Recov)ery from NPD is 100% possible.

My story

I don’t want to bore you with my whole NPD / life story so I will keep it short. I never thought there is any problem with me all the way till I was 23. I knew I had a bad childhood and all I knew is I wanted to be famous as a musician. I thought my life is going in a great direction and looked on myself as a special survivor. I quit college (actually three different ones) and started to pursue music instead. I got a successful start, but for some reason did not continue my career. This was the first time when somewhere in the back of my mind something told me that it is off (first little awareness of the gap between the real and false self). Fast forward, I had a panic attack one day, and it started a debilitating depersonalization and derealization, which did not go away.

Next few years, I tried to tell myself that nothing is really wrong, tried to continue my career, but constantly self sabotaging. Also started heavy learning about depersonalization (Harris Harrington’s program, very good stuff!), dysfuctional families, psychology. Got a lot of answers but nothing solved it. Fast forward, few years later I started to get in a really deep whole, still fighting, still maintaining my perception of myself (got really successful in different areas, but never stayed at anything, always needed the next goal).

At a point, when I was really at a low point, no sleep, anxiety, constant dependency on people, more and more issues with people. I was with a girl, we broke up twice and she left me, and for the first time in my life, I was not able to rationalize why the other person was the stupid one. I just simply could not come up with an answer on WHY she left me. She was just right.

I was in pieces. Constantly googling everything about psychology, I convinced myself and others that my father is a narcissistic psycho and this is what is wrong (of course I was trying to fix my narcissistic narrative, with less and less success). I wrote blogs about narcissism and psychopathy, and really believed that my dad was a psycho and this is the reason I have emotional problems. At that time I did not know that even though I PERFECTLY described narcissism, whom I really was writing about was not my dad but me.

I started to blame everyone, but at this point I was less and less successful in attempting to convince myself that I am right. The pieces just did not fit anymore, and it was not possible anymore to filter, distort these stories enough to convince myself. I started to act in ways which were totally out of my self image.

At one point, I started to read Sam Vaknin. I did not even consciously knew why. He did not say anything I did not know about narcissists. But I kept reading. He described NPD so accurately that it was simply IMPOSSIBLE to deny it. It resonated with me on such a deep level that even my high intelligence and creativity could not justify it away. Every day, those words broke bigger and bigger parts out of my self image. I did everything to deny it but it took more and more effort and became less and less effective. There was no turning back.

The inner emptiness I experienced I believe is the most terrible thing a person can go through IMO, but I don’t have to say it, if you read this you probably now.

RECOVERY

After that, I got to a point where I thought I will commit suicide soon. I did not cry, I did not panic, but when I looked at my life I really believed that I will need to commit suicide soon because I was left with NOTHING (I thought then). No social connection, no ability to relate to people, no self, no personality, nothing. Knowing what Sam wrote, I experienced such that I just can not find words to describe. I also read addx’s posts on here and I believe he also explains some stuff pretty well.
So at the lowest possible point, I just had a click in my mind. Ever since I watched Harrington’s DP recovery program, there were a few words from him which constantl...

[ Continued ]