example, NPT. And in terms of gaps of empathy, yeah, we are really self-focus because we're hurting, right? For me, I did have quite a lot of empathy in still do toward other people, as long as they weren't too close to me, right? Because if they were close to me, they can really hurt me. That's the thing. I still experience. I still have some tendencies. That's my recent ex-partner. You know, I still have tendencies to get defensive, to get a little knee jerk, like, why are you saying that about me? But really, they're not trying to criticize my entire personhood. They're just telling me to, you know, word something differently, or do something, you know, follow what I said I would do or whatever. But that's an experience for a lot of us. In general, as a group, but let's just go off the classic DSM criteria of NPT. There's nine criteria, and you only need five to be diagnosed. One of those criteria is a lack of empathy. But that means there are so many different permutations. And thus not having empathy or struggling to consist of these empathize with others, that's not always what NPT looks like. And I've certainly seen that on the support group network, the people within this are diagnosed with NPT, and they're empathizing all the time with one another. So it's not just me. I've seen a lot of other people with this disorder who do have this capacity. And that's probably really confusing for people, because again, I can't tell the cultural narrative is NPT means no empathy at all. No, but we do often struggle. And there are some people they might not experience in any empathy. That's true. Or they might only experience what we call like cognitive empathy or quote unquote cold empathy. That means I can think about your situation. I can kind of put myself in your shoes mentally, but I'm not feeling your feelings. That would be an effective or emotional empathy. And then there's a third form of empathy, which is compassion. Empathy and the motivation to act. So doing things. Exactly. So it was really confusing for me. I always had a lot of cognitive empathy and a lot of compassion, actually. I didn't really have affect of empathy until maybe, I don't know, maybe about six months ago, seven months ago. So that one's new. And I'm still learning how to harness that, because it's actually kind of overwhelming to feel with other people now. But even that is something that people with NPT can develop. And I guess, and I know that because I developed it. So as a whole, it can really vary in terms of people's experiences with empathy. It also tends to be a lot easier sometimes for us as a group to empathize. Maybe with people who are a little bit more distant from us. That's because this is a disorder that's largely based in developmental trauma and attachment trauma, right? We have a lot of attachment issues. So that makes sense to me. And it also sucks, because those close attachment relationships are where it's most important, where the stakes are highest, that you can stay empathic in a conflict with your partner, for example, that has been a point of self-sabotage for me on messy many occasions. So-- Right. Yeah. So what I think-- I just want to address the fifth that you said about empathy first-- that a lot of people associate NPT with not having empathy. And I think that's one of the most common myths that if you are wondering about the fact if you are a narcissist, then you could not possibly be one because a narcissist doesn't care. So are there any other myths that you can think of that? You know, wait, this is really damaging to the community. I think that what really is-- if you're wondering about it, don't worry about it, because a real narcissist would never wonder about it. Well, I am clinically diagnosed with NPT, and I wondered about it probably since the age of about 16, until 35 when I got diagnosed. I could kind of put it aside because I have my own biases. And I wish I'd knew them, because I wish I'd got an help center, because my life's a lot better now. And the people around me suffer less now, and I suffer less now, right? So yeah, I think that one is really, really damaging. And at the same time, I want to caution. Every little while somebody will wander into the support group who clearly might be struggling with something more like moral OCD, and a inquiry about being a narcissist. And so that can be a thing, too. I think it's very important to get a professional assessment if you came, which is hard because a lot of professionals don't really understand NPT either, at least the developmental roots and the deep one layers beyond what you might see in the DSM. But yeah, I think that really keeps a lot of people from getting help, and it perpetuates trauma, right? So if you don't address these issues for yourself, you're gonna continue to struggle other people in your life are getting suffer like we as a result of your struggling, and so on and so forth. And the next generation is born, and it happens all over again. So I really encourage anyone who relates to particularly having significant self-esteem swings and a self-esteem system that is very external regulated. To think about it, to think about whether pathological narcissism, it might not be NPT, and it might, again, it's all a spectrum, so it might just be some pathological narcissistic traits that have meaning and that are something that you could explore for yourself in terms of why you have that, and what you might do about that moving forward. I really wish I had this weird level of, I was self-aware, 'cause I would joke about being a narcissist, and I was, I didn't get it, you know, and I wish I'd gotten it. And that too is part of