[HN Gopher] Ask HN: How did you fix your narcissism?
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Ask HN: How did you fix your narcissism?
I had an epiphany this year that I focus too much on myself and
came to the realization that I might be a narcissist: I tend to
talk too much about myself, I don't enjoy listening to other
people, I tend to judge situations only from my perspective, I have
an inflated ego and take things too personal. These traits have
affected my personal and professional life and would really like to
fix them. I did some search on Amazon but it seems that all the
books are written for people who were affected by narcissistic
people. Couldn't find any book for people who are narcissistic
themselves and want to fix that. Did anyone here had the same
issues and can recommend me some tips/books on how to deal with
this?
Author : zuzuleinen
Score : 202 points
Date : 2020-02-06 11:38 UTC (11 hours ago)
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| Assess your weaknesses. Ask other people about your weaknesses.
| Do not blame others for your own weaknesses and mistakes.
|
| Assess your strengths. Ask other people about your strengths. Do
| not take credit for others' strengths and achievements.
| AndrewDucker wrote:
| It sounds like you've _had_ the epiphany.
|
| The important thing now is to remember it, and apply it to your
| daily life.
|
| This is much less fun, and much harder work. But basically,
| whenever you're about to do something, ask yourself if you're
| doing it for the right reasons.
|
| After a while you'll have internalised this to the point where
| you're not having to correct course hardly at all, and it will be
| near-zero effort.
|
| And then you can move on to the next thing ;-)
| exception_e wrote:
| Can't say I was a narcissist, but I had an epiphany at one point
| about "being too full of myself" as well as taking over
| conversations too often. I really dug into certain philosophies
| to help course correct.
|
| The most useful philosophies (for me) were/are Secular Humanism
| and Utilitarianism PLUS all of the sub-philosophies inside of
| each. There are definitely some problematic ideas in each, but I
| think you'll gain some new perspectives.
|
| There are other areas to look at, but what I listed is a good
| start. Stoicism can also help with emotional control and being
| more aware of your thinking. It's kind of like a "practice".
|
| You can buy books or browse the web for this stuff, of course.
|
| NOTE: I have ZERO credentials in philosophy... it's just my
| hobby. However, I don't think my recommendations here are out-of-
| line as they are pretty high level. Would love to have more
| seasoned folks comment/point out other areas of philosophy that
| are useful in gaining insights for the OP's issues.
| slowdog wrote:
| For book suggestions I would suggest the old classic: "How to Win
| Friends and Influence People"
|
| Talks about active listening, and remembering things about
| others.
|
| As for generally not being as narcissistic, I think you're
| already on the right track. 90% of being aware of other people,
| is being aware that you're sucking up the airtime. Conversations
| are dances, both parties need to be engaged
| tortasaur wrote:
| IMO it's really obvious when someone's applying the strategies
| in that book without addressing their underlying behavior. One
| of my bosses had the dark triad traits, and it was painfully
| obvious that he was following the book's advice to the letter.
| Referring to people by name often and the like doesn't mask
| narcissistic behavior, it just makes a narcissist appear
| dishonest.
| pjmorris wrote:
| I grew less distrustful of the book when I read in it that,
| in the author's view, the key ingredient to its advice was
| sincerity. Carnegie even makes the point that the advice is
| useful whether or not you are sincere, and calls out its
| danger.
| randomsearch wrote:
| Put another way: people are extremely good at detecting
| inauthenticity.
| qzx_pierri wrote:
| This is a great recommendation, but if a person with narcissism
| were to pick up this book, they could easily turn into one of
| those slightly creepy & very transparent "overly nice guys".
| It's a great start, but if overdone, you can push people away
| even more.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| M'narcissist. _tips fedora_
| hinkley wrote:
| Stress, especially without robust coping mechanisms, can make you
| withdrawn.
|
| That can show up as lack of empathy and selfishness. You can be
| selfish and not be a narcissist.
|
| The oxygen mask rule applies here. You can't take care of anyone
| else while you're floundering. Counterintuively, making a
| conscious effort to take care of yourself may free up energy for
| helping others. Right now you might be choosing you by default.
| And since it's undirected, the costs are higher and the benefits
| lower.
| brianfryer wrote:
| "Rethinking Narcissism" is the best book on the topic that I've
| read so far.
| smartquestion wrote:
| I'm not surprised that the literature on narcissism isn't helping
| you, because looking for books to help overcome your narcissism
| is the last thing a real narcissist would do. In their world
| view, the problem is always everyone else. It sounds more like
| you're growing, and learning something about how your ego
| operates, which is a good sign.
|
| The question is how to grow further in this direction. In my
| life, the thing that has helped the most with this so far is the
| practice of self-observation as taught by certain spiritual
| traditions. Here's a brief summary: when you observe how you
| react to things internally, especially if you can observe it
| neutrally and without judgment, you begin to see a lot about how
| you've been treating other people and why. The magic is that it
| then changes on its own, without you having to do anything extra.
| Self-awareness and self-honesty are the only ingredients you have
| to add. That's fortunate, because self-honesty is already a lot.
| We have a strong tendency to lie to ourselves, rationalize, and
| excuse nearly everything. On the plus side, the more that
| dissolves, the easier it gets to be with yourself. Self-
| observation is the solvent.
|
| If this approach interests you, one thing you might take a look
| at is the books of Vernon Howard. (Don't be put off by their
| titles. The contents are serious.) If you're sincere about self-
| work, they provide the clearest explanation that I've run across.
| Self-observation is, of course, a classical spiritual teaching,
| but Howard distilled it into modern language in a way that is
| extremely direct and does not ask you to take on any belief (e.g.
| any religious belief). The main thing that makes his writing
| different from so much other self-help material is that he does
| not flatter or coddle the reader. He gives it to you straight.
|
| I also agree with the commenters who suggest working with a
| therapist, because the ego behaviors you're asking about are
| typically rooted in past painful experiences that created a need
| in us to armor ourselves against future pain. Self-work seems to
| require journeying back into those realms in order to heal. Then
| you can let go of your selfish behaviors because you just don't
| need them anymore, just like you wouldn't wear a heavy suit of
| armor once you no longer feel it's necessary. What doesn't work,
| in my experience, is trying to be less selfish only in a rational
| or ethical way. That approach amounts to imposing a censorship
| layer on top of what you actually feel, which is a form of self-
| deception which only puts more weight on you and eventually
| collapses.
|
| The thing to watch out for in finding a therapist is the personal
| connection between you and them. The method matters less than the
| personal connection.
|
| More generally, there are so many good suggestions in this thread
| that you should probably pick the ones that have the most energy
| for you and give them a try. Your sincerity is really the thing
| that will change this for you, so do what feels most inspiring.
| texasbigdata wrote:
| I went to my therapist once and said "I have terrible news,
| according to this book on narcissism, 8 of the 13 symptoms
| apply. I'm totally one. How can I fix it? Is it fixable?"
|
| And she smiled and said..."a real narcissist would never ask
| that."
| variable11 wrote:
| Yeah, but it's not a binary thing, it's a continuum. It's
| perfectly possible for someone like you, the OP, myself,
| others reading this to have strong narcissistic tendencies
| but to be self-aware enough to want to change and not be a
| complete malignant narcissist, the kind who destroy lives and
| end up on true crime podcasts.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Read this
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Analysis-Self-Psychoanalytic-Narcissi...
| chadcmulligan wrote:
| I used to be narcissistic but now I'm perfect.
|
| Are you sure - there's levels of narcissism, some is healthy.
| Someone with full on Narcissistic Personality Disorder doesn't
| see a problem with it from my readings and sees no need to
| change, and would never ask this question. As @kstenerud a bit of
| empathy training could help, good on you for trying to change.
| Listen to people, learn to see the good in everyone etc.
| glormph wrote:
| Not sure if you're being intentionally ironic about "not a
| narcissist but perfect" :).
|
| I'd echo the rest of your comment with my MD friend's
| "narcissists can't be treated, they think there is no problem
| and pointing out what they are doing only makes them think that
| their behaviour is actually good...".
| lr4444lr wrote:
| Participate in an activity that you objectively suck at, or are
| at least around a lot of other people who are relatively and
| objectively better than you.
| simonw wrote:
| I wonder if improv classes might help? I've been taking improv
| recently and I've found it to be extremely interesting from the
| POV of learning to pay more attention to other people.
|
| The core to learning improv is learning how NOT to be the center
| of attention. Everything is about supporting your team-mates: you
| have to pay extremely close attention to what they are doing and
| look for ways to give them further opportunities and make them
| look great.
|
| Our improv instructor keeps on giving us exercises where if we
| take the lead, we're losing. I can already feel myself becoming
| better at paying attention to what other people are doing. One of
| the books we are reading for the class even makes the case that
| improv can help people become better at remembering each other's
| names.
|
| I have no idea if improv classes are a useful way of combating
| narcissism, but maybe they could help?
| andai wrote:
| This is fascinating, thanks for sharing. Which book is the
| thing about remembering names from?
| sixo wrote:
| A good roleplaying game might be have a similar effect in a
| more comfortable setting (for some).
| ferdbold wrote:
| Funnily enough, back when I was doing improv at
| school/university, I've found a great portion of the people
| there to be among the most self-absorbed people I've ever met.
| A lot of them were genuinely funny people, but there was a lot
| of ego, tribalism, people wanting to be stars, etc etc. It was
| actually one of the reasons why I got scared out of continuing
| in a local league after graduation, even if I'd done it for
| four years and thoroughly enjoyed it.
| Benjammer wrote:
| Improv is like an adult hack to learn teamwork skills if you
| never got serious about a team sport as a child. The idea of
| playing a role, using the tools available to your role to help
| make the other roles successful, and counting on teammates to
| do the same for you. Being part of something bigger than the
| sum of the parts, and being able to truly take vicarious
| satisfaction from the success of the whole as opposed to any
| individuals, especially oneself.
| lioeters wrote:
| It seems to me that life in most forms are self-centered by
| nature and necessity, and it takes conscious effort to develop
| empathy for others.
|
| Human society might be the worst (and best perhaps!) in terms of
| sacrificing the whole world to glorify the self, or vice versa.
|
| Motherhood (or parenthood) is a clear exception, dedicating
| oneself for another - but it could be argued that is also in
| "self" interest, a larger sense of self over generations.
|
| Altruism might be the antidote to narcissism. Paying attention
| and caring for others as one would for the self. I think it's
| also about having a larger sense of self, encompassing the whole
| of creation.
| blinotz wrote:
| My former partner behaved in narcisstic ways from time to time.
|
| I didn't even know what narcissism was until after we broke up
| after 8 years.
|
| But dealing with narcissistic behavior was absolutely awful. It
| left me mystified about all sorts of things to do with us, as
| well as hurt and feeling abused.
|
| She'd never ever acknowledge her narcissistic behavior so even
| recognizing it puts you in the right path to addressing it.
|
| And for those people who suspect they have close relationships
| with narcissistic behavior, run if you can.
| darrelld wrote:
| Yup, same. Was in a 10 year relationship with a narc. Took
| about 4 years after to figure out what happened. It felt like
| walking out of a thick fog.
|
| Most of the advice in this thread to cure narcissism is
| completely useless. People are posting things like go to
| church, join a group, have a family, etc, but they don't
| understand the truth that narcissists are truly broken people
| on the inside incapable of any type of self-reflection.
|
| OP likely isn't a narc because narcs can't see anything wrong
| with any of their behavior. Everyone in their life could tell
| them that their behavior is toxic and they will spin it in
| their heads that they are the victim.
|
| > And for those people who suspect they have close
| relationships with narcissistic behavior, run if you can.
|
| Best piece of advice in the entire thread.
| throwawayupand wrote:
| >> She'd never ever acknowledge her narcissistic behavior so
| even recognizing it puts you in the right path to addressing
| it.
|
| It's a core narc trait to not acknowledge their own behavior.
| rendall wrote:
| Get yourself diagnosed by a mental health professional if you
| don't just mean "egotistical" or "self-absorbed". You might be
| able to fix egotism and self-absorption. You won't be able to fix
| actual narcissism for yourself.
|
| Good luck!
| joelbluminator wrote:
| That's a good point, but I don't OP is describing full blown
| narcissistic personality disorder. He just has plain all full
| of himself disorder, something that so many of us have (and
| it's probably getting worse).
