When I first came to Psych. Forums in search of some relief from my angst, trying to understand it and alleviate it, it was to the body dysmorphia forum. Like many, but not all, who have come to the BDD forum, my symptoms didn't quite fit the official definition of body dysmorphia. Sometimes I was quite pleased with my appearance, sometimes I was devastated by what I saw as my ugliness. It was, and still is, off and on. Some days I'm ridin' high in April, some days I'm shot down in May.

Although I never put it into words, and it was only in the back of my mind going back to not only my 20's, but early teens, and maybe even before, by my late 30's I realized how much I was obsessed with my appearance===how much it formed a deeply visceral sense of self-worth and self- esteem in me. How good my mood was, how happy I was, how I basked in it, when I was "feeling good-looking", and how disturbingly anxious and self-conscious I was when I was "feeling ugly". Since I wasn't a classic body dysmorphic, the only conclusion I could draw from these feelings was that I was vain...and shallow. Yet this comes smack up against my other very important sources of self-esteem, as someone with depth, character, intellect, virtue and spirituality who despises shallowness. Intellectually I know that looks don't matter---character does---yet on an emotional level they do matter to me, very, very much. My self-image, self-esteem and sense of happiness and well-being are extremely intertwined with how good I feel I look, physically. As pathetic as I'm sure it will be seen, this isn't about wanting to find a mate or sexual partner---I've been very avoidant all my life---my "high" is to be admired from afar, and even more twisted, not as some "hunk de jour", dandy or metrosexual, but as a good-looking young man who's indifferent to and not even aware of his good looks. I guess this might be a classic "covert" narcissist trait. It seems other people on the BDD and narcissist forums have expressed very similar feelings, and if they're anything like mine, there's a certain "ineffability" to them.

I could be ridiculously deluded about it, but I think I've had a long Indian summer of youth. But if it's really true, I know it can't last. My obsessive, desperate mantra every single year, is "Just one more summer, just one more summer, just one more summer..."

There's a certain symbolism to a group of young men running. A desire to be among them and seen among them and look as good as they do. I'm not defending that desire. It may be ridiculous. Although I'm sure I haven't, I'm just trying to explain what I feel, not defend it.

As I get older and older, and deeper and deeper into this "identity crisis", more and more, even if very rarely, I can almost accept what I really look like, be content with it, or at least not be tortured by it. Maybe there's a slim thread of hope for me as I drift into my dotage.

My somaticism is a major and integral part of my angst, but there's also a sense of grief and longing for my past, the time, the world and culture of my youth, which no longer exists, where I either squandered my opportunities for "supply", or was never provided them. Like many of those old Twilight Zone episodes with the theme of going back into time to ones ideal past, my fantasy is to be 14 again in my time, but where I would "pull strings" to make it better. You can laugh or sneer, but there's a lot of literature and film that speaks to this longing of people my age, and maybe even younger, It's age old. Problem is, it can't be wrapped in such a neat pretty bow as the old Twilight Zone episodes were.

In this entry I'm sure I've only scratched the surface of my somaticism and how it fuels my angst. Perhaps I will have better explanations and insights in the future.

I volunteered for the local vegan festival ("VegFest") yesterday. I was having a pretty bad face day which tends to happen when I see myself in certain restroom mirrors with bright florescent lights directly above the mirror and windows with my face in direct sunlight. Also, I'd decided to work on overcoming my self-consciousness about my thinning hair by not wearing a hat---to "take my mask off" and "reveal my innermost Self...", as the line went in Beneath the Planet of the Apes---which added to my appearance insecurities.

I had some trouble locating the building on the community college campus it was to be held at and commented on the lack of directions on the website, but I felt I was taking a risk of creating negativity by doing that. Later I also commented to another volunteer that I didn't understand why they'd made a desperate call for a 100 volunteers, when there were barely a dozen there so far, if that much, and they were having a hard time finding things for me to do. But I knew I was pushing it again, so I abruptly dropped it. I know the husband and wife organizers and they're very nice people, gung ho vegans, and I wanted their first VegFest to be a rousing success for them---which, by the way it was---but if I'd known I'd just be standing around doing pretty much nothing I wouldn't have volunteered, but just dropped by for a look and to watch Ginny Messina, the vegan R.D.

I watched about half of the vegan cheese making demo and all of Ginny's presentation. I brought my Vegan for Life along to have Ginny sign it. I was worried about finding the right moment to ask her, fearing it'd be awkward, but fortunately, they set aside a specific time after the presentation for us to do that, so that went okay.

Most of the time I just wandered around, bored and isolated. I smiled and offered a thank you and compliment here and there as I took some free samples. I avoided a few people I was acquainted with, not really knowing what to say to them that wouldn't sound contrived and awkward,. Although there were a few people who greeted me and smiled in a friendly and genuine way, I frequently had the impression people felt uncomfortable around me, though I really tried my best to relaxed, sociable and affable. How much this was my imagination, and how much reality, as usual, I'm just not sure. It made me realize, just how profoundly disconnected I am from the vast majority, intellectually and emotionally, what I social freak I am.