why I wanna talk about it now, because there aren't a whole lot of resources from people with NPT, right? We are, it's very stigmatized. It's a very shame-based, which sucks, but it's a way to have this trained-based disorder and then go online and everyone's telling you you're a freaking demon who can't or heal, like that just kind of perpetuates it more. I will say that, you know, narcissistic traits, NPT is cited as having about a 1% prevalence. That's probably an underestimation, ha ha, we're not that special. In some sources, it's up to 6%, and then I think I've read that it's up to 16 to 20% in the, like, outpatient psychiatric population, I'm a big fan of data. But what that means is I think there are a lot of people in particular who suffer with refractory depression. So depression that doesn't respond well to medication, and that seems to not respond well to therapy, but you just have to baseline, like, never feeling good enough. Always coming back to being really depressed, and really dissatisfied would be the word I would really use, really dissatisfied with, unsatisfied with yourself in your life. I think a lot of those folks might struggle with pathological narcissism because they might have some grandiose expectations of what their life is supposed to be like. And of course, if you can't meet that, if you're holding yourself through impossibly standards, you're gonna be depressed. That got me thinking, actually, that could need be true, because there is the sense of vulnerability that comes with NPD. And that, let's say, if given evidence that, okay, I might not be what I want to be, or maybe I'm not able to achieve that success that, you know, others are, then they may be going down to the pit of depression because that feeling, that negative feeling, is not going away. And yeah, that does check out how would anyone know that there is a possibility that it's just that yourself, steam, maybe low because you are expecting too much out of yourself. - Yeah, no, breach. I'm gonna put my plug, okay, DSM board, if you're hearing me, okay? They're not hearing me, they don't care about me, it's fine. But I really think, it would be a foreign less stigma, so as this order, if we just called it self-esteem, disregulation disorder, oh, maybe more might identify with it or have again. - No. - That's another thing I did wanna make sure I talk about on this podcast. Like, my another myth is this distinction between grandiose and covert merisus, of which it's true that people with PDE tend to present in one way more than another, but that is a false dichotomy. So, NPD is a disorder that involves both those polls. We have a grandiose self-state that often feels really aligned with who we are and feels amazing, but is not reality. And then we all have a vulnerable self-state that feels really depleted and like a complete failure. And in pop-psych, it's reflected as like a victim, chronic victim attitude. - Yeah, sure. - But we all have both. We're all, again, another really strong philosophy mind. And this is supported in the literature about it too, is that we're all hybrids, right? So, I spent a long time too being like, I don't understand. Okay, well, if I'm a narcissist, I guess I'm a grandiose narcissist, but I'm super like collapsed and miserable and I've been depressed multiple times throughout my life. Well, that was part of my disorder, like, we do these cycling's of getting enough external feedback that we feel good about ourselves. We might present to the world in ways in which it doesn't look like we're suffering, but that's always underneath. So, there's always a hidden vulnerability to anyone who looks grandiose. And there's also on the flip side, a hidden grandiosity to the people with NPT who look vulnerable. They might be depressed because they're standards, like you just said, right? But their standards are impossible. So, of course, you're gonna be depressed if you think, the only way to love myself except myself, whatever. The only way to have any worth is to be this incredible person. So, yeah, we're all hybrids. That's another thing I really do want people to take away that people can present with different percentages, maybe. Somebody might be more like 95, 5, another person might be 50, 50, but we all have both. And part of healing from it too is accepting that. I really had to do a lot of hard to accept my vulnerable side. The side that feels like an imposter in a failure and that really needs a lot of love and care from myself primarily. - Yes, MS doing a lot of good by helping people get the diagnosis they need and all of that. But I do feel there's something amiss there, which is the lived experience, which is another thing that we have discussed. That the experts are making these checklists or these guidelines about what's the diagnosis and how many symptoms should we be matching. But the internal experiences of somebody actually is giving it may be getting missed in that equation because it becomes so clinical all of that. And not to say that is entirely bad, but it is not entirely the most beneficial thing that we can do. Like you mentioned, there's a lot of permutations going around in the diagnosis. And somebody with NPD could look completely different from somebody else with NPD. There needs to be a common meeting point. I think that's where your support group also helps a lot. I'm sure. - So I think it really helps. And when I started it, I thought I worried. Everyone's just gonna be a jerk. Everyone's gonna be so mean to each other. It is so the opposite. I do kind of wish the world could see it because it's pretty incredible actually. How much people care for one another within