| [deleted]
| alfonsodev wrote:
| Chances are that if you are a truly narcisitic (I would check
| with a therapist before self-diagnosing a pathology) you might
| have a relationship with someone co-dependent on you, either
| work, friend or sentimental relationship, you could look into
| interpesonal conflicts, are you steping constanly into some else
| boundaries, for your own benefit?
|
| Search on youtube about this pattern there are a couple of
| pshychologist talking about it.
|
| If you are not hurting anyone, maybe your are not involed in co-
| dependet pattern with anyone, and all you need it's some
| mindfulness and social skills.
| _zamorano_ wrote:
| Just by asking the question you've already done half of the work.
| It's like AA, you first need awareness and that's a big step in
| the right way.
| cdumler wrote:
| As they say, the first step is recognizing that you have a
| problem. It's wonderfully adult of you to consider it. The cool
| thing is that you're going to find out that not only do you have
| this problem, you likely have more than just these issues.
| Because you've opened up with yourself, you have the awesome
| opportunity to be a lot better person.
|
| Personally, I have issue with being myopic (focus to easily on a
| singular task) and somewhat asperger/autistic (hard time
| recognizing emotional cues). Like you, I've had trouble with
| interacting with people.
|
| The first thing I can suggest is finding a few people with whom
| you can confide your position, are supportive with wanting to see
| you be a better person, and willing to give you guidance. THEN
| TRUST THEM when they say you've done something not so well. If
| you're in a relationship, hopefully your SO will be willing to
| help. At work, maybe your boss or colleague will be willing to
| observe you and help you on your journey.
|
| There are four stages of dealing with things: *
| unconscious incompetent - You have a problem and don't know you
| have one. * conscious incompetent - You recognize you have
| a problem, but don't know how to solve it. * unconscious
| competent - You make an effort and happen to do better, but
| you're uncertain what it was that made a difference. *
| conscious competent - You consistently do better because you know
| what to do in situations.
|
| Notice that in the last one, I didn't say that you _understand_
| why what you did makes a difference. If you truly are a
| narcissist, it means that the social aspects of your mind are
| weakly wired. I am that way, so even today I have trouble
| recognizing cues. But, I'm honest with people about it. My
| friends and colleagues know this about me. I tell them, "Just
| FYI, I have a hard time picking up cues. Please, just be very
| direct with me because I really want to help and see people are
| happy." My myopic natural can also be a feature: I'm willing to
| dig down into problems and really understand why something isn't
| working right. It doesn't bother me to laser focus on a difficult
| problem. Long ago I was taught that every personality trait can
| be positive or negative depending on how it is used. Learn how to
| be better and use what you can do for better things.
|
| Finally, find a _good_ therapist. A good one will be interested
| in you and want to help you find out who you are and what you can
| be. A good one will ask a questions of you, but they will be
| questions you likely have never asked about yourself and should
| have answers.
|
| You're on the right track.
| papermachete wrote:
| How To Make Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie
|
| There's an audiobook, too.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| Take a few minutes to skim the Wikikedia page summarizing "The No
| Asshole Rule:" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_No_Asshole_Rule
|
| You probably don't fit the author's definition of "certified
| asshole."
|
| No one's perfect. Learn from your mistakes and grow into a wise
| old person.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| The Last Psychiatrist says, paraphrased, "narcissists always come
| asking how to fix themselves, what they can do to improve
| themselves, focusing on how awful they are and how much better
| they want to be. They never come worried about how much they are
| affecting or hurting other people, or what they can do to help
| others".
| kespindler wrote:
| "Laws of Human Nature" by Robert Greene (ironically, also the
| author of 48 laws of power, which is often criticized for
| advocating machiavellianism) is an extremely powerful book.
|
| It has two chapters that are especially relevant for you:
| "Chapter 2: Transform self-love into empathy: The law of
| narcissism", which might be self-evident in its value from the
| title, and "Chapter 4: Determine the strength of people's
| character: The law of compulsive behavior", which discusses toxic
| personality types, how to avoid them, and what to do in case you
| notice those patterns in your own behavior. I think you'll find
| both of those chapters extremely illuminating.
|
| The whole book is worth checking out too. And a relationship with
| a good executive coach or therapist works wonders too!
| dsego wrote:
| Introspection is the most important first step. You can get a
| psychological evaluation to determine if you actually have a
| clinical disorder or you are high on the narcissistic spectrum.
|
| In the meantime, do you recognize yourself in any of the listed
| traits on the following website?
| https://outofthefog.website/personality-disorders-1/2015/12/...
|
| I found it enlightening to learn about the term 'narcissistic
| supply' (search for Sam Vaknin, he has a website and a youtube
| channel).
| riskneutral wrote:
| Learn about and practice meditation. There are scientific studies
| proving that the practice increases empathy. Narcissism is also
| related to a low level of empathy.
| Nasrudith wrote:
| The good news is that you are more selfish than narcissistic. A
| selfish but honest person would say "I do not't care about other
| people getting hurt until it affected me." A narcissist says "It
| is all their fault that I got hurt and they deserve their
| suffering!". Call mere selfish narcissistic and "true" narcissism
| capital N narcissism if you like rather than fight a losing
| battle as a pedant vs a colloquial tide but keep in mind the
| personality disorder is a different animal in spite of
| resemblances.
|
| As others advised empathy is likely a better area of focus. The
| approach there varies from person to person and for a variety of
| reasons even unpacking the types of "empathy" cobflated together.
| Higher functioning sociopaths are good at reading people's
| emotions but don't necessarily care about them. A well socialized
| one does the right thing for "wrong" reasons. Someone autistic
| may not be in sync with sending or receiving emotions and signs
| but they will be upset to learn they inadvertently hurt someone.
| Anyway that tangent aside from someone on the spectrum here are
| some techniques.
|
| I tend to try to "universalize" my perspective as a view from
| outside. It has its own frustrations (knowing that even if you
| are right there is no way to outright prove that will trust)
| admittedly and I am not an expert in human interaction. My coping
| methods are more "sociological" than personal interaction level.
| Pitfalls include probably not being very good for your confidence
| - I say probably because of being uncertain what is preexisting
| and sample size of 1.
| ninjakeyboard wrote:
| Meditation + psychedelics? If you have a strong intention to
| change, it's pretty left field but I'd consider taking that
| intention to peru and drinking ayahuasca at a retreat. The effort
| poured into meditation will help you become aware of your
| behaviours and why they are there, which is the starting point -
| accepting that you have the problem rather than pushing it out
| onto people around you. I believe that's a great place to start
| and that from there you can make some progress.
|
| There is often anxiety or fear underlying many pathological
| traits, and there is lots of new research showing lasting changes
| from a single moderate to high dose psilocyn administration for
| example https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5367557/
| tomhoward wrote:
| There are various forms of subconscious emotional healing work
| that can vastly improve the way you interact with others, as well
| as your own emotional balance and self-regard.
|
| I've been undertaking this kind of work for about 7-8 years and
| counting.
|
| Some examples are Holotropic Breathwork, Ericksonian Hypnosis,
| and kinesiology-based practices like Psych-K.
|
| There are many, and it's worth trying different ones until you
| find one that you connect with.
| franze wrote:
| As stupid as it sounds, yoga, surfing, working out and writting
| helped me.
|
| Narcism is a defense, a self preservation strategy. I have it
| when I am not feeling well. So I do things that make me feel good
| (yoga, surfing, workout). As an introvert with narcistic
| tendencies it helps when I write my thoughts, so I can shelf them
| instead of thinking the same things over and over again.
|
| Oh yeah, a good therapist is also a fine thing.
| bluewavescrash wrote:
| youtube eckhart tolle
| martin-adams wrote:
| The Power of Now book by Eckhart Tolle was a real mindset shift
| for me that I will always be thankful for. The essence being
| that we live with ourselves, our egoic mind. When you practice
| the discipline of not letting your egoic mind take control, it
| gives space for seeing yourself and others with a different
| mind.
| farooge wrote:
| Faith born from the most the completely antagonistic, virulent
| form of atheism you can imagine worked for me. Also, reading
| Ralph Waldo Emerson (the essays, not poems) and SOLITUDE.
| macieklaskus wrote:
| I'm not sure if using the word "narcissism" is helpful in this
| context. We are all self-absorbed to some extent and it's good to
| maintain a practice that keeps this at bay.
|
| I found these two things particularly helpful:
|
| 1) Developing a practice of meditation
|
| This helps to notice the self-absorbed thoughts and recognize
| them for what they are. I'd recommend in particular attending a
| silent retreat in Vipassana tradition https://www.dhamma.org/
|
| These retreats are organized all over the world and are donation-
| based, so you can afford them regardless of your financial means.
| It only takes time and dedication.
|
| 2) Developing interest in other people
|
| I was surprised that this can be learned, but it certainly can.
| I've often heard things like "assume everybody knows something
| you don't know" or "everybody can teach you something". I've
| found this advice to not be particularly helpful. It didn't offer
| a process for developing this interest.
|
| The advice here offers a more practical approach:
| https://www.quora.com/How-do-I-become-genuinely-interested-i...
| (tdlr; it's an exercise of writing down things that you
| appreciated about the people you've encountered).
|
| My personal experience with this practice: a) I notice what I
| appreciate and find interesting about the person I am speaking to
| more frequently and sooner into the conversation. b) I notice
| afterwards that I derived far more satisfaction from
| conversations in which I was interested in the other person
| rather than when others were interested in me. However, during
| the conversation I still crave attention. I am starting to notice
| these cravings as they happen. It's a little like eating a
| healthy meal vs. eating a cookie.
| Japhy_Ryder wrote:
| As for your (2), ...
|
| Maitri (Sanskrit; Pali: metta) means benevolence,[1] loving-
| kindness,[2][3] friendliness,[3][4] amity,[4] good will,[5] and
| active interest in others.[4] It is the first of the four
| sublime states (Brahmaviharas) and one of the ten paramis of
| the Theravada school of Buddhism.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maitr%C4%AB
| artificialLimbs wrote:
| Congratulations on realizing this! It really is a big deal to see
| it. Most people don't even do this, they just live it out without
| even realizing. You might check out the book which is considered
| the introductory text to the "4th Way" work,"In Search of the
| Miraculous" by PD Ouspensky.
| env123 wrote:
| How old are you? Pretty much everyone's a narcissist until they
| hit their late 20's/30's, so nothing to worry about if you're
| younger
|
| Otherwise, just let your experiences be the lessons
| verganileonardo wrote:
| Therapy
| ggambetta wrote:
| Seeing a therapist might be infinitely better than reading a
| book, and not just for narcissism. We're all broken in our own
| wonderful and unique ways.
|
| I've been seeing a therapist for 5 years now, and the positive
| impact this has had in my life and on my general self-awareness
| can't be overstated.
|
| As engineers and tech people we have one tool that has proven
| incredible useful in our careers: our brilliant rational minds.
| So we tend to think that we can solve any problem in life with
| this tool. Turns out we can't; thinking that therapy is somehow
| beneath us is pure hubris.
|
| I also resisted therapy for a long time as a matter of principle.
| In high school I learned about the id, ego and super-ego, and in
| my 17 year old wisdom I thought _" This is all bullshit! Did the
| guy open someone's head and see three parts? No! This is all made
| up!"_ Being unquestionable older and hopefully wiser now, I've
| understood that _" all models are wrong, but some are
| useful"_[0]. And therapy happens to have some useful models to
| offer.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_models_are_wrong
| fossuser wrote:
| People say this a lot, but it never seems very actionable.
|
| How do you do find someone good that you trust? How do you find
| someone worth the time? The couple of times I've tried to find
| someone you end up making a lot of unreturned phone calls.
|
| Maybe I have an unfairly negative impression of therapists - I
| both think that it's incredibly valuable to introspect and have
| someone smart and thoughtful to work things out with, but also
| suspect a lot of therapists are neither of those things?
|
| CBT and growth mindset seems helpful, what's the process to
| actually find someone successfully? How many people actually
| are doing therapy vs. just recommending other people do it? It
| seems a lot more people are recommending it than actually doing
| it themselves (which would explain the vague advice).
| zerkten wrote:
| It's challenging to give specific advice on this while
| respecting privacy. On a site like Reddit with PM you might
| be able to discern that someone has an issue, is located
| close to you, you know a therapist, and then create a
| throwaway account to PM them.
