Featured Image Credit: Getty Images/Paul Taylor/janiecbros
Topics: Mental Health, Psychology, Reddit, Health
Callum Jones
Topics: Mental Health, Psychology, Reddit, Health
A diagnosed narcissist has revealed the realities of living with the mental health condition.
Narcissistic personality disorder is a condition in which people have an unreasonably high sense of their own importance.
Essentially, they seek too much attention, while those diagnosed may lack the ability to understand or care about the feelings of others.
As per Mayo Clinic, symptoms of the mental health condition include taking advantage of others to get what they want, making achievements seem bigger than they are, and a felling of special treatment.
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For those that are not diagnosed with the condition, it can be pretty difficult to understand the symptoms.
And especially for people who may have a friend or a family member diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder, that further understanding is greatly important.
Well, a diagnosed narcissist has taken to Reddit to provide an insight into living with the condition.
Taking to the social media page's 'AMA' (ask me anything) forum, the user penned: "I (21M) was diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder and cope well, diagnosis was early this year/began diagnosis process late last year.
"I also study psych, emphasis on cognitive disorders. So I kind of have a semi-deep understanding of my own disorder.
"Feel free to ask me anything."
So, the first question posed to the man was: "Any tips on how to deal with someone who is almost guaranteed to be a narcissist, but refuses to seek diagnosis or change behaviors?"
The diagnosed narcissist responded: "There's absolutely NO way to make them seek a diagnosis or change. My change was because if I didn't change, I'd die.
"I had to force myself not to care about anything, actively, for years straight until it became true."
Elsewhere in the Reddit forum, the anonymous man was asked if he's trying to 'change', however he noted that's pretty difficult to do with a personality disorder.
He said: "I am trying to change, but as a personality disorder I can’t truly change my personality. Instead I try to calm my expectations of others and their understanding of me/my wants/my needs and find a supply elsewhere that’s healthy."
The man was also asked whether he seek diagnosis for his condition, which provided perhaps the most eye-opening response in the whole thread.
"I sought out a diagnosis after a friend diagnosed with NPD mentioned how extreme my behavior is, disgust with others is, and how I described friendship/romance," he said.
"My first response to it was dismay and disgust, self hatred and loathing. NPD is based off of shame as said before, knowing that I was someone who was capable and IS capable of such horribleness made me viscerally upset."