it? And how much we fight against that sense of like specialness and isolation. Like we're so different from anyone else in the world. Well, no, I'm not. I'm like these people. But yeah, when I joined these recovery oriented spaces, I was worried because specialness, like being special, being extraordinary, whatever. That's always been sort of my primary symptom probably. The thing I'd hung on to really have only been able to start challenging that recently. That was always my thing. And so I was like, oh, I'm gonna feel so much less special. But really, it just made me feel less alone. I mean, I didn't wanna say this. So one of the things that I can't wear, I kind of think the DSM fails is that DSM, I think in the 80s, it goes 80s. It took away all of the vulnerable components of this order. You look at the DSM and you're like, oh, this is the asshole disorder, right? 'Cause it describes somebody who is grandiose and entitled and exploitative and has no empathy and thinks is super vain and all of these traits, yeah, that person does not seem very likable. And they certainly don't seem like somebody that you could have compassion for. Yeah. You understood that grandiosity is the compensation for an underlying really deep sense of shame, inferiority, vulnerability, suffering, right? It doesn't describe what like Dr. Mark Eatinson, who's a prominent therapist and makes a lot of content. His channel is heel and knee. I really, really recommend that channel anyway. But he'd say this doesn't describe a mental illness. It doesn't describe the experience of suffering. So one thing that has happened, there are a lot of psychologists who are kind of advocating for this too, it's reincluding vulnerable criteria. One thing that's happened is that there's now a alternative model for personality disorders in the DSM. So the standard one would just be those nine criteria that make up NPD, which just make you look like an asshole. The alternative model, I just wanna read, I brought it up is this, to qualify for an NPD diagnosis under the alternative model for personality disorders, an individual must demonstrate moderate or greater impairment in at least two of these four core areas. One is identity, so excessive reliance on others for self-definition and self-esteem regulation, exaggerated self-apraisal, and that could be inflated or deflated, that could be, I'm the best, or I'm the worst, I'm irredeemable, untarable, an emotional regulation that mirrors self-esteem fluctuations, so that's identity. Number two, self-direction, goal setting base purely on gaining approval from others, unreasonable or excessively low personal standards driven by a sense of entitlement. So again, either high or low, or three is empathy, an impaired ability to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others, hyperattune to the reactions of others, but only when perceived as relevant to the self. And that was really relatable. It was a lot of my experience of empathy and close relationships. But fourth one is intimacy, superficial relationships that exist primarily to regulate self-esteem, a lack of genuine interest in others' experiences, and a focus on personal gain. In addition to these functional impairments, that person has to either have grandiosity or attention seeking. So let's, if you take that model and you're like, okay, this is somebody who struggles with identity, self-direction, goal setting, empathy, and intimacy. And in addition, they've got some other traits like grandiosity and attention seeking. I think you can have a lot more compassion potentially for that person, right? 'Cause it sounds like an until illness, that sounds which is what NPD is. That doesn't sound like, oh, you're just being an asshole. You're choosing to be arrogant and, you know, domineering and entitled and whatever. This sounds like, oh, you have some real deficits. And this is the disorder that's based on social and emotional deficits that largely happen 'cause of childhood. - That sounds so much better than the diagnosis that we find on the DSM. You're right, it sounds like the asshole disorder. - Yeah, there's nine criteria. A lot of external traits, right? It's easy to see somebody else's arrogance. It's easy to see somebody else's grandiosity or their entitlement. In part of the disorders that we tend to hide things, we hide our weaknesses and vulnerabilities and needs. And so, of course, you don't necessarily see at times in which we are depressed and hating ourselves and unable to move from our beds because we're too ashamed to talk to anybody or let anyone know that we're struggling. That's a real lived experience for a lot of people. And it sucks because when you're, again, you're in that state and you're looking for, I'm speaking from personal experience here. When you're in this collapsed or depleted state and then you're looking for help or support and you go to YouTube or Google or whatever. And all it says is you'll never change, you're evil. You're actually not even human. You get so angry that you have these demonic black eyes, like there's some crazy conspiracy theory stuff that is so splitty and dehumanizing and so ironic in that way, right? I think the things that people accuse us of doing and that we sometimes do, yeah, exploit into humans. Well, the world kind of does that to us, you know? So it's, yeah, I don't know. I'm trying to be a green builder here, I guess. - No, that is true because if you search NPD or narcissism anywhere on the internet, you're going to just find negative, stigmatized stuff. So it is true that it is very demonized and yeah, it's true that there has been harm caused, but now that we are talking