|
| These challenges are deeply personal, so finding the right
| person is challenging. There are lot of therapists with
| different qualifications and experience. People seem to study
| psychology, do whatever qualifications they need, and start
| as a therapist, but the experience part is a challenge.
|
| I don't think this challenge is much different from finding
| mentors. In fact, it's probably better because it's a
| discrete financial transaction and the conversations are
| protected. Finding mentors during your career, if you don't
| have them directly in your workplace, can be really
| problematic. You have few protections, and little ability to
| build up trust, until you've invested time building up trust.
|
| When it comes to men (probably the majority) on HN there are
| also a number of specific issues which affect take up of
| therapy. That's after the cost issues which affect everyone.
| If someone is in some countries they may have little, or no
| availability of certain kinds of therapy.
| mraudiobook_com wrote:
| So true! I do a dbt skills group and as a RULE i am the only
| make, ever. Men just don't do therapy well.
| sounds wrote:
| I'm actually attending therapy, on a regular schedule, and
| struggled to find a good therapist.
|
| Shop around? You're inviting someone to perform online brain
| surgery on you. Fortunately, you can undo the operation if
| you don't like it (sort of). If you don't like what the
| therapist is doing, keep looking for a different therapist
| that works for you.
|
| I've heard a story where a therapist got upset with their
| client because the client said, during a therapy session,
| they were going to find someone else.
|
| Simple point of order: I don't need to tell my therapist if
| they're fired. I just walk away.
| climb_stealth wrote:
| > I've heard a story where a therapist got upset with their
| client because the client said, during a therapy session,
| they were going to find someone else.
|
| That would be a clear sign of a bad therapist. There very
| much has to be room to discuss seeing someone else, and
| whether the therapy relationship is working.
| Domenic_S wrote:
| "Find a therapist" is not vague or unactionable advice, any
| more than "find a doctor" or "find a mechanic" is vague or
| unactionable.
| kempbellt wrote:
| Find a mechanic.... _for your mind_
| halbritt wrote:
| I've had a fair number of terrible therapists and a couple of
| good ones. The only real solution that I can think of is to
| try several. Generally, you know early on. To me, it's a
| worthwhile endeavor.
| fao_ wrote:
| > How do you do find someone good that you trust? How do you
| find someone worth the time? The couple of times I've tried
| to find someone you end up making a lot of unreturned phone
| calls.
|
| But it's the same with Doctors. Some doctors won't listen to
| your symptoms, some doctors might have old information, or
| brush you off.
|
| Would you put off going to a doctor because of those
| problems?
| fossuser wrote:
| It's not really the same with doctors.
|
| With doctors there are places everyone goes where you can
| sign up and get a doctor which is relatively easy to
| schedule. From there for routine stuff there's less
| variability, you just do your routine checkup, and you'll
| be referred to experts if necessary.
|
| There's also a higher minimum standard to get an MD.
|
| It's both way easier to find one and easier to determine
| they're qualified/actually know what they're talking about
| (though obviously there's still variance in quality just
| not as bad).
|
| With therapists there's no clarity around any of this
| really.
| climb_stealth wrote:
| > How do you do find someone good that you trust? How do you
| find someone worth the time?
|
| In my experience the best way to find someone is through
| recommendations. Find someone with a good therapist, and
| contact the therapist for recommendations. They usually know
| other people in the field that work with a similar approach.
|
| I feel CBT only works with simple issues. For trauma and deep
| running issues I would suggest finding someone who looks into
| the root of issues and doesn't just try to change behaviours.
| See psychotherapy for example.
|
| Otherwise it depends on where you live as well.
|
| In Australia, and definitely for NSW:
|
| - look for a psychiatrist instead of a psychologist. With a
| psychologist you get 10 sessions for free by the government,
| but then you have to pay the full fee yourself. This ends up
| being around $150-$250 per session from what I have seen.
| With a psychiatrist the medicare safety net kicks in, and
| after $2000 of out of pocket expenses you get 85% of the
| session fees back. In my case I end up paying ~$40 for my
| $350 therapy sessions which makes a huge difference when
| therapy can be going for years.
|
| Happy to help out with recommendations in the NSW Australia
| area.
| fossuser wrote:
| I'm in the bay area - this seems like the best option.
|
| The difficulty is either I don't know anyone my age that
| has one or it's still taboo for men to talk about so people
| don't. I'd guess it's a combination of both. The only
| people I've known personally who see a therapist are women
| (and from that small sample they don't want you to see
| their same person).
|
| I think men tend to rely entirely on their SO which is
| probably not a great thing for either party.
| s_c_r wrote:
| 100% agree about seeing a therapist. I also resisted for years
| because I thought it was a waste of time and money. Now that I
| see one once a week I've come to realize how useful it can be
| to have a person you can go to who is paid to be laser focused
| on your mental well being for an hour at a time. One thing mine
| has encouraged me to do is journal. It helps air out the
| negative thought patterns that infect my behavior and also
| serves as a good way to synthesize ideas. I set aside 10-15
| minutes at lunch to write in a moleskine notebook.
|
| My problems are more related to anxiety and depression, but the
| same concepts apply. I also think that you get out of therapy
| what you put in. It sounds like you are in a good frame of mind
| because you want to improve yourself. That's probably the best
| attitude you could take going into therapy.
| moretai wrote:
| What are examples of problems you couldn't solve with your
| mind?
| namanyayg wrote:
| Any that involves interaction with multiple people; you
| cannot predict others, especially since most people don't
| always act fully rationally.
| bawolff wrote:
| I think people say that others dont act rationally, when
| really they just don't understand the other person's goals
| and how their behaviour contributes to their goals.
|
| If i pass up $100 to get a burger, am i acting
| irrationally? It depends if i'm hungry. It depends how much
| $100 means to me (Am i bill gates?). Its impossible to say
| from the outside. I'm convinced much behaviour is basically
| the same except much more complex with multiple conflicting
| priorities.
| tonyh249 wrote:
| No, people really just don't think rationally. Read
| Daniel Kahneman. It's been studied extensively.
| tbs_ wrote:
| No one always acts fully rationally
| texasbigdata wrote:
| -Job loss -Romantic losses -Self compassion -Self care
|
| Conceptually, think about how many times your friends have an
| issue that seems trivial for you (on the outside) to fix.
| Surely the same applies to you. Especially if you're high
| functioning, by definition anything left to work on is
| relatively outside your awareness and can't be solved from
| the "inside".
| drinfinity wrote:
| Broken heart Broken leg Blindness Losing a
| child Having a low (or too high) IQ Having severe
| mental disorder(s)
| 1000units wrote:
| There's no such thing as an IQ too high. This is always
| some other problem like anxiety.
| halfnormalform wrote:
| Unless you're trying to be a police officer in the USA,
| then an IQ too high is absolutely a real thing.
| slumdev wrote:
| This is what happens when you run country music through
| lossy compression.
| krick wrote:
| Ok, this was funny.
| numpad0 wrote:
| Some 80% or so of worlds' problems are human interfacing
| problems than mathematical-engineering challenges, and its
| best to exploit native ability to handle it that we all
| received when born.
| Ididntdothis wrote:
| Ever been in a relationship? There are a lot of problems you
| can't just solve with rational thinking.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| Problems which can't be expressed as a ratio.
| bawolff wrote:
| So the real problems.
| mc3 wrote:
| And complex ones.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Emotional intelligence and empathy are still part of the
| mind.
| vanderZwan wrote:
| The original comment mentioned _rational_ minds, which is
| relying on neither of those things.
| stonogo wrote:
| Rational was an adjective. If you think that
| "rationality" is some objective feature that humanity can
| separate from emotions, you are deluded.
| [deleted]
| JonathanMerklin wrote:
| Honest question, really trying hard not to word it in a
| standoffish way: what do you get out of a therapist that can't
| be obtained from thought or general conversation outside of
| therapy?
|
| I don't think a "brilliant rational mind" is a prerequisite for
| coming to the conclusion that you're spending money to lock
| someone in conversation with you - someone that would not
| associate with you otherwise. To me, the relationship is
| artificial and the lessons learned can be obtained for free.
| Therapy seems to be conversational prostitution, more or less.
|
| But you and others affirm that therapy has a positive ROI, and
| some people recommend therapy with such vigor you'd think it
| was the only (or the best/most efficient) way to get that
| return. I just don't see it, and to date I haven't met a
| sufficiently elucidating explanation.
| halfnormalform wrote:
| "Conversational Prostitution"?
|
| Are you saying if you were more
| attractive/deserving/whatever, people with therapeutic skills
| would go around sharing their insight with you for free?
| dependsontheq wrote:
| There's an interesting statistical observation that the kind
| of therapy seems to matter less than the relationship between
| therapist and patient. We are social animals a neutral
| experienced observer helping us identifying current problems
| and behaviors is much more impactful on an emotional level
| than a book. Narcissism is not an intellectual construct it
| is an emotional construct.
| petra wrote:
| One example: we have our unconscious and sometimes we hide
| things from ourselves and strongly resist any attempt from
| ourselves or other people to expose that stuff.
|
| Psychologists are experts in defusing such resistance and
| helping us work with that unconscious content, content that
| most people probably aren't very skilled in helping with.
| MFLoon wrote:
| Calling it 'conversational prostitution' isn't really an
| accurate analogy; or rather, it shouldn't be if you're taking
| the therapy seriously, though a lazy therapist/patient couple
| could certainly devolve into something more like that. A
| prostitute provides a luxury service; a therapist is more
| like a business consultant, as you are both expected to put
| in work to understand the problems and work together towards
| solutions. So, sure, you could try to find the solutions
| yourself, but you don't know what you don't know, or even if
| you do generally know what your problems are, there's still
| an opportunity cost in building up the psychological domain
| expertise to fix them 'in house', when you could expedite the
| process by bringing in an expert.
| vibrolax wrote:
| A therapist can confront you as a human being in way that no
| book, friend, or family member ever can. There are often
| truths about being human that one has difficulty accepting on
| the basis of logic. A trained human being can find a way to
| make those truths acceptable.
| munificent wrote:
| _> I just don 't see it_
|
| That's half of the point right there. You only know all the
| thoughts you will come up with. You go to a therapist because
| a good one will tell you things _you never would have
| considered at all_. Your mind has ruts so deeply worn you don
| 't even know they are there. A therapist will nudge you out
| of them.
|
| I've had a number of therapy sessions where my therapist said
| something about myself or my past that I literally had never
| considered in my entire life.
|
| The other half is that good therapists have a lot of training
| in how the mind works and the tricks it plays on itself. They
| know to look for patterns where when you say X the problem is
| really Y, which is a connection you yourself have never made.
|
| It's like asking "Why should I read this book? I'm not aware
| of anything in it that I don't already know." The point is
| that you _don 't_ know what you don't know that's in it. You
| can't accurately simulate a therapist in your head because
| your simulated one only knows the things you already know. An
| actual therapist will provide novel insight.
| hoorayimhelping wrote:
| A therapist is trained to spot things you miss.
|
| It's like asking, "what does a junior engineer get out of
| being mentored by a senior engineer that they couldn't just
| figure out by coding or reading blogs?" A therapist brings
| things like context, breadth of knowledge, and honesty. I
| felt like the therapist wasn't incentivized to sugar coat
| things to spare my feelings, something close friends and
| family might do.
|
| I am not sure about seeing one for 5 years, though. The point
| of a therapist is to make themselves unnecessary, in my
| opinion - they're supposed to give you the tools needed to do
| exactly what you're saying people should do - understand
| their behavior and change it.
| munificent wrote:
| If you think of a therapist as less "surgeon for the brain"
| who exists to fix issues and more like "personal trainer
| for the brain", then it makes more sense to have one long-
| term.
|
| It's less about fixing things that are profoundly broken
| and more about incrementally trying to make the most of the
| brain you're given.
| sounds wrote:
| I agree that seeing a therapist for 5 years may indicate
| they're not actually helping you progress.
|
| I could offer a different data point, but since it's all
| subjective experience anyway, just make your own call. I've
| enjoyed long-term therapy because I found more things I
| wanted to work on. Ironically, it is my therapist who
| reviews things on a regular schedule and asks, "why are you
| coming to therapy now?"
|
| (If your therapist isn't doing that, maybe that's a red
| flag that you are being taken advantage of?)
