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I am having an assessment for Narcissism Personality Disorder in a week with a specialist pdoc. My key worker says it's very likely I am a narcissist. Personally I do not mind, I see it as a very positive trait and it's what keeps me alive since I'm bipolar as well and it kept me from not committing suicide when I had depressive episodes in the past except from once when I was at a horrible state. My ideology is, it's exceptionally important that I don't kill myself since my personality perceives suicide as weakness(NO OFFENCE...SOWWY) It's not good at the end of the day... The question is how to I convert negative narcissism to positive narcissism, how can I still be godlike but understand how others feel? How can still make my life shine, become someone very important, but not be an arsehole and not be a corrupted leader. I do like being in charge, that is true... I got to do something, my key worker thinks as my personality grows, people around me would suffer from emotional narcissistic abuse because I can be extremely manipulative at times. At the moment, I can't see why would that be true and I don't find my traits horrible. I love attention (NOT the sort of pity type attention), praise...positive attention such as WELL DONE!!! YOU'RE F%"!"£$ GREAT" that sort of attention. (I do despite negative attention, that's for sure). I can't seem to be causing my partner any narcissistic emotional abuse because I do think we share certain narcissistic traits, so I suppose that's good. Finally, I don't like this diagnosis at ALL, it's not an illness, if I'm an arsehole then I am...if I am arrogant DEAL WITH IT you judgemental psychiatrists. Although, if I can't recognise I emotionally harm others around me then I suppose that's not good and I will not be praised for that. Yes I want to change...for selfish reasons but that does not matter...it's actions that define us... Do you think narcissism is horrible? Do you see it as an illness? (I don't ) + How can I convert my negative narcissism to positive narcissism?

Hi I know there is a sense of irony if you write NPD and then write help but any way... I was referred to see a personality disorder specialist which came to me as a surprise. Initially I assumed that my CPN(community psychiatric nurse) was thinking that I might have BPD despite having Bipolar Type 1 with proper full on psychotic and violent manic episodes. So I approached her with this assumption and said with a sarcastic tone 'Do you think I am over-sensitive?' 'Do you think I feel empty inside?' Do you think I'm overly emotional?' 'It's my bipolar diagnosis isn't it, the symptoms? 'I don't need bleeping CBT, all I need is my lithium and my quetipine!' Then, she said something I would have never expected, 'I think you might be suffering from narcissism. That's why I referred you to the PD specialists.' I was surprised and it got me thinking. Yes, I can be very selfish and yes I can be very arrogant, but isn't that normal? You are wandering now probably, narcissists would always hate the stigmas surrounding NPD (since it's about them), if I am a narcissist.......... wouldn't I avoid talking about it!? Well that is true, I denied it at first when I heard it, but today...this day, I am writing this post and I'm feeling like a really different person. You see, my depression side of my Bipolar came back and it's really intense at the moment. It started with anger and me being really grumpy but about a week ago I almost got admitted to hospital for feeling suicidal. At the moment I'm still depressed to that point, and a lot of memories are starting to came back, things that I found irrelevant, silly and funny and didn't feel any guilt or any tiny bit of remorse about them. There were some things that I did (non-violent things)........ I told various people(who had some history) to kill themselves or to cut themselves when I had arguments with them and got offended. Once I had an argument with this bossy girl when I was in a psychiatric ward a couple of years ago, she told me I'll never make anything out of my life, I got angry and wrote a letter with reasons why she should end her life and included a razor in it and gave it to her. Then I didn't really care and didn't felt guilty at all, and I did laugh afterwards when she came out with just three superficial scratches on her arm. I am a horrible person, I lie and lie all the time,I am such an experienced liar that I can make people believe anything I say and especially manipulate people to achieve my desires. I can be so superficial sometimes. I even just say horrible things on a day to day basis when I'm offended and that can be quite often. My house mate was telling me that I dream too high and I'll never reach the top because no one is perfect, I told her, I hope you choke on your own yoghurt (yoghurts are her weakness) Now that I'm depressed, surprisingly I can recognise all these tyrannical atrocities through an emotion called guilt which I don't normally feel. So if I have NPD, it goes away when I'm severely depressed. I just want to put it out there , in order to be a normal selfless person do I have to be severely depressed? So let's say I stay depressed, how do I deal with the guilt? Last week when I wasn't feeling so fab I wrote a suicide note and I wrote "I am monster, I'm horrible and I'm becoming more draconian as I grow, I need to stop this. Before it gets too late." I can't deal with the guilt... So I have two questions Am I narcissist? and how could I possibly accept help (when I am not depressed) since I'm so arrogant and selfish ? & Should I find a way to keep my self severely depressed since my personality is not the same as when I'm depressed and if I do, how to I deal with the guilt?

