NPD

Hello everyone, I haven't been diagnosed with NPD, but I've been incredibly worried that I have it for years now! I've been doing so much research on this disorder recently that I realised I resonate with a lot of the traits, and this sent me into a depression and wanting to isolate from my loved ones to protect them! I have empathy, but I feel it's circumstantial, like for example I feel deeply for homeless people, if I see one, I become tearful because they look lonely and depressed and I think about them all day hoping they are okay! I feel sad when someone else is sad and I want to console and help them! I can't stand to see animals suffer and I cry if a family member kills an insect in the house, feeling bad for the life lost! Now the reason why I feel it is circumstantial is because there are certain situations where my empathy is lower and I try to feel something but it just isn't there, and so I instead feel dismissive towards the person! I don't get mean to them, but I just come across as uncaring and uninterested and this makes me feel awful, I feel both shame at myself and guilt for the person and I apologise to them and try to explain how my brain is! The narcissistic traits I feel I have apart from inconsistent empathy is a need for validation that I'm worthy, and this takes form in dressing up in a certain way when I'm going out so that men look at me and find me attractive! This is all I want, but when I get it, I start having thoughts that I'm the sexiest woman out there! I don't actually think I'm sexy at all, I find myself incredibly repulsive, but when these men look at me, whistle at me, honk their horns, however they show that they're looking and liking I get a high from it and start thinking I'm better than other women, and then feel embarrassed for thinking that when the high crashes! I don't experience rage if I don't get the validation I need, but I go home and cry in private wondering why I just can't be beautiful like other women, why I'm so ugly and disgusting etc and don't want to leave the house anymore... but this just repeats and it is exhausting to the point I've just wanted to end my life! The next trait is a fear of rejection and abandonment, and due to this I experience debilitating anxiety about being rejected, ghosted or cheated on and this causes me to need a lot of reassurance that I'm still loved and valued! Also, due to the abandonment/rejection anxiety, I experience excruciating jealousy, and I say excrutiating because it triggers a painful wound in me, a wound from being left out/excluded and bullied when I was growing up, both at school and at home! So, if a partner is showing love to someone else they care about, instead of being happy for them, I panic that I don't mean anything to them anymore, I'm jealous that it's not me getting that love and my brain convinces me that the love I get is not the same and is actually less than what others get, and so I cry and say to myself see? you are nothing! I don't have trouble holding myself accountable, I understand when I've made a mistake and done wrong and try to correct it! If I hurt someone, I feel guilt and apologise to them! I confuse myself so much because I have this good side of me, and then this horrible side comes out, this wounded child that I can't calm down! I've tried my best but I just can't regulate my emotions and I turn to others breaking down! I have a diagnosis of ADHD and I thought for the longest time my experiences were related to that, but NPD (particularly in vulnerable form) makes so much more sense because of the flip flopping between grandiosity and feeling worthless (not seen in ADHD)! Every day is a battle between healing and surviving (narcissism) and whichever one of those dominates varies from day to day, and situation to situation! It is truly exhausting! :'(