Atypical fanatic paranoid/narcissist

Hello,

I'm first time posting here. It was rather difficult to bring myself to do this, but, from a rational standpoint, I don't really have anything to lose. "Atypical fanatic paranoid/narcissist" - so far, this is the best way I've found to describe myself. Took me a long time to get here.

1. excessive sensitivity to setbacks and rebuffs;
2. tendency to bear grudges persistently, i.e. refusal to forgive insults and injuries or slights;
3. suspiciousness and a pervasive tendency to distort experience by misconstruing the neutral or friendly actions of others as hostile or contemptuous;
4. a combative and tenacious sense of personal rights out of keeping with the actual situation;
5. recurrent suspicions, without justification, regarding sexual fidelity of spouse or sexual partner;
6. tendency to experience excessive self-importance, manifest in a persistent self-referential attitude;
7. preoccupation with unsubstantiated "conspiratorial" explanations of events both immediate to the patient and in the world at large.

This describes me pretty well, but is not entirely correct: 3. intent is not important to me, for example, when people do small talk to me, it implies that I'm like everyone else and should be subject to the same banalities of everyday life as everyone else and this is what irritates me; 5. I don't have one; 7. I don't actually have any conspiracy theories, however, in thinking about everyday situations and world at large, I employ black-and-white thinking, which usually means that I assume that the worst is "possible" and I should be prepared for it.

1. Has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)
2. Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
3. 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)
4. Requires excessive admiration
5. Has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations
6. Is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends
7. Lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others
8. Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her
9. Shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes.

Again, this is not entirely accurate: 1. I don't exaggerate my achievements (I'm too preoccupied with possible future achievements); 4. admiration from others is something I've never had, but I always take all compliments for granted (and see people making them as not competent and making them), although, like a typical narcissist, I can't stand any criticism; 6. this is my biggest flaw and deviation from a typical narcissist - I lack any practical skills in exploiting others and can't be bothered to learn it, because I find other people too intimidating to even talk to; 9. Similar to 8.

The huge discrepancy between what I want do to (and consider possible for anyone, not just me, to do if only they'd choose to it - it's nothing completely unrealistic) and my real life performance is a source of intolerable stress. I expect everything delivered to me on a silver plate and at the same time I see everyone as an enemy - unable to overpower them or escape from them I feel utterly helpless. Indeed, in real life I'm so dysfunctional that I might as well be considered not living at all.

There is of course much more to tell, but I'll leave for later.

Edit: I forgot to clarify why I was posting it here. Well, there are two reasons: 1. I have failed to find a way to deal with it, therefore, no matter how uncomfortable it is, I have to admit that I don't know everything and that somebody here might know more than me, especially if s/he has a similar condition; 2. I'd like to identify which component (not a side effect) in my condition makes it so dysfunctional, whether it can be changed and how to do this. From what I know, the core disorder cannot be cured, that's fine, but there certainly has to be a way to improve at least some aspects of it. I'd post more information if someone would care enough to ask for it.

Hey dude,

I won't try to conjecture what disorder you might have (even though some actually come to my mind as I read your post). The best person to figure out what is wrong with you is yourself, and this can be done through research. However, you already seem to have an idea as to what you've got. I think that looking at the various personality disorders would be a good starting point (but maybe you've already looked there). One thing that you mentioned, which stood out, is the stress issue - What causes it do you know? Can it be that the stress is what is making you more demanding in life? It might be making you feel impatient and as if you have no time to be messed around with.

paranoidnarcissist wrote:Edit: I forgot to clarify why I was posting it here. Well, there are two reasons: 1. I have failed to find a way to deal with it, therefore, no matter how uncomfortable it is, I have to admit that I don't know everything and that somebody here might know more than me, especially if s/he has a similar condition; 2. I'd like to identify which component (not a side effect) in my condition makes it so dysfunctional, whether it can be changed and how to do this. From what I know, the core disorder cannot be cured, that's fine, but there certainly has to be a way to improve at least some aspects of it. I'd post more information if someone would care enough to ask for it.

...at least you recognise that you have failed to deal with it. Others like you never reach such a realisation and just run their lives into the ground. You do'tn come across as being all that bad a person, just a little lost perhaps.

Kevin

Chucky wrote:I think that looking at the various personality disorders would be a good starting point (but maybe you've already looked there).

I did go through them all, before I thought that I'm possibly schizoid/schizotypal/avoidant, but after learning more about them, I came to dismiss them. Of course, all these disorders are just imperfect categorizations and therefore you cannot have 100% of any of them, but in my case it has always been primarily about grandiosity.

Several people have told that I may have Asperger's, but I'm very reluctant to accept it, because for me it would mean that I'm so ###$ up that there's nothing that can be done about it.

Chucky wrote:One thing that you mentioned, which stood out, is the stress issue - What causes it do you know? Can it be that the stress is what is making you more demanding in life? It might be making you feel impatient and as if you have no time to be messed around with..

I believe that stress is caused by inability to deal with too much information - I feel lost in it; I strongly prefer minimalism, and in nature I feel so much better.