I just got off the psych ward a few days ago and now understand what people mean when they say I'm "high functioning." Many of the people there were very low, and obviously feeling low, shuffling along, and staying quiet. I felt crappy for the first two days, but even then managed to enjoy interacting with the staff, even if only briefly. I've often thought I was different than a lot of people with my diagnosis (bipolar 2); most people seemed to have friends and might be able to work. I know bipolar has been a serious problem in my life, but others seem to have more consistent direction and sense of purpose. They seem more "normal," except for their mood disorder, whereas even when I've been functioning, there's been something very off about me. I was reading a journal entry that I wrote when I was working at an office at 25. It went something like, "Today, they finally asked me to do something, but it was a mere mindless task, not taking advantage of any of my intelligence or education." Wow! What a dick I was. It reminded me of the time I saw an episode of Starsky & Hutch as an adult and realized what a truly awful, awful program it was. Except this time instead of a tv show, it was myself. But although I feel like things have changed, it's only been a matter of degree, and largely because I've given up on life in general. I don't blame the world anymore for not appreciating my special genius, but I still feel, when I get into some situations, deeply uncomfortable b/c I know I don't "measure up" to people who manage to keep it together every day. But part of me also realizes that I'm insecure, and most people don't spend that much time thinking about me and probably don't judge me as harshly as I do myself. I also start many adventures confident that I will be the best adventurer of all time, but I soon crash when I realize I have to actually work at it, and that it's likely many other people will be better at it then I will. There is a shit ton of other personal history I can muster in self-supporting my diagnosis, but even if I don't reach the DSM-IV qualifications, I definitely feel like my feelings of superiority bolstered by deep insecurity have hurt my progress in life if not crippled it. My favorite therapist of all time did DBT an Schema therapy. Schema therapy works exclusively by challenging very specific ways you look at the world at yourself. In retrospect, it is probably a great tool for addressing personality problems (which really are the same thing as schemas). So a few questions I have for y'all: 1) Why won't my new therapists acknowledge that I'm a raving narcissist? I know that most narcissists (by reading horrible stories about them) wouldn't ever acknowledge it, but I'm really trying to get specific treatment (like schema therapy) or at least any explicit treatment, but obviously I don't have any confidence in that happening without acknowledgement of the problem. When I was reviewing my paperwork for release, my axis ii was "narcissistic," when I asked the discharging nurse where that information had come from -- if it was from my records at the clinic -- she said she didn't know where it came from and that it was probably some mistake. Maybe she sad that because I didn't seem NPD during my stay; or it might reflect a deep reluctance to share that informaton. 2a) I've been accused of "guiding my own treatment," so they're reluctant to give me a new therapist. I know I shouldn't be doing it, but I would also like some acknowledgement that I've been around the mill and might not know what will help me, but I do know what DOESN'T help me. I may have panicked in the beginning of my treatment there and now I feel like nobody is going to care about what I have to say about therapy; and I feel like nobody there wants to see me because I'm PD. Should I give up on giving feedback on useless treatments, or should I trust that the therapist knows best? 2b) While I'm on the topic of therapy, I've been deeply unhappy with therapy because in the past it has only *fed my narcissism.* "Hey, you're great, nobody gets you, you don't fit in because you're better, and you can do anything, and blame your parents for your problems," are all the most common themes of the therapy I've been in. I am smarter than the average bear (or at least I seem so to others). Group therapy also doesn't seem to great, because it's easy for me to feel superior and simultaneously the group is likely to pull the same stuff as the individual therapist, "well, you seem smart, so don't worry so much, you'll pull through. Next person, please." Can I find a way to stuff my narcissism in that situation, or should I get out? What is explicitly NOT a good treatment for NPD? And what are some treatments that might work if approached properly? 3) What's a good treatment for NPD? I like DBT and mindfulness and think I will pursue those. 4) I don't feel I'm really THAT much of a narcissist, at least when it comes to dealing with other people. I don't recognize the *complete* heartlessness and lack of empathy in a lot of the descriptions and I've obviously been sufficiently fucked over by life to consider the real possibility that I may, you know, have played somewhat of a role in that fucking. Almost all the reading material out there is for the monstrous versions and written by justifiably angry people eager to demonize the disorder. Can you suggest some compassionate reading material? 5) What are some of the interesting ways that NPD could have messed me up? One thought I've had is that it might be responsible for my anhedonia / dysthymia. I tried playing guitar, for instance, and it was hard for me to focus and enjoy it because I spent so much time imagining how awesome people would think I was. It seems that's a large component of almost anything I do. 6) Yammer about anything you'd like vis-a-vis NPD, even if you don't have any answers to the above. kthxbai