about, you know, the harm that has been caused. caused? Would you be fine talking about how your patterns may have affected closest to you if that is open? Yeah, I think most of the real interpersonal harm that I've caused has been the result of seeing people, especially romantic partners, as like extensions of myself. That's a pretty common experience for narcissists. You don't have a solid sense of self. And so we kind of absorb in some ways the identities and the selves and the qualities of the people around us. So what I mean by that I guess is, and I think back to my relationship, especially with my ex-wife. I loved her. I still love her. I really love her. But I didn't really, I wasn't really capable of loving her for the entirety of who she was. Because I wasn't capable of doing it for myself. I would project a lot of things in her. So the qualities in myself that I really didn't want to own or that I wanted to keep very, very far away from me, I would call her those things. So for example, I would be really critical of her when she else is ADHD is forgetful is messy. And I tend to be, I have enough perfectionism that my space is usually pretty hard to recognize. But, but baseline state is also to be messy. And I have had a lot of shame about my ADHD and I would put that under her. Right. And I would like call her lazy where I would, you know, yell at her get upset with her when things in the house work perfect. And you know, just really treat her unfairly in that way. And even then I had some degree of self awareness. Like I would come back and apologize afterwards. You'd be like, can we talk about it? Can we work together? So some of it was, I was feeling frustrated. I didn't know how to, I didn't know how to just have a direct conversation with her. Because I, because I didn't understand what was going on for me. I just knew I was feeling a lot of feelings. I had to discharge them in some way. I would make her feel small and insignificant and not good enough, which is what what I probably was feeling. Right. So that's we, we project a lot of those feelings on to other people who can tend to do. Yeah. I would also like, I don't know, I still have some issues with being like, well, I have, I have trust issues, but I also still recognize that I am, I can be controlling, I guess. And the ways I'm controlling now, I'm really aware of and mitigate the damage from as best as possible. But I was really controlling her in some ways. And examples would be, people were at a party and she said something that I felt like made me look bad. I would give her this look, be like, shut up. Don't say that. Do this, which is terrible, because that's what my parents did to me, you know, whenever I wanted to be like them. But I did turn out, you know, a fair now, like, like that in that way, that I would just put a lot of my own insecurity and shame about any part of me that was messy or human or not perfect onto her, that she was the problem. Right. So that led that destroyed my relationship, right. A lot of us have really a hard time maintaining stable and healthy and loving relationships. On the flip side, most people who are stable, loving, healthy, who have the healthy, self-concept, and healthy psychological coping mechanisms don't tend to stick with our relationships with us for very long. But if I look back on like my marriage, you know, I was probably 90% to the name. She had her own issues, but yeah, I caused a lot of a horror. And I really, I'm really regretting that now, but I wouldn't have figured this out without that. I wouldn't have I wouldn't have figured this out and I wouldn't have gotten help. And I am a lot happier now. And a lot more hopeful about the kind of person that can be. So I still have a narcissistic personality style. I think there's such things helping narcissism. But I, I care a lot about my reputation. Right. And so I still do. And now I try to have a good reputation by not doing crappy things and living by my values. But back then, I would kind of split it off. Like I would have ways in which I behaved at work, for example, where I was really depressing actually a lot of my own emotions. But then I would take those emotions, like feel like frustrated with somebody at work. And I would come home and displace those under like get really frustrated or yell at her. Yeah. So I'm talking about one person in my life that that has been a pattern. Yeah. Any exes and friends, you know, for most of us, I think the biggest damage happens in the context of the close attachment. Like those are the things that are they triggering at those childhood qualms. All I can do is live in a way that is more psychologically healthy and more lined with my values. And that's kind of what I'm trying to do. I'm still pretty defensive sometimes when, like my most recent ex, whenever they would give me criticism, I would have a major click. No, you are actually like this. And I'm not like that. I'd have to take a second and be like, well, let's analyze this. Is this true of me or not? And I've only really been able to develop that capacity to see feedback, like negative feedback as something that could help me grow and be actually grateful for it sometimes. Because I've developed a lot more self-compassion and a lot stronger sense of self. Like, I know who I am at this point, which is really cool because I, I never had that. So, you know, when you said all of this, there was this pattern forming in my head of the generational cycle because these symptoms that I'm thinking out loud as I say, there's there with me. One of the pillars of NPD is there's an ideal version that has to be or else there's a sense of failure. Right? So