I'm not necessarily going to give up on these social outings altogether, but I'm going to have to take them in much smaller doses. I'll probably go to VegFest next year, but I won't volunteer.

Both overt and covert narcissism theory claim that narcissists have little or no empathy for others. I'm not sure how true this is. I believe the description of the covert narcissist fits me very, very well, but I feel my empathy is significant. But could my empathy be more more limited than nons' and having been this way most of my life, I just don't see it? Am I like a color-blind person who's never seen "normally" but is under the illusion that he does? When nons claim so much greater empathy than I do, I'm skeptical, much like "breakaway" in the thread "My Explanation for the "Lack of Empathy" Conspiracy". How does one really measure empathy anyway? How does one quantify it for comparison? I know there are supposed to be precise methodologies in DSM (and other) psychologies, but it just seems so subjective to me in the final analysis.

I'm a vegan. (I'm not bragging about that or trying to engage in moral posturing or anything, and don't want to start an ethical argument on this forum. But I think it's relevant to the claim of psychology and constant accusation by anti-narcs that I don't have empathy.) Maybe I have more empathy for animals than I do people. Indeed I have long be rather misanthropic.

But even so, I've felt empathy for people many, many times. A typical example is when somebody gets their head bitten off in a social situation. The pain I feel for that person is strong and immediate. It's definitely much more than "cognitive" or "intellectual". So something just doesn't seem quite right with this "limited or no empathy" theory, and the whole range and complexity of narc emotional life really seems to get distorted from all this virulent anti-narc rhetoric and ranting.

Sometimes I wonder if the extent I am unempathetic doesn't stem from generally apathy or compassion fatigue. Also, you've got to hoe your own row. There are so many people in ones life that seem to have their own patterns of self-destruction, and it'd drive you crazy wracking your mind (and heart) trying to save them from themselves. So, yes, I admit I've just tended to turn the empathy off to remain sane. That doesn't mean I don't help people. I do.

On a discussion on the NPD forum, "About Lack of Empathy", jasmer said that having 5 of the diagnostic criteria each of the DSM NPD criteria entailed a consistent lack of empathy, even though it may not state it explicitly. I don't quite see this.

Okay, well maybe all this means that I'm not really a narc. Or maybe on a scale of 1 to 10, I'm, say, about a 7. When I call myself a narcissist, I mean it in the old sense. I don't care about the category of "NPD" that much. As I've said, from what I've read about it, I'm agnostic to skeptical of the DSM. Narcissism and narcissists pre-dated the DSM and modern psychology by millenia. Their reality doesn't need to be validated by modern psychology and the DSM, which are only reformulating them in their own technical language as part of their own narrow system. When "the ancients" and the "uneducated" have written and spoken of narcissism and narcissists, they're recognizing essentially the same thing as modern psychologists. My only interest in my own narcissism is how it may be, probably IS, causing me emotional turmoil. Not on whether I get to join the NPD club.

Everything I've read about covert narcissism describes me amazingly accurately---except the claim or implication that I'm some sort of callous monster. Maybe some narcs are more complex that others. Maybe I am. Maybe I'm a monster with a heart.

When I first came to this forum, I used the terms mid-life crisis and gerascophobia to describe the emotional crisis I was going through. I also have mentioned in my posts my depression and anxiety.

Since that time last winter, I have been doing much research on the Internet, trying to understand what I’m going through, so I can work out some strategy of coping with it, of lessening it’s grip, of easing it’s pain. This is what that research has led me to believe:

I am a covert, somatic-type narcissist.

This is what a Michael Holdren had to say in his doctoral dissertation, Causal Attributions among Over and Covert Narcissism Sub-Types for Hypothetical, Retrospective and Prospective Events:

“Covert narcissism using the HSNS and various combinations of the NPDS, NHMF and ESS [psychological measurement scales] has been shown to be related to *introversion, defensiveness, anxiety*, vulnerability to life’s traumas, *sensitivity to slight, lack of social presence*, sociability, dominance, *depression, hositility, troubled social relationships, irritability*, vulnerability, *shame, submissiveness, dependency, tendency to idealize*, lower affiliation and power motives, higher achievement motivation, *inadequacy, unhappiness, worry, difficulties in keeping oneself interested and entertained, feelings of meaninglessness, the perception that time is passing slowly*, sabotaging others, a measure of self-handicapping, object relations deficits, the *neuroticism* factor of the five factor model of personality, *social anxiety*, and inversely associated with affiliation motivation and the agreeableness factor of the five factor model of personality.” (page 34, my emphases)

Although attributed to Sam Vaknin, the only reference to somatic-type narcissism is from this post on psychforums:

“Obsess[ion] based around beauty, ideal looks and so forth”.