| vanderZwan wrote:
| > _As engineers and tech people we have one tool that has
| proven incredible useful in our careers: our brilliant rational
| minds. So we tend to think that we can solve any problem in
| life with this tool. thinking that therapy is somehow beneath
| us is pure hubris._
|
| To add to this: we also tend to think we can correctly _assess_
| any problem without external help, but especially when it comes
| to the "self" this fails. It's kind of inevitable: being able
| to analyze a problem requires some distance, but taking
| distance from yourself, especially your problem areas,
| fundamentally goes against that. The result is blind spots.
| numpad0 wrote:
| That had been my excuse for ignoring my own problems for
| years so I'd add:
|
| If you think you're insane but also thinking it could be
| self-mis-diagnosis, no, you are not sane.
|
| There is no such inherent contradiction in an ability for a
| logical system to detect its own anomaly were you one.
|
| If it had been a false positive, the fact that a false
| positive is occurring itself is an anomaly, and an issue.
| melbourne_mat wrote:
| I'm going to counter the "therapists are great" theme that I'm
| seeing here. I think they're a waste of money. Cognitive
| behavioural therapy is a great tool. With practise and courage
| you can use it to reform the way you think. It won't fix
| something like schizophrenia but it might be useful for a
| narcissist who wants to change.
| walleeee wrote:
| Plenty of clinical psychologists use CBT in practice.
| tomnipotent wrote:
| > It won't fix something like schizophrenia
|
| Your comment is terribly unhelpful. Therapy isn't about
| "fixing" someone, but to help individuals with issues that
| negatively affect their life find opportunities to manage
| those issues. CBT is not something you can start doing by
| yourself without an external catalyst.
|
| I have ADHD, OCD, and bipolar II along with recurring bouts
| of PTSD from a terribly traumatic childhood. Without therapy,
| I would have considerable more issues integrating with my
| peers and navigating the emotional turmoil that is the
| battlefield of my brain. Therapy has assisted me in shifting
| my perspective and enabling me to live my best life despite
| the demons that seem to constantly want to drag me down.
| munificent wrote:
| _> I think they 're a waste of money._
|
| This is a valid opinion, but it would be better presented
| with some evidence to support it.
|
| When someone says "A therapist really helped me." then their
| opinion carries its own evidence. They are a living
| evidential proof of their claim. (At least, to the degree
| that you accept that the commenter is honest and able to
| correctly measure their own quality of life.)
|
| But when you say "therapists are a waste of money", your
| claim shows only absence of evidence, not evidence of
| absense. It may be that therapists aren't good for you, or
| that you haven't had a good one, or simply that you have no
| experience with them at all.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| One easy experiment could be to stop talking about yourself.
|
| Try it for a day.
|
| > _I don 't enjoy listening to other people_
|
| And why is that? Don't you like other people? If so, that's the
| problem to fix!
|
| Humans are the most fantastic things in existence. Getting to
| know them can be very interesting, if you have a curious mindset.
| p0d wrote:
| I'm not sure a true narcissist would ask this question. You
| should be encouraged you are maturing and growing in the
| understanding that the world does not revolve around you.
|
| Keep listening to others and asking them questions and you will
| be good.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| I'm not seeing any concern for other people, or for a world
| outside OP, in OP's post? It's totally self/inward-focused.
| notduncansmith wrote:
| I found Sam Vaknin's work helpful for the most part, if a little
| overly dark at times: https://www.healthyplace.com/personality-
| disorders/malignant...
| _Codemonkeyism wrote:
| Reading the last psychatrist.
|
| https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/narcissism/
| austincheney wrote:
| Perhaps the closest opposite to narcissism is humility. One way
| to really experience humility is to inject yourself into
| something truly foreign where money is an insufficient remedy.
|
| I don't know what that humbling experience will be for you. For
| me it was living in Afghanistan for 2 years, of which one of
| those years I traveled frequently and spoke with many people
| there. It doesn't matter how much money you make as travel there
| is rough with great inconvenience and your housing is tiny and
| drafty. In this circumstance any self-serving attention would not
| improve the situation. You learn patience and comfort in the face
| of minor imperfections.
|
| I can promise you this: its the experience, whatever that is for
| you, that will fix your narcissism. A book won't do it. You have
| to live it without escape.
| happimess wrote:
| IANAN, but living abroad when I was about 25 really improved my
| humility. I'm used to being quick-witted, knowledgable, and
| generally good with people. When I got to a place where English
| is not the default language, I was essentially an idiot---I was
| confused a lot, unable to make jokes, and little kids laughed
| at my attempts to, say, order a gyro.
|
| It all clicked when I was lamenting it to my girlfriend, who
| said (with real affection), "well, how much of what you say is
| actually valuable?" Right then I realized how much of my time I
| spent trying to convince people how quick-witted, knowledgable,
| and easy with people I am.
|
| Now I talk less, let jokes (even good jokes!) go unsaid, and am
| better with people.
| yingw787 wrote:
| Woahhh you lived in Afghanistan? That's really cool! Is there
| anywhere I can read about your experience there / contact to
| talk more?
| austincheney wrote:
| Its easier if I just write it here.
|
| From July 2009-2010 I deployed to a unit in Kuwait and
| forward deployed to Afghanistan as part of a 2 person
| information assurance review team. We traveled around the
| country and visit the major, and some minor, US Army bases to
| perform friendly audits to improve the information security
| posture of the installations on the ground. We were
| constantly traveling. I think I went on 25 assignments while
| there.
|
| When I wasn't traveling I was living at Bagram Airbase about
| 40km north of Kabul. As a Texan this was the most beautiful
| place I had ever seen as Texas is generally very flat. There
| were mountains visible on 3 sides of the base and the tallest
| of them appeared to jump sharply a mile into the sky. Its
| like a quarter of the way from flat horizon to straight up
| was a view of mountains on the west side. This was perhaps
| the cleanest and driest air I have ever experienced. On a
| perfect summer day I remember being able to see hundreds of
| miles away because there was minimal atmospheric distortion
| and the mountains were so damn tall. This is hard to explain
| because on a flat surface the sky meets the horizon at only
| 30 miles away.
|
| Most of the housing there was something called B-huts which
| were shacks composed of half-inch particle board and then
| internally subdivided with particle board walls to create 8
| rooms. In the corner was a desk composed of a particle board
| triangle nailed to the walls. I had space for the twin bed, a
| dresser (also made out of particle board) and a walking path
| between them. Due to warping from the weather there would
| sometimes be gaps between the particle board exterior panels
| where all your heat would leak out.
|
| The most beautiful base, hands down, was Camp Eggers. It no
| longer exists. This was downtown across the street from the
| US embassy. It was essentially an urban neighborhood
| sectioned off with tall walls. The residences were
| transformed into offices. The office buildings were
| transformed into barracks. Some two-story commercial shopping
| properties were transformed into multipurpose buildings. This
| base contains beautiful tall shade trees with well manicured
| lawns and grapevines on terraces. It also contained an
| elaborate rose garden. Some of the buildings were an urban
| maze. It was weird that this was a military base with a
| little slice of heaven right in the middle of a busy civilian
| urban city.
|
| Travel was interesting. Unless you were a VIP you were always
| space available. VIPs were colonels, sergeant majors,
| emergency leave personnel, and CW5s. Once your name goes on a
| list its good for 10 days before its scrubbed off. On the
| larger bases it would sometimes take 3 days to get to your
| name, so we would show up at the terminal will all our gear
| hoping they would call off our names and it wouldn't happen.
| Also there would be times when your name did get called, but
| you would get bumped from the flight, even as you were
| already sitting on the aircraft. As an example special forces
| doesn't wait on lists so they would just show up and bump
| people off a flight.
|
| You could see amazing, and I mean absolutely stunning, things
| while flying. Afghanistan is an exotic place that's really
| isolated and hard to get to. I remember flying over villages
| that were in small impossibly isolated valleys. I remember
| flying over a blood-red hill. I was later told that red color
| was a high concentration ultra valuable form of copper. I
| remember flying in a Chinook from FOB Salerno (about 1200ft
| elevation) to FOB Sharana (about 7200 ft elevation). It felt
| like were just going straight vertical and somehow the ground
| was stalking us.
|
| There is no FAA or other aviation regulation limiting US
| pilots in Afghanistan which can make for some unique
| adventures. There was one time we hopped on the short US
| civilian flight from Jalalabad back to Bagram, but the pilots
| wanted to take a scenic detour through a tiny canyon. The
| canyon was deep but narrow, maybe only 2-3x wider than the
| aircraft's wingspan. Every time there was a canal or
| tributary feeding into the canyon the plane would immediately
| lift vertically into the air and then would immediately drop
| to the prior altitude as that gap was passed. This is the
| only time I have experienced motion sickness, but it was an
| amazing adventure.
|
| There was another one where some senior Taliban leaders were
| captured and awaiting transport from Bagram to Kabul. I had
| the fortunate treating of making that flight. The pilots
| wanted to shock or frighten the Taliban personnel, who may
| have never ridden on an aircraft before, so they attempted
| some wild turns and dives. Keep in mind that a C-130 is a
| giant bus so it can only maneuver so much, but that was also
| an interesting experience that I will likely never experience
| in the US.
|
| Some of the most interesting people I talked to were the
| translators. The US census of 2000 identified that there were
| just over 8,000 people living the US who fluently spoke
| either Pashtun or Dari. That is every man, woman, and child.
| By the time I was there in 2009 5,000 of these people had or
| currently were back in Afghanistan working as translators.
| These people had amazing stories about the culture and
| history that I couldn't find in books. I suspect many of
| these people had returned to Afghanistan partially because
| they felt a patriotic duty after the 9/11 attacks, but the
| primary reasons were the high pay and some yearning to help
| US military provide increased security in a country that was
| now destroyed by decades of warfare.
|
| Towards the end of all this I remember developing some minor
| combat fatigue after getting stuck in the transient barracks
| in Kandahar. The air in Kandahar was everything that Bagram
| wasn't. It was humid, dusty, unclean. Kandahar Airfield (KAF)
| has this giant cesspool about the size of 4 football fields.
| It is jokingly named poo-pond. You can find photos on the
| internet. It started out on the far west side of the base,
| but because of civilian land property boundaries the base
| could only grow in one direction and so over time poo-pond
| became the center of base and the smell was extremely foul.
| The transient barracks were directly adjacent to the pond.
| The transient barracks were actually a giant 500-person
| circus tent. Because of the high traffic of transient
| personnel these tents were rarely cleaned and because outside
| smelled like an ripe toilet people tended to stay inside with
| minimal circulating air. With that many people living in a
| super giant tent a different kind of foul air like aging foot
| smell seemed to permeate. I remember having to go outside to
| the shit smell because I had grown so tired of the foot
| smell. Because of the high people traffic it was really
| challenging get off that base to something further downrange
| and so there I was stuck.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| Did that in Mali. It did give me perspective after 2 years, but
| it didn't fix my narcissism. Just made me more tolerant to
| incomfort, and made me enjoy civilization more.
| darrelld wrote:
| Sorry but no. This will not fix narcissism.
|
| Narcissists are broken people incapable of self-reflection and
| everything centers around them.
|
| They see everything in the world as being put here for their
| enjoyment. They thrive off of attention (negative or positive)
| and it's the only time they feel alive.
| _1100 wrote:
| And yet normal people can still act narcissistically at
| times, and can do this more or less often at different stages
| of life or in different circumstances.
|
| The OP could very well be a person just realizing that they
| want to focus more on others and this is a completely normal
| stage of life that different experiences or perspectives can
| help with.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| What you've described is normal human behavior that some of us
| are able to outgrow thru practice. While therapy can be helpful
| to many it seems to miss the mark here.
|
| The books of Dale Carnegie are fun to read, can help develop
| better habits, and are widely available.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| mraudiobook_com wrote:
| If you are asking this question you are not a narcissist. There
| is a reason there are no books written for narcissists.
| alexashka wrote:
| You might be giving yourself the wrong diagnosis.
|
| If you're a great storyteller, talking too much wouldn't be a
| problem.
|
| If you're gifted and spending all your time perfecting your
| craft, others will notice your dedication and appreciate it.
|
| If you're intelligent, having your own perspective is interesting
| and unique.