There was a time when I was depressed instead of stressed out, but it wasn't better, it was far worse - I'd either spend all my time on the internet, or, when, for one reason or another, it was impossible, I'd do nothing but sleep all the time. Then I decided that the cure would be to go out and "experience life" - I went to travel across Europe with no money or anything - which I thought would force me to learn to deal with the world. I managed to do this for a year and half, but I all I did learn was to survive (which isn't difficult), ironically, without dealing with other people at all.

Hi,

Actually, from what you say, you are not a fanatical narcissist at all. Most likely if you a Narcissist, you wouldn't be trying to figure yourself out in a Forum. You are perfect and wouldn't bother. I do see another disorder which often can be confused for narcissism and that is Asperger's Syndrome (AS), which is on the high end of the AutismSpectrum. You appear slam dunk "Aspie "to me actually.

I suggest you get criteria for AS and judge for yourself since you are smarter than everyone else including me <this is sarcasm, which you don't get, do you. That's a AS trait>

I think you'll be happy to get it right. There is no treatment really for a fanatical narcissist. There is none for Asperger's, but one can learn and be self aware. You are in good company. It's estimated more than half the Nobel prize winners in science have/had it. Aspies, what AS people call themselves, tend to be very high functional

Good Luck and Congrats

This interested me because I do have Asperger's Syndrome, and some of the NPD traits seem to mirror it - our supposed lack of empathy, for instance, which is either an excess of empathy which deafens us, or a lack of knowledge of social cues.

But I came here because I can tell that my ex-boyfriend has Paranoid Personality disorder. He believes in nearly every conspiracy theory going (I had to refuse to look this stuff up on the net with him, because I couldn't pretend to believe it and he used to get irritable and imply I was stupid), he is forever seeing evil intentions in the most ordinary interactions, he even (I think) has auditory hallucinations of people saying threatening things - or even praising him excessively. I think he overlaps with narcissism, as he's forever telling stories about his superior spirituality, and times people have said how great he is at doing something or other. He hates his mother bitterly but still, at 48, lives with his parents. He was worried I'd cheat on him, and often asked, in a rather pathetic way, if I was sure there was no one else. It makes me sad. I always knew it was the rows that would split us up - I'd never wanted anyone but him. And I have never felt attractive at all, so I felt like saying, "I couldn't cheat even if I wanted to."

Main reason for splitting was he'd run back to his parents whenever things were tough, would expect me to listen sympathetically to all his woes and dismiss my own with some terse advice: I pretended this was all fine, fine, fine, and in the end I exploded with rage. So it was his lack of commitment and empathy, along with my smiling, passive acceptance of things I was not happy with, that blew us up. Also the conspiracy theory stuff - oh God! You try and convince someone that the government is very unlikely to be spraying chemicals from aeroplanes in order to alter people genetically so that the Illuminati or Freemasons can wipe people out and take over the world - God knows I can be hell to get along with, I have towering rages and I have bitter black depressions where I cry like a baby abandoned in a forest - but this utter irrationality wore me down more than I realised. It's probably an autistic thing, too. Maybe a none-autistic person would just agree to differ. But it was just not sane, and it drove ME insane.

I don't mean to have a dig at conspiracy theorists. People are entitled to believe what they want. Some conspiracy theories prove true - for instance, Albert Goldman said John Lennon was paranoid because he thought the FBI were spying on him. Turns out they were after all. But the deluge of fantasy - I can't live with that.

You try to explain why, say, doctors aren't hiding the cure for cancer so they can make money off ineffective cancer treatments - I'm no fan of Big Pharma but they'd make untold billions from a cancer cure and anyway they invent or exaggerate diseases to sell stuff - look at how SSRIs were marketed, look at the market for "cures" for ageing skin. But that thousands of doctors would solemnly swear not to cure dying people? And the biggest fatal cancer, lung cancer, would be wiped out if people stopped smoking. But it just does not sink in. There's this need to believe the world is both extraordinary and extraordinarily dangerous, like he did not want to surrender the certainty that he and a few clever others understood What Was Really Going On. It was very narcissistic.

I did notice he could seem quite Aspie at times. Very, very deeply obsessed with machinery - utterly classic Aspie trait. Monologuing, too. So maybe he was a mixture of all three.

I know I'm rambling (or monologuing!) We're just split up and I am very upset. I spent hours studying NPD on Youtube and concluded he has only a mild form of it. Very paranoid though. I don't see why you can't have NPD and be Aspie at the same time. I can see it in myself, some of it.

He says he knows he's paranoid but he never seems to apply this practically - never said, "Did he just say something nasty? Oh, I'm probably just being paranoid."What he definition of his own paranoia was, I don't know. I think maybe his head is abuzz with other paranoias he never voices.

Why is life so complicated. Why do I still love a man who I walked on eggshells round? although I admit I ought, in fairness to both of us, to have spoken out clearly and accepted the consequences like an adult. But I have body dysmorphia, too, and have nearly always been alone, and I thought it was this marvellous miracle to have this man I loved be here with me, and I was terrified to do the wrong thing and spoil it.

And I'm autistic, too, so I can say either (a) I can't help being woefully naive and clumsy in relationships or (b) Aspies can be very hard indeed to live with.

Messy, eh.

It's 1:30 am here. If you've got this far - this is what it's like inside the head of an autistic. Thank you.