that ideal self is, let's call that reputation. You use that at some point also then we see others as extensions of ourselves. So what happens is that my reputation is also to be maintained by the people who are around me. Like, they also have to help me in maintaining that reputation because they're associated with me. And that way, like when you mentioned your parents, I'm sure they had their own parents who had these expectations from them that you're making me look bad or you're not feeling this, you know, that's how that is going on because every, each generation is seeing the next generation as an extension of themselves and whoever the loved ones are. And that's how the cycle carries forward. So do you think that if we just worked on seeing others as extensions of ourselves that would help? Is that something that has helped you to be able to break that? Thanks. That's a good question. Actually, it was really smart when you said about about generational trauma and about the idea of our parents thinking that we are extensions as kids of them and their parents thinking about them and so on and so forth. I have lots of friends who don't have a pity who have that experience. You asked about not seeing people as extensions of yourself. So in order to do that, if you're somebody with MPD, the first step really is to see yourself differently. So it's really impossible, in my opinion, to develop like the ability to quote unquote, truly love someone else, meaning to love them in their entirety. See them as a three-dimensional person and accept that they have flaws and they have ways in which your needs are not going to be met and whatever. It's really impossible to do that when you are still objectifying yourself. And narcissism is a disorder of self-objectification. We are either whole good, perfect, grandiose versions of ourselves or we are these terrible, depleted, complete failure blah blah blah, which is fake. That's our reality. We're people. We're all people. So people are going to have strengths and people are going to have weaknesses. People are going to have things that make them special and exceptional and people are going to have things that make them kind of mid or ordinary or maybe ways in which actually they're under or below average and that's just how life is. I think how do you heal? There's really the question and there's this is like a little bit of a pity saying that it's really true. Relational trauma requires relational healing. And so I wish, I'm pretty hyper independent. I'm historically pretty, I don't know, dismissive, avoided attachment style. I wish I had been able to heal from this all by myself. That would be such an accomplishment for me to be like, oh yeah, yeah, and I healed from NPD all alone. That's a grandiose fantasy itself. I needed a therapist. I needed a release for me, a really skilled therapist. And I also needed my support group, which has been interesting, 'cause my relationship with the group has changed a lot as I've changed. I needed friends. I needed people I could open up to about having this disorder. I needed to lean on people, and I needed to get comfortable. We have, as narcissists, we have so much shame about just like basic human things, like needing breast, needing care, needing sometimes to be taken care of or to lean on other users, to admit that we have any needs can feel really annihilating. And I would argue that's because we really didn't get our basic needs taken care of largely, as children like needs for empathy and attunement, our support group has guiding principles and some values that we have. And the first guiding principle is about corrective relational experiences. We need the experiences of other people seeing us as the read-dimensional, flawed, also awesome humans that we are and accepting us and loving us despite that. Or because of that too, right? Because people don't love others largely because they're special and exceptional. You tend to connect best when we're vulnerable with one another. Then come back to your question. How do you get over that sense of like, others are an extension of yourself? Well, you have to figure out a stop objectifying yourself. And funny enough, that's done in connection with other people. And a lot of us have this worldview that the world is kind of a scary place, that people, if we are vulnerable, are going to hurt us, they're gonna reject us, they're gonna humiliate us, they're gonna, whatever. And my experience is that I was wrong. Like, yeah, okay, well, that's how I grew up. But that's not actually how most people have treated me. And in fact, a lot of love and support when I'm vulnerable. And maybe it's okay to come out of my shell. Maybe it's okay to admit I don't know something or I need help or I'm sad or I'm lonely or like, whatever, I'm getting a little, it's not certain now because it's, because it still brings up some shame for me to say that. But that's reality. And I really wanna embrace reality now, because I lived outside of it for how long, long time and didn't even know I was, that's reality. Is that the world and maybe a kinder place than we assume it? Yeah, people need evidence that they can be loved for who they are rather than what they do. They need that sense of community that people actually like me. And maybe even seeing people make mistakes and be okay with that. No, that's funny that you say that, 'cause I'm like, I'm among this group. This community is great. But I am the leader of this group. And so it's important to me to show that actually, like to show my flaws and be like, hey guys, I messed this up. I got the timing wrong for this. I have ADHD. The other thing that