|
| Do you notice the pattern? You have to be really, really good, at
| something that brings yourself and other people, value. Lots of
| accomplished and beloved individuals have had inflated egos and
| took things personally, just look at Michael Jordan. The
| difference is, they achieved something.
|
| You can achieve too, because just about everything people do can
| be vastly improved upon. Find your niche, find what you can help
| society improve upon. It'll take 10-15 years to get there, so if
| you want to, you better get going :)
|
| The magic pill everyone wants is 'how do other people like me
| more' or 'how do I get them to act in ways that I prefer'. The
| solution is you rise so far above, that they can't help but feel
| like 'holy shit' around you. That takes 10-15 years of dedicated
| work, unless you were born beautiful, in which case this problem
| never arises :)
| bensonn wrote:
| "All the books on Amazon are about other people, I want to read a
| book about me."
|
| That is not at all how you phrased it but in spirit of self-
| awareness and improvement I reworded it as crass as possible to
| make the following point- maybe books focused on people dealing
| with narcissistic people is a great place to start.
|
| *I have zero qualifications in mental health/psychology.
| rootsudo wrote:
| Acid.
| KnobbleMcKnees wrote:
| I don't want to jump to conclusions here but it's _possible_ ,
| nay _probable_ , that you're a software engineer.
| OscarTheGrinch wrote:
| Keep telling yourself that you are a normal person, just like
| everyone else. Don't judge others too harshly, we all have a
| tendency to see others misdeeds as driven by character flaws, but
| they might just be having a bad day. Meditate on mortality, it's
| great to be alive and healthy, this will not always be the case.
|
| For me this sort of thinking blunts both the highs and lows of
| existence, and gives me more empathy for others.
|
| Good luck with your possible narcissism, knowing (yourself) is
| half the battle!
| andersthue wrote:
| The anatomy of peace helped me focus on others instead of myself,
| I can highly recommend it!
| geoffbrown2014 wrote:
| Actively listen to the people in your personal and professional
| life as if you were a scientist. Think about what they are trying
| to say to you beneath the words. Do they want praise, recognition
| are they feeling stressed, happy? People will tell you these
| things almost unwittingly.
|
| When its time to respond try to frame what you say in the context
| of their needs and what they have communicated. If you can't
| think of anything immediately rephrase and confirm what they said
| and you can think about the meaning of it later when you are post
| processing the interaction, again like a scientist. You aren't
| going to be good at it at first. Experiment. Even if the
| interaction turned out negative don't take it personal it's still
| another data point to help you learn how to do it better.
|
| By doing this procedure you can learn about how your emotional
| system works and how human dynamics work and when its appropriate
| to talk about yourself in conversation. It takes time and it has
| a lumpy reward curve, but it is very satisfying.
| awillen wrote:
| I don't know if I would say I'm a narcissist, but I have realized
| that I'm very prone to interrupting people mid-conversation,
| because it's just what my family does. When I'm with them (or
| other interrupters), it's totally normal and not rude at all to
| interject when you have something to say and someone takes a
| breath, but obviously it's problematic elsewhere. Doubly so when
| I'm dealing with someone from the South or Midwest who tends to
| speak more slowly with pauses.
|
| I don't have any brilliant thoughts, I just focus very hard on
| not interrupting. If I'm on a call, I'll jot down the things I
| want to say, which helps, but in real life it's just constantly
| reminding myself that just because someone is taking a breath
| doesn't mean I should start going.
| [deleted]
| wellpast wrote:
| Try mediation and awareness practice. This may take you farther
| than explicit overt efforts to "fix" yourself.
|
| Primarily because part/s of the brain that "logically" identifies
| your narcissism is likely the same part/s of the brain that
| exhibit the compulsive behavior.
|
| Through awareness practice you'll be strengthening the 'other'
| part/s of your brain; I think this is the path to having more
| (behavioral) options in the future. This will also strengthen
| your empathy, again something you seem to be missing.
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| I went down this rabbit hole a long time ago and saw a therapist
| about it. I would suggest you do the same.
|
| That said, they basically told me that if you're worried about
| being a narcissist or trying to change it then you probably
| aren't a candidate for NPD diagnosis. Simply put people with NPD
| don't even consider that they might be wrong or flawed.
|
| That doesn't mean you don't have something to fix, but it's worth
| seeing a professional.
| Domenic_S wrote:
| Look at how he frames the question -- "I talk too much...", "I
| don't enjoy...", "I tend to judge...", "I have an inflated
| ego..."
|
| He doesn't think about his behavior in relation to other
| people. To the narcissist, other people are simply background
| actors in the movie that is their life. Why does this matter?
| Well, if you were living on a deserted island, would it matter
| if you were a narcissist?
|
| When he talks about the negative impact, he again frames it as
| it impacts him: "These traits have affected my personal and
| professional life...". Nothing about how it might have impacted
| other people's lives. We can therefore be sure this post is an
| act of defense against change.
|
| Further reading:
| https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2009/01/can_narcissism_be_cu...
| tvanantwerp wrote:
| High use of the first-person in writing is hardly a sign of
| NPD. "I" is one of the most commonly used words in the
| English language.
| Domenic_S wrote:
| You've misunderstood the point, in the whole post he didn't
| say how anybody else was affected by his behavior. If
| nobody's negatively affected, the behavior can't be bad.
|
| "I've hurt people by being too egotistical" is an example
| of an "I" sentence that would have made me believe he could
| see that something was wrong.
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| I understand, but the whole subtext is that he's taking
| responsibility, and not blaming other people, something
| narcissists can't do.
| Domenic_S wrote:
| That's the trick: it seems that way, but really it's a
| trap/defense against change. Narcissists are very, very
| good at seeming to others like they want to fix something
| about themselves, all the while digging themselves in
| deeper because deep down they don't _really_ think
| something is wrong.
|
| He says "I tend to judge situations only from my
| perspective" -- and then proceeds to write this very public
| post completely from only his own perspective. In another
| context we could call that lack of insight but for the
| narcissist it's a feature, not a bug.
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| Like other disorders NPD lies on a spectrum.
|
| From a clinical perspective (I'm not a clinician but have
| been treated by them btw) my understanding is that
| untreatable NPD presents as basically no remorse and no
| introspection at all. What would be called a "sociopath"
| which isn't itself a diagnosis.
|
| So while yes I totally understand what you're talking
| about, that the attention seeking of the post itself
| could be considered narcissistic I am taking it at face
| value and saying there might be a possibility of some
| rehab. So my suggestion og talking with a mental health
| provider is the right option here.
| monkeypizza wrote:
| What would you have him do, though? Voluntarily posting
| about it to try to improve seems like the best choice. If
| he hadn't posted at all and just continued being a
| narcissist, that'd also have been wrong. It's not right
| to set up a judgement system where someone has no correct
| action at all.
| tenpoundhammer wrote:
| I agree with this one hundred percent. However, I would add
| that in my interpretation the users was likely talking about
| trending towards having narcissistic traits, and they weren't
| necessarily referring to NPD.
|
| For a little context, my mother is the most narcissistic person
| I've ever met and she constantly told the people around her, "I
| like myself just the way I am I have nothing to change". She
| was emotionally and psychologically abusive and ruined every
| relationship she ever had, if there was ever a person that
| needed to change it was her. So anyone that thinks to
| themselves that they may be too narcissistic is way further
| ahead than a lot of people on the more extreme end of
| narcissistic personality traits.
|
| I think other hallmarks of being narcissistic, which these are
| things she also did, accusing others of being narcissistic,
| creating and believing elaborate scenarios where other people
| are ruining your life or goals, consistently villainizing
| groups of people, the inability to maintain personal
| relationships, and most of all deflecting all responsibility
| for negative circumstances.
|
| I think you could do any or all of this stuff and still not
| have NPD but a life long pattern of these things are a good
| indicator. I'm not a licensed psychologist or therapist just
| trying to share a bit of my experience.
| [deleted]
| Antoninus wrote:
| Don't take yourself too seriously.
| mapcars wrote:
| If you are narcissistic then your desire to change is also
| narcissistic, this means its completely useless. If it's not then
| you are not narcissistic. It seems to me that you are just
| playing around and the only thing which needs to be done is to
| accept what it is.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Keep a journal, create a feedback loop that works for you
| (meditation, running, whatever - try a few and keep what produces
| good output) and keep aiming to conquer your ego.
|
| "Ego is the enemy"
| puredlx wrote:
| I guess you are referring to the book from Ryan Holiday: "Ego
| is the Enemy". Definitely a good read, highly recommend for the
| start.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/dp/1591847818/
| joelbluminator wrote:
| The biggest and most important step is realising you have a
| problem and wanting to change. I was a bit like what you describe
| during high school and late teens, but I saw it not only affects
| my personal relationships - it doesn't align with my moral code.
| It's very hard to recognise narcissism in yourself, but you have
| done it. I'm pretty sure from here the way to overcome it is
| straightforward. And don't beat yourself up too much, everyone
| has a bit of narcissism in them, you just have a bit too much.
| You will work through this - I'm sure.
| weinzierl wrote:
| In Germany a book about narcissism[1] rose to popularity after
| there has been a documentary[2] on national television in which
| the books author was featured prominently. I cannot comment on
| the book because I haven't read it but the documentary was
| interesting[2]. Unfortunately it seems to be available in German
| only.
|
| One funny thing for me was that the author runs a self-help group
| for narcissists. On Facebook. I thought this must be as if the
| anonymous alcoholics would meet at the local pub.
|
| [1] https://www.amazon.de/Ein-Narzisst-packt-aus-
| gesellschaftlic...
|
| [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPUBuFqo9dU
| scottlocklin wrote:
| You seem like a fairly well adjusted fellow, if you've caught
| yourself being a jerk and want to make positive changes. Maybe
| you're more of a minor league egotist rather than an actual DSM
| narcissist. If you like keeping fit, it's difficult to be that
| kind of a jerk if someone's beating the shit out of you on a
| regular basis in a dojo. Sports in general are good for people
| living a life of the mind (aka HN nerds); it chips away at common
| character defects that come from being a disembodied brain
| waddling around. You'll expose yourself to people from all walks
| of life who will give you immediate feedback if you display bad
| character, and it will get you moving around and make you humble.
|
| If you enjoy history and literature, maybe Plutarch's parallel
| lives of Alcibiades and Coriolanus; or Christopher Lasch's
| "Culture of Narcissism" could provide some perspective. And as
| someone said below, Dale Carnegie's book on winning friends and
| influencing people, 100 years later, is a really useful, life
| changing book.
| yizhang7210 wrote:
| I ran into a couple people who are just hands down better than me
| in every aspect that I can think of. And that made me realize
| that I'm just a normal person.
| amriksohata wrote:
| Know that you are not the body, understand that you will die
| sooner than you think and therefore you are very minisucul in the
| grand scheme
| rotrux wrote:
| To help develop your capacity for empathy (which is a skill you
| can work on) I suggest actively envisioning situations from other
| peoples' perspectives.
|
| For example, say you have some delicate news you need to deliver
| to a coworker. Follow these steps: A) Close your eyes, B)
| construct the situation in your head, C) take the role of your
| coworker, and D) imagine delivering the news to yourself. It's
| impossible to do this 100% correctly because you are not your
| coworker but you'll get more than you'd think from exercise.
|
| This is especially true if you practice step C).
| thrwaway69 wrote:
| I think you should start donating some amount to helping others.
| Maybe that might help combine with what others have said here,
| regarding seeing a therapist, picking up a book. Try doing
| community service or volunteer work.
| definitelyRobot wrote:
| Leaving social media.
| Zaskoda wrote:
| > I tend to talk too much about myself, I don't enjoy listening
| to other people, I tend to judge situations only from my
| perspective, I have an inflated ego and take things too personal.
|
| Isn't that 95% of us?
| adventured wrote:
| If there were ten attributes that particularly define a
| narcissist (wide disagreement on that, so I'm just using an
| example number), I think most people would have four or five of
| them by default of humans by nature being normally self-
| interested.
