I’m a narcissist.
At moments I understand why people are so repulsed by this word, however, my personality disorder is something that still hasn’t been looked into enough. Still, I’ve been diagnosed by multiple psychiatrists and psychologists.
It started as a joke. Going to therapy was nothing more than a means to an end. Back then I was seeing a woman who was so adamant that something was seriously wrong with me.
I went to therapy when she started to threaten to leave me if I don’t. You can imagine the irritation I felt when she wanted to take my power away from me. Later I learned that she was trying to take away something that people referred to as “narcissistic supply.”
When you live your entire life believing that this bravado is the authentic self, you don’t want to change your perspective on it. You want to continue believing that you’re this super-human who is born to be a leader. I genuinely still have moments when my mind is telling me how much I’m better than others.
I’ve been in therapy for an entire decade and all I can do is learn my own thinking patterns and try to navigate through them. As you can guess, there’s no cure for a personality disorder. All we can do is learn to manage it.
Back then it was impossible to keep me in therapy. I thought that it was nothing more than a waste of my time, considering that my mind told me the therapist was just trying to get a reaction out of me.
“She’s manipulating me.”
“She only wants my money.”
“Who does this hag think she is and why is she acting as if she knows me?”
I tried lying to everyone and even myself when I started to say that she didn’t strike a nerve somewhere within. Underneath the facade, I put on for the world and the empty abyss of my personality, she brought out emotions that I couldn’t deal with.
Those emotions would keep me awake at night. But it didn’t matter for long, because I could live without sleep, but I would never admit to anyone that her words got to me.
After many more failed attempts at relationships and anger management problems, I thought that I’ll start to look into NPD. Low and behold! I fit the criteria to the tee.
I thought that the people around me were just too stupid to see what I’m seeing. They didn’t see why I’m superior. They’d tell me that I’m asking for attention, but I believed that I simply commanded a room without even trying.
But those were the same people who had to deal with my mood swings. Even the smallest problem would make me bed-bound. I was depressed more often than not and my inability to handle stress was concerning.
It would make me lash out at people before I’m even aware of what I’m doing. I wouldn’t stop until those people would start crying and running away from me. I still feel so much pride when I think of those moments.
Am I proud to admit it? To be honest, I don’t feel sorry, even though I know that it would be a normal emotion to experience. All I do know is that it’s the best way to establish dominance – when people fear you, they respect you more.
People would like to differ but they never saw the world from my perspective.
My last girlfriend was a submissive woman who reminded me of a frightened deer more often than not. She knew about my disorder and still decided to stay. She said that she could help me go through this.
Those words are intoxicating to me. It sets the mood for the rest of the relationship and I immediately know that she’ll have a long list of excuses for every stupid thing I throw her way.
That’s when I have to battle the urge to use it against her. At least, looking back on all of it, I know that I tried to fight those urges. Nonetheless, they got the best of me, as you can imagine.
Whenever I made her cry I felt ecstatic. Whenever I told her a lie that she believed, it made me feel so much better about myself. I saw her as a lower specimen because she was so dumb to believe a predator like myself.
I would treat her well after those episodes when I couldn’t control my need to manipulate her into believing my lies. Afterward, I learned that this was nothing more than love-bombing at its finest.
How disappointing. I thought I had that figured out! I didn’t want her to suffer or to be sad anymore, I wanted her to stay and to understand that I’m not such a bad person. But, that was also misleading.
When I would buy her flowers to make up for a night filled with shouting and throwing things around, her face would light up with a genuine smile. It only made me want to do something even worse to her just to remind her of the beast within me.
I couldn’t believe how stupid she was to believe that one act of kindness would erase the monster that stood in front of her. Her happiness would drive me mad to the point where I wanted to hurt her.
Sometimes, I did feel remorse, but it would soon be clouded by other thoughts. For example, my brain would tell me that it’s not my fault.
“Why would you feel bad for her? It’s her own fault for falling for your traps. If she was any smarter she would get it. Now go and see how far you can push her!”
Being in therapy has shown me how to work around these patterns and pick my authentic thoughts, even though it makes me angry to feel anything even remotely close to sadness or happiness. It’s an emotional chain reaction.
Zero out of ten. Would not recommend it.
Is this the type of confession you wanted to hear from a narcissist? Or did you want something that would still excuse the behavior of your abusive boyfriend?
Or perhaps you wanted me to tell you that we can still feel love even though we express it in different ways?
Sorry to disappoint you, but I only ever felt “obsession”. That’s a far cry from love.
If you want to know if your narcissistic partner actually loves you (not considering the words that he uses to manipulate you) you may want to think twice. Just remember that NPD is on a spectrum, you can’t generalize and you can’t cure him.
You’ll never be able to be a good enough reason to make him get better.
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