I am probably Narcissistic

[Meh]

I figure I am probably Narcissistic or have some kind of personality disorder.

Have never been diagnosed with it though. Maybe I should ask my doctor about it.

Not sure how I could spend so much time around a Narcissistic mother and not be like her in some regard.

I'm getting to the age though that nothing has ever been resolved at all. So I mean, it's getting to the point of why bother?


I mean, there are lots of things that I didn't experience in life

I didn't go to prom, never in hell would have thought that I should participate in something like that because I wasn't very social and wouldn't have been able to come up with money for a dress. Also wasn't asked to go.

I have never own a car.

I have never owned a house or a condo.

I have never had a career, only a long string of fairly unimpressive jobs.

Have never been in much of a relationship.

Never had a family not a family of origin nor a family of my own.

People say you should move on in life...but the people who say that also have these things.
I mean at the minimum I Should be diagnosed with mental retardation, autism, something. There should be something--a better explanation for my empty life if not a solution.

I'm burnt out, only scramble to try to get my basic needs met. Not much else is going on.

[Hopalong]

Hi ((((((((((Boat)))))))))) --

You've never struck me as an N.

love,
Hops

[Meh]

Well I don't have fear of the concept. I would just like to have more insight into my own behaviors/habits emotions.

Wondering if "dependent personality disorder"...goes along with "narcissistic personality disorder"

It's been said before that Narcissistic people fit like a lock and key with other types.

OR oddly enough I wonder if people flex between personality disorder types depending on their "position" in the relationship structure.

IF a person is sometimes Narcissistic and sometimes dependent. IDK just thinking out loud to myself

Having one cup of coffee, some orange. Did one minor errand, must do more before the day is over.

I mean I would say I think both of my parents had some kind of personality disorder. Like I would say I think my father had Avoidant personality disorder, and mother clearly nar.

Am I Narcissistic, Dependent, Avoidant... I don't know but it seems like it would be beneficial to be diagnosed with something clear. Kind of dumb that depression&anxiety are the only things I've been diagnosed with considering both of those things are symptoms of PD's.

One of my therapists said she thought I was very introverted...maybe it's another way of saying avoidant personality disorder without using the words.

[Meh]

It's amazing, my room mate's mother is bringing over a piece of furniture for her and also is bringing Thai food.... different world altogether.

[Meh]

http://www1.appstate.edu/~hillrw/Narcissism/shycovertnarcissist.html

Reading about covert versus overt Narcissism.

Covert Narcissism looks like Avoidant Personality Disorder

http://www.millon.net/taxonomy/summary.htm

As always, it's just a can of worms really.....Sigh.
Are all people one of these categories, I mean there never seems to be a "normal".........if this is the list of "sickos"...where is the list of "normo's"

 

http://www.apa.org/topics/personality/disorders-causes.aspx

I'm just ruminating-ly looking up info.

Really wish I had been diagnosed with Avoidant Personality Disorder or something when I was a teenager, when I first went and asked for Prozac.

http://sparkster.hubpages.com/hub/The-Covert-Narcissist

[Izzy_*now*]

Hi Green Bean,

I think if you wonder if you are a N, then you aren't..... like thinking you are crazy---crazy people don't know they are crazy.

In reading about all these disorders, we can very easily see some of ourselves in each one if we stick to descriptions too much.

I was diagnosed Avoidant, but because I thought maybe I was, did I answer the questions as though I were one?

What about Schizoid? I don't want to be part of my dysfunctional family....so there I am again.

Co-dependant? Then why do I live alone?

Narcissistic? ---just because I  look in a mirror as I pass by... that is more to realize that I am still here and alive (because I don't know who I am, and yes I still look the same)

Oh, there is a Word for me, but I don't know what it is. I know it began in childhood, and that I saw how others behaved so I emulated (N?) but No.... I am a introvert (yessirree) hypersensitive, feel less than all my family, and if a feeling rears it's head, I know it for a day, then put it away and get on with my logical, sensible, black humourous life style. I could never be rude to check out clerks, always ready with a smile and a nice comment, very seldom lose my temper/self-control....

Well I am just odd but have no name for it!

Good Luck

Izzy

[Twoapenny]

Hi Green,

I spent a lot of time wondering what 'disorder' I had that was the reason my life wasn't what I wanted it to be.  For me - and this is just me personally, I'm not saying it's the same for everyone - I eventually realised I didn't have a disorder, I'd just been brought up in a weird, screwy house with people who saw the world in a very odd and unpleasant way and who'd done things to me that had hurt so badly I'd had to shut down or cut off whole aspects of myself in order to survive it.