|
| The narcissist will have a few more critically elevated
| attributes that are missing or quite weak in your average
| person: lacking in empathy and caring thoughts of others
| (narcissists feel like users when you're around them, they use
| people as tools for how they can feed their narcissism); very
| aggressive inability to recognize their own wrongs (they'll do
| everything to avoid this); methodically blaming
| everyone/everything else for things that go wrong (goes with
| the last one as a requirement); extreme and sharp turns against
| others in cases of being blamed or having mistakes & flaws
| pointed out (even casually; this can't be tolerated, it opens
| up a personality collapse risk); often a very elevated
| obsession with image, how they're perceived (often including
| beauty, but not required); you'll usually see elevated levels
| of lying and manipulation, often related to maintaining the
| other items such as image and or getting what the person
| wants/needs to maintain the ecosystem of narcissism (it's a
| whole system that has all sorts of requirements, each of which
| cause other consequences); they will believe they're very, very
| special, with typically little in the way of supporting life
| results to back that up (it's an inherent impossibility, as the
| inflation of image is always far beyond the results, no matter
| what the results are; and they will have excuses to cover the
| lack of obvious supporting results, calling themselves lazy for
| example, for why they've accomplished nothing, while
| simultaneously proclaiming they could conquer the world if they
| wanted to).
|
| Maintaining narcissism is its own form of hell for most
| narcissists. It's a never-ending treadmill of lies, deception,
| abuse, losing friends, self-torture, unhappiness. They will
| often not understand why they're so miserable, they offload
| that on others via blame as well.
|
| True narcissism almost feels like dealing with a sociopath when
| you're near it. Like you're dealing with a robot or alien.
| bitL wrote:
| Memento mori + try to like other people and view the world with
| their eyes, try to have shared experiences together where you
| move yourself consciously out of the center, experience they give
| you something you can't acquire on your own.
| throwawayeueq wrote:
| I would like to urge you to consider that maybe there is nothing
| to fix and maybe people are actually not interesting around you.
| I realized that I had the same"symptoms" as you did, but only
| sometimes. I started being worried just like you, but then I
| looked closer into how I communicate and with whom.
|
| There are people who have a very different life, which I
| deliberately choose to avoid. Talking to these people diverges
| into talking about myself as there is always something exciting
| happening somehow, and they do ask about it (maybe out of
| politeness, but I'm a bad judge for that). These people sadly
| form a majority of people around me.
|
| However, there is a much smaller number of people who I can
| listen to for hours and I genuinely care about what they have to
| say, so I ask a lot too. These people are really excited about
| their lives and have stories to tell. In my experience, not a lot
| of people have that. Also, they tend to care about things that I
| can say least imagine someone caring about.
|
| So overall, maybe there is nothing to fix on your side here. At
| least, I think, there is a possibility of this.
| msaltz wrote:
| Despite the goofy name of the site, I found this article to be
| really eye-opening and helpful for me a few years ago when I had
| a similar realization:
| https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/the-art-of-conversat...
|
| It has tips for changing conversation patterns to avoid
| conversational narcissism.
| Dragonai wrote:
| Thanks so much for linking this - for a long time, I've been
| observing all of these various types of responses in the
| conversations I've had over the years, but never consciously
| named/categorized them to this extent. I've only ever mentally
| filed away bits and pieces about correlations between someone's
| responses and their personality. I really like how this article
| breaks it down.
| corey_moncure wrote:
| Can someone provide a definition of "narcissism" as it's being
| used here? Is there a list of core attributes or traits that
| comprise it? Etiology?
|
| I've seen many discussions of this across the internet, and while
| there are many people who seem to know what it is, or know people
| who are "narcissists" or have a personality disorder, I've never
| seen it exhaustively described. Most comments take a form like "A
| narcissist will/does/does not ...", or "my narcissist dad/mom
| constantly ...", or "if you know a narcissist you must ...".
| claudeganon wrote:
| This is more or less the DSM definition:
|
| https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/narcissistic-...
| corey_moncure wrote:
| Thank you!
| toohotatopic wrote:
| At its core, narcissism is a defence mechanism [1] against a
| state of mind of which you are afraid.
|
| To get over your narcissism, you can grow your emotional strength
| until you are ready to face your biggest, unknown-to-you fear,
| until you are ready to be in the state of mind that you avoid.
| Right now, your mind does everything to hide that state of mind
| from your awareness.
|
| There are plenty of ways to grow your emotional strength.
| Meditation, being compassionate, express yourself e.g. with
| singing or dancing, ...
|
| Trust yourself. Deep down you know what you have to do.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_mechanism
| [deleted]
| speed_spread wrote:
| A single LSD trip will show your ego just how volatile it is.
| vearwhershuh wrote:
| Get married and have kids.
|
| Nothing will cure narcissism more effectively than holding a
| quivering, helpless newborn in your arms and realizing that you
| must keep this miracle alive.
| sjg007 wrote:
| This is really bad advice.
| halfnormalform wrote:
| I bet lots of folks with Narcissistic parents are happy to
| inform you otherwise.
| yters wrote:
| I have to agree with this. Getting married has definitely
| forced me out of my shell. In general, getting involved in
| groups, e.g. religion, that is about more than self
| gratification gives me a broader perspective on life.
| darrelld wrote:
| People with Narcissistic parents suffer. Their children are
| just tools to prop them and their ego up.
|
| See r/raisedbynarcissists
|
| Pushing a narc to have a family is a terrible idea.
| Japhy_Ryder wrote:
| Worst advice in the thread.
| YesThatTom2 wrote:
| You haven't met my mom.
| scarecrowbob wrote:
| IMO, you're looking at the wrong symptoms.
|
| What you're describing is just being inconsiderate and I'd
| imagine that you're probably young. Simply paying attention to
| those bad behaviors is a good start on addressing them.
| Attempting to be kind, curious, and attentive is a strong
| strategy. I mean, on some level, that behavior selfish and
| "narcissistic", but it's not a personality disorder. IME it's not
| what people are talking about when they are talking about
| "narcissism".
|
| As to NPD...
|
| You might look at how well you respond to criticism, and what
| kinds of criticisms cause you to become upset.
|
| The reason that you "couldn't find any book for people who are
| narcissistic themselves and want to fix that" is that NPD is an
| issue where people have a fragile sense of who they are so they
| develop a lot of strategies for not having to encounter personal
| criticisms; by definition they aren't looking for those kinds of
| books. Any suggestion that change is necessary is something that
| feels harmful.
| pajaroide wrote:
| 2 years of psychoanalysis, tons of books. But for real, everyone
| can benefit from psychoterapy, just be aware that there are a ton
| of different schools of thought.
| snarfy wrote:
| Volunteer at an animal shelter for a couple hours a week. The
| cats at pet stores always need volunteers.
|
| Animals can't communicate so you are forced to empathize.
| marcuswebb wrote:
| Lots & LOTS of reading. LOTS of writing (look up journaling CBT).
| Distancing myself form people who actively engage in those
| behaviors & enable me to do so. Distance myself from social media
| (I haven't posted a selfie or personal life update in six
| months).
|
| Focus on people close to you that engage you on an intellectually
| or emotionally inspiring way. Find projects that bring you joy
| (or at least pass the time fairly well).
|
| Make jokes about yourself, to yourself. Take moments to pause &
| internally acknowledge when you feel you've done something you
| regret. Force yourself to apologize if it is necessary (but be
| wary that you may be trying to apologize to facilitate someone
| else coddling you: ask yourself if your apologizing improves
| THEIR life, not if it will assuage your guilt).
|
| Good luck!
| Solomoriah wrote:
| This question seems like a trap... asking people who have
| overcome narcissism to talk about how much better they are now.
| Wouldn't that be narcissistic?
|
| With that said, I'll agree that talking to a mental health
| professional might be the best thing, if you can afford it.
| Autistic spectrum disorder, for example, sometimes looks like
| narcissism... if you can't sense other's emotional states, it
| makes listening to them instead of talking about yourself more
| difficult, mimicking narcissism. And I'm sure there are other
| diagnoses that might also have the same effect.
| crawfordcomeaux wrote:
| Overcoming narcissism doesn't mean never talking about oneself.
| Thinking it does may be a sign of black and white thinking.
| geff82 wrote:
| First, really cool that you are trying to work on you. I am sure
| that path will lead you to something good.
|
| Concerning your disinterest in people... approach everyone as if
| they were a teacher. Not only contentwise, but in any regard.
| Even people at the bottom of society can teach you something
| about their life by merely looking at them or by exactly
| analyzing how they talk. See human interaction as a way to learn
| and not primarily as some humility. Learning makes YOU better,
| which, in some way, caters to a narcissist trait.
| halfnormalform wrote:
| Considering the core symptom involves thinking your own problems
| are either nonexistent or caused by someone else, it makes sense
| why the shelves aren't overflowing with self help book for
| narcissists.
|
| Things that did not help: -Books about people who were affected
| by narcissistic people. -All reddit groups about narcissism.
| -Writings of Vaknin and other famous narcissists.
|
| Things that did help: -Reinventing Your Life by Young (general
| audience). -Schema Therapy by Young (professional audience).
| -Borderline, Narcissistic, and Schizoid Adaptations by Greenberg
| (professional audience). -Learning how to be aware when I'm
| splitting others or myself into black and white. (Much harder
| than it sounds. It's like trying to stop time.) -Regular
| appointments with a therapist. (Don't go expecting an 'atta boy'
| --expect to be pushed outside your comfort zone of false
| invulnerability and expect to resent your therapist with every
| cell in your body while this is happening. If you find them just
| giving you 'atta boys' you should get a different therapist).
| -Daily exercise. -Cutting ties with family of origin.
| weddpros wrote:
| I'll second the recommendation for Schema Therapy, it's likely
| to help understand yourself and others (don't forget others...)
| lukifer wrote:
| I loved this line from Eric Weinstein's conversation with Garrett
| Lisi: "A good scientist is engaged in a dialectic between
| arrogance and humility." A dash of narcissism can be good, when
| contextually appropriate, and kept in balance.
|
| To that end, cultivate micro-habits, and pay attention to your
| emotional responses. Whenever I feel a sting to my ego, publicly
| or privately, I now try to embrace it, "take it on the chin", to
| be grateful for the lesson, to explicitly choose to let someone
| else (or the Universe) win. It's difficult at first, but it gets
| easier.
|
| It's taken a long time to truly appreciate the line from
| Desiderata: "Listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant;
| they too have their story". Think of it as a matter of
| interpersonal respect first, and "correctness" second. The human
| always has their reasons, right or wrong; when they feel
| respected and heard, they're much more likely to be receptive to
| new information or another point of view.
|
| My secret meta-hack? Using narcissism to curb narcissism. From
| the Tao Te Ching: "All streams flow to the sea because it is
| lower than they are. Humility gives it its power. If you want to
| govern the people, you must place yourself below them. If you
| want to lead the people, you must learn how to follow them."
| mundo wrote:
| Well known narcissism-obsessed psychiatry blogger "The Last
| Psychiatrist" has discussed this a lot, most relevantly in
| https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2009/01/can_narcissism_be_cu...
| and
| https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2010/02/the_other_ego_epidem....
|
| Here's (his version of) the tl;dr answer:
|
| > "Help me, please, I think I'm a narcissist. What do I do?"
|
| > There are a hundred correct answers, yet all of them useless,
| all of them will fail precisely because you want to hear them.
|
| > There's only one that's universally effective, I've said it
| before and no one liked it. This is step 1: fake it.
|
| > You'll say: but this isn't a treatment, this doesn't make a
| real change in me, this isn't going to make me less of a
| narcissist if I'm faking!
|
| > All of those answers are the narcissism talking. All of those
| answers miss the point: your treatment isn't for you, it's for
| everyone else.
|
| > If you do not understand this, repeat step 1.
| mullen wrote:
| If you were a real Narcissist, you are not be the problem,
| everyone else is the problem.
| sjg007 wrote:
| There's a few psychotherapy podcasts with episodes on narcissism.
| It's rare for malignant narcissists themselves to seek out
| therapy to help themselves so most resources are organized with
| how to deal with the narcissists in your life. But you should
| read them because if you can empathize with the other side and
| reflect on yourself, that would bring down your narcissistic
| tendencies. In general you should practice empathy, perspective
| taking and develop genuine curiosity in other people.
|
| A true narcissist is by definition someone who wouldn't care or
| think anything is wrong or want to change, so you may have strong
| narcissist traits that you can work at reducing them.
|
| Narcissists are people who are addicted to or are dependent on
| feeling special. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqV_QIvDeqA
|
| Also the book, "Rethinking Narcissism" is probably worth reading.