is really important is to show the power of repair, right? So in this community that I'm really involved in, a lot of rupture happens. A lot of people get hurt feelings or hurt egos or whatever. But the flip side of that is that we can talk about it with one another and we can apologize and we can not self abandon and stand up or self a little bit, but also kind of figure out like, well, what's mine here to own and what's yours here to own? And how do I say sorry in a way that's not, you know, annihilating or inauthentic, but yeah, I messed this up and sorry, I'll do differently next time. That happens a fair amount. Like I mentioned in my relationship to this group has really changed as I feel. And when I started it really cared about people, really wanted to emotionally care about people. I did cognitively. I always had mostly good intentions, probably in the beginning. It was also, you know, had some intention of admiration with it too. And that was really not like that, which is funny. I still really enjoy admiration, like don't be me wrong. But it feels, I guess the metaphor I use for it is, it feels like sunlight. It doesn't feel like oxygen in the way that it used to for me. But yeah, it's funny because I don't need the same degree of admiration, I guess. And I certainly don't want idealization in the same way that I used to. - Yeah, admiration and idealization. I think essence of those two things lies, real feelings. I am good enough. I am worth something. - Yeah, well, I'll give an example. I've always been like an over-studier, right? I've had a lot of objective, personal, and professing its success. Like I've had a lot of things that backed up my grandiosity. But like you're lying that, why was I doing all this stuff? Why did I push myself so hard to get on the 99th percentile on all these things and get three days and all this stuff? Well, it was 'cause an imposter syndrome, an insecurity, that the only way I felt like I could prove to myself that I was good enough was to be the best. 'Cause if I was the best, then of course, okay, good. I've got objective proof that I'm good enough to be here. I'm not belong here, even though I don't feel like I belong here. - Yeah. - But that's caused me a lot. Like I talked earlier, it still causes me harm. My own exceptionalism, which I still have, sometimes prove social exceptionalism, but it still causes me harm. It makes me not sleep. It makes me over-expeded and it makes me do, you know, so narcissism can really weird way, it's depending on where your personality is organized, I guess. - Right, I really want to know. Through your journey, there must have been some parts of yourself that you had to maybe, I don't want to use the word "lend die," but maybe work on this part of me needs to really change. - No, I think let die is actually apt. They actually, that's good phrasing, letting parts of yourself die and it feels like that. Well, healing involves a lot of grief. I had this really grandiose self-concept of what I was gonna do in the world. And then it got completely shattered and depleted. I had this idea of who I was and I was this incredibly upstanding, empathetic, amazing person. But that wasn't reflected in the ways that I would treat people, right, necessarily. And then I realized I had an NPV and got diagnosed and I did the flip side, which is also narcissism. I was completely collapsed and I thought, "Well, I'm a horrible person." And I'm a redeemable, and I have no empathy. I'm lost 'cause everyone's telling me, "I have no empathy and I have no capacity to change. "That must be true." And in some ways, that kind of content, that kind of really stigmatizing content, I used self-harm. And in some ways, this is so funny, but it was a supply. Actually, it made me feel powerful and coherent to think of myself as this like ontologically evil mastermind. Then that's stuff, person with the attachment issues and pathological perfectionism that was real. That's reality, right? That's reality. So I've had to let both of those things go. The idea that I am both destined for something incredible, that I was never gonna really do, because of my own fear of failure and rejection, right? I had all these fantasies of writing a book, but I was never gonna write that book because I was too perilous by a fear of rejection and how other people would take it and perfectionism. So I had to let that go. I'm not gonna be on the New York Times bestseller from my first novel, that's crazy. I mean, I guess it's theoretically possible, but it's not for me and that's okay. Though I'm also not the worst, right? I'm not this horrible manipulative evil mastermind who has no feelings and has completely shot off from others. I'm a human and humans have a lot of sides to them. Humans have the ways in which they help people, the ways in which they harm people, both. There's a grief in giving up my grandiose self-content. There's a grief also in giving up that depleted self-content flip side because my greatest value is hope is that because I've done this work for so long, I'm happier and the people in my life are happier, I think. It's the feedback I've gotten at least. And not only that, but I'm more likely to actually be successful, funny enough because I'm not so afraid anymore of how other people are gonna respond to me, more if I'm gonna fail, or if I'm gonna get rejected. Like, there is, that is the difference to me between like, when I think of as grandiosity and greatness. And in fact, I am pretty great. I've got a lot of talents, I've got a lot to offer the world in it. And now I can see that clearly, and I can see my flaws a lot more clearly. I'm sure I still have blind