I'm still kind of 'weird'.  Stuff happens to me that I don't want and I ask myself why that happened (again).  I feel uncomfortable around people, I feel I have very little in common with most people I meet, I still have that feeling of sticking out like a sore thumb that I always had as a kid - no right to be there, to have an opinion, a voice, a feeling.  Perhaps someone would give that a name but what I found as I went through psychiatric services here in the UK years ago was that each doctor I saw came up with a different diagnosis.  I think that might be the case with 'disorders'; it's based on opinions and can change depending on who you see (and sometimes, I think, even what's 'in vogue' at the time).

So I've just tried to work on the bits that bothered me the most and to change things about myself on a basic, fundamental level.  It's very much a work in progress but I think the saying is progression, not perfection.  I'm aware of it now, I make conscious efforts to change my patterns and habits, I am trying very hard at the minute to say what I really think or feel to people without thinking about what they think of me (I find that really tough).  But I think even if someone gives 'your life' a name it's still there and it doesn't change because of being able to call it something, other than maybe being easier to try to explain it to other people.

Anyway, I'm not sure if that makes sense (!) but I'm trying to say that we can probably all be diagnosed with something but I don't know if that really helps much, we still need to unpick all the threads and try to remake ourselves in order to make things better, I think xx

[Meh]

Yah, I hear you guys, sometimes diagnosis are in vogue an' all.

Part of me does feel the same way, that depending who is the observer the diagnosis could change.

There is half of me that is still well basically suffering or feeling like I just don't fit in STILL at my age. I am 34.
My life is screwed up and I'm still compelled to try and figure out what the herk is wrong with me.

Despite what the world says about embracing the eccentric-ness of the situation ....I feel that life is formulaic.
And my friends that had formulaic lives turned out normal.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/fulfillment-any-age/201109/day-in-the-life-narcissist

I mean for one thing, I am kind of one of those hyper sensitive people, and I have read that something like 20 percent of babies are that way from the start. But this world really demands that people are bold and tough skinned etc.

In the end I got to ask myself what can I improve and what can I change....and what just isn't going to change about me-- and how do I deal with it.

Whatever it is, even if it's OCD, I haven't been able to get over it...for years. And if I stopped trying to figure it out maybe I would just end up on drugs or kill myself. Or if I ignore it then it is like self delusion which IS a trait of Narcissism.

I mean I have been given Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Effexor, Wellbutrin.......and recently have an unfilled prescription for Celexa sitting at the pharmacy that I may never fill due to the experience of Wellbutrin withdrawal. All of that and numerous "fast food" style therapy sessions.

Pretending like I am okay, quietly hiding. Spent most of my life being like that, hasn't worked, problems have only compounded.

Who knows maybe people with personality disorders always have some kind of cognitive dissonance and that creates the anxiety/depression.

[Meh]

Yesterday, went to the doctor's office, a sliding scale medical clinic. Took a couple of buses to get over there.

Felt awkward and nervous about bringing it up, but I asked the doctor if I might have a personality disorder as an underlying cause of my anxiety/depression issues.

The doctor said I was being ESOTERIC!! .....What I was asking her was basically, (Hey, I have had this problem for a long time, the pills don't cure it, so is there an underlying cause).....

....I told the doctor that my issues are not esoteric, that I have been dealing with anxiety and depression for years and have tried many medications at this point.

She just diagnosed me with Dysthymia. And I guess the concept Dysthymia was made up by one single dude, and it replaces..."depressive personality"...

I mean I sort of figured this much that the appointment wouldn't be mind blowing.

Apparently medical doctors don't know very much about personality disorders.

She handed me a sheet of paper, as always all I ever get are bogus referrals.
The sheet of paper basically had contacts for students practicing to become therapists.

Told her that I have tried 5 types of antidepressants, have another prescription that I never filled for a 6th anti depressant.
Doctor gives me a list of resources for people who are practicing to develop their careers but are not experienced enough to really help me.

I Feel a little bit like I am having a hard time writing this out I am so frustrated with how medical professionals respond to anxiety and depression.
It's dumb, saying a person has anxiety or depression is just like saying a person has pain.....but PAIN is not a diagnosis it's a symptom

http://www.webmd.com/depression/guide/causes-depression

Right here above on this WebMD thing says that being cast out of a family can cause depression....I mean isn't that what children of Narcissistic parents have experienced??

[sKePTiKal]

Right here above on this WebMD thing says that being cast out of a family can cause depression....I mean isn't that what children of Narcissistic parents have experienced??