I hope to find more info on this in the future.

In the Wikipedia article, this description by Theodore Millon, from his five narcissist variations, jumped out at me:

"Fanatic type: including paranoid features. An individual whose self-esteem was severely arrested during childhood, usually with major paranoid tendencies who holds onto an illusion of omnipotence. These people are fighting delusions of insignificance and lost value and are trying to re-establish their self-esteem through grandiose fantasies and self-reinforcement. If unable to gain recognition or support from others, they take on the role of a heroic or worshipped person with a grandiose mission."

I’ve briefly mentioned my “fanaticism” in this forum, before I’d ever seen this.

Again, from Holdren:

“In a study designed to provide experimental support for the distinction between…overt…and covert narcissism sub-types Balestri (2000) examined their relationship with object relations, depression, Machiavellianism and the five factor model of personality. Results indicated that both overt and covert narcissism are positively correlated with Machiavellianism, and negatively correlated with the agreeableness factor of the five-factor model of personality”. (page 32)

I discovered this only after my post mentioning my Machiavellianism.

In one trait, I’m not sure if I fit the covert model. I feel I’m pretty empathetic. For instance, the suffering of animals tortures me emotionally, which is the reason I’m a vegan. I also have very vivid memories of being strongly empathetic toward people. For example, back when I was 20 and working at a national park, there was a woman forest ranger waiting for a tour group she was going to guide. I remember the look of stoic disappointment on her face, as no one was showing up. To this day, I remember feeling very bad for her inside. I know there are many similar situations, empathy responses, out of my past. Yet---I do often feel rather hardened against many classes of people---mainly the working, middle and upper classes, the socially and economically successful, the young, t...

[ Continued ]

Well, I've decided to start a blog here, even though I have doubts about how worthwhile it is or how much I'll be able to keep up with it, if at all.

I already have "blog-like" posts all over these forums and anybody can just go to the "search member's posts" link to bring those up and read them. One advantage, though, of having all this on a blog is that one can just hit the print icon and it'll bring up all expanded posts, which can be read without a lot of clicking---a headache, especially for anybody on dial-up, like I've often been---and they can all be printed, which I often like to do, finding it much easier to read paper than screens. Thus, one rationale.

I've been on several forums, one being Anxiety Zone, another BDD Central, in a need to vent, articulate and explore "what's ailing me". After being intimidated from joining this forum after reading all it's confusing technical hoops, I tried again, and for some unknown reason, managed to do with quite easily. So, here I am. I have found this forum quite a bit more satisfying that AZ and BDD which were a bit "infantilizing". Psychforums has a bit more intelligence and healthy cynicism. Wierd as that may seem, I find brutal honesty, even if it's "negative", more comforting than sugar-coated optimism. I also think emotional-mental problems can be a lot more complex than anxiety or any single "disorder".

I come to this forum to vent, commiserate, learn and find some sort of community with my "fellow crazies", but I use that last expression with a grain of salt. I don't like to think of myself as "mentally ill" or "disordered". I have a problem. I have a condition. I have "pain". I have angst. I need to work on it. But I don't want it, or anybody else, to define me. I'm not trying to join any clubs, to gain official admission into anybody's insular little clique.

I investigate and explore psychology (or psycholoGIES) as tools of self-help. I assert my right to self-diagnose, to apply what labels I deem fit me best, as WORKING DIAGNOSES. Maybe I'm a typical arrogant narcissist, maybe I'm oppositional defiant, but I have no intention of ever seeing a "therapist". I haven't seen anything in them that suggests to me they are more insightful than I am about my condition. If anybody tells me I should go "get a proper diagnosis" I will ignore it. If you want to talk about it any further, meet me on the anti-psych forum. I'm a rebel and a skeptic who's always been rather hostile to "expertism" and the very idea of somebody telling me what's "proper" kind of irks me. (Even if I wanted to see a therapist I'm very, very low income, and couldn't even begin to afford it, and being a libertarian, no, I'm not going to "ask" (beg, grovel) for "assistance". People who don't take these issues into consideration when telling others they should "get professional help" are probably very class-sheltered, culturally insensitive, or ideologically arrogant.)

There are many, many philosophical and existential issues with the (holy) DSM and maybe even other psychologies that have been deeply explored by people far more educated than I, and there's much more to the issue that forced hospitalization and drugging, serious as these are.

Anyway, as working diagnoses/labels for myself, my research so far has led me to covert somatic-type narcissism. Other "co-morbidities" may be avoidant and schizoid. Cognitively, I've long thought I probably have ADHD and sluggish cognitive tempo. All a rather daunting mix to say the least. Hopefull I'll have the time and discipline to explore all these in this blog.