spots. But now I feel like I really can do what I really wanted to do all along, which was make a difference. Have a real impact. So healing has been miserable and it was important and the best thing I've ever done for myself. I'm really glad I did it. - So you have spoken about the support group that you leave. Tell me a little bit about that. - Love to hear. So right now it's really pretty niche where it's been limited to Reddit and Discord but I'm trying to get it a bit more public and eventually establish it as like a nonprofit. It's gonna have a different name, it's a nonprofit. So it's called NARP Club. I have this tendency to try to reclaim words. So the word NARP gets there and a lot to describe people at NPD. It's a peer support group, it's confidential. We have multiple meetings per week. We have main sessions that are open to anybody who feels like they align with the experience of pathological narcissism, whether you're diagnosed or self-diagnosed or questioning. And then we also have these three focus groups right now that explore different experiences like having NPD with or narcissistic traits and with borderline personality disorder or borderline traits 'cause that often overlaps with the other ones with antisocial personalities or traits which is really misunderstood diagnosis too and a lot of suffering in that one actually as well. And there's one group in particular, Kavanaugh, one of my new favorites I guess. But it's certainly why I started the whole group, which is for people, it's called from the ashes and it's a support group for people who are newly self-aware or diagnosed and or in narcissistic collapse. Because there's so many distortions that happen in narcissistic collapse and it's actually a time in which people are really at the high risk of things like suicide. When people don't talk about this much, but suicide is actually a fairly prevalent thing among people with NPD and a lot of times people don't associate that with NPD. The tends to be this big shock to the community. Oh, I thought that guy was a little happy and confident and you don't see that that person was actually really silently struggling the whole time. So that is a skills-based group more so. We have a discussion portion, but we also draw on act and EVT and CVT skills to try to challenge some of those depleting and self-divaluing distortions that can happen during collapse. And so that was really meaningful to me because that was the whole point originally of this group and it was when I was collapsed. And I was like, why isn't there a support group for this to have a community of people who I feel finally like kind get me and have similar experiences and again, I come back to that relational healing thing that's really been impactful. And so I don't know, I'm sure emotional about it. We just met this thing and our topic today when we were talking about self-worth and people that are really vulnerable. So it's so different, I think, from what you might expect. - It's a community. - It is a community. So beyond that, we have multiple weekly support groups on Zoom, they're all free, they're confidential. And we have a zero-shaming policy, which I never really have to enforce. It means self-selecting to you, right? It's a group of folks who are self-aware. Number one, and also are interested in recovering some form. It's a bunch of cyclebreakers. And actually, some of the most incredible people have ever met. We also have a Discord community that's organized around this too, N-A-R-C-C-L-E.org. That's my social media handle across these platforms like Discord and Reddit. So you can feel free to reach out if this stuff resonates. Just give me a few days to respond 'cause I do tend to chronically overextend, but yeah, I really want people to know they're not alone and to know that there's hope. - I think what you're doing is amazing. And I think this support group would really help anybody and everybody who is even wondering if they have NPD or if they've just found out instead of going on internet. I took a glance at the link that you had shared with me and there are multiple worksheets for people struggling with this. And I think that's wonderful that there's so much. - Thank you for wrapping my handouts. - People, anyone from my group listening because I ran so about these handouts all the time, please do them. I put a lot of work into them. I appreciate that. Thank you. - There are not a lot of resources. BPD, I use this as an example. BPD has kind of had a little bit of a cultural revolution in terms of understanding. BPD was very stigmatized 30 years ago. And it still is. I'm not saying that folks with BPD don't face stigma. They certainly do. But there's a lot more resources for them. And there's a lot more understanding. I think it's time for NPD as well. - Yeah. - For having me on your show. I'm really appreciative of that. - Thank you so much for coming on this podcast and speaking so openly about things that are stigmatized but need to be talked about. And I really appreciate how you've explained these ideas so well. - If nothing else, just take away like, even if you don't assume that someone is suffering with this, even if they are not consciously aware that they're suffering from this, from their own exceptionalism, they are. It's a mental illness and there's a lot of suffering in it. - Yeah. A lot of people just by just looks. You don't know what's going on in the insight. That's a beautiful thought to end on. - Yeah, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. (upbeat music) - Come join me as a guest on my podcast. You can do so anonymously. 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