Just some random thoughts on depression:

Depression because bad things happen to you, doesn't "get better" or go away through drugs, IMO. Depression because something in one's brain doesn't quite connect -- might.

As people "grow up" and stop being dependent on their families... there is another kind of distance that's a normal part of being an adult. Could be (it was for me) that being "cast out" can become one of a person's greatest strength. I didn't think it was, though. Not for years and years.

When a person is trying to sort out all the bits of colored yarn that became our tangled-up selves... and trying to put them in some functional order (which isn't OCD; just being "neat") it would appear that the "mess" is hopelessly jumbled and it's an overwhelming task. (hmm... right there kinda includes the list of "symptoms" that defines "depression", huh?? But IS self-work depression, in reality? Or are sad, lonely, angry feelings really just a part of life -- for everyone? Maybe self-work simply requires starting with one strand of yarn - pick one, anyone, there is no "right" one - and going through the thoughts, memories, and feelings - from a sense of Present Moment in the Now.

That was then; this is now. What we thought THEN and what we think NOW can be worlds apart. Same with the feelings, sometimes, too.

Yeah, doing self-work seems (to the person doing it sometimes) like we're so self-involved that we must be N. Shoot. If you were N, you wouldn't be depressed about your life at all! It would be all rainbows and unicorns and peace on earth, coz you simply said "it is so"...  LOL.

Maybe you just need to relax about being YOU. Don't worry about defining who YOU are. Just BE. No standards, no rules, no process... that can come later, after you can accept how you feel... being you. (and a little secret? lots of people have to learn how to do that... so there's  nothing wrong with you in regards to where you rate and compare on this scale, either.)

Hang in there... you're definitely on your path. We all "get there" at different times and stages of our lives, by roundabout ways.

[Hopalong]

Hey, ((((Boat))))

I really feel for you. I understand the longing to have a clear, definitive explanation, so you could then take clear, definitive steps to fix it.

It's not as though the problem is something in you, vs. the culture. It's what you said, you are highly sensitive and reactive, and this world
favors crisply organized alpha folks. Or this culture, anyway.

As a sensitive poet, friend with many a bonkers artist...I do think you are not alone in these feelings. You have company.

Many the issue is just that...finding your company. I continue to think that long-term group therapy is powerful for this stuff.

love and comfort,
Hops

[river]

Hi green bean,
If you want some kind of explanation or Dx, ~ heres some for ya, see if this fits. 
this is according to the paradigm that makes the most sense to me. 

Theres 3 fundamental disorders, borderlines, narcissists and schizoids.  Its a dynamic thing, and one in a family often gives rise to the existence of the others.  However, Ns very commonly give rise to schizoid,  the schizoid is so horrified at being used, discarded, dehumanised, being treated as a usable disposable object, and all those experiences so familiar here. 

So that leaves the person with a foundational experience of relationship that is often played out and repeated.  And it leaves an internal paradigm of relationship within the person that consists of a split, on one side of the split is the person who is in the thrall of the N. that is called grafically the 'slave/master' relationship.  Being hurt, horrified and betrayed ultimately this person leaves, or moves themselves to a distance, and often that is a distance from all relationships, and life in general.   And this can be a great distance, or a compromise, for example, as I'm doing now, having relationships online, but great shortage of real life relationships, or being with someone, but rather detached/ disintersted, the variations are endless.   

But heres the thing that most Ts dont mention.  It's not just all in the schizoid person's imagination, or their 'intrapsychic structure', the world IS actually a dodgy place full of those that are calous and bonkers and exploitative.  Its just that for recovery we have to learn to navigate all this, and connect with the best of ourselves and the best of others, and that, of course is one thing to say, and really a bumpy road to try to do.   

thats my bit.  theres also a website along these lines:  www.selfinexile.com  which explains it better than I've done. 

How does all that strike you? 

river.

[Meh]

Thanks River, makes sense to me.

[Meh]

Haven't been on here much, I feel like writing though since I spend all day on the computer and phones, this time of day I also feel like I am spent of energy and that my words wouldn't even be coherent at this point.

[SallyingForth]

Personally I like the explanations of personality disorders on ptypes.com . They are simple and to the point.

Everyone has a little narcissism in them.

I used to question if I was like my mother, an NPDer and OCPDer. Someone told me if I questioned it I probably was not disordered. Disordered people like my DH, my NM, and my APD father never question or wonder if they are disordered and would deny it in a flash if so diagnosed. My DH has OCPD and denies the diagnosis all the time. He also claims no one ever told him. A complete lie.