Experiment: Can you de-addict from narcissistic supply? Resu

So I've just recovered from a traumatic experience and thought I'd share my story.

TL;DR - Starved myself from human attention and developed Psychosis, started hearing voices from fictional characters and generally a complete mental breakdown.

Experimented with seeing what would happen if I literally restricted all forms of Narcissistic supply (human attention), (after all that's our addiction) - which I was sure was B.S. Subsequently, attended a 10 day silent meditation course in India where you weren't allowed to speak to anyone and mediated for 10 hours a day. I was lowkey hoping this would cure me of my condition: narcissism, suspected ADHD.

It was a crazy ######6 experience.

At first I was not in a good state to begin with: depressed and very anxious - after graduating college and being unemployed for a few months. On the first day of the course, I was okay just generally thinking about random $#%^. Although I quickly established that this Vipassana meditation is nothing but brain washing.

The following days I ignored all instructions and spent my time thinking around Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and NPD. I read that we're supposed to be magnetically attracted to each other and that this creates a highly toxic relationship which was intriguing. On a side note: if anyone has been in such a relationship please let me pick your brain on it and your experiences, I'd be keen to hear any insights.

So back to the story, I spent the next couple of days lost in day dreams and theories and tbh I realised a lot of $#%^ from being alone. At one point I was coming up with all these original insights about my life, that I felt doing this was the best thing I've ever done in my life. Slowly and slowly my thoughts started to get more and more outlandish as the days went on. At one point I felt like aliens from Jupiter were communicating with me (Yah!). So yeah and it only took about 7-8 days of not speaking to anyone to get to this point.

By the 9th day I was so out of my mind that I started believing, I was being reborn as a girl and literally all kinds of crazy thoughts that a normal person could not even fathom. They all had a grandiose undercurrent to them and were bat $#%^ crazy. I soon started to link these thoughts with the other pupils at the course as if their malign attention was on me. At one point I felt like I was freed from the curse of narcissism and feelings of inner shame. On that last night, I had the most vivid dream and again even more crazy ideations. By the morning I broke the no speaking rule - I was acting out, convincing others that I was going crazy. People were worried, even the master came to my chambers and tried to calm me down but by this point I was manic and I was un-dressing myself and running around naked. Searching for attention?LOL. They had to lock me up in my room. Where I subsequently proceeded to break the door and had to be man-handled back.

Then the real ######6 crazy $#%^ started to happen I started hearing voices in my head of the female master teacher (who had never spoken to me) and I started believing she was sub-communicating with me. All kinds of even more insane theories and ideas were cycling through my head by this point.

My parents had to be called to pick me up because I had literally turned insane. I was starting fights, shouting, screaming and then when I left the meditation centre - the voice of the female teacher remained. I genuinely believed and (still to this day partly believe that women can sub-communicate. ###$).

Then followed the month from hell. In which I was literally insane and hearing voices in my head constantly for every hour of the day for a solid month. In the process, I broke TV's smashed phones and I'm surprised I didn't kill myself. I refused to see a psychiatrist because I thought I was in the right here and all of this was ######6 real. My parents started giving me anti-psychotic medication discreetly through my food. All of that made no difference until I finally started to trust a psychiatrist who told me that all of this was fantasy and I had lost touch with reality. He give me some more medication which I was now aware that I was taking! and the voices and psychotic thinking went from 100 to 20 in the space of a day. Literally that man saved my life. To this day I think that the medication did ###$ all and it was merely just the placebo effect which helped calmed things down.

I'm back to normal now and all the crazy $#%^ has gone except for a couple of days here and there. Building my life back together piece by piece. I lived like a "zombie Narcissist" (google Sam vaknin on this topic if interested) and the results were bone chillingly scary. Never again.

To all the older male N's here I had to ask is this our fate? Addiction to human attention... What kind of an existence is that. I've lately started to rationalise that it's just a survival strategy to survive and to be successful - you have to be narcissistic. All the famous sports starts, actors, politicians have an elevated degree of narcissism. And after all aren't we just animals who reproduce and die. So where the hell does empathy fit the equation. Offer me some wisdom if you can!

Not having contact to other people for a while isnt the same as not having narcissistic supply and going insane thru that is imo an indicator of being mentally unstable to a degree unexpected of someone with NPD. But then again you you are not supposed to go to retreats when you are mentally ill anyways (which is a funny paradoxon with religions basically being egocentric delusions or obsessions).
With attention its the same thing, attention can be stabilizing to ones self view but its not necessarily so. Attention can also be a focus of obsession so one doesnt see whats behind it.

This is really good to talk about. Lately, I have been trying to find a work-at-home job. It sounds so enticing. I don't know if it is all that is cracked up to be. I work an office job at 40 hours per week. I have medium self-esteem. Sometimes, I wish I could have nice clothes that fit better on me. I use to thrive on attention from the age of 10 yrs. to 35 yrs. old. I am 42 years old today. I stopped thriving on attention because I was making low wages and pleasing others. It dawned on me one day to go back to college in my late 30's and fix my life. I had to de-addict myself from narcissism. I felt so backwards. I began to lose my boyfriends. I started thinking that girls were all lesbians. In fact, I even had an affair with a lesbian and she blocked me out of her life after she got what she wanted. I am searching for a nice man who is mature and can satisfy me needs. I want a man who does not believe in narcissism behavior and reaches out to me as a human, an employee, a professional, and a female. I can not find many friends who are anti-narcissism. They seem like they look in the mirror all day and thrive on attention. They have secret lives and some live in a closet. I do not want to go through the whole addiction where I am hearing voices, believing in visions, blaming others for my insanity, and sitting on the fence again. It makes me feel stuck and helpless. I believe in God, but I also believe in freedom of speech, personal rights, and the power of love. One addict is not going to ruin my life again or ponder ways to manipulate me. Thank you for for helping me de-addict from a narcissism person.