| hdivider wrote:
| Can you name any of those psychotherapy podcasts? Would love to
| know.
| sjg007 wrote:
| Therapist uncensored is good.
| https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/therapist-
| uncensored-p...
| hdivider wrote:
| Great, thanks!
| throwawa66 wrote:
| There's a guy on youtube, Sam Vankin. He is the author of
| Malignant Self Love: Narcissism Revisited and has been studying
| this for a long time. He claims to be or have been a narcisist
| himself due to some early childhood trauma. Look him up, he
| claims he developed a therapy for this and he lives in eastern
| europe, you can even pay him a visit if you're interested in
| aleviating or improving your condition. Whats worse about this
| condition is, that if left untreated and despite any
| acomplishments you'll have ever made you'd always be deeply
| unhappy within, basically a shell of your true self and this will
| probably spill in your life and around you and make a lot of
| victims: family, friends, basically everyone around you.
| projektfu wrote:
| Narcissism is a popular armchair diagnosis these days but you
| haven't really listed anything that makes you abnormal. I don't
| know who you are but chances are you're not really in need of
| treatment.
|
| So, if you feel that there are areas where you just want to
| improve how you interact with people, try ordinary coaching. You
| can learn how to become interested in what other people do. You
| can develop habits that demonstrate that you honestly care.
|
| Find a good life coach, counselor or therapist :)
| drinfinity wrote:
| Why do you want to change? Regret anything?
|
| I don't know the first thing about you, so it's hard to say what
| is going to help. If you truly are a narcissist all bets are off,
| but perhaps you are just a bit self-centered which might mean
| there is still hope after all.
|
| I'd look for books on being a "building lasting relations", "how
| to deal with emotions", "how to be a good mother/father". That
| kind of stuff. Bring out the wounded inner child and see if some
| CPR is still an option.
| keanzu wrote:
| In order for a person to be diagnosed with narcissistic
| personality disorder (NPD) they must meet five or more of the
| following symptoms: Has a grandiose sense of
| self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents,
| expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate
| achievements) Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited
| success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love Believes
| that he or she is "special" and unique and can only be understood
| by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people
| (or institutions) Requires excessive admiration Has a
| very strong sense of entitlement, e.g., unreasonable expectations
| of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with
| his or her expectations Is exploitative of others, e.g.,
| takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends
| Lacks empathy, e.g., is unwilling to recognize or identify with
| the feelings and needs of others Is often envious of others
| or believes that others are envious of him or her Regularly
| shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes
|
| https://psychcentral.com/disorders/narcissistic-personality-...
|
| Please refrain from self diagnosis.
|
| Drinking alcohol doesn't make you an alcoholic. Talking about
| yourself "too much" doesn't make you a narcissist.
| bazeblackwood wrote:
| Quite to the contrary, it's often said that alcoholism is a
| self-diagnosed disease. Certainly combating it is much harder
| without that acknowledgement. Likewise, I can't imagine a
| qualified psychologist or psychiatrist berating someone in the
| same way you have for simply wondering if they have
| manifestations of negative social behavior. Surely many people
| would miss out on opportunities to reflect and change were they
| to take your advice.
| the_cat_kittles wrote:
| trying to master a difficult art form, in my case improvised
| music, has repeatedly taught me to be more objective about my own
| playing. this is because you cant fake it. i think this helps me
| see myself as a regular person instead of a special person
| easier, since this perspective can be transferred to other
| settings.
| janpot wrote:
| If I had that feeling, I'd probably look for a professional to
| help me figure out whether narcissism is a correct diagnosis, and
| if so, what would be the right way for me to deal with it.
| throwaway9103 wrote:
| I just created an account to post a comment. I was raised by a
| narcissist, and over the years I've, like you, come to realize
| how narcissistic I am too.
|
| Narcissism has a terrible negative taboo associated with it, and
| rightfully so, because it can drain the living shit out of the
| people close to the narcissist. But you have to be careful not to
| be even harder on yourself about it. Because that's how a
| narcissist would understand a character defect (i.e. "oh I'm a
| terrible person worth scum"). For me I've found the very first
| thing I had to understand was yes, I'm a narcissist, and that's
| terrible, and I need to fix that ASAP, but, forgiveness is not
| only possible, it's necessary.
|
| With that out of the way, I cannot recommend Alexander Lowen
| enough. After years of research and self-exploration I've now
| landed on this guy and his thoughts. Check out his book
| Narcissism: Denial of the True Self.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Narcissism-Denial-True-Alexander-Lowe...
|
| One of the reviews on that page summarizes it very well:
| "Narcissism develops when children are made to feel rejected,
| humiliated, and powerless, at the same time seduced to feel
| special"
|
| Edit: If that specific book doesn't appeal to you, see if any of
| Lowen's other books resonate with you more
| shoulderfake wrote:
| Magic mushrooms , a few strong trips separated over few years.
| djschulz wrote:
| Years of hardcore individual and group therapy in my 20s, 30s and
| 40s helped to dispel any lofty perceptions I had of my self. It
| was very painful at the time but necessary. I continue that
| program to this day with a loving wife who calls me out on my
| shit as needed.
| diegoperini wrote:
| Finding a critical thinking best friend from the gender you are
| attracted to really helps here. Not being offended to harsh
| criticism will be the hardest part but it is definitely worth it.
| As you can imagine, this requires blind trust towards that
| friend, which is fine. Such friends will be responsible for your
| sanity check, especially if they are not afraid of telling you
| "Dude, WTF?" when you are at your worst. Making yourself lovable
| to others (not artificially) is a good motivator to accept the
| fact that you can love yourself less and still survive.
| rconti wrote:
| Learn something new.
|
| Do things you're bad at.
|
| Stick with it.
|
| I've found that learning new things, being accepting and open
| about how little I know, helps me turn down the ego a bit, and be
| more compassionate about others being bad at things I'm good at.
| And to define myself less by my abilities.
| ryanackley wrote:
| Here is the thing, you shouldn't feel guilty about feeling this
| way and rush out to see a therapist. This epiphany is part of the
| natural cycle of emotional maturity.
|
| Now it's just a matter of applying thought to action. For
| example, make an effort to listen to and understand other people.
| It get's easier because it will lead to more meaningful
| relationships. It becomes a positive feedback loop.
| woodrowbarlow wrote:
| agreed that one shouldn't feel guilty but one can still seek
| out a therapist if one would like guidance and support in
| "applying thought to action".
| mox001 wrote:
| Naturally, we tend to talk about whatever we happen to be paying
| attention to or thinking about. So excessive talking about
| oneself is a symptom of excessive thinking about oneself. Why
| would someone do that? I think that it's a logical consequence of
| having "getting people to like you" as your highest value. If
| that's the case it's only natural to model other people's view of
| you in your own mind and try to make it as pleasing as possible.
| I think that if you made a few important decisions that indicate
| to yourself that you have some other guiding purpose in your life
| (it could be as simple as openly disagreeing with someone about
| an issue you care about, or devoting your attention to a project
| that interests you in and of itself). Paradoxically, I think that
| MORE selfishness might be the answer (just like how attending to
| your heart rate can sometimes serve to slow it down).
| herodotus wrote:
| Try this: go on a dating website, and say that you are looking
| for someone to help you listen to and connect to other people.
| Maybe someone out there will be willing to mentor you. Much more
| useful than reading is an actual face to face critique by someone
| who is there to watch how you interact.
| simonsarris wrote:
| I wouldn't use the word narcissism to describe this. I'm worried
| about suggesting too many things, so maybe just consider these
| two:
|
| 1. Your traits and actions, both good and bad, what are they? Can
| you describe them, in other words, can you describe yourself
| through them? Try to do it, and do not use the word "am." Try to
| write down as many as you can.
|
| (In other words, never "I am a fisherman", only "I fish.")
|
| 2. Spend time trying to consciously improve other peoples lives.
| Work through the barriers you have to doing this and your life
| will improve, too.
|
| Practice these. If it's not immediately obvious why both of these
| are necessary, give it time.
| Ididntdothis wrote:
| When I show this kind of behavior it's usually because of a lack
| self confidence or depression. My Buddhist teacher told me that
| depression is literally a selfish thing because you are so busy
| worrying about yourself and don't have capacity to think about
| others or to be generous.
|
| Besides seeking professional help I think it helps to review the
| day in the evening and see if you did any of the behaviors you
| want to improve on. That way you slowly develop awareness and can
| start catching yourself from time to time when you do it. And be
| kind to yourself. Changing deeply ingrained behaviors is very
| hard.
| kstenerud wrote:
| Look for empathy training. Usually, 80% of the problem is lack of
| empathy.
| abfan1127 wrote:
| I'd check out "How to Win Friends and Influence People". Learning
| how to genuinely take an interest in others can be a learned
| trait. You'll also make mistakes, just be ok with your growth.
| newbie789 wrote:
| I don't mean to sound flippant, because I'm being entirely
| serious here.
|
| It's interesting that you talk about only seeing things from your
| own perspective and in the same breath lament the fact that you
| can't find a book written specifically for your perspective.
|
| Perhaps read some of those books about what it's like to
| experience interactions with a narcissist from another's
| perspective, and see if you can identify behaviors or patterns
| that you exhibit. Then, once you've become more aware, work on
| those behaviors.
|
| The label of "narcissist" as something that you _are_ sounds like
| a copout, when in reality it 's quite possible that you simply
| have a set of bad habits that you willfully engage in. It's not
| necessarily what you _are_ but something that you _do_.
| achenatx wrote:
| assume you are mostly wrong and ignorant. Treat every
| conversation as an opportunity to remedy it.
| darrelld wrote:
| If you suspect that you're a narcissist, then you probably aren't
| one.
|
| True narcissists won't even have the thought cross their mind or
| see it as something to fix. They think they are perfect in every
| way. To admit to imperfection would shatter their sense of self
| and that is something they must protect at all costs. They can't
| see how their behavior affects others. They are God's gift to us
| in their minds.
|
| You're probably just self-centered. Not quite the same as NPD.
|
| Try these things:
|
| * Don't like listening to people? Get over it, practice listening
|
| * Judge situations from just your perspective? Just try to see it
| from another angle.
|
| * Inflated ego? We all came screaming head first out of a vagina
| or yanked out of a cut womb. You're not special. We're all going
| to die.
|
| * Take things too personally? Try meditating.
|
| EDIT:
|
| Been reading through the comments and most of you are uneducated
| about the true nature of narcissists or have never crossed paths
| with one in any meaningful way (luckily for you).
|
| Here are the spark notes about narcissists:
|
| The DSM-V defines narcissism as:
|
| `A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior),
| need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early
| adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by
| five (or more) of the following:`
|
| To be categorized as a narcissist you have to meet 5 of 9 traits
| defined here :
|
| https://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/philo/courses/materials/Narc.P...
|
| * Narcissists aren't born, they are created and there is a strong
| link that shows it is a heritable characteristic learned in early
| adolescence.