I find this subject interesting is it Narcissistic supply or just a need for validation, because of an internal lack of self identity? If you ask the members on here who have been diagnosed NPD they will say they do not need it and don’t believe Narcissistic supply exists. I think NPD manifests in very different ways for different people.

I tried cutting out narcissistic supply and also started getting a lot of weird thoughts.
Has anyone else had that experience? I wonder how common it is

How are you doing now djangooo ?

I can totally relate to losing your $#%^ without attention as I go fully schizoid without so much as someone greeting me in the morning. When I am alone in the house (I live in a communal apt with 4 other people, 12 total in the whole building).

Especially thinking about personality disorders part. I abhor saying this but I went (half-) willingly without supply after breaking a relationship with a girl I felt I would destroy otherwise. Since then I've dissected my life from childhood on a psychiatrical evaluation level as to how and why I've conducted myself as I have.

As far as the NPD/Borderline experience - it is a perfect storm. My second girlfriend with whom I had a on-off relationship for more than a year (close to two I guess) was equally the best and worst experience. I think back with a weird mixture of excitement and gratitude about the hitchiking adventures she took me on and the chemistry we had (an emotional toddler relates best to someone emotionally their equal) but then again her mind was mature enough (and she was somewhat narcissistic herself to mask her childhood wounds) to call me on my #######4 and I could not take it. In other ways her sexual volatility also hurt me the most anyone ever has and was confusing as hell so that's that. I turned into a sadistic #####& by the end of our time together and totally rejected her by the end, even as a friend. She took me on such an emotional rollercoaster by the end I was so done and could not be there for her when she was at her worst, calling me from another country and threatening suicide. In general thinking back I feel as if I destroyed a person who was already inclined to be hurting and I do feel immense guilt for that.

In my own experience, living as an NPD is like a constant-in-the-moment juggle of feeling like worthless garbage and the (of course, thus acting accordingly). My borderline homicidal/suicidal tendencies urges get stronger by the day though so I think that's where the saying 'Narcissism only gets worse with age. And going back to the juggling part, that's to me where the idea comes in of either accepting your lot in life of being a less-than-par person that just does the bare minimum of sociability expected of them (I have an NPD father to base this off of) versus going the hateful path of full on berserk mode of self-destruction where you just alienate anyone and everyone willfully and still try to ride out the fruits of being semi-young. I don't believe that to be worthwhile pursuit but nothing really does so on other days I feel that's my only pleasure left in life.

SelfSerf wrote:versus going the hateful path of full on berserk mode of self-destruction where you just alienate anyone and everyone willfully and still try to ride out the fruits of being semi-young. I don't believe that to be worthwhile pursuit but nothing really does so on other days I feel that's my only pleasure left in life.

I can identify with a lot of what you said particularly this part, I believe I am currently fighting this battle for self destruction. Als o the part of going full on schizoid which I have been in and out of last few years. Im not aware of any Narcissistic supply, not in a sense that I can connect to my behavior. With me it’s more like, when I’m kicking ass in life I feel great, when I’m not I feel like constant dogshit. Constantly criticizing myself for not doing the things I know I should be doing, it’s a constant cycle.

I can de-addict from a lot of things but this ain't one.

And I have tried and continue to do so but it always slips through.

I think a few people mentioned keeping your PD on a leash (could have been Jomp?) which was very wise looking back on it. You have to allow it to go on controlled walks otherwise it starts to take on a life of its own.

Im not sure how much value this idea has. Mostly everyoen goes crazy in social isolation and everyone needs narcissistic supply. These concepts include a variety of non-pathological stuff and are too abstract imo to discuss them to a meaningful degree.

I’ve spent prolonged periods of time in social isolation. Prolonged in the sense of being counted in years rather than days. The most extreme example of which was the years spent living in a clean room following an unfortunate incident with some pesticide and even more unfortunate mast cell reaction. I wasn’t able to be in the presence of another person or animal during that time and had to collect food and other necessities delivered in sealed plastic crates, just to give an idea of the degree of isolation. While it wasn’t fun and I found myself chronically bored, the saddest thing about it was that my mental state didn’t really change. I was much the same before, during and after. Tbh the thing I missed most was not people but the ability to go outside and loss of contact with the natural world. Other people I could take or leave.

I’ve also spent a few years working without any meaningful social relationships, deliberately keeping myself apart in order to get the job done and prevent ‘distraction’. Again much the same before and after.

Frankly to go from sane to psychotic in under 10 days, without chemical interference, verges on the ridiculous. I’m of the opinion the OP must have been pretty nutty before entering isolation for that to happen. That being said I have often wondered to what degree PD symptoms are created/exacerbated by an individual’s lifestyle.

In so far as I understand it ‘narcissistic supply’ simply refers to the satisfaction derived from stuff which reinforces our self perception. While probably more tricky in npd due to the unrealistic self image, it is something everybody receives.