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3973692/
|
| * Generally, it's either learned from a parent in the home or
| traumatic emotional abuse.
|
| * Narcissists have a very fragile ego and are constantly
| protecting it, they simultaneously want your approval and despise
| you for their need for your approval.
|
| * Narcissists cannot self reflect as part of a defense mechanism
| to their ego, they believe they are perfect in every way, and
| therefore do not need to change their behavior.
|
| * They have their own world view and if you show them differently
| they will simply ignore it and subsequently you.
|
| * Narcissists thrive on the attention and adoration of others,
| this can come from their children, co-workers, friends, family,
| lovers, really anyone. They thrive on both negative and positive
| attention. This is called narcissistic supply. Narcs need a
| constant supply to keep their egos inflated. It's like oxygen to
| them.
|
| * They will utilize a variety of tactics to entangle new forms of
| supply and keep them confused and entrapped. These tactics
| include:
|
| - Love bombing (Constant praise, stroking your ego, constant
| attention)
|
| - Mirroring (You like snowboarding? I like snowboarding! you like
| video games? I like video games!)
|
| - Projection (You're going to cheat/ steal/ lie, meanwhile they
| are doing exactly those things to you. They will accuse you of
| these things first to muddy the waters when you eventually catch
| on to their behavior)
|
| - Word salads (complete nonsense, logical fallacies out of their
| mouths to confuse you when talking or arguing)
|
| - Extreme mischaracterization or exaggeration of what you've said
|
| - Moving goalposts (I'll start helping with chores when my minor
| injury heals when I'm less stressed when it's spring etc)
|
| - Conditioning (Like pavlovian training: if you're in a good mood
| doing a certain activity they will start an argument to soil your
| association with that activity)
|
| - Gaslighting (I didn't say I liked video games, you must have
| misunderstood me)
|
| - Name calling and aggressive criticism (Usually disguised as a
| joke or with a "Just kidding!")
|
| - Triangulation or Flying Monkeys (using a third party to torment
| you further)
|
| - Discard /devaluation (Once you've caught onto them, or they've
| found a better source of supply you will be ignored or spoken
| about in condescending terms)
|
| * Narcissists cannot truly generate happiness of their own, so
| they try to leech it from others and hate them for their ability
| to generate happiness
|
| * Extended contact with a narcissist can lead to CPTSD
|
| * Narcissists cannot change because they do not want to change
| since they see nothing wrong with their behavior.
|
| In short, all of this advice to read a book, join a club, start a
| family, etc is useless for a narcissist. Also, narcissists are
| highly resistant to therapy. They rarely check themselves in and
| they only time they end up in front of a therapist is for
| something unrelated to their narcissism.
|
| If you meet one run.
| jakoblorz wrote:
| While I can see OP's points, I think it is never a good idea to
| tell someone "just do xy" in a psychological context
| MadWombat wrote:
| > Take things too personally? Try meditating.
|
| How would it help?
| darrelld wrote:
| I've found meditation to give me perspective on things. It
| gives your brain a chance to slow down and reflect.
|
| The effects of meditation tend to last well beyond the
| initial mediation session and seep into your day to day
| interactions.
|
| I used to take everything personally and be paranoid about
| everything all the time and meditation helped with that.
|
| YMMV.
| MadWombat wrote:
| The problem I have with statements like the one commented
| on is that there is no such thing as "meditation". There is
| a whole bunch of very different techniques from a whole
| bunch of different cultures that are all called meditation
| and the only thing they have in common is that it is a
| mental exercise of some sort. But considering how different
| these techniques are, it would be strange to expect them to
| provide any kind of common effect, like making you take
| things less personally. It also makes phrases like "I
| meditate every day" and "You should try meditation"
| meaningless. Consider spiritual exercises of Ignatius
| Loyola and compare them, say, to a Sufi Zikr and to a Hatha
| Yoga practice. All three are most definitely meditation
| practices, so when you say "you should meditate" do you
| mean I should drop on my knees and pray to Jesus, gather a
| bunch of guys and run in cicles singing in arabic or do a
| downward dog? And do you think any one of these would help
| me take things less personally?
| simmanian wrote:
| I think it's fair to say that "try meditating" can be a
| vague suggestion, especially for those who don't know
| much about meditation. But I have to ask, are you having
| these doubts because you actually want to try meditation
| but don't know where to start? Or do you simply not want
| to try it? I ask because while there are indeed tons of
| different ways to meditate, they usually converge on a
| very specific set of themes and practices.
|
| I recommend reading The Mind Illuminated by Yates if
| you're seriously looking to start. I find it to be a good
| resource for technical people.
| charred_toast wrote:
| My guess is it hinders the mind's ability to react negatively
| as quickly and allow mental processes to do their thing, so
| to speak, more objectively. IE: not jumping to conclusions.
| toxicFork wrote:
| Not any kind of meditation, but some meditation practices
| allow you to see sensations and experiences in their own
| context rather than only by how you may be involved within
| them.
|
| For example Satipatthana - or "mindfulness" looks at
| phenomena starting from sensory experiences in order to
| prevent cravings or aversion.
|
| Cravings and aversion come from how you react to things you
| may find desirable or undesirable.
|
| The desirableness and undesirableness are connected to you.
|
| When you are able to reduce cravings or aversion in whatever
| way, you also affect how you relate to these events, and may
| also aid in not taking things personally.
|
| Vipassana, another practice, guides you to see the
| impermanence of all things, as well as how your sensations
| and emotions are coming from natural phenomena rather than
| from this object you may call "yourself". By understanding
| the origin of how these relate a bit deeper, you can see
| better how there is no need to label a thing as "I"
| necessarily to be involved in any of this.
|
| To credit my understanding a bit; I have studied and
| practiced western mindfulness, Satipatthana and Vipassana for
| years, as well as Buddhism in general.
| MadWombat wrote:
| Thank you so much, you are one of the very few people I
| have met online who acknowledges that "meditation" is not a
| single practice.
|
| That said, I am not sure I understand what you mean when
| you say "cravings and aversion come from how you react to
| things you may find desirable or undesirable". It seems
| kinda meaningless, like yeah, I feel aversion when I don't
| want things to happen and yes, things I don't want to
| happen are undesirable to me. And yes, desirableness and
| undesirableness are, of course, connected to me, it is me
| who decides which things are desirable or undesirable to
| me.
|
| Like, lets say I fall into sewage treatment tank. Drowning
| in shit is an undesirable thing and I feel a great aversion
| to it. And yes, it is me, personally, who finds drowning in
| shit undesirable, the undesirableness of this outcome is
| connected to me very directly. But I do not see how
| meditation might help me.
| hemmert wrote:
| There is a very short test for narcissism:
|
| https://psychcentral.com/news/2014/08/06/it-takes-just-one-q...
| reilly3000 wrote:
| That seems to contradict OP's argument that admitting you're
| a narcissist probably indicates you're not.
| yters wrote:
| Religion could help you here, especially Christianity, since a
| fundamental insight is, as GK Chesterton puts it: "What's wrong
| with the world? I am."
|
| Without realizing there is something fundamentally wrong with me,
| i.e. the narcissism aka pride, it is impossible to break free.
| This is the insight that allowed Dante to leave Hell in the
| Divine Comedy.
| daenz wrote:
| But that goes against the current popular mantra of "I am great
| just the way I am and other people are the cause of my
| suffering."
| btilly wrote:
| Oh yes.
|
| Believe in this thing that you don't believe in so that you can
| become a better person. Except that believing for that reason
| is simply telling yourself a lie. And professing faith based on
| a lie will make you a worse person. And yet this type of
| argument is often used by those who seek to spread the Gospel.
|
| See likewise Pascal's Wager.
|
| That said, there is no evidence that I am aware of for
| Christianity actually making people into better people. I have
| seen a number of attempts to prove it (for example to support
| faith based programs in jails), but when the same data was
| analyzed using normal statistical methodologies (for example
| not excluding people who left the program because of problems),
| the evidence disappeared.
| yters wrote:
| See the western civilization you live. Largely the product of
| Christianity.
|
| OP can look into Christianity to see if they find it
| plausible. I am suggesting it is a good place to look, as the
| premise of Christianity is there is a greater reality than
| the self.
| dnautics wrote:
| Isn't that still narcissistic?
| yters wrote:
| I guess the idea is that since I'm not so great, best to look
| for something greater.
| zoom6628 wrote:
| Humility is always a good characteristic in people but its
| something that in order to be genuine it has to be learnt and
| practiced. My advice is go do some volunteer work for people who
| are seriously under-privileged in some way, especially ways you
| cannot fix. Sit with them, hear their stories, feel the
| frustration you cannot do a damn thing to 'solve their problem',
| and just try and 'be present' for them in that moment. Do it over
| a long period of time - this is not a one-hit wonder - and
| regularly. Helping out in an old-folks home, working with
| quadraplegics, UNHCR immigrants are all things available to most
| of us close to home. Even helping at a pet shelter will help
| somewhat. Do it for a year or two. The most important is to do it
| regularly and without ego or opinion. And usually the only cost
| is your time and transport.
| adityathakkar wrote:
| I'm not entirely convinced narcissism is something that has to be
| fixed.
|
| There are some aspects to it that are of course destructive as
| you mentioned (not enjoying listening to other people, and taking
| things to personally). Fixing these things I think comes down to
| enjoying the people you spend time with, and a radical belief
| that things will work out no matter what happens.
|
| But there are other aspects of narcissism that really lend
| themselves well to success. Overconfidence/inflated egos are some
| of the only ways that you can take on really big challenges ahead
| of you. (See Sam Altman's blog post on this -
| https://blog.samaltman.com/how-to-be-successful, and PG's tweet -
| https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1217724728644861953)
|
| I'd love to hear what other people think :)
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > I'm not entirely convinced narcissism is something that has
| to be fixed.
|
| You sound kinda like a narcissist. And the problem with
| overconfidence/big ego is that it doesn't help you choose the
| _best_ big challenges to tackle. Having some humility and
| keeping things in perspective makes you all the more aware of
| what your _real_ strengths are, and how to best leverage them.
| adityathakkar wrote:
| Yeah for sure - judgement is imperative, but also independent
| of confidence. Combining that with the courage and self-
| belief to try big things is a great combination.
|
| Humility is also incredibly important because most things of
| value are done by teams, and humility is incredibly important
| to working in a team. But again, humility and an ego can
| coexist and will serve you well.
|
| > You sound kinda like a narcissist.
|
| Whether I am or not doesn't matter - my comments on the
| matter stem from the fact that I believe most people air on
| the side of under-confidence regarding what they can
| accomplish.
| rconti wrote:
| An inflated ego is also a great way to never try anything you
| might fail at.
| adityathakkar wrote:
| I'd disagree with that - never trying something you might
| fail at is cowardice, not overconfidence, and those are two
| independent attributes.
| throwawaypa123 wrote:
| Or you might find people you do want to listen to. Sometimes you
| really are the only sane person or THE most interesting person in
| the room. It isn't you who is the problem but the room you
| occupy.
|
| Think about this, if you were in a room with Jeff Bezos, Mark
| Zuckerburg, and Bernie Madoff, how much talking would you be
| doing?
|
| Not that much.
| azinman2 wrote:
| Not a helpful comment when this person has suggested it has
| negatively affected their life and is looking to change.
| halfnormalform wrote:
| N's can't ever (ever ever...) be wrong. The problem has to be
| something external, such as their environment. ;)
| throwawaypa123 wrote:
| The change should be his environment and not him. Far easier
| to change where you are than WHAT you are.
| azinman2 wrote:
| This is a very destructive comment, and I hope that no one
| is seriously reading this and thinking it's ok and applies
| to them. The most socially unadjusted people I know often
| blame everyone else around them except for themselves, when
| it's clear that they were both acting like jerks and
| totally unaware the entire time. I have a friend that's
| literally jobless and in poverty now because he was
| continuously let go project after project due to his
| combativeness. It's far easier in this case for him to
| change his behavior than to find a place to work with high
| salary that allows combative behavior.
|
| You can and should always work on yourself. Focusing on
| self-awareness and feedback from others helps a lot to
| adjust your behavior to make others around you feel loved
| and supported, which in turn will only make your life way
| easier because people will like you and want to see you
| succeed. It's a normal part of maturing. Just because it's
| hard doesn't mean it's not the right thing to do.
| gao8a wrote:
| For books I've always recommended in a broad scope of character
| building: How to win friends and influence people by Dale
| Carnegie.
|
| But that's just a book and its like just reading a book for
| programming. You have to find a way to put it in practise.
|
| I firmly believe that every society needs to embody some type of
| short term service for youth to strip away the idea of
| individualism, and allow them to rebuild only after experiencing
| working and helping out others. Doesn't need to be the armed
| forces, just something to hammer into them that you need to work
| together and look after buddy.
|
| For me I think joining the reserves at a young age (16) cured me
| of a lot of selfishness. That might be unrealistic to you but
| sports teams, volunteer groups (Rotary, Lions Club, heck even
| Toastmasters) help garner this dynamic.
|
| Have you lived in a small community before? You might think you
| don't like people, but you might realize you don't like people in
| big cities/companies/stressful environments.
|
| All the best
| anthk wrote:
| Not giving a shit about near everything. I installed Slackware
| after lots of years (since Debian Woody), but never stayed with
| it because I had no internet at home.
|
| I have no shit to being "hip" or updated, I installed Fluxbox/Rox
| and stopped bragging over a setup and I just wanted to get my
| shit done.
|
| I just did what I loved (learning to code TCL/TK and console/PC
| emulators in 6502 ASM) instead of accomplishing not my ego, but
| my distorted view of myself as being enforced by the rest. It
| worked.
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(page generated 2020-02